Never Look Back 12/21
Chapter Twelve
Jus In Bello
“You know,” Dean muttered, setting his beer down by the railing and leaning out to look over the camp, “a year back, I never would have thought we could be here.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I mean, us, working with demons? Just not a possibility.”
Sam nodded in agreement. “Know what you mean. Guess the apocalypse changes things.”
A soft wind blew through the bare trees that lined Bobby’s property- which was now the Winchester’s property- sending a shudder through the fires that had been started for heat and light. The people surrounding the flames also shook, from cold or fear or uncertainty, nobody knew. They were huddled together, psychics and demons and people who had been unaware of the existence of either until the world’s population had started dying and human beings had become extinct.
“Is this how you thought it would happen?” Sam asked. “With the flu?”
“World ain’t over yet,” Dean responded. “Not by a long shot.”
Sammy sighed. “For some reason, I always thought we’d do it.” He glanced at his brother. “Not you and me. I mean humanity. Like the ice caps would melt and we’d all drown, or we’d blow each other up and the ones lucky enough to survive the initial blast would wind up with a nuclear winter on their hands and nothing to do about it, or-”
“Or the government would start experimenting and wind up with some kind of super-secret weapon that wiped everyone off the earth,” Dean interrupted. “Or maybe our cure for cancer wasn’t as great as we thought it was. Hell, maybe the local flora decided to go nutso on us and we started ganking ourselves.” He shrugged. “This isn’t really the best time for ‘maybes,’ Sam. We could be here all night.”
The younger man smiled. “Funny, though. All of my theories came from reality and all yours came from movies.”
“And we were both wrong.”
“Unfortunately.” Sam looked out over the camp, over the scared people and pacified demons. They thought they were safe. They thought that they had reached the end of the line, the one place where everything would be ok again.
He looked at his brother, the tension held in the broad shoulders, the smooth line his lips made as they pressed together, the laser-stare of his hazel eyes. Maybe the refugees from the virus were content with where they were, but Dean wasn’t. He had no idea what he was doing, where he was going, or even if the troops designated for Sam would listen to him in the long-run.
Sam figured that was just too bad. He would help, sure. Help by trying to find a way to stop Dean from running off half-cocked and getting his telekinetic ass handed to him by the white-eyed bitch that had sent him to Hell. That was his job now, as far as the younger man was concerned. It was about time he saved Dean for a change, instead of getting there too late to do anything about it.
He caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye and turned to look out at one of the fires. Ruby was sitting alone, her legs crossed, a satisfied smirk on her stolen face. She tipped her head back to the sky, gazing up at the stars and looking just as content as the rest of the camp, confident in her safety.
Then the girl’s eyes bugged. She scooted away from the flames, blinking, and tilted her head a bit. Sam watched with fascination as she cocked her head to the side, her eyes narrowing, searching for something. Slowly, she stood up, still watching the cloudless sky.
Ruby looked up at the front porch, at what must have two imposing silhouettes from where she was standing, and pointed at the stars. “Um, guys?”
Dean turned to her, his eyes narrowed in annoyance. “What?”
The blonde demon fidgeted, stepping away from the fire and nearly tripping over her own feet. Her finger was still cast toward the heavens. “We’ve got company.”
Sam and Dean followed her finger with their eyes, gazing up as the sky as a sharp breeze shook the trees and threatened to topple a few of the cheaper tents. It looked as if a storm was coming in. A large, dark cloud floated across the sky, blotting out the moon and the stars from sight as lighting flashed in the distance.
“Just what we need,” Dean muttered, shaking his head as Ruby stumbled up the steps, leaning heavily on the railing.
“Look closer, you idiot,” she commanded, still pointing.
Dean squinted as lightning flashed again in the distance, illuminating the camp with its soft purple glow as the cloud rolled in faster than any storm the hunters had ever seen before.
“Shit,” Dean breathed, his eyes widening as the realization of what he was seeing hit him. He shoved Ruby back down the steps, pushing her out of the way once her feet had hit dirt and wading into the sea of tents. He look back over his shoulder, shouting at Ruby to help him round up their band of survivors while Sam got the kids.
The younger hunter turned his back on the approaching horde of demons and raced into the house, leaving his half-empty beer to fall off the rickety railing as the door slammed behind him.
The cots had been set up in rows, making it easier to navigate through the beds, and Sam ran between them, shaking the children and rousing them from what seemed to be a peaceful rest.
He dashed up the stairs toward the room Ben and Dean had been sharing to find the boy awake, sitting up on the bed.
“We need to leave,” Sam panted. “Now.”
“Where’s dad?” the boy questioned.
“He’s outside getting everyone else up. Come on.” He crossed the room in two steps, grabbing his nephew’s hand and yanking the kid to his feet. He pulled Ben into his arms and carried him out of the room, knowing that Dean would never forgive him if he was too late, if the newest addition to the broken family stumbled and was unable to get back up before the inevitable attack came.
Sam did one more sweep of the house before bursting back into the formerly sweet night air that now reeked of sulfur. He adjusted his grip on Ben and descended the stairs, looking for his brother.
He could barely see Dean at the end of the camp closest to the approaching cloud. He was shooing people out of tents and away from campfires, herding them toward the forest. Sam followed a group into the bare trees, knowing that there was no cover, no safety net, no way that they would survive.
Meg ran past him, her eyes wide, face pale. She was scared, pushing her host’s body to its limits, her breath heaving in and out in unsteady hitches and gasps.
The wind picked up more, snapping branches off the old trees and sending them hurtling toward the survivors of the first stage of Lilith’s attack. People began to trip and fall, causing others to go down as the front of the cloud descended on the salvage yard.
Sam glanced back once to see if Dean had made it into the forest. People were running and screaming, falling all over themselves and each other, panicking. He could see the young man he’d checked in earlier that day, the one named Sam. He had no time to call out to him as one of the loose branches sailed from the tree and imbedded itself in the younger psychic’s neck, bursting in near his spine and coming out through his windpipe. He didn’t even have time to scream.
Ben buried his head in the spot between Sam’s shoulder and neck, griping his uncle’s jacket with more force than a child should have been able to muster as more people fell and the demons broke into the forest.
The wind whipped around them, screaming with rage as unnatural lightning forked across the sky and the demons laughed. Sam held the boy tighter, willing protection upon him, wishing that Dean could be there with him. Dean would have known what to do. Dean had a way with kids.
A tendril of smoke shot past him and Sam ducked to the side, taking cover behind a large tree trunk. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. Not in a forest surrounded by demons. Not with a scared child in his arms. Not with the wind howling and the survivors screaming and Dean in the middle of it without any way to protect himself. Not with-
And then it stopped.
The wind, the lightning, everything was suddenly at a stand-still.
Sam dared to peek around the side of the tree and gasped. Bodies lay scattered across the rugged terrain of the woods, some breathing, some not. And in front of them all, closest to the border between the forest and the house, stood a man with his hands outstretched toward an army of demons.
The hunter disentangled himself from his nephew’s clingy limbs and ordered him to stay put. He climbed out from behind the tree, out of his safe haven, and approached his brother.
The demons were surging forward, flashing and howling with anger as Dean used whatever he had found in Hell to hold them off, building an invisible wall between the attackers and his charges.
As Sam approached, one of Dean’s hands fell slack, resting at his side for a minute before straying up toward his head. The demons pushed forward and Dean fell to his knees, head down, palm out toward the cloud.
The younger man finally made it to his brother and stepped around to get a good look at him. Blood was spilling from Dean’s nose at an alarming rate, slicking his face and neck, falling onto his clothes, staining his amulet.
And the demons just kept charging.
Dean groaned, a pathetic sound, something that Sam never would have imagined his brother making. The older man closed his eyes, his face scrunched in pain as a fledging ability was pushed past its limit for the sake of the many, disregarding the fate of the one.
Sam wouldn’t allow that. He had worked too damn hard to get Dean back, to keep his brother. He stepped forward until he was level with the man and stared out at the swirling mass of black smoke.
He closed his own eyes, aware of what he was about to do, what it might mean for him, what Dean had told him about his own nature. “Stop,” he whispered. Nothing happened.
The psychic opened his eyes, glaring at the demons. “Stop!” It was a shout, a scream, a cry for attention, a command.
The mass of smoke stopped writhing. Dean looked up at Sam, his eyes swimming with pain and- maybe- hope.
“Back off,” Sam ordered, taking a step forward and to the side, ready to run to his brother’s aide.
Dean’s hand finally dropped, the invisible wall that had been protecting the group fading as it did. The demons stayed put, as if waiting for another order, waiting for Sam.
Sammy stared at them, thinking of what Dean had told him back when life was easy, when the plague was light-years away. “Go to Hell.”
The demons screamed their rage as the cloud began to swirl, picking up speed as lightning flashed and thunder roared. The smoke made its way toward the sky, swirling ever faster until the cloud was engulfed in flame-in hellfire- and disappeared.
Dean’s eyes never left his brother, and his weren’t the only pair. Every psychic, every demon, every thing in the forest was staring at him, assessing him, judging him.
Ben was the one to break the silence, to run forward and wrap small arms around his father. Sam followed suit, checking his brother for lasting damage. He hefted the older man to his feet, slinging a limp arm over his shoulders.
He looked back at the group. “Come on,” he instructed, nodding back toward the salvage yard. “Let’s go back.”
They all stared at him as if he had sprouted an extra head. Everything remained frozen for a short period of time before they finally nodded and began the trek back.
They passed him, still staring, as he limped under the pressure of his brother’s body. “Dean,” he whispered, glancing nervously at Ben, who was walking silently behind them. “You ok?”
Pain-numbed eyes turned to him. “You’re not bleeding.”
“You are,” Sam reminded him.
Dean smirked. “Knew you could do it, Sammy.”
“I wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t tried to kill yourself back there.”
The older man straightened up, attempting to stand on his own and failing. He looked up at Sam, his eyes suddenly sharper, clearer, more deadly. “Those demons would have killed them.” He paused, still staring up at Sam. “Or worse.”
“So you decide to see how many demons you can hold off and for how long? How’d you even know that you could do it? I mean, as far as I know, you haven’t exactly been practicing.”
“That’s because you’re not the one that washes the silverware,” Dean grinned.
“This isn’t funny,” Sam countered, his voice harsh enough to wipe any amusement from his brother’s face.
Dean kept his gaze on the younger man. “Did you see what you did?”
“Did you see how they looked at me? Like I’m some kind of monster?”
“But you’re not evil. You’re still you.”
“For the time being,” Sam grumbled.
“Still don’t believe me?” Dean slurred, his head drooping as his eyes glazed over again. “Thought we had this talk.”
Sam shook his head. “You can’t feel another person’s soul, Dean. And I can’t believe you’d go against what dad knew.”
“Dad was an ass.”
“Yeah? Well at least he never tried to hold off a demon army while his brother took care of his kid.”
The older man flinched at the words, which cut through the fog that seemed to be settling in his mind as the adrenalin from the fight began to fade. He found the strength to look back at Ben, who was silently following the brothers up the steps to Bobby’s house.
“Trust you.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe you should have thought about your family. Or at least yourself. How many times do you have to die before you start caring? How long before you try to save yourself?”
“Them?” Dean whispered.
Sam leaned his ear closer to his brother’s mouth. “What?”
“But who’s gonna save them?” Dean passed out.
Chapter 13