DVD Extras Meme -- Catch me if I fall Part 5
Part 5 of the meme commentary for Catch me if I fall for
snazzy_spazzy
You can find the original fic here.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
Checking in on Chloe again.
She been trapped for God knew how long with no food, no water, and almost no rest. Her tongue was thick and heavy with the dehydration. She could feel pain and soreness from what she’d been through before the wall. All except her arms - which had fallen asleep long ago. The rest of her body tingled with a pins-and needles feeling, as if it was on the verge of falling asleep as well.
She ached from the top of her head, to the soles of her feet - a side effect of the dry heaves and the muscle tremors that intermittently caused her to jerk spasmodically. If she could move, she would probably be slamming into the wall, and further bruising herself. As it was, she felt the strain on her muscles and joints as they spasmed against her confines.
You'd be surprised what details you can find through the Internet. Wikipedia is my bitch.
She was mostly covered in blood, urine, and vomit from back when she was hydrated enough to actually have bodily fluids. She figured she probably had kidney damage from lack of water.
Not to mention the splitting headaches. She was fairly sure that not all of it was from when her head slammed against the wall. Some of it had to be the dehydration. It felt as if she was being paid back in spades for the severe drunk she’d gotten back in Memphis. As if the hangover had caught up to her.
Your mouth is writing checks your body can’t cash.
Top Gun reference. Chloe's getting very scatterbrained.
Her mind was also wandering all over the place. But that was nothing compared to the way her throat was torn up. In a way, the dehydration was a mixed blessing. If there had been more water in her body - her throat might have swollen to the point that her air passages were cut off.
But if she could get the bullet out of her, and a couple decent shots of adrenaline. Maybe a couple gallons of water in her, her meta powers could fix all that.
Chloe closed her eyes - or had she opened them? She pressed them together and decided that they were definitely closed. She tried to remember the words to the prayers - the old ones that she always used when she got into situations like this. But her thinking wasn’t exactly clear right now.
Dude? She was pretty sure she was supposed to pray to someone. And she was also pretty sure that she didn’t call anyone dude. But Dean did. And she’d been having mental conversations with him for the past three days.
Dude? Sorry about the name-thing. At the moment, she wasn’t clear about much of anything. I know we talk a lot. And I know I make you put in the overtime. But I think I’m really up a creek without a paddle this time. So . . . Little help here?
She took in a shaky breath. Maybe, when this is over . . . I can sit down and figure out a whole list of saints who I can call on before I get in situations like this. So that I don’t always have to bother you. But right now . . . I think you’re the only one who can help me.
St. Peter is Chloe's patron saint. (patron saint of wordsmiths). But Chloe always ends up talking to St. Jude. Just FYI: Jude is the patron saint of hopeless causes. Clarksmuse once speculated that maybe it was because Chloe sees herself as a bit of a lost cause. But I think it's more that she's got such an independent streak that she waits until she's in over her head before falling back on her religion.
She let herself cry again as she prayed mentally. It was okay now. She had no tears left to conserve.
***
The demon howled predictably as Sam started the ritual. It thrashed - and then howled again as the holy water sloshed over the sides of the container, and spilled all over it.
Even if Meg was squatting in Dean's body, Sam was not going to go easy on her.
Isaac looked like he wanted to run from the room, but instead held his ground. He backed into the corner of the room and pressed his hands to his mouth.
It was nice having Isaac here just to sort of react on behalf of the readers who thought this was pretty horrible.
Sam finished the ritual, and watched impassively as black smoke erupted from Dean’s mouth and nose. When it was over, he sat down at the edge of the circle, and watched as Dean seemed to come back to himself.
“Sammy?”
“I’m here, Dean,” Sam said.
“Let me up,” he said desperately. “I’ve got to . . . Chloe-God!”
And now we get to see intense, focused, angsty Dean.
Sam shifted the bucket of holy water off of Dean’s torso. Isaac stepped in with a knife, and started to cut away the duct tape.
As soon as his hands were free, Dean scrubbed his face with them. “Chloe. That bitch entombed her, Sam. We gotta . . . I have to . . .”
“What?” Sam asked as he helped Dean to sit up. “Dean - slow down. What happened to Chloe?”
“A wall, Sam. The bitch chained her up and walled her in and left her to die. We can’t leave her that way, Sam. I have to find her.” Dean’s eyes looked wild and desperate.
Sam felt as if he’d been plunged into an ice bath. He suddenly dreaded finding Chloe. Of finding her dead. And what Dean would do if that happened.
No, he reminded himself. That’s not going to happen.
“Dean,” Sam said. “Where is she?”
Dean’s eyes narrowed in concentration. Then he looked up at Sam. Sam’s heart sank at the fear he saw etched in Dean’s face. “I don’t remember,” he said with eyes wide in desperation. “I don’t - it showed me everything, Sam. It was hell. But the demon blocked that. I guess - it thought that I might get out.
One of these days, Meg is going to come back, and they're going to find a way to wipe her out of existence. That's in no way spoilery. Just me speculating.
“Okay, Dean,” Sam said as he reached to touch Dean in a soothing motion. Dean flinched away, and made a face at Sam. “We’ll - we’ll think of something.”
“Sam - you’re the psychic boy. Find her.”
Dean's faith in Sam is so absolute here. And he's so broken that they just kind of switch roles from Season 1.
“It doesn’t work that way, Dean.” Sam raked his fingers through his hair in a frustrated motion.
“Well, how the hell does it work, genius?” Dean snarled.
“This isn’t helping, you two!” Bobby shouted over them. “The longer we argue, the less time Chloe has.”
I just love Bobby so much. You can just tell that he's thinking 'ya' damn fool idjuts.'
“Well then come up with a better solution!” Dean said angrily.
“Fine,” Bobby rolled his eyes. He got up and stormed away, toward his roll-top desk while muttering dark obscenities under his breath.
Dean and Sam shot each other confused looks. Dean finished pulling the tape away from his body, and got to his feet. He pulled on his clothes and walked over to the desk. Finally, Bobby pulled free a road map and a crystal on a chain.
“What are we going to do with that?” Dean asked.
“We're going to dowse for her.”
“Dowse? Like using-a-stick-to-find-water dowsing?” Dean threw his hands in the air. “Come on, Bobby. Don't play with this!”
I once watched my grandpa dowse out the location for a well on our farm using a y-shaped stick. He was very good at it. He used to call it 'witching for water.' I like the idea of Bobby coming up with the idea. It seems suitably 'old folk magic' for him to come up with.
“It works, Dean,” Bobby said quietly. “It works for finding water. It'll work for finding Chloe.
Besides, I'm not going to do it.” He looked past Dean to Sam.
Dean turned to look at Sam as well. “What? Him?”
Sam blinked in surprise. Me?
“He's the one who has the psychic ability.”
“Bobby? I've never . . .” Sam put his hands up in a helpless gesture.
“Well Missouri Moseley isn't exactly here, Sam. You are.” Bobby motioned Sam over. He unfolded the map, and held the crystal and chain out for Sam to take.
Sam looked at Dean's frown, and then sighed, and took the crystal. “Okay.”
The four of them gathered around the map. Sam took a deep breath, shut his eyes and focused on finding Chloe's location. He wasn't sure what to do. Not really. Should he just picture Chloe? Or phrase his search in the form of a question? In the end, he settled for alternating between mentally asking where Chloe was, and picturing her in his mind.
“Son of a . . .” Dean whispered in amazement.
Sam opened his eyes, and looked at the map and crystal. The pendulum should have been hanging straight down. Instead it was hovering slightly off to the side in a way that couldn't occur naturally.
“That's good, right?” Isaac looked from Sam to Bobby. “I mean . . . you couldn’t do that if she was . . .”
The tip of the crystal hovered above Hot Springs, South Dakota.
FYI, there is a Hot Springs Arkansas, as well. Both are touristy locations. It's probably the proximity to natural hot springs. I've always tried to do some research on the real world placed that my story is set in, so that it feels like the group is actually out there cruising around. The Teepee hotel, the vaudeville museum, the Orphium theatre, Sturgis and Hot Springs are all actual places.
Although the hotel that Chloe is chained up in is (in my mind) based on the old Goldman Hotel in Fort Smith. It's been torn down now to make a parking lot. But it used to be a historical hotel, and then a gutted out, three story brick building.
And Ben Dover's the bar that Dean picks out while they're staying in Kentucky, is actually located just a block up the street from where the old Goldman hotel used to be. I agree with Chloe, it's a charming place that I want no part of.
Sam looked at Dean, and noted the determined set of his jaw. “Let's go,” Dean said.
***
Dean pushed beyond the speed limit the whole way there, heedless of possible police traps or keeping a low profile.
When it comes to saving the folks he cares about, Dean gets tunnel vision. Then again, Sam does too when Dean's not around.
“You know, we're not going to be much use to Chloe if we get noticed by the AI and fried by its death ray,” Sam said as he leaned forward from the back seat to note Dean's speed.
“The demon's already found us once,” Dean said flatly. “If it wanted to nuke us to hell and gone, it would have done it by now. And I'm not stopping - even if I am clocked. Chloe doesn’t have time.”
“Dean,” Bobby said. “We still have to dowse her out when we get to Hot Springs. And avoiding Smokey would slow us down worse.”
Funny how he'll listen to Bobby a little, but not Sam.
Dean made a face, and slammed his hand down on the steering wheel - but slowed down nevertheless. Bobby and Sam shot one another concerned stares. With a sigh, Sam slid back into his seat. In the seat next to him, Isaac buckled his seatbelt. Sam took the cue and did the same.
As soon as they arrived in Hot Springs, they stopped and bought a map. With the map spread over the hood of the Impala, Sam again suspended the crystal pendulum over it to dowse out Chloe's location.
They followed the map to the shell of a building that had probably once been a hotel. As they walked through the wreckage, Sam shut his eyes, as he had back in at the junkyard. He stretched out with mental fingers - and encountered such misery that it almost drove him to his knees. He opened his eyes, and noticed that the brick along one wall didn't quite match up.
Dean noticed Sam's reaction, and shot him a questioning look. “Sam?”
A handful of times in his life, Sam had used the telekinetic power like a wrecking ball. He'd once pushed a china hutch out of his way, and once he knocked down a load-bearing support. Both times, his brother's life was in danger.
Now, in a very real way, Sam thought that Dean's life might be in danger again. Because if Chloe died - part of Dean would die too. Oh, he'd go on living. Eating, breathing and hunting. But he wouldn't be the same.
Actually, I think it would be kind of a role reversal from Season 1. With Sam taking on that older brother/caretaker job.
So in a way, Sam was acting to save Dean again. Confident in his boosted abilities, he mentally reached out to the soft, new concrete in the wall, hooked into the bricks, and pulled.
The wall shattered outward explosively and showered them with dust and chunk of bricks.
Sometimes I'm glad this is fiction. Because my imagination is bigger than any special effects budget.
They coughed in the haze, waving dust away from their eyes, noses and mouth. Then the smell hit Sam. Sweat, vomit, urine and human mystery. He covered his nose and mouth, and tried to breathe through his sleeve. Tried also to stifle his gag reflex.
I actually kind of liked the line about the stink of human misery. Occasionally, I get to write a nice turn of phrase, and then I just float for days.
Dean moved past him, heedless of anything except getting into the alcove. He pulled his lock picks from his pocket. Within a few moments, Sam heard the rattle of chains. And then Dean was backing out of the rubble, supporting a very frail, emaciated looking Chloe.
And she's out! Yay!