Fic: Fae-Touched - (And Not in the Good Way)
Title: Fae-Touched - (And Not in the Good Way)Summary: Sam gets whammied and Dean has to face his fear of heights.
Characters: Dean, Sam
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2000
Disclaimer: I do not own nor profit from Supernatural.
Warnings: Language
Author's Note: Unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own.
Dean knows they're in shit when he finds Sam's backpack, coat, and iron machete abandoned on a rock beside a dead cedar tree. He can't see Sam in sight, and he knows Sam would never leave his weapon behind, especially not when they're in the middle of a hunt.
He looks around, anxiety creeping through his belly. The forest has given way to a mountain, high up enough that the trees are sparse and thin. The mountain is now mainly decorated with bushes, mosses and little spurts of grasses. A creek burbles somewhere close.
The summer air is hot but there's a swift breeze that keeps the heat from over powering him, but he can still feel his back drip with sweat, trapped by his own backpack. It's irritatingly itchy, but Dean's not thinking about that right now.
Sam's missing in action. Obviously he's come into some sort of contact with the faerie they're hunting, otherwise he wouldn't abandon his gear. There's no sign of struggle, but from what Dean can discern, there's Sam sized tracks heading away from his provisions, further up the mountain.
Dean barely resists the urge to yell for his brother, he knows that it will attract the faerie if it's anywhere close and he's not ready to fight it, not when Sam's probably been fae-touched.
Dean leaves Sam's gear, but pulls out his own iron machete to be at the ready. He's got enough medical supplies, water, and granola bars in his own backpack to survive off of for a short while. He follows Sam's tracks at a brisk pace, wary of the faerie potentially still lurking in the area.
The tracks meander up the mountain on terrain that gets steeper and more difficult to navigate. Dean works very hard to not look behind him and see how very high he has climbed, how far the ground is below him.
His muscles burn and he's dehydrated, but he keeps up his pace until he comes across a sheer rock face with only a narrow ledge to walk across. Dean can't see any tracks, but there's no where else Sam could have gone.
Dean almost wants to say, “to hell with it,” but this is Sam, wandering around a mountain out of his mind with a malicious faerie in the area. He has to go forward.
Dean tries not to look down, but he can't help it. It's a shear rock face with no where to cling to, except the small ledge he needs to walk across to the next trail. Below the cliff, the floor is easily fifty feet down, and Dean is so not okay with this.
He takes a deep breath, stores his machete in it's sheath attached to his belt, and puts his right foot out on the ledge, and a spike of irrational panic shoots through him so quickly, his vision narrows down to the obvious painful death he's about to commit himself to.
Dean stumbles back, and forces himself to take deep breaths through his tightening chest. His fear of heights is almost crippling.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean mutters to himself. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, gathers all his worried feelings for Sam's well-being and forces them to motivate him to get over this god damn cliff. He opens his eyes, and it's not much better, the ledge and deep drop is still scary as fuck, but he's not going to let it stop him.
He's got an idiot little brother to rescue.
Resolute, Dean forces himself to step out on the ledge again, carefully distributing his weight as evenly as possible, trying to avoid hyperventilating, and he is a little bit pleased with the fact he doesn't. Bit by bit, he edges his way across the ledge, the end coming closer to him, and he allows himself a burst of pride at overcoming his own fear.
A current of wind suddenly picks up violently and crashes against Dean, wobbling his balance. He panics, tries to grasp something on the smooth rock wall, and thinks, oh god, oh god, this is it. I'm going to fall and die at the bottom of a cliff face.
But the wind abruptly stops trying to suck Dean to his death, and he manages to regain his balance, and quickly shimmies across the ledge to the end and safely puts his feet on solid ground. His legs shake and ache with tension and he's covered in sweat, but Dean allows himself a quick burst of laughter, adrenaline roaring through his body.
He finds a rock safely away from the edge, and sits on it, takes a swig of water. He looks at the scenic view, land far below him, and wants to puke. He forces his gaze away and up the mountain.
And there's Sam, way off in the distance.
He can see him walking up the mountain, shaky but from what Dean can see, he's okay.
“Sam!” Dean yells, but either Sam doesn't hear him, or the wind steals his voice.
Dean quickly packs his water bottle and starts after Sam. He moves quickly, and gains ground on Sam. As he gets closer, he can see Sam's moving at a slow, unmotivated, uncoordinated pace, and so not like Sam. Defiantly been fae-touched.
Dean tries to call to Sam again, but Sam doesn't even look in his direction, focused on the task of moving forward, up the mountain face.
Dean's ears pop with the elevation, and he's huffing, exhausted with the exertion of climbing. He's only a hundred feet behind Sam now, and his limbs are trembling with the effort to close the distance.
Sam comes to a plateau with a sharp edge that drops down so far that Dean doesn't even want to contemplate. He pauses, tilts his head as if listening to something. It's a movement Dean doesn't like at all.
Sam suddenly turns and heads directly towards the edge of the cliff. He moves slowly, but the distance isn't far, and Dean's screaming before he even knows it and breaks into the fastest pace he can.
Sam places one foot at the edge. Time seems to slow down as he lifts his other foot to bring it over the rock edge to open air.
Dean close, so close. But he's not going to make it. Sam's going to tumble off the cliff and crash to the rocks below. Sam's going to break open like an egg all over the ground and be dead. Dead.
Something in Dean snaps and he knows he'll feel it for weeks. He gains a burst of speed and reaches Sam right as gravity is starting to pull Sam down. He latches his hands around Sam's bicep and chest, like a possessive girlfriend.
Dean sees the trees, sky, and rocks below them, and for a never-ending second, he's sure he's going over too.
But he manages to pull them both back, gravity finally working with him. The fall on their backs, tangled limbs squirming.
Sam tries to pull himself up, still intent on throwing himself to his death. His face is void of emotion, eyes blank and unfocused. He struggles weakly, uncoordinated and very not Sam.
Dean tightens his grip around Sam's torso and wraps his legs around his waist. He knows he must look ridiculous, but there's no fucking way he's letting Sam walk off that ledge.
“Sam,” Dean barks in Sam's ear, but he doesn't react.
Dean curses and then fumbles with one hand to reach his machete strapped to his belt. It takes a long minute to get it out, but when he does, he waves the blade carefully in front of Sam's view. Sam doesn't appear to react the sight of the weapon.
Dean curses again, and resigns himself that this is necessary. He drags the sharp edge of the blade against Sam's exposed forearm. The cut isn't extremely deep, but blood wells up and runs down his arm.
The combination of the injury and the iron in the blade is enough, and the spell Sam's under breaks. Awareness floods back into Sam's eyes, and he begins to struggle violently. Dean clutches Sam, blood smearing onto Dean, but he's not letting go until Sam recognizes Dean. After a second, his eyes focus on Dean and his movements slow, then stop.
“Dean?” Sam asks, and Dean has to resist the urge to fucking punch Sam in the face.
He's suddenly so full of different emotions he feels like he's going to burst. He lets out a shuddering laugh that quickly turns into a sob and feels tears well in his eyes and streak down his face. His chest feels like it's about to cave in on itself and his throat is tight.
“Don't you ever fucking do that to me again, Sam!” Dean says harshly. “You fucking asshole!”
He lets out a little sob, and knows his face is red with embarrassment. But Jesus, Sam almost walked off a fucking cliff. Fucking idiot.
Sam swallows, looks around, pales when he sees how incredibly close they are to instant death. He looks back to Dean.
“Did you just save me from walking off that?” Sam asks.
Dean scowls, “What the fuck do you think? You got faerie whammied, you fucking moron!”
Sam looks Dean directly in the eyes, “and you came up here to rescue me?”
“Of course, you ass,” Dean says, and he realizes he's still clutching on to Sam, but he doesn't stop.
“You came up here, despite your weird heights thing,” Sam says. “Dean, that's, like, really brave.”
“Oh, shut up,” Dean starts, even though, yeah. Sam fucking owes him. He starts to pull away, but Sam wraps his own limbs around Dean and pulls him into a hug. And its nice, but they're on the edge of a cliff, and Sam's tight arms suddenly remind him of that fact.
“Dude, you're totally my brave hero,” Sam coos, the shmuck.
“Sam, I just climbed up a mountain, scaled a cliff, nearly went over a fucking cliff saving your stupid, huge, faerie-touched ass!” Dean yells right into Sam's ear. “Now, what I would like, is to get off this fucking cliff. That okay with you?”
Sam blinks and nods, quickly unwinds his arms from Dean, and Dean is scooting his ass back away from the edge as fast as he can. He rests his back against a boulder and pulls off his backpack. Sam riffles through the pack and pulls the canteen of water out. He takes a long pull, then passes it to Dean.
Dean takes a drink and wipes some sweat off his brow. He closes his eyes and focuses on calming his racing heart. He feels Sam shift and sit down beside him with his back to the boulder. He dresses his cut and then puts the rest of the bandages back in the pack. They sit together is silence for a few minutes, wind rustling their sweaty hair.
“So I take it we didn't get the faerie?” asks Sam.
“Do you think I'd be chasing after your hypnotized ass if I ganked it?” Dean shoots back, annoyed. Sam and his stupid questions.
“Just asking,” Sam defends. He's silent for a moment, then, “Shall we go hunt ourselves a faerie?”
Dean looks at Sam and their eyes meet. He takes another sip of water.
“Yeah,” Dean says.
They close up the backpack and head back down the mountain.
End.