True north- The Winchesters
-SAM-
The soft sound of metal sliding over wood, as Sam worked the tip of a branch into a sharp end with Ruby’s knife, was interrupted by a loud growl. “We need to find something to eat,” he voiced over the sound of his stomach complaining once again about the lack of food in between its walls. “Bobby won't be here for another two days, one at best...” ‘and there’s nothing we can do until he gets here’, he left unsaid.
The lack of the original bodies inside those graves and the state of panic that every single ghost on that island seemed to be in was sure enough sign that they were dealing with something a little more complicated than vengeful spirits.
Zombies were still Sam’s best bet, despite the fact neither he or Dean had laid eyes on one since their arrival at the island. It would stand to reason that fresh, live humans would attract the undead, but if that was the case, the zombies seemed content to stay in hiding.
Still, they had left the graves uncovered and Sam was finishing the second stake of the four they needed. One per zombie that they needed to stake to his grave.
Sam’s gut, however, was telling him that there was something more going on than zombies attacking a group of teens.
For one, and according to Michael, those kids had been lured to the island by a mysterious man. From the amount of blood they’d found at the ritual site and the lost cell phone that they’d discovered amidst the gore, Sam could guess that they’d been lured with the single purpose of being used in whatever ritual had been performed there. The phone, in itself, made little sense.
The presence of Michael’s face in the picture told them that it had belonged to one of his friends, most liked the young woman in the picture with him, but if that was the case... how did a cell battery last for more than a month in such harsh environment?
And then, there were the missing bodies of the Bowe brothers and the bloody ritual. They had been assuming that the two things were connected, but might have not been the case at all. Given the type of experiments that had been done to them and the type of people that had been running the place at the time, it was possible that the brothers were never even buried in the first place.
Which meant that zombies or no zombies, they needed to figure out whoever had performed that ritual.
The ritual in itself was giving Sam headaches. There was no way for him to even venture a guess at to what purpose those young people had been sacrificed.
Bobby was the real expert in that area. He could look at the place, see whatever had been left behind and tell them what the hell had happened there.
But until Bobby arrived, they had no better theory than shy zombies. And empty stomachs. “Where did you find that apple?” Sam asked, his stomach rumbling once again at the prospect of food. “Maybe there’s some more fruit trees or bushes around here?”
For some reason, Dean’s face lost its color at Sam’s question. Dean had been acting strange ever since they had arrived on that island.
At first, Sam had blamed it on the near drowning and the lump on his head. After that, he’d just stacked it all together in the big pile of weird that had been Dean’s emotions and reactions to everyday life after his return from Hell.
Now... now Sam wondered if there wasn’t something on that island that was actually adversely influencing his brother. “You feeling okay?” he asked, for what felt like the hundredth time. And like all ninety-nine other times, Dean waved him off.
“’m fine,” Dean said, getting to his feet. “Just hungry, like you. I’ll go see if I can find that apple tree again.”
“Want me to go with?” Sam offered. Dean seemed shaky and off kilter. Last thing Sam wanted was for him to get lost or fall down in the middle of nowhere. The forest wasn’t all that dense or big, but it was getting late and the sun would set soon.
Dean shook his head. “Need to hit the head, anyway. You just... keep on carving that stick.”
As he watched his brother all but run into the cover of the tree line, Sam dropped Ruby’s knife on the ground and set down the unfinished stake.
Acting weird or not, Dean wasn’t himself and there was no way that Sam was going to let him wonder off alone. Whatever was going on with him, he didn't need to do this on his own.
With a tired sigh, Sam wished not for the first time, that they had just ignored Michael’s request and not come to this place.
He got up and started to follow his errand brother. If nothing else, he would get some apples out of this.
-DEAN-
Dean felt like the air was closing in on him. He’d been watching Sam’s rhythmic motions, shiny blade gliding over dark wood, curly chips rolling to the ground as the tip of the branch grew sharper and sharper.
It was almost smoothing.
And then Sam had mentioned the damn apple.
Dean had been trying his best to forget about that. The clear and undeniable evidence that he was losing his mind.
Because the apple had been real. And Dean’s eyes had guaranteed him that it had been Michael eating it.
Only, Michael was miles away, safely in his apartment, waiting for he and Sam to tell him that his friends had not died for nothing. There was no possible way that he could have been there, on the island, casually eating an apple and taunting Dean about things that Michael had no way of knowing.
Which meant Dean had imagined him. Which meant that not-Michael had been right: Dean was doing all of that. He had carved those animals, he had eaten the apple.
He was going truly insane.
Suddenly, it was impossible for him to be near Sam. If Dean could no longer tell what was real from what his sick mind was inventing, he was a danger. And the only real person he could hurt on that damn abandoned island filled with ghosts, was his brother.
Looking for that motherfucking apple tree had been the easy way out. “I’ll be right back.”
And he intended to be. There was no way off the place until Bobby arrived to get them and if Dean ran, he was sure that Sam would come after him.
He wasn’t going to run. Dean just need a little space to breathe. Get his bearings back.
Night was falling, dark cloak of chill and stars that seemed to transform the whole place into something else. Something other worldly, something filled with malice and a mind of its own.
Dean wondered where he had found the animals to carve. The island seemed to be mostly uninhabited aside from a few rats and the damn bugs.
As long as he was out there, he might as well find them something big enough to eat. Sam was right about that. They couldn’t wait for Bobby. “Bobby can’t fix everything,” Dean reminded himself. “He can’t fix this.”
Maybe hunger was making whatever the hell was happening to him worse. He’d heard of people hallucinating lakes and entire oceans of water when they were thirsty. Or maybe that only worked in the desert.
Maybe hunger was making him... lose it. “You’re not in the desert, you idiot,” he let out, kicking a pile of dead leaves as if to prove his point.
Dean swat at an itch on his arm, cursing whatever mosquito was trying to suck him dry.
It was getting too dark to see his way around and Dean wondered how long he’d been out there. How long would it be until Sam came looking for him.
The itch moved from his shoulder to his forearm and Dean scratched, absentmindedly. His foot slipped on the dew covered dead foliage on the ground.
That was when he saw it. White fog, curling around on the ground, like a big white snake, moving towards him.
Dean looked around in despair, searching for someone who could tell him if what he was seeing was real or not. He took a step back, feet skating on the forest floor like everything was covered in ice.
As it drew closer, Dean could see that the snake-like motion was more than just an illusion. He could see fangs, black nostrils above, sniffing for him.
What if this was the thing that had attacked those kids? What if this was real and he was about to die?
The idea of facing something that might not entirely be in his head gave Dean some measurement of hope. His fingers patted the ground around him in a frantic motion, until his fingers curled around the edge of a tree branch. A thick one.
The thing moved closer, a foul smell of sulphur and copper increasing at its every move.
Dean was ready.
When the snake reared its head to attack, Dean moved first and hit it with his branch. He felt it connect with something solid, despite the fog that seemed to cover the creature. It stopped moving.
Not waiting to see if he had killed, Dean bolted. He needed to get back to Sam and make sure he was okay.
~o~
Sam wasn’t at camp.
Dean’s heart was hammering against his chest even before his eyes had fully registered that fact.
There was a giant, fog-like snake in the woods and Sam wasn’t where he was supposed to be.
Dean could feel the sweat sliding down his back, cold and tacky, uncomfortable. Ruby’s knife was still there, abandoned by the pit where they had built their fire for the night. The dry, thin sticks and leaves were still unlit. “SAM?”
No answer but the constant hum of cicadas. Dean turn around, looking at every possible angle, cajoling the trees to tell him in which direction Sam had gone.
His hand scratched at the constant itch that had only slightly abated when he had fought the snake. Annoyed at the constant distracting, Dean looked down to see what was causing it. His mouth fell opened at the same time his stomach rebelled at what he was seeing.
There was a bug the size of his hand, latched to his forearm. It had wings like a fly, but the front was more like a cricket’s. And it was bright red.
As Dean watched, the creature sunk its teeth into his skin once more, going deeper and deeper until its all head was inside. Dean’s fingers groped at the insect’s body, clumsy and numb under the frenetic motion of panic.
In horror, Dean saw as he pulled too hard and the body of the creature detached itself from the head, instead of pulling it out like he intended.
He tossed it on the ground, stepping on the large body with a squishing sound. Yellow goo that smelled like sewer covered his boots.
The head was still inside, an impossibly small puncture wound trickling blood from where it had entered. Dean could feel it move, circle around his arm, slowly moving towards his wrist.
He looked around in despair. There was no fire to burn it out.
Dean’s eyes fell on Ruby’s knife with a feeling that could almost be called relief.
-SAM-
Sam came to slowly. His head was throbbing painfully at each beat of his heart, and his heart -bastard that it was- had picked that exact moment to beat faster than ever.
Dean had attacked him.
Sam had been keeping to the shadows, watching as his brother moved around in circles, talking to himself. It was clear that he wasn’t looking for any apple tree.
The motions and behavior were so un-Dean like that, for a moment there, Sam was sure that his brother had been possessed by one of the spirits again. But then he had taken a deep breath, started humming some music that, even though only every other note had reached Sam’s ears, he knew to be Metallica and Sam knew that this was much more serious than a simple possession. And yes, he was perfectly aware of how wrong that sounded.
But this... this was Dean losing it. It wasn’t something that Sam could make go away with an exorcism, or a spell or even a six-pack of beer.
Seeing Dean slip and almost hit the ground had been Sam’s last straw. He moved closer, hard set on grabbing his brother and not letting him out of his sight until Bobby got there and they could try and fix this.
Sam had never expected Dean to react the way he did. He hadn’t even considered the possibility that Dean might have been so far gone that he would actually attack him.
The fear he saw in his brother’s eyes...
Sam had felt something twitch inside of him, something he had been keeping well guarded and away from his mind. He felt pity for his brother.
Sam had tried to reach Dean. He never saw the branch Dean used to club him.
And now Dean was gone and Sam had no idea where he was.
Getting up was a Herculean task that left Sam sweating and dizzy. He felt a fresh trickle of blood, traveling over the congealed trail he could feel sticking to the side of his face, pulling at his skin.
He took the first unsteady step towards where he’d come. Sam knew he would never find Dean in the dark and he needed to get back to their supplies, meager as they were. He needed to find a way to help Dean.
-DEAN-
The pain barely registered in Dean’s panicked mind. The red barely registered as his own blood as it poured from the jagged cuts in his left wrist.
The damn mutant bug was still eluding his knife and Dean cursed into the cold air. “Stay still, you motherfucker!”
His fingers were getting numb and the bone handle of the knife had grown slippery. Something moved under the skin in his right arm and Dean screeched. “How did...?”
God! They were all over the place, eating him alive from the inside out. Switching hands, Dean cut into his right wrist, the cut shallow and short, fingers refusing to cooperate with his despair.
Dean vision started to grow fuzzy around the edges. His heart was pounding so loud inside his ears that he barely hear the call at first.
“Dean? What t’hell... DEAN!”
Dean looked around, recognizing his brother’s voice. He wanted to see with his own eyes that Sam was safe, he wanted to warn him about the bugs, but his tongue had seemed to have lost consistency. It was nothing but a dry piece of sponge inside his mouth.
He saw the two men then. They were impossible to miss and Dean had no idea why he hadn’t noticed them before. They had a faint green glow around them, separating them from the dark woods.
Something about the way they were dressed made Dean think about old mob movies. Mind distracted from the bugs, Dean took one step in their direction.
They looked angry and, even though he could see their mouth moving, there was no sound coming out. Maybe they had sponge tongues too.
Dean watched them turn in the direction of Sam’s voice like it was all a well-rehearsed play. He knew exactly what they were going to do next, even though he had no idea why they would want Sam dead.
And Dean knew exactly what he had to do. He stared at his bloody hands, willing his fingers to cooperate. In his peripheral vision, he could see Sam running towards him. He was still too far away, the angle all wrong for him to see those men until it was too late.
The green-glowing men were just a few steps away. Dean stumbled his way through with the grace of a drunken elephant.
Sound reset like someone had flipped a switch.
“You idiot!” One of the men slapped at the other. “I told ya to keep at it with this one and I’d take care of the other!”
The one who’d been slapped looked over his green companion’s shoulder at Dean. “I thought you’d said the other ways around.”
For a moment there, Dean was sure that the two men believed that Dean couldn’t see them or hear them. That, or they were sure that he posed no threat to them.
When he sunk Ruby’s knife on the heart of the one closest to him, Dean hadn’t expected to find solid matter under the tip of the blade; he hadn’t expected to feel hot blood washing over his hand to cover his.
And, he supposed, the green-glow man certainly hadn’t expected for his life to end like that.
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