Supernatural Fic: Move the Earth Part 2/2a
Author: leavingslowly
Title: Move the Earth Part 2/2a
Rating: PG-13
Genre: General/Angst
Summary: Sam and Dean head to New Orleans, and Sam's possession has some unforeseen consequences. Spoilers
for BUABS.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Author's Note: This story was written for SFTCOL(AR)S Secret Santa Round Two fic exchange. Specifically, it's for you, Bayre . . . I hope you enjoy it!
Sam lay sprawled across his bed on his stomach, wanting nothing more than to be unconscious, but Dean had ahold of his right hand and was poking and prodding at his palm, making little “huh” noises. It was annoying and was keeping him connected to the waking world, but after spending two hours puking his guts out, Sam was totally exhausted and didn’t have the energy to fight it.
He submitted lethargically to the exam, allowing Dean to examine his palm and wrist, right up until he felt the sting of Dean pinching the skin between his thumb and index finger. He let out a muffled yelp and jerked his hand back, glaring weakly at his brother. “Dude, ow!” he whined
“Sorry, Sammy.” Dean apologized, dropping Sam’s hand back down on top of the covers. “But it looks like it’s fading-you feeling any better?”
Sam groaned and buried his head in his pillow. “No.”
Dean frowned and reached out to feel the back of his brother’s neck; he was dismayed to find that Sam’s skin felt hot beneath his palm. Great, now they could add a fever to the list of things going wrong.
He didn’t even know how to begin figuring out what was happening to Sam, so Dean went with the obvious: “I think that freaky dude you met in the voodoo shop cast a spell on you.”
Sam grunted and pulled his right arm under his body. “How?”
Dean raised his eyebrows at his brother’s response. Usually Sam had a theory for everything and a monologue to go along with it; he was the one who often made the difficult connections in cases, and the fact that he wasn’t even trying to help himself was a bad sign.
“I don’t know, you tell me. Did he say anything, do a chant, a dance, something?” Dean asked. He stepped away from the bed and crossed his arms over his chest.
“He was like a hundred, Dean, he couldn’t dance.” Sam mumbled, closing his eyes. “No chanting, either. Just told me Melinda was bad.”
Dean pondered for a moment, then asked, “Did you leave anything there he could’ve cast a spell with?”
“No.”
“Did he say anything weird?”
Sam sighed heavily. “Other than the fact that he sensed I’d been evil? No.”
“C’mon, Sammy. Give me something.” Dean begged. Sam blinked blearily up at him, silent, and Dean took a deep breath, running his fingers through his hair. “Okay, we’ve just got to-”
“Wait,” Sam said, struggling suddenly to sit up. He got about halfway there and then grimaced and flopped back down.
“Dude, take it easy.” Dean admonished.
“He had some kind of charm. A wooden charm. He pressed it into my hand.” Sam recalled. He looked up at Dean, eyes wide. “Do you think it’s causing this?”
“I don’t know, man, but it’s a start.” Dean replied. He grabbed his coat off his bed, put it on, and then stuffed his wallet into his back pocket. “Okay, you stay here and rest and I’m going to go talk to that old bastard.”
At that, Sam perked up enough to lift his head and fix his brother with a serious look. “What about Melinda? We have to find out what happened to her.”
“Yeah, we will, but after we get you better.” Dean replied. Sick though he was, Sam managed to put on a pretty good bitchface, and Dean narrowed his eyes for the fight that was about to come.
“Dean-”
“No, Sam. No arguing.” Dean ordered.
Sam glared and twitched at the ultimatum, mumbling his opinion under his breath, but remained in bed. He watched Dean grab a wastebasket and a bottle of water; his brother dropped the cracked plastic container on the floor next to his bed and then plopped the water bottle down on the nightstand.
“Drink as much of the water as you can, and don’t puke on the carpet. I’ll be back soon.” Dean flashed a tight grin, grabbed his keys, and then was gone.
xXXxxXXx
The voodoo shop was at the end of a narrow alley, almost hidden unless a person walked all the way to the end of the narrow street. Dean didn’t even bother to see if the door was unlocked; instead, he lifted up his leg and kicked the door open. There was a satisfying crash as it flew in, and then the sound of glass shattering.
Dean stepped into the shop with a glare, ready to do some damage, and immediately saw a little girl staring at him with wide, frightened eyes from behind the counter.
“Uh, hey there.” he said, forcing what he hoped was a cheery smile and raising his hand in a little wave. The girl let out a shriek and ran through a beaded curtain on her left, the sound of the little wooden beads knocking together drifting in her wake.
“Well, fuck.” Dean muttered. He took a second to feel guilty, and then started looking around the room.
The whole place smelled gross, he quickly decided, and wrinkled his nose in disgust as he poked at an unidentifiable object on a shelf near the counter. He was still squinting at the small brown mass when the beads jangled, and he spun to see an elderly man with frizzy grey hair appear.
“Are you the one who scared my granddaughter?” the old man questioned, his gaze going towards the shop’s door, which was hanging half-off the hinges and leaning against the wall at an angle.
“Could be,” Dean admitted. “Are you the one who cast a spell on my brother?” He took a menacing step towards the old man, who looked more offended than concerned.
“I most certainly did not cast a spell on anyone. What have you come here for?”
Dean scowled and took another step until he was pressed up against the counter, ready to leap over it if he had to. “I told you, I want to know what you did to my brother. He was fine when he came in here, and now he’s got some freaky ass pentagram on his hand!”
At that, the old man’s eyebrows rose and his expression morphed into surprise. “Your brother is the dark one? I cast no spell on him. I touched him with a protection charm, to keep the darkness from him. I did him a favor!”
“Like hell you did. Sounds like a spell to me!” Dean exclaimed, raising his voice an octave higher. He was starting to lose his patience; Sam was sick and in pain and he wasn’t going to let it continue. “Undo it, right now.”
The old man scoffed, then shook his head. “Spells are for wizards. True voodoo is a belief, not a magic.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don’t care what you did, fix it!” Dean ordered, leaning menacingly over the counter.
“I cannot undo it, but even if I could, why would you want me to?” the man asked.
Now he looked perturbed, and Dean was starting to get angry. He considered just leaping at the guy and taking him down-old age be damned-but then decided that he needed a little more information before he broke the dude apart.
“I want you to undo it because it’s making him sick.” Dean explained. “And I don’t have all day, so hurry it up.” he added.
“You do not hear me. I told you, I cannot undo it. But it should not cause any effects, unless . . .” the old man trailed off, considering. “The darkness in him, was it there before he was possessed?”
“What? No! That demon took over my brother. It was never him!” Dean protested.
“Are you sure about that?” the old man asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure! Sam is good. He always has been, and he always will be. So you’re going to fix this.” Dean ordered. He started to make the leap over the counter, only to find himself held back by an invisible force.
The old man pointed towards each end of the counter, where there were small purple jars sitting slightly behind the front edge of the wooden surface. He gave Dean a moment to step back, then spoke. “Perhaps the demon that possessed your brother still lingers. That, or there is something else inside of him. There is no other way the pentagram would have appeared. Choose the option which you believe, but either way, if your brother is unwell it is not my doing.”
xXXxxXXx
He dreamed about heat, but when Sam awoke he was freezing. His teeth were chattering and he couldn’t stop shaking.
The comforter was tangled around his feet and Sam struggled to pull it up. When he couldn’t reach he started to sit up and immediately let out a gasp as a bolt of pain shot through his stomach and up his chest. He went from cold to hot and back to cold again in the space of a second, and found himself gasping for breath.
Sam fell back to the mattress with a moan, curling in on himself until the sensations passed. God, he’d never felt anything like this before. It was like someone was stabbing him repeatedly in the stomach, and he squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to fall back into oblivion.
It wouldn’t come. Instead, he felt bile sting the back of his throat and he leaned over to vomit into the wastebasket Dean had left for him.
He knew right away, without opening his eyes, that something was wrong. There was a metallic taste in his mouth, and what he was coughing up was heavy, sticky. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and cautiously cracked open watering eyes to see thick, dark blood at the bottom of the wastebasket.
“Oh, God,” he moaned, panting as panic took hold.
His heart was racing and the edges of his vision faded out. Sam suddenly felt like weights had been attached to his arms and legs, and squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to stop the pull on his body.
He wasn’t sure how long he blacked out for, but when he opened his eyes again everything was fuzzy and disjointed, and his mouth tasted like copper. He rolled his head painfully to the right to look at the clock on the nightstand, but the numbers were blurry and he couldn’t remember when Dean had left. Instead, he tried to remember where his brother was, but that memory didn’t come easily, either.
Trembling violently, Sam fumbled to get his legs untangled, kicking his feet in a desperate attempt to get free. His phone was sitting on the kitchen table, and if he could just get to it . . .
The blankets were constricting, but he managed to free himself and stumbled out of bed. He was halfway to the table when the door swung open and Dean came barreling into the room. He stopped short upon seeing Sam out of bed, and they both stared at each other for a second before Sam swayed unsteadily.
Dean jumped forward to grab his brother and started to steer him back towards the bed. “Jesus, Sammy, what are you doing out of bed?” he asked, pushing him onto his bed.
As soon as he was seated, Sam leaned forward with a groan. He was limp and shaking, and it was fairly easy for Dean to get him to lie back. Once he had him there, though, Dean didn’t feel relieved. He could feel heat radiating off his brother, and Sam was squirming around in obvious discomfort.
Dean let him go and Sam curled up in a ball on his side, his face tight with pain. “Sammy, hey, hey, look at me. What’s the matter?” Dean asked, kneeling beside the bed.
Sam was struggling and slightly incoherent, mumbling about not knowing what time it was or how long he’d been gone. His brother hadn’t been this sick when he left two hours earlier, and now Dean was alarmed.
He leaned forward to examine the pentagram on Sam’s right hand and his left knee banged into the wastebasket that he’d left behind. It rocked precariously on the old carpet and then tipped over, spilling the contents out.
Dean stared in horror at the dark red liquid that was seeping into the carpet.
“Sam. Sammy, what happened? Did you cut yourself?” Dean asked, letting go of Sam’s hand and frantically starting to check his brother over. There was a smear of blood on his left palm, but no cut, and Dean couldn’t see any other obvious injuries. “Sam!”
“N-no. Got sick.” Sam finally whimpered. “D-dean, there’s s-something w-wrong. It hurts.”
“Oh, God . . .” Dean murmured under his breath, his own stomach twisting at the realization that his brother had vomited blood. Blood.
Dean swallowed hard and reached out to brush Sam’s damp hair away from his face. “It’s okay, Sammy. I’m gonna fix this.”
Part 2b