Dreaming in Stereo, Supernatural, Part 4
Fandom: Supernatural
Title: Dreaming in Stereo, Part 4 ( Part One here, Part Two here, Part Three here)
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/Jess, John, Sam/Demon
Rating: overall NC-17, for graphic violence and sex, memory of rape
Table: #1
Prompt: 030 Fall
Word Count: 2816
Summary: Time heals all wounds, but life for a Winchester doesn't wait. Sam and Dean are still working through the changes in their lives, back on the road, hunting. Nightmares of the past pave the way for nightmares of the future, and lead all three Winchesters to a showdown with the evil that started them on their path.
Warnings: Very Dark Fic. This is a follow on to "The Good Son" and "Where it Hurts" and "All for One and One for All" (A gifty fic written for my birthday by shotofjack... The overall story will involve torture and rape and extreme violence. This is likely to be another two chapters.
The first part of "The Good Son" can be found here
The first part of "Where it Hurts" can be found here
And "All for One and One for All" can be found here
This is my seventeenth ficlet for my Supernatural claim on 100_situations. Clicky for table
John Winchester was not a religious man, despite everything he had seen and done in his life. Still there were things he believed. He sat in the third pew from the door of the small church, his hands folded, his forehead against them. He believed that demons walked among people, every day. He’d seen enough to know that they weren’t all the same.
The ones they’d encountered today were different, slipping from body to body, working to keep them from Sam. Dean slipped into the seat beside him. “Done.”
John nodded. The car had been marked on both bumpers with symbols that should help hide them, and Dean had just finished wiping it down with holy water, which should help repel anything that attacked them.
“Tell me again.”
Dean bowed his head. “I don’t have it all, Dad. Just…It manipulated him, convinced him that…hell, it tried to convince him we didn’t need him…then that he was killing us.” Dean closed his eyes. It was disjointed, part memory…part…vision…part…He sighed. “He’s…blocking me.”
“How? How did it reach him?”
“Jess.” Dean could see the echo of the dream, Jessica’s face. But he’d seen her eyes. He’d seen through her.
“And you have a plan?”
Dean shook his head and sat back. “It starts with getting out of here and getting to Palo Alto.”
“Then?”
“Then…then we beat this demon at his own game.”
“How?” John looked at his son and sighed. “Damn it Dean, we’ve been hunting this thing forever. We’ve never even gotten close.”
Dean stood, taking his father’s hand and pulling him up too. Like this. As a family. It wants Sammy.
The corner of John’s mouth twitched as Dean’s intention leaked across the connection. But Winchesters are a package deal. You never get just one. He and Dean had never had this without Sam present. Dean nodded.
“Damn straight.”
“Dean?”
“What’s wrong, baby brother? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Dean’s face rubbed across Sam’s, his voice whispering over his skin. “Aren’t you glad to see me?” He kissed Sam, all hard lips and teeth.
Sam pushed, but Dean didn’t budge. “No. You…can’t be…Dean.”
“No?” His hand moved between them, into Sam’s pants to stroke his cock. “Do you get hard for every ghost, Sammy?”
Sam groaned. “Not a ghost…Dean’s not dead.”
Not-Dean chuckled. “You left me. How would you know if I’m dead or alive?”
“I’d know.” Sam moaned as Dean’s not Dean fingers, moved over the skin of his cock, rubbing the slit and under the head the way Sam liked…tiny touches that made Sam arch underneath him.
“Well, your body seems to think it’s me.” Dean not Dean whispered in Sam’s ear. “We are pair of sick fucks, aren’t we baby brother?”
Sam tried again to push his way free as Dean not Dean ripped open his shirt. “I’d almost think you were trying to get away from me, Sammy.” He spared a hand to capture Sam’s wrists, pinning them above his head.
Instantly, Sam was swallowed in panic. “No….No….” Dean pulled up from the licking of Sam’s chest and laughed.
“What’s wrong baby brother?”
“Dean…stop…let…let me go…”
“I thought I wasn’t really Dean.”
Sam felt ropes wrapping around his wrists. He couldn’t breathe. “No.”
Lips closed over his nipple…then Dean was kissing him, his tongue pushing into his mouth roughly. “There, there, baby…I’ve got you,” he whispered into Sam’s mouth.
Sam’s face burned with tears. Dean…oh, god Dean.
Dean closed his eyes as his father maneuvered them through traffic. It wasn’t often they traveled the big highways…too many police, too many people. His breathing quickened. Sam was frightened again…more than before…he was falling…his strength failing. Dean shuddered and drew his knees up to his chest.
“Faster.” Faster…hurry…hurry…Dad…hurry.
It hurt…the distance, the lack of Sam in the space beside him…inside him…like coming down off a drug…He felt his father there…where Sam should be…but it wasn’t the same. It was more work, connecting…there was so much to hide…so much that John couldn’t know…wouldn’t want to know.
Dean spared a glance at his father. He was concentrating on the road, on keeping them moving and alive. He was going to need more from him. He was going to need…
“Dad, we need to talk.”
John looked at him, a quick glance before his eyes were back in front of them, his hands steering them around a semi truck. “What is it?”
Dean shifted, stretched across the connection for the warmth and steady reserve. “This is going to get ugly…and I don’t mean just the fight.”
John’s jaw twitched. I’m going to be there for you, Dean.
“I know that. I’m not worried about that.” Dean blew out and grabbed the dashboard as they changed lanes yet again. “I’m not Sam, Dad.”
John smiled a little. “You sound like him. He keeps telling me he isn’t you.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “I don’t have his control.” This wasn’t going very well.
“You going somewhere with this?”
“Yeah, actually, I am.” Dean licked his lips and closed his eyes. “I’m just going to say it. There’s stuff you don’t know…stuff between me and Sam…stuff…” He put his feet down and shifted. “And…when things get bad, you might…see them. You…” Dean stopped…looked away.
Show me now.
“No.” Dean shook his head. How could he? Just throw it out there? Hey Dad, I’m fucking Sam. “No. We need to concentrate on getting to Sam.” We’ll just argue. Don’t want to argue. Just need to know you’ll have my back, no matter what you see.
“Is this about Garrett?”
“Dad! Dean grabbed his arm as the two semis on either side of them began moving in against them. John stepped on the accelerator and the car lurched forward, narrowly escaping as the two trucks slammed into one another. “We’ll talk later.”
“Yes,” John said, “I’m sure we will.”
Sam was spinning, falling. Everything had changed…or maybe he had just figured that out…and nothing had been right for so long… “Dean, please…stop…”
He pulled against the ropes, against the feeling of being trapped, restrained. “No…please…”
Dean’s hand no, not Dean stroked his face. “I’m here, Sammy…right here…”
Sam closed his eyes and tried to disconnect from the fear. “You…you aren’t my brother.”
“I’m hurt.” Dean straddled Sam’s body, his rough hands dragging over the exposed skin of Sam’s chest.
“Dean wouldn’t do this.” Sam pulled on the ropes again, pushing away the memories the sensation brought. “Dean wouldn’t tie me-“
The smile was wicked. “Wouldn’t I though?” He leaned down, rubbing his stubbled chin over Sam’s. “Didn’t I ever tell you how hot you looked all tied up?”
Sam’s breathing was erratic. He moved his head away from Dean’s not Dean, but those lips only slid over his jaw, down to his neck. “I got hard watching you…all submissive and waiting for him to come back…I wanted you.”
“No.” Sam tossed, nearly upsetting the thing on top of him that was and wasn’t his brother. He didn’t understand what was happening.
It laughed, the thing with Dean’s face and punched Sam hard across the jaw. Sam stopped struggling and it fell on top of him again, wiggling so Sam could feel its erection against his hip. “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind breaking you myself. You’re so pretty.” His thumb rubbed over the spot he’d hit, pressing into the redness already starting there. “Especially when your skin goes all purple.”
“Stop…please…just…get it over with.”
“Get what over with, baby? I’m just getting started.”
Sam looked up at him as if finally realizing something. “You aren’t going to kill me.”
Dean not Dean smiled that trademark smile, the one that made girls swoon and guys swallow just about anything. “Why would I kill you Sammy? What good would you be to me dead?”
“There, take that one.”
“You sure Dean?”
“I’ve been here enough. I’m sure. Take the exit.”
John slammed on the brakes, wrenched the wheel and crossed three lines of traffic to pull off the freeway five exits before the one labeled for Stanford. “Next right.”
Dean pointed unnecessarily and returned to loading the guns that littered his lap and the floor under him. Every weapon he could get his hands on. Every bullet he could find or steal. All blessed with holy water. All carved with symbols. All of them ready to blaze a trail through demon-possessed bodies. “Left,” he said without looking up. He didn’t need to see. He knew where they were. “Left.”
He slammed the clip in and tucked the gun into the bag on the seat between him and his father. “These are for you. Right.”
Dean twitched. His jaw clenched and unclenched and his leg bounced. He was nervous. If he let himself admit it he was scared, terrified. He could feel Sam, leaking out around the wall and now it was Dean holding that wall together. Because Dean knew Sam wasn’t alone on the other side. It was there. And it couldn’t know.
And that meant Dean was leaving Sam alone. Alone with the thing that had killed their mother. Had killed Jessica…and who knows how many others. The thing that wanted Sam more than anything. His Sammy.
“Left, Dad.”
“I know.” John turned them into the campus, down the tree lined lanes of student housing and frat houses.
“They’re gonna be kids, Dad.” Dean said quietly, returning to his guns, shoving them into the bag. “The bastards got his army dressed up in kids.”
John nodded, one hand adjusting the bag between them. “You going to tell me the plan?”
Dean unclenched his jaw. “We kill them. All of them. As many as we can…until we run out of ammo.”
“And then?”
Then we get our boy back and teach that son of a bitch a lesson.
John stopped the car behind the Impala. They both looked up at the house. It was dark. Quiet. Dean was the first one out, gun in hand. He moved to the Impala. Sam’s duffle was on the back seat. There was a note on the passenger seat. Dean’s eyes glanced over it, then looked away. It wasn’t anything he wanted to read. Sam wasn’t allowed to make that choice for them. He wasn’t allowed to say goodbye again. Not again. Not after…everything.
They crossed the street and took the stairs two at a time. The door was locked. Dean moved to the window. Movement inside told him they weren’t alone. “Shit. They know we’re coming.”
Dean knocked the window in with the butt of his gun and squeezed off a few shots. John kicked the door in and started firing. Together they moved in to the house. Twelve year old boys, twins dressed in matching suits that once had been expensive, screamed as they charged them. Dean had known they would be kids…but he hesitated. Beside him, John didn’t, taking them both with a shot to the forehead.
Dean shook it off and headed deeper into the house. Two girls, barely 8, their dresses torn and muddy. Dean closed his eyes and fired. Their screams tore into him. Behind him he heard his father’s gun repeatedly. He ducked a flying piece of broken glass and rolled into the bed room.
A dirty mattress and a pile of bloody clothes were the only things in the room. No demons. No Sam. “Fuck!” He spun around, and sprawled to the ground as a pre-pubescent nerd clocked him between the eyes. He brought his gun up and shot twice into the pocket protector. The body fell and the demon spewed out into the air. Suddenly the air was on fire, the demon squealing.
Dean crawled away, until he was on the mattress. He put his hand down on something hard, closed over the denim. Sam. The fire raged, until the blackness was gone. Dean swallowed as the fire condensed and moved toward him. “Dad!” Gunfire echoed back to him. Dean raised the gun, but hesitated. Slowly a form moved out of the fire. He’d seen the same thing before…when his mother…when she had saved Sam from the spirit that had squatted in their old house.
Blond hair and a long white nightgown…a face he only saw once before. “Jessica.” He breathed it, the gun still held between them.
“He isn’t here.”
“I can see that.”
“I didn’t bring him here.”
“I know.” Slowly he lowered the gun.
“It was here. I tried to reach him. It’s stronger.”
Dean’s stomach twisted. “I…know…”
She came closer. “I love him.” Something in her voice made Dean look up. “He loves you.”
“Are we going to have a problem?” Dean’s gun hand twitched.
She smiled. “He needs you Dean.”
“Dean!”
“Bedroom Dad.”
“I can’t help you save him.” The flames licked at her hair and clothes as she backed off a step. “But I can clear the house for you.”
“Where is he?”
Her eyes were the last that was left of her as the flames engulfed her. They met Dean’s. “You know where.” Dean’s hand finally recognized the shape under it. The keys, in Sam’s pocket.
John burst into the room and Dean nodded as Jessica’s flaming form slammed into the ceiling and the walls started to burn. “Let’s go.” Dean grabbed his father’s arm and dashed out, flying through burning bodies and inhuman screams. The doors and windows imploded as they escaped, stumbling down the stairs and rolling into the street.
“Dean?”
“I know where they are.”
He climbed to his feet. “But he knows we’re coming. He’s gonna through everything at us.” He tucked his gun into the back of his jeans and helped John up, sweeping his eyes over him. You’re hurt.
John shook his head. “Its nothing. I’m fine.”
Dean nodded and started for the car. “We need a diversion.”
“We’ll split up. You take the Impala. Divide the forces.”
That’s insane. We’re stronger together. Sam needs us together.
John put his hands on his hips. We will be together Dean. Like this.
Dean shook his head. It’s too hard. Over distance.
He took his father’s hand. He was right, but Dean wasn’t ready. The sharing between him and Sam, Sam had given him so much and he still didn’t understand it. Slowly, Dean took his father’s hand and put it on his thigh, over the branded W John himself had pressed into his flesh. If we’re going to do this Dad, you have to trust me.
Just as slowly, Dean put his hand on John’s thigh, over his brand. Sam and Dean had done it together, one mind, one body, their thoughts so conjoined that even now Dean can’t separate them as he shifts his consciousness to brush against his fathers. You have to let go, like I did for Sam.
He could feel his father’s resistance. John Winchester didn’t relinquish control. It was dangerous. It would get them killed. Dean held himself still and waited. John’s touch was tentative. Show me.
Dean opened a little more, sharing his fear, his determination…drawing John past words and conscious thought. John stuttered, his control releasing and seizing up several times. Dean stroked him with encouragement. Dean…Dean….oh god…Dean…
Dean swallowed. He felt their bodies sinking to the ground between the cars and held his father’s hand on his thigh, held them together. Sam. Hold tight.
Can’t. Can’t. Dean….
Sam’s desperation lanced through him. Sam. John’s barriers melted and Dean gasped as his thoughts and emotions and that…essence flooded into him. Memories first, jumbled up images of Mary and the boys as children echoing with Dean’s and Sam’s and spinning them through a recap of every moment they’d been together, the three of them living, laughing, fighting. A strange clarity, like each memory was now 3-D…and Dean carefully held those memories to the times when all three of them were together, strengthening the connection.
Slowly Dean opened his eyes. They were coming for them. We need to move. Sam…just hold on.
John opened his eyes and nodded. Together they stood. Children and teenagers were visible, moving toward them like some bad zombie movie extras. Sam? The wall was still there, but he could sense him, weak, slipping away.
“Damn.”
I’ll be the distraction Dean. You go get Sam. John was already in the Mark IV, tossing Dean’s bag of weapons at him. Dean nodded and climbed into the Impala. His father pulled out onto the street, mowing through the slow moving army. Dean glanced aside at the white paper on the black seat. He’d always been so ready to sacrifice himself, and he never once believed that just maybe it wasn’t about that at all.
Dean dropped his bag over the note and brought the car to life. Sammy never did realize on a conscious level just what it was that demon wanted. Dean did though. And if he wanted it, Dean was going to give it to him.
Title: Dreaming in Stereo, Part 4 ( Part One here, Part Two here, Part Three here)
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/Jess, John, Sam/Demon
Rating: overall NC-17, for graphic violence and sex, memory of rape
Table: #1
Prompt: 030 Fall
Word Count: 2816
Summary: Time heals all wounds, but life for a Winchester doesn't wait. Sam and Dean are still working through the changes in their lives, back on the road, hunting. Nightmares of the past pave the way for nightmares of the future, and lead all three Winchesters to a showdown with the evil that started them on their path.
Warnings: Very Dark Fic. This is a follow on to "The Good Son" and "Where it Hurts" and "All for One and One for All" (A gifty fic written for my birthday by shotofjack... The overall story will involve torture and rape and extreme violence. This is likely to be another two chapters.
The first part of "The Good Son" can be found here
The first part of "Where it Hurts" can be found here
And "All for One and One for All" can be found here
This is my seventeenth ficlet for my Supernatural claim on 100_situations. Clicky for table
John Winchester was not a religious man, despite everything he had seen and done in his life. Still there were things he believed. He sat in the third pew from the door of the small church, his hands folded, his forehead against them. He believed that demons walked among people, every day. He’d seen enough to know that they weren’t all the same.
The ones they’d encountered today were different, slipping from body to body, working to keep them from Sam. Dean slipped into the seat beside him. “Done.”
John nodded. The car had been marked on both bumpers with symbols that should help hide them, and Dean had just finished wiping it down with holy water, which should help repel anything that attacked them.
“Tell me again.”
Dean bowed his head. “I don’t have it all, Dad. Just…It manipulated him, convinced him that…hell, it tried to convince him we didn’t need him…then that he was killing us.” Dean closed his eyes. It was disjointed, part memory…part…vision…part…He sighed. “He’s…blocking me.”
“How? How did it reach him?”
“Jess.” Dean could see the echo of the dream, Jessica’s face. But he’d seen her eyes. He’d seen through her.
“And you have a plan?”
Dean shook his head and sat back. “It starts with getting out of here and getting to Palo Alto.”
“Then?”
“Then…then we beat this demon at his own game.”
“How?” John looked at his son and sighed. “Damn it Dean, we’ve been hunting this thing forever. We’ve never even gotten close.”
Dean stood, taking his father’s hand and pulling him up too. Like this. As a family. It wants Sammy.
The corner of John’s mouth twitched as Dean’s intention leaked across the connection. But Winchesters are a package deal. You never get just one. He and Dean had never had this without Sam present. Dean nodded.
“Damn straight.”
“Dean?”
“What’s wrong, baby brother? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Dean’s face rubbed across Sam’s, his voice whispering over his skin. “Aren’t you glad to see me?” He kissed Sam, all hard lips and teeth.
Sam pushed, but Dean didn’t budge. “No. You…can’t be…Dean.”
“No?” His hand moved between them, into Sam’s pants to stroke his cock. “Do you get hard for every ghost, Sammy?”
Sam groaned. “Not a ghost…Dean’s not dead.”
Not-Dean chuckled. “You left me. How would you know if I’m dead or alive?”
“I’d know.” Sam moaned as Dean’s not Dean fingers, moved over the skin of his cock, rubbing the slit and under the head the way Sam liked…tiny touches that made Sam arch underneath him.
“Well, your body seems to think it’s me.” Dean not Dean whispered in Sam’s ear. “We are pair of sick fucks, aren’t we baby brother?”
Sam tried again to push his way free as Dean not Dean ripped open his shirt. “I’d almost think you were trying to get away from me, Sammy.” He spared a hand to capture Sam’s wrists, pinning them above his head.
Instantly, Sam was swallowed in panic. “No….No….” Dean pulled up from the licking of Sam’s chest and laughed.
“What’s wrong baby brother?”
“Dean…stop…let…let me go…”
“I thought I wasn’t really Dean.”
Sam felt ropes wrapping around his wrists. He couldn’t breathe. “No.”
Lips closed over his nipple…then Dean was kissing him, his tongue pushing into his mouth roughly. “There, there, baby…I’ve got you,” he whispered into Sam’s mouth.
Sam’s face burned with tears. Dean…oh, god Dean.
Dean closed his eyes as his father maneuvered them through traffic. It wasn’t often they traveled the big highways…too many police, too many people. His breathing quickened. Sam was frightened again…more than before…he was falling…his strength failing. Dean shuddered and drew his knees up to his chest.
“Faster.” Faster…hurry…hurry…Dad…hurry.
It hurt…the distance, the lack of Sam in the space beside him…inside him…like coming down off a drug…He felt his father there…where Sam should be…but it wasn’t the same. It was more work, connecting…there was so much to hide…so much that John couldn’t know…wouldn’t want to know.
Dean spared a glance at his father. He was concentrating on the road, on keeping them moving and alive. He was going to need more from him. He was going to need…
“Dad, we need to talk.”
John looked at him, a quick glance before his eyes were back in front of them, his hands steering them around a semi truck. “What is it?”
Dean shifted, stretched across the connection for the warmth and steady reserve. “This is going to get ugly…and I don’t mean just the fight.”
John’s jaw twitched. I’m going to be there for you, Dean.
“I know that. I’m not worried about that.” Dean blew out and grabbed the dashboard as they changed lanes yet again. “I’m not Sam, Dad.”
John smiled a little. “You sound like him. He keeps telling me he isn’t you.”
Dean rolled his eyes. “I don’t have his control.” This wasn’t going very well.
“You going somewhere with this?”
“Yeah, actually, I am.” Dean licked his lips and closed his eyes. “I’m just going to say it. There’s stuff you don’t know…stuff between me and Sam…stuff…” He put his feet down and shifted. “And…when things get bad, you might…see them. You…” Dean stopped…looked away.
Show me now.
“No.” Dean shook his head. How could he? Just throw it out there? Hey Dad, I’m fucking Sam. “No. We need to concentrate on getting to Sam.” We’ll just argue. Don’t want to argue. Just need to know you’ll have my back, no matter what you see.
“Is this about Garrett?”
“Dad! Dean grabbed his arm as the two semis on either side of them began moving in against them. John stepped on the accelerator and the car lurched forward, narrowly escaping as the two trucks slammed into one another. “We’ll talk later.”
“Yes,” John said, “I’m sure we will.”
Sam was spinning, falling. Everything had changed…or maybe he had just figured that out…and nothing had been right for so long… “Dean, please…stop…”
He pulled against the ropes, against the feeling of being trapped, restrained. “No…please…”
Dean’s hand no, not Dean stroked his face. “I’m here, Sammy…right here…”
Sam closed his eyes and tried to disconnect from the fear. “You…you aren’t my brother.”
“I’m hurt.” Dean straddled Sam’s body, his rough hands dragging over the exposed skin of Sam’s chest.
“Dean wouldn’t do this.” Sam pulled on the ropes again, pushing away the memories the sensation brought. “Dean wouldn’t tie me-“
The smile was wicked. “Wouldn’t I though?” He leaned down, rubbing his stubbled chin over Sam’s. “Didn’t I ever tell you how hot you looked all tied up?”
Sam’s breathing was erratic. He moved his head away from Dean’s not Dean, but those lips only slid over his jaw, down to his neck. “I got hard watching you…all submissive and waiting for him to come back…I wanted you.”
“No.” Sam tossed, nearly upsetting the thing on top of him that was and wasn’t his brother. He didn’t understand what was happening.
It laughed, the thing with Dean’s face and punched Sam hard across the jaw. Sam stopped struggling and it fell on top of him again, wiggling so Sam could feel its erection against his hip. “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind breaking you myself. You’re so pretty.” His thumb rubbed over the spot he’d hit, pressing into the redness already starting there. “Especially when your skin goes all purple.”
“Stop…please…just…get it over with.”
“Get what over with, baby? I’m just getting started.”
Sam looked up at him as if finally realizing something. “You aren’t going to kill me.”
Dean not Dean smiled that trademark smile, the one that made girls swoon and guys swallow just about anything. “Why would I kill you Sammy? What good would you be to me dead?”
“There, take that one.”
“You sure Dean?”
“I’ve been here enough. I’m sure. Take the exit.”
John slammed on the brakes, wrenched the wheel and crossed three lines of traffic to pull off the freeway five exits before the one labeled for Stanford. “Next right.”
Dean pointed unnecessarily and returned to loading the guns that littered his lap and the floor under him. Every weapon he could get his hands on. Every bullet he could find or steal. All blessed with holy water. All carved with symbols. All of them ready to blaze a trail through demon-possessed bodies. “Left,” he said without looking up. He didn’t need to see. He knew where they were. “Left.”
He slammed the clip in and tucked the gun into the bag on the seat between him and his father. “These are for you. Right.”
Dean twitched. His jaw clenched and unclenched and his leg bounced. He was nervous. If he let himself admit it he was scared, terrified. He could feel Sam, leaking out around the wall and now it was Dean holding that wall together. Because Dean knew Sam wasn’t alone on the other side. It was there. And it couldn’t know.
And that meant Dean was leaving Sam alone. Alone with the thing that had killed their mother. Had killed Jessica…and who knows how many others. The thing that wanted Sam more than anything. His Sammy.
“Left, Dad.”
“I know.” John turned them into the campus, down the tree lined lanes of student housing and frat houses.
“They’re gonna be kids, Dad.” Dean said quietly, returning to his guns, shoving them into the bag. “The bastards got his army dressed up in kids.”
John nodded, one hand adjusting the bag between them. “You going to tell me the plan?”
Dean unclenched his jaw. “We kill them. All of them. As many as we can…until we run out of ammo.”
“And then?”
Then we get our boy back and teach that son of a bitch a lesson.
John stopped the car behind the Impala. They both looked up at the house. It was dark. Quiet. Dean was the first one out, gun in hand. He moved to the Impala. Sam’s duffle was on the back seat. There was a note on the passenger seat. Dean’s eyes glanced over it, then looked away. It wasn’t anything he wanted to read. Sam wasn’t allowed to make that choice for them. He wasn’t allowed to say goodbye again. Not again. Not after…everything.
They crossed the street and took the stairs two at a time. The door was locked. Dean moved to the window. Movement inside told him they weren’t alone. “Shit. They know we’re coming.”
Dean knocked the window in with the butt of his gun and squeezed off a few shots. John kicked the door in and started firing. Together they moved in to the house. Twelve year old boys, twins dressed in matching suits that once had been expensive, screamed as they charged them. Dean had known they would be kids…but he hesitated. Beside him, John didn’t, taking them both with a shot to the forehead.
Dean shook it off and headed deeper into the house. Two girls, barely 8, their dresses torn and muddy. Dean closed his eyes and fired. Their screams tore into him. Behind him he heard his father’s gun repeatedly. He ducked a flying piece of broken glass and rolled into the bed room.
A dirty mattress and a pile of bloody clothes were the only things in the room. No demons. No Sam. “Fuck!” He spun around, and sprawled to the ground as a pre-pubescent nerd clocked him between the eyes. He brought his gun up and shot twice into the pocket protector. The body fell and the demon spewed out into the air. Suddenly the air was on fire, the demon squealing.
Dean crawled away, until he was on the mattress. He put his hand down on something hard, closed over the denim. Sam. The fire raged, until the blackness was gone. Dean swallowed as the fire condensed and moved toward him. “Dad!” Gunfire echoed back to him. Dean raised the gun, but hesitated. Slowly a form moved out of the fire. He’d seen the same thing before…when his mother…when she had saved Sam from the spirit that had squatted in their old house.
Blond hair and a long white nightgown…a face he only saw once before. “Jessica.” He breathed it, the gun still held between them.
“He isn’t here.”
“I can see that.”
“I didn’t bring him here.”
“I know.” Slowly he lowered the gun.
“It was here. I tried to reach him. It’s stronger.”
Dean’s stomach twisted. “I…know…”
She came closer. “I love him.” Something in her voice made Dean look up. “He loves you.”
“Are we going to have a problem?” Dean’s gun hand twitched.
She smiled. “He needs you Dean.”
“Dean!”
“Bedroom Dad.”
“I can’t help you save him.” The flames licked at her hair and clothes as she backed off a step. “But I can clear the house for you.”
“Where is he?”
Her eyes were the last that was left of her as the flames engulfed her. They met Dean’s. “You know where.” Dean’s hand finally recognized the shape under it. The keys, in Sam’s pocket.
John burst into the room and Dean nodded as Jessica’s flaming form slammed into the ceiling and the walls started to burn. “Let’s go.” Dean grabbed his father’s arm and dashed out, flying through burning bodies and inhuman screams. The doors and windows imploded as they escaped, stumbling down the stairs and rolling into the street.
“Dean?”
“I know where they are.”
He climbed to his feet. “But he knows we’re coming. He’s gonna through everything at us.” He tucked his gun into the back of his jeans and helped John up, sweeping his eyes over him. You’re hurt.
John shook his head. “Its nothing. I’m fine.”
Dean nodded and started for the car. “We need a diversion.”
“We’ll split up. You take the Impala. Divide the forces.”
That’s insane. We’re stronger together. Sam needs us together.
John put his hands on his hips. We will be together Dean. Like this.
Dean shook his head. It’s too hard. Over distance.
He took his father’s hand. He was right, but Dean wasn’t ready. The sharing between him and Sam, Sam had given him so much and he still didn’t understand it. Slowly, Dean took his father’s hand and put it on his thigh, over the branded W John himself had pressed into his flesh. If we’re going to do this Dad, you have to trust me.
Just as slowly, Dean put his hand on John’s thigh, over his brand. Sam and Dean had done it together, one mind, one body, their thoughts so conjoined that even now Dean can’t separate them as he shifts his consciousness to brush against his fathers. You have to let go, like I did for Sam.
He could feel his father’s resistance. John Winchester didn’t relinquish control. It was dangerous. It would get them killed. Dean held himself still and waited. John’s touch was tentative. Show me.
Dean opened a little more, sharing his fear, his determination…drawing John past words and conscious thought. John stuttered, his control releasing and seizing up several times. Dean stroked him with encouragement. Dean…Dean….oh god…Dean…
Dean swallowed. He felt their bodies sinking to the ground between the cars and held his father’s hand on his thigh, held them together. Sam. Hold tight.
Can’t. Can’t. Dean….
Sam’s desperation lanced through him. Sam. John’s barriers melted and Dean gasped as his thoughts and emotions and that…essence flooded into him. Memories first, jumbled up images of Mary and the boys as children echoing with Dean’s and Sam’s and spinning them through a recap of every moment they’d been together, the three of them living, laughing, fighting. A strange clarity, like each memory was now 3-D…and Dean carefully held those memories to the times when all three of them were together, strengthening the connection.
Slowly Dean opened his eyes. They were coming for them. We need to move. Sam…just hold on.
John opened his eyes and nodded. Together they stood. Children and teenagers were visible, moving toward them like some bad zombie movie extras. Sam? The wall was still there, but he could sense him, weak, slipping away.
“Damn.”
I’ll be the distraction Dean. You go get Sam. John was already in the Mark IV, tossing Dean’s bag of weapons at him. Dean nodded and climbed into the Impala. His father pulled out onto the street, mowing through the slow moving army. Dean glanced aside at the white paper on the black seat. He’d always been so ready to sacrifice himself, and he never once believed that just maybe it wasn’t about that at all.
Dean dropped his bag over the note and brought the car to life. Sammy never did realize on a conscious level just what it was that demon wanted. Dean did though. And if he wanted it, Dean was going to give it to him.