Sick Days - Chapter 13
Title: Sick Days
Summary: Dean's obsession with apparently random medical deaths mirrored from his past lands him and Sam in the middle of a deadly epidemic.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Born Under a Bad Sign'
Word Count: 4,341 for this part
Author's Note: Takes place in 2007 post 'Born Under a Bad Sign' with flashbacks to 1987. Many thanks to Amberdreams for the wonderful editing assistance. Master post can be found here.
~~~
Continued from Chapter 12
~~~
“It will soon be your turn, child,” the soul eater assured him.
“Awesome,” Dean muttered in reply. “Can’t wait.”
He paced the boundary of her circle as he tried to work up a new plan. Now he knew for a fact that she wasn’t just a ghost. It had been easy enough to think she was when he’d been a kid and everything had been simple. When it had been easy enough to say take me and have this town without even wondering what that meant.
Now he still had to make those choices but he had to wade through the grey to find the right way. The funny thing was that it didn’t change the calls he made. It just made him feel like crap when he made them.
Like now. It was easy enough to tell Ellen to kill him. Hell, he was basically dead anyway and maybe he was looking for an out, but he was lying to himself if he thought Sam was really just going to walk away. He’d seen what Jessica’s death had done to his brother. He knew exactly what Sam would do if his brother was taken out by some other dark and nasty and he wasn’t going to let that happen.
Being in this world hurt more than he could take most of the time, but he’d dragged Sam back into this fight and he owed it to his little brother to see him through it. He had promised Dad he would. Of course he had promised Dad more than he could deliver on.
Really it didn’t matter what he did. Everything had some kind of ugly consequence. There was no winning in this crap world, but that was life. He could feel sorry for himself later.
Right now he was surrounded by souls that were sacrifices because he’d opened the floodgates for this thing. He didn’t know what a soul eater was exactly, but he’d caught on from the pieces he’d heard of Ellen and Bobby’s phone conversations. He’d also seen and heard enough from the thing itself to get the gist.
By taking him when she was ready for him and no sooner, she’d break free all the stronger than she’d ever been bound up here. It would be open season on this town and plenty of others. That was why he needed to get out of here on his own timeline, before she had the strength she needed.
He hadn’t had a choice before. He’d done what he’d done to save his family, not to hurt anyone. Sure he should have known and sure the world would be better off if it was still Dad here, not him, but Dad wasn’t here. Dad had left him in this alone, again, and what he’d done was done. There was no taking it back. There was only stopping it. He was far from a willing sacrifice now.
But the shifting walls kept collapsing in around him and nothing he did even got noticed. Not by the soul eater and not by the other spirits around him. The creature twisted and shifted her form at will, took who she wanted when she wanted and she’d thanked him. Without his sacrifice this all wouldn’t have been possible, she had assured him. Well screw her.
Dean had heard what Ellen was saying about the ritual clear as day. He’d heard and seen everything including the ritual in the book because he hadn’t been watching from his body.
Forcing himself back into the physical he had tried to yell at her to stop interrogating Bobby and just do it already, but his body wasn’t playing along anymore. The soul eater had taken too much from him. The additional strength he’d had when outside of his body was fading too. He was fading.
This was his fight and he was the only one in it that couldn’t do a damn thing. At least it turned out that his body was still good for something. He didn’t know exactly how this ritual worked on the mystical side so he wanted to make sure to be in his body once the connection was cut if only so that the soul eater didn’t get her final sacrifice.
It was easier said than done. The motel room kept flashing out as he felt the pull of this thing strengthen. At least with the first slice of the sharpened steel blade into his back he had something to grab on to. He held on to the searing pain and turned it into something he could focus on.
Despite his best efforts to let the pain swallow him, suddenly he wasn’t bleeding out on a motel bed but was standing in the center of the circle he had earlier been excluded from. At first he didn’t see the soul eater there but then he sensed her behind him. He tried to turn to face her but he was now as frozen out of his body as he had been inside of it. It wasn’t like he had to see to know what she was doing.
Things flashed out again as the symbol was broken further. Enough so that he could warn Ellen to move it along. Time was up for everyone involved.
A suffocating wall of energy came down around him in the non-physical, and in the physical he was drowning in his own blood. There was nowhere left to go. In the next instance he had expected nothing but an end to existence. Sorry Sammy. It turned out he didn’t have it in him after all.
But oblivion didn’t come. Instead he felt a painfully desperate need for oxygen. His mind checked out and his body took over. It spat out the hot liquid that blocked his airway and pulled in a greedy gulp of air that his lungs finally accepted. That simple action had taken all the energy he had left.
~~~
Pushing the book away, Ellen rolled Dean’s limp body onto its side to take the pressure off his chest. With one hand she kept a towel pressed tight against the wounds on his back while the fingers of her other hand searched his neck for a pulse.
“Oh thank god,” she gasped in relief.
It was way too fast and not nearly strong enough, but it was there, which was far better than what she had feared. Finally she could hear his breathing too.
The breaths were now so quiet compared to the forced attempts for air that she had been hearing from him that it almost sounded like he wasn’t breathing at all. In reality the volume was now a lot closer to normal. It would be a comfort except that like his pulse, the breaths were just too shallow and the rhythm far from steady.
While it wasn’t what she wanted, he was at least stable enough for her to take care of his back before he lost any more blood. Tipping him back over onto his stomach she pulled the towel away to get a look at the wounds. She gently mopped away the blood that quickly pooled at the small of his back.
The large angry cuts she had made were brutally visible against his pale skin, but the raised symbol of sacrifice had vanished as if it had never been there at all. With that confirmed she returned the pressure of the towel. This time Dean seemed more aware of the sensation there and took a sharp intake of breath as she pressed against his back.
She looked to his face and realized that his eyes were open. His vision was unfocused but he was still conscious. Even though his dilated pupils didn’t move from their fixed position he seemed to realize that she was watching him.
“It worked,” he told her hoarsely.
“That’s a good thing. A real good thing.”
As she repositioned the towels on his back her hand brushed against his skin. Not liking what she felt, she set a hand on his shoulder. His skin that had felt so painfully hot a minute earlier was now cold and clammy though he was still drenched in sweat. It was then that she realized how badly his naked body was beginning to shiver. She eased her pressure on the wounds long enough to recover the comforter that had been abandoned on the floor before she’d arrived.
Carved ritual symbols be damned, if she thought there was any doctor available to see him she’d already have an ambulance on its way. Shock could kill him as well as any demon could, but there was no one to see him so she was just going to have to stop the bleeding herself and get him warmed as fast as she could.
She threw the comforter over him where he lay and tucked it snuggly around him. She only left enough of his bare skin exposed to clean up the wounds. After a quick trip to the bathroom she returned with an ice bucket full of warm water. Carefully she began to clean the area well enough to get it bandaged.
From the tensing of his back and muffled groans it was painfully obvious that his nerves were working all too well. Still he didn’t complain. Instead he coughed again, but this was different than any she had heard before from him. It didn’t sound deep, more just like his throat was irritated. At the least his lungs were clearing out.
She started pulling gauze from her kit when he spoke again. “Don’t waste too much of that. I need a shower.”
“Don’t you even think about getting uppity with me. You’re staying put until you got some strength back. You’re not fit to stand.”
“A bath?”
She realized what he was asking when she lifted the comforter to really look at the bed. The mattress he laid on was soaked in his own blood and he was laying in a sticky mess of it. It was little wonder the boy wanted to get clean, but she couldn’t physically haul him to the bathroom until he was able to at least put his own feet under him.
“Soon, sweetie. Let’s just try sitting up first.”
“Yeah...okay.”
Given that he hadn’t moved under his own will since she’d arrived in town just sitting up probably sounded like an insurmountable task to the poor boy. He grimaced and was obviously still painfully weak and disoriented, but he was able to help her move him into a fairly upright position. She helped steady him and repositioned the comforter so that it was still tucked warmly around him.
With a fresh moistened towel she wiped some of the blood from his face. His eyes were blank, but she needed him to stay with her. Aside from having lost so much blood he hadn’t eaten in days. He wasn’t going to get any stronger until she got something into him.
Her hand grasped the cup that had earlier held ice chips. She steadied his head and put the cup to his lips. At first he hesitated, choking on the water with more of it running down his chin than into his mouth but then he started gulping it down far too fast. It killed her, but she had to pull the cup out his reach.
“Thirsty,” he protested.
“I know you are. That’s real good, but you’ve just gotta take it slow.”
She moved to sit down on a clean spot on the bed next to him and put her arm around him. He was going to make it. She breathed a grateful sigh of relief at that realization.
Again she placed a kiss on his forehead before standing up. If she was going to keep the youngest of the Winchester boys sane she was going to have to do her best to have Sam’s brother put back together for him by the time he got back.
~~~
Green Bay City Hall
Sam slipped the phone back into his pocket before joining Jo at the basement records desk. Earlier they had been getting around authorities because there just wasn’t anyone on the streets, but not too long ago everything had changed.
People were starting to move around again, but they still hadn’t had any problems given that in all the commotion no one thought anything of the two officers coming in to check some old county medical records. Usually a small town like this would have been suspicious of officers that they didn’t recognize, but so many strangers had come in to help deal with the outbreak that no one really knew who anyone was here.
“So what’s the word?” Jo asked.
“I guess it worked. Dr. Hammond says the survivors are starting to recover and Ellen says Dean isn’t sick anymore. We just have to find this body before this thing finds a way around this.”
“Dig in,” Jo said as she handed Sam half the sanatorium records before she started flipping through her own pile. “Do we have any idea what we’re even looking for?”
“Bobby was pretty sure that the living version of the soul eater would have traveled up from the Caribbean, I guess the lore carried over there. We’re looking for any name that sticks out.”
If any one on this list had immigrated from Nigeria or another Hausa based community the name should be pretty obviously from the rest. Mostly they were looking at a long list of Joes, Johns, Roberts, Marys and Sarahs.
“Like uh...’Laraba’?” Jo read off one of the sheets.
“Seriously?” Sam put down his papers and leaned over to see Jo’s. “That has to be her. Did she die here?”
“Let’s see...sure did. It says here that she died in 1918 of the Spanish Flu after visiting Astoria.” Jo put the papers down and looked to Sam. “The timing matches with those other records I was talking about. The increase in unexplained deaths started in 1916, but stopped in 1927. They started in on the ten year cycle after that.”
“That must have been the year she was bound. Please tell me it says where she’s buried.”
“Quiet Bay Pioneer Cemetery. Plot thirteen.”
“Perfect. Let’s swing by the motel. There are shovels in the Impala.”
~~~
Sam could barely wait for the patrol car to stop before he jumped out and nearly ran towards the motel room. He wasn’t really here for shovels. Ellen had assured him that Dean was awake and talking, getting stronger, but in his head all he could still see was his brother too weak to breathe.
By the time he reached the motel room door Ellen had already opened it. The moment he saw her he pulled her into his arms. If Dean had needed anything, it had been her and Sam had just as badly needed to know that she was there for Dean.
“Ellen, I don’t even know how to thank you.”
“You brought my daughter back safe. It’s a fair trade.”
He met Ellen’s eyes as he pulled back. She looked as exhausted as he felt. There was really no way that he could have done this alone. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jo coming up behind them.
“Jo did a lot of good work on this.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Ellen replied with a warm smile to her daughter. “She’s a smart girl, even if she don’t listen so good.”
“You know you love that about me,” Jo replied with a grin of her own before leaning in between her mom and the doorframe. “Hey Dean, glad you’re not dead.”
Sam looked over Jo to see Dean on the bed. His brother was laying on his side propped up on one elbow absently swirling his finger in a cup of some kind of steaming liquid that he was no doubt supposed to be drinking.
When Jo had spoken Dean had looked up. His tired eyes moved between the three of them watching him from the doorway. Sam could have sworn he almost saw a hint of a smile on Dean’s lips.
“Yeah. I think I am too,” Dean replied. “Thanks for helping to save my ass, Jo.”
“Not a problem, but let’s not keep this as a tradition, okay?”
“It’s old already,” Dean agreed before returning his eyes to the cup in his hand.
Ellen set a hand on Sam’s arm to draw his attention. “Dean’s still got a long way to go, be careful with him,” she told Sam quietly. “We’ll give you boys some room.”
As soon as Ellen and Jo moved aside Sam went into the room, closing the door behind him. It didn’t even feel like the same room. All the lights were on again, Ellen had worked some kind of magic on the stain in the carpet and taken care of all the bloody towels and sheets. One of the bed’s mattresses was also gone, which Sam was pretty sure he didn’t want to know anything about.
By the time he was back at Dean’s side he had forgotten about the room and his focus was solely on Dean. His brother still had dark circles under his eyes and was still too painfully pale, but he was breathing easy and he was staying on his side all on his own. Those two things alone were miracles.
Dean set the cup he was holding on the bed stand and pushed himself up so that he was sitting on the bed. He cringed at the movement but he was strong enough to do it.
“Dean...”
He couldn’t care less how much Dean hated it. He moved in to embrace his brother. He just needed to feel that he was really there and really sitting on his own power. Dean seemed to know that he needed it and let him. To a point.
“Okay. Seriously. Hands off, Sammy. I didn’t turn into your girlfriend while you were gone.”
It was pretty obvious from the fact that Dean only complained and didn’t force his way out of the hug that he had far from recovered his strength, but everything considered he looked worlds better. He was alive and that simple fact caused the relief that flooded through Sam to be nearly overwhelming.
Remembering something else, Sam reached behind Dean and moved the comforter draped over him enough to see his back. “Is it really gone?” He couldn’t see for himself because he found a serious load of bandaging covering almost half off Dean’s back.
“Ellen had to go all Zorro on me,” Dean explained, “but yeah, she says it’s gone.”
Sam couldn’t help but set his hand against the uninjured portion of his brother’s back just to feel that his skin felt as it should. Dean squirmed under the touch.
“I’m naked here, dude. Personal bubble,” Dean warned him.
Finally appeased, Sam returned the comforter and stood back to look at Dean who he realized wasn’t actually looking at him.
“Are you really okay?”
It took a long moment but Dean finally looked up from the bed. “Is this over?”
“Almost. The sacrifices have stopped for now and people are getting better.”
“Why just almost?”
“We still need to burn the bones.”
“I’m coming. Tell Ellen I can get out of bed.”
Sam couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought that Dean was waiting on permission from Ellen to get up. Dean just glared up at him.
“It’s not funny. She won’t give me my clothes.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you at least finish that chicken broth, boy. Last time I let you stand on your own you passed out and nearly cracked your head open on the bathtub,” Ellen said as she came back into the room.
“I need to do this, Ellen.”
“The last thing you need to be doing is digging up a grave.”
“I don’t wanna dig. That’s what I got Sam for.” There was a trace of the old twinkle in his eye though it quickly faded to dark. “I want to watch the bitch burn.”
“You’re owed that much,” Ellen agreed. “Jo and I can help finish this up if you need.”
“No,” Dean replied. “I think I need to do this.”
“I thought you might say as much.”
Ellen moved back to Dean’s side and dropped a clean set of cloth on the bed next to him. Before moving away she set her hand on his cheek and waited for him to meet her eyes.
“You do good work, kid. This world is far better off with you still in it. Don’t you ever doubt that. You hear me?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“That’s a good boy. Take care of him, Sam.”
Sam had every intention of doing just that. Dean might be wholly convinced that he was the only one with care taking responsibilities here, but it was a two way street and neither of them were going to survive this without the other one.
~~~
Quiet Bay Pioneer Cemetery
“How many people died?”
Dean’s question came out of nowhere and Sam knew that nothing good would come from answering it. From what Ellen had told him about Dean’s being in two places at once, Dean had seen most of the victims first hand. He’d had to watch and Sam knew that nothing he said was going to make that just go away.
“Don’t, Dean. Just don’t.”
He turned back to look at Dean. His brother wasn’t all that steady on his feet, but he was standing on his own. It was everything he had wanted for Dean to be at his side again, but mentally Dean was far from here. He wasn’t yet the annoying brother that Sam wanted back so badly.
His brother’s eyes were locked in on the flames in the pit at his feet. Dean hadn’t said a single word the whole time Sam had been excavating Laraba’s casket or while he’d stood aside and let Dean tear the stone from the remains of her body cavity.
Dean had wanted to bust it up himself, but Sam had convinced him that it wasn’t worth screwing his back up anymore over. Instead Dean had stuck to burning the remains. It didn’t require the exertion that Dean usually craved to relieve frustration, but Sam was pretty sure that Dean was still too exhausted to lift a sledgehammer anyway.
“You get this wasn’t your fault, right?” Sam asked.
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“Jo and I went through the city records. The property that the sanitarium sits on...Dean, it did sell last month. The new owners are just waiting for an okay on the development rights. If we hadn’t come the demolition would have broken the binding and this thing would have been set free. Only there wouldn’t have been anyone here to stop it.”
Leaving the sight of the open grave, Dean walked over and kicked at the shattered remains of the stone. His brother didn’t look at Sam let alone look like he planned to say anything in reply.
“Twelve of the people who died here would have died whether or not you had come and even if they left the sanitarium standing, in ten years another twelve and then another. No one else is going to die here because you stopped this. Don’t beat yourself up, Dean.”
His brother went back over to the car and dug out the whiskey flask Sam had hidden beneath the driver’s seat the night he had been sure he was going to lose Dean. Sam was going to tell him to put it down, but if Dean wanted a drink he sure deserved one.
Dean sat stiffly on the edge of a cemetery bench before he finally spoke. “She thanked me.”
“Who?”
“The soul eater.”
Sam shook his head and put down the shovel to join Dean on the bench. The weight Dean put on himself because of Dad and his own stubbornness wasn’t something that Sam could take from him. No matter how hard he tried, Dean refused to let him. He could only help him carry it.
He was quiet as he tried to think of what he could say that Dean would listen to, but he realized a moment later that he didn’t have to say anything at all.
“It’s what I had to do. Wouldn’t change it,” Dean told him flatly. “I just wish I was the only one to get screwed for it.”
“Do you still want out?”
Dean took a swig from the flask before he glared at Sam. “Dude. I was dying. You can’t use that against me.”
“Do you know what people say when they’re dying?”
“Anything their dopey Lifetime movie network watching little brother wants to hear?”
Sam raised a brow at him. “The truth. They say the truth, Dean.”
“The truth, Sammy? I really don’t want you in this fight alone, but you’re not. I’m still here and we’re still in this.” He looked away for a moment before looking back to Sam. “I’m strong enough to do whatever we gotta do.”
“I know you are. It’s about time you saw it too.”
“Yeah, whatever. Do you know what else I am?”
“What’s that?”
“Starving. My gut is telling me we’ve got days worth of missed meals to make up for and you weren’t wrong about the local diner’s claim to fame - world’s best huckleberry pie. And double stack cheeseburgers.”
Sam shook his head and smiled. “I’m sure that’s exactly what Ellen had in mind for your first real meal.”
“What can I say? You gotta do what you gotta do, Sammy.”
He could tell by the look in Dean’s eyes that his brother wasn’t talking about eating, but it didn’t matter. As he watched Dean slowly get up and walk back to the car he knew that his big brother had a long way to go, but he was going to be okay. They both were.
Summary: Dean's obsession with apparently random medical deaths mirrored from his past lands him and Sam in the middle of a deadly epidemic.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Born Under a Bad Sign'
Word Count: 4,341 for this part
Author's Note: Takes place in 2007 post 'Born Under a Bad Sign' with flashbacks to 1987. Many thanks to Amberdreams for the wonderful editing assistance. Master post can be found here.
~~~
Continued from Chapter 12
~~~
“It will soon be your turn, child,” the soul eater assured him.
“Awesome,” Dean muttered in reply. “Can’t wait.”
He paced the boundary of her circle as he tried to work up a new plan. Now he knew for a fact that she wasn’t just a ghost. It had been easy enough to think she was when he’d been a kid and everything had been simple. When it had been easy enough to say take me and have this town without even wondering what that meant.
Now he still had to make those choices but he had to wade through the grey to find the right way. The funny thing was that it didn’t change the calls he made. It just made him feel like crap when he made them.
Like now. It was easy enough to tell Ellen to kill him. Hell, he was basically dead anyway and maybe he was looking for an out, but he was lying to himself if he thought Sam was really just going to walk away. He’d seen what Jessica’s death had done to his brother. He knew exactly what Sam would do if his brother was taken out by some other dark and nasty and he wasn’t going to let that happen.
Being in this world hurt more than he could take most of the time, but he’d dragged Sam back into this fight and he owed it to his little brother to see him through it. He had promised Dad he would. Of course he had promised Dad more than he could deliver on.
Really it didn’t matter what he did. Everything had some kind of ugly consequence. There was no winning in this crap world, but that was life. He could feel sorry for himself later.
Right now he was surrounded by souls that were sacrifices because he’d opened the floodgates for this thing. He didn’t know what a soul eater was exactly, but he’d caught on from the pieces he’d heard of Ellen and Bobby’s phone conversations. He’d also seen and heard enough from the thing itself to get the gist.
By taking him when she was ready for him and no sooner, she’d break free all the stronger than she’d ever been bound up here. It would be open season on this town and plenty of others. That was why he needed to get out of here on his own timeline, before she had the strength she needed.
He hadn’t had a choice before. He’d done what he’d done to save his family, not to hurt anyone. Sure he should have known and sure the world would be better off if it was still Dad here, not him, but Dad wasn’t here. Dad had left him in this alone, again, and what he’d done was done. There was no taking it back. There was only stopping it. He was far from a willing sacrifice now.
But the shifting walls kept collapsing in around him and nothing he did even got noticed. Not by the soul eater and not by the other spirits around him. The creature twisted and shifted her form at will, took who she wanted when she wanted and she’d thanked him. Without his sacrifice this all wouldn’t have been possible, she had assured him. Well screw her.
Dean had heard what Ellen was saying about the ritual clear as day. He’d heard and seen everything including the ritual in the book because he hadn’t been watching from his body.
Forcing himself back into the physical he had tried to yell at her to stop interrogating Bobby and just do it already, but his body wasn’t playing along anymore. The soul eater had taken too much from him. The additional strength he’d had when outside of his body was fading too. He was fading.
This was his fight and he was the only one in it that couldn’t do a damn thing. At least it turned out that his body was still good for something. He didn’t know exactly how this ritual worked on the mystical side so he wanted to make sure to be in his body once the connection was cut if only so that the soul eater didn’t get her final sacrifice.
It was easier said than done. The motel room kept flashing out as he felt the pull of this thing strengthen. At least with the first slice of the sharpened steel blade into his back he had something to grab on to. He held on to the searing pain and turned it into something he could focus on.
Despite his best efforts to let the pain swallow him, suddenly he wasn’t bleeding out on a motel bed but was standing in the center of the circle he had earlier been excluded from. At first he didn’t see the soul eater there but then he sensed her behind him. He tried to turn to face her but he was now as frozen out of his body as he had been inside of it. It wasn’t like he had to see to know what she was doing.
Things flashed out again as the symbol was broken further. Enough so that he could warn Ellen to move it along. Time was up for everyone involved.
A suffocating wall of energy came down around him in the non-physical, and in the physical he was drowning in his own blood. There was nowhere left to go. In the next instance he had expected nothing but an end to existence. Sorry Sammy. It turned out he didn’t have it in him after all.
But oblivion didn’t come. Instead he felt a painfully desperate need for oxygen. His mind checked out and his body took over. It spat out the hot liquid that blocked his airway and pulled in a greedy gulp of air that his lungs finally accepted. That simple action had taken all the energy he had left.
~~~
Pushing the book away, Ellen rolled Dean’s limp body onto its side to take the pressure off his chest. With one hand she kept a towel pressed tight against the wounds on his back while the fingers of her other hand searched his neck for a pulse.
“Oh thank god,” she gasped in relief.
It was way too fast and not nearly strong enough, but it was there, which was far better than what she had feared. Finally she could hear his breathing too.
The breaths were now so quiet compared to the forced attempts for air that she had been hearing from him that it almost sounded like he wasn’t breathing at all. In reality the volume was now a lot closer to normal. It would be a comfort except that like his pulse, the breaths were just too shallow and the rhythm far from steady.
While it wasn’t what she wanted, he was at least stable enough for her to take care of his back before he lost any more blood. Tipping him back over onto his stomach she pulled the towel away to get a look at the wounds. She gently mopped away the blood that quickly pooled at the small of his back.
The large angry cuts she had made were brutally visible against his pale skin, but the raised symbol of sacrifice had vanished as if it had never been there at all. With that confirmed she returned the pressure of the towel. This time Dean seemed more aware of the sensation there and took a sharp intake of breath as she pressed against his back.
She looked to his face and realized that his eyes were open. His vision was unfocused but he was still conscious. Even though his dilated pupils didn’t move from their fixed position he seemed to realize that she was watching him.
“It worked,” he told her hoarsely.
“That’s a good thing. A real good thing.”
As she repositioned the towels on his back her hand brushed against his skin. Not liking what she felt, she set a hand on his shoulder. His skin that had felt so painfully hot a minute earlier was now cold and clammy though he was still drenched in sweat. It was then that she realized how badly his naked body was beginning to shiver. She eased her pressure on the wounds long enough to recover the comforter that had been abandoned on the floor before she’d arrived.
Carved ritual symbols be damned, if she thought there was any doctor available to see him she’d already have an ambulance on its way. Shock could kill him as well as any demon could, but there was no one to see him so she was just going to have to stop the bleeding herself and get him warmed as fast as she could.
She threw the comforter over him where he lay and tucked it snuggly around him. She only left enough of his bare skin exposed to clean up the wounds. After a quick trip to the bathroom she returned with an ice bucket full of warm water. Carefully she began to clean the area well enough to get it bandaged.
From the tensing of his back and muffled groans it was painfully obvious that his nerves were working all too well. Still he didn’t complain. Instead he coughed again, but this was different than any she had heard before from him. It didn’t sound deep, more just like his throat was irritated. At the least his lungs were clearing out.
She started pulling gauze from her kit when he spoke again. “Don’t waste too much of that. I need a shower.”
“Don’t you even think about getting uppity with me. You’re staying put until you got some strength back. You’re not fit to stand.”
“A bath?”
She realized what he was asking when she lifted the comforter to really look at the bed. The mattress he laid on was soaked in his own blood and he was laying in a sticky mess of it. It was little wonder the boy wanted to get clean, but she couldn’t physically haul him to the bathroom until he was able to at least put his own feet under him.
“Soon, sweetie. Let’s just try sitting up first.”
“Yeah...okay.”
Given that he hadn’t moved under his own will since she’d arrived in town just sitting up probably sounded like an insurmountable task to the poor boy. He grimaced and was obviously still painfully weak and disoriented, but he was able to help her move him into a fairly upright position. She helped steady him and repositioned the comforter so that it was still tucked warmly around him.
With a fresh moistened towel she wiped some of the blood from his face. His eyes were blank, but she needed him to stay with her. Aside from having lost so much blood he hadn’t eaten in days. He wasn’t going to get any stronger until she got something into him.
Her hand grasped the cup that had earlier held ice chips. She steadied his head and put the cup to his lips. At first he hesitated, choking on the water with more of it running down his chin than into his mouth but then he started gulping it down far too fast. It killed her, but she had to pull the cup out his reach.
“Thirsty,” he protested.
“I know you are. That’s real good, but you’ve just gotta take it slow.”
She moved to sit down on a clean spot on the bed next to him and put her arm around him. He was going to make it. She breathed a grateful sigh of relief at that realization.
Again she placed a kiss on his forehead before standing up. If she was going to keep the youngest of the Winchester boys sane she was going to have to do her best to have Sam’s brother put back together for him by the time he got back.
~~~
Green Bay City Hall
Sam slipped the phone back into his pocket before joining Jo at the basement records desk. Earlier they had been getting around authorities because there just wasn’t anyone on the streets, but not too long ago everything had changed.
People were starting to move around again, but they still hadn’t had any problems given that in all the commotion no one thought anything of the two officers coming in to check some old county medical records. Usually a small town like this would have been suspicious of officers that they didn’t recognize, but so many strangers had come in to help deal with the outbreak that no one really knew who anyone was here.
“So what’s the word?” Jo asked.
“I guess it worked. Dr. Hammond says the survivors are starting to recover and Ellen says Dean isn’t sick anymore. We just have to find this body before this thing finds a way around this.”
“Dig in,” Jo said as she handed Sam half the sanatorium records before she started flipping through her own pile. “Do we have any idea what we’re even looking for?”
“Bobby was pretty sure that the living version of the soul eater would have traveled up from the Caribbean, I guess the lore carried over there. We’re looking for any name that sticks out.”
If any one on this list had immigrated from Nigeria or another Hausa based community the name should be pretty obviously from the rest. Mostly they were looking at a long list of Joes, Johns, Roberts, Marys and Sarahs.
“Like uh...’Laraba’?” Jo read off one of the sheets.
“Seriously?” Sam put down his papers and leaned over to see Jo’s. “That has to be her. Did she die here?”
“Let’s see...sure did. It says here that she died in 1918 of the Spanish Flu after visiting Astoria.” Jo put the papers down and looked to Sam. “The timing matches with those other records I was talking about. The increase in unexplained deaths started in 1916, but stopped in 1927. They started in on the ten year cycle after that.”
“That must have been the year she was bound. Please tell me it says where she’s buried.”
“Quiet Bay Pioneer Cemetery. Plot thirteen.”
“Perfect. Let’s swing by the motel. There are shovels in the Impala.”
~~~
Sam could barely wait for the patrol car to stop before he jumped out and nearly ran towards the motel room. He wasn’t really here for shovels. Ellen had assured him that Dean was awake and talking, getting stronger, but in his head all he could still see was his brother too weak to breathe.
By the time he reached the motel room door Ellen had already opened it. The moment he saw her he pulled her into his arms. If Dean had needed anything, it had been her and Sam had just as badly needed to know that she was there for Dean.
“Ellen, I don’t even know how to thank you.”
“You brought my daughter back safe. It’s a fair trade.”
He met Ellen’s eyes as he pulled back. She looked as exhausted as he felt. There was really no way that he could have done this alone. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jo coming up behind them.
“Jo did a lot of good work on this.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Ellen replied with a warm smile to her daughter. “She’s a smart girl, even if she don’t listen so good.”
“You know you love that about me,” Jo replied with a grin of her own before leaning in between her mom and the doorframe. “Hey Dean, glad you’re not dead.”
Sam looked over Jo to see Dean on the bed. His brother was laying on his side propped up on one elbow absently swirling his finger in a cup of some kind of steaming liquid that he was no doubt supposed to be drinking.
When Jo had spoken Dean had looked up. His tired eyes moved between the three of them watching him from the doorway. Sam could have sworn he almost saw a hint of a smile on Dean’s lips.
“Yeah. I think I am too,” Dean replied. “Thanks for helping to save my ass, Jo.”
“Not a problem, but let’s not keep this as a tradition, okay?”
“It’s old already,” Dean agreed before returning his eyes to the cup in his hand.
Ellen set a hand on Sam’s arm to draw his attention. “Dean’s still got a long way to go, be careful with him,” she told Sam quietly. “We’ll give you boys some room.”
As soon as Ellen and Jo moved aside Sam went into the room, closing the door behind him. It didn’t even feel like the same room. All the lights were on again, Ellen had worked some kind of magic on the stain in the carpet and taken care of all the bloody towels and sheets. One of the bed’s mattresses was also gone, which Sam was pretty sure he didn’t want to know anything about.
By the time he was back at Dean’s side he had forgotten about the room and his focus was solely on Dean. His brother still had dark circles under his eyes and was still too painfully pale, but he was breathing easy and he was staying on his side all on his own. Those two things alone were miracles.
Dean set the cup he was holding on the bed stand and pushed himself up so that he was sitting on the bed. He cringed at the movement but he was strong enough to do it.
“Dean...”
He couldn’t care less how much Dean hated it. He moved in to embrace his brother. He just needed to feel that he was really there and really sitting on his own power. Dean seemed to know that he needed it and let him. To a point.
“Okay. Seriously. Hands off, Sammy. I didn’t turn into your girlfriend while you were gone.”
It was pretty obvious from the fact that Dean only complained and didn’t force his way out of the hug that he had far from recovered his strength, but everything considered he looked worlds better. He was alive and that simple fact caused the relief that flooded through Sam to be nearly overwhelming.
Remembering something else, Sam reached behind Dean and moved the comforter draped over him enough to see his back. “Is it really gone?” He couldn’t see for himself because he found a serious load of bandaging covering almost half off Dean’s back.
“Ellen had to go all Zorro on me,” Dean explained, “but yeah, she says it’s gone.”
Sam couldn’t help but set his hand against the uninjured portion of his brother’s back just to feel that his skin felt as it should. Dean squirmed under the touch.
“I’m naked here, dude. Personal bubble,” Dean warned him.
Finally appeased, Sam returned the comforter and stood back to look at Dean who he realized wasn’t actually looking at him.
“Are you really okay?”
It took a long moment but Dean finally looked up from the bed. “Is this over?”
“Almost. The sacrifices have stopped for now and people are getting better.”
“Why just almost?”
“We still need to burn the bones.”
“I’m coming. Tell Ellen I can get out of bed.”
Sam couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought that Dean was waiting on permission from Ellen to get up. Dean just glared up at him.
“It’s not funny. She won’t give me my clothes.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you at least finish that chicken broth, boy. Last time I let you stand on your own you passed out and nearly cracked your head open on the bathtub,” Ellen said as she came back into the room.
“I need to do this, Ellen.”
“The last thing you need to be doing is digging up a grave.”
“I don’t wanna dig. That’s what I got Sam for.” There was a trace of the old twinkle in his eye though it quickly faded to dark. “I want to watch the bitch burn.”
“You’re owed that much,” Ellen agreed. “Jo and I can help finish this up if you need.”
“No,” Dean replied. “I think I need to do this.”
“I thought you might say as much.”
Ellen moved back to Dean’s side and dropped a clean set of cloth on the bed next to him. Before moving away she set her hand on his cheek and waited for him to meet her eyes.
“You do good work, kid. This world is far better off with you still in it. Don’t you ever doubt that. You hear me?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“That’s a good boy. Take care of him, Sam.”
Sam had every intention of doing just that. Dean might be wholly convinced that he was the only one with care taking responsibilities here, but it was a two way street and neither of them were going to survive this without the other one.
~~~
Quiet Bay Pioneer Cemetery
“How many people died?”
Dean’s question came out of nowhere and Sam knew that nothing good would come from answering it. From what Ellen had told him about Dean’s being in two places at once, Dean had seen most of the victims first hand. He’d had to watch and Sam knew that nothing he said was going to make that just go away.
“Don’t, Dean. Just don’t.”
He turned back to look at Dean. His brother wasn’t all that steady on his feet, but he was standing on his own. It was everything he had wanted for Dean to be at his side again, but mentally Dean was far from here. He wasn’t yet the annoying brother that Sam wanted back so badly.
His brother’s eyes were locked in on the flames in the pit at his feet. Dean hadn’t said a single word the whole time Sam had been excavating Laraba’s casket or while he’d stood aside and let Dean tear the stone from the remains of her body cavity.
Dean had wanted to bust it up himself, but Sam had convinced him that it wasn’t worth screwing his back up anymore over. Instead Dean had stuck to burning the remains. It didn’t require the exertion that Dean usually craved to relieve frustration, but Sam was pretty sure that Dean was still too exhausted to lift a sledgehammer anyway.
“You get this wasn’t your fault, right?” Sam asked.
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“Jo and I went through the city records. The property that the sanitarium sits on...Dean, it did sell last month. The new owners are just waiting for an okay on the development rights. If we hadn’t come the demolition would have broken the binding and this thing would have been set free. Only there wouldn’t have been anyone here to stop it.”
Leaving the sight of the open grave, Dean walked over and kicked at the shattered remains of the stone. His brother didn’t look at Sam let alone look like he planned to say anything in reply.
“Twelve of the people who died here would have died whether or not you had come and even if they left the sanitarium standing, in ten years another twelve and then another. No one else is going to die here because you stopped this. Don’t beat yourself up, Dean.”
His brother went back over to the car and dug out the whiskey flask Sam had hidden beneath the driver’s seat the night he had been sure he was going to lose Dean. Sam was going to tell him to put it down, but if Dean wanted a drink he sure deserved one.
Dean sat stiffly on the edge of a cemetery bench before he finally spoke. “She thanked me.”
“Who?”
“The soul eater.”
Sam shook his head and put down the shovel to join Dean on the bench. The weight Dean put on himself because of Dad and his own stubbornness wasn’t something that Sam could take from him. No matter how hard he tried, Dean refused to let him. He could only help him carry it.
He was quiet as he tried to think of what he could say that Dean would listen to, but he realized a moment later that he didn’t have to say anything at all.
“It’s what I had to do. Wouldn’t change it,” Dean told him flatly. “I just wish I was the only one to get screwed for it.”
“Do you still want out?”
Dean took a swig from the flask before he glared at Sam. “Dude. I was dying. You can’t use that against me.”
“Do you know what people say when they’re dying?”
“Anything their dopey Lifetime movie network watching little brother wants to hear?”
Sam raised a brow at him. “The truth. They say the truth, Dean.”
“The truth, Sammy? I really don’t want you in this fight alone, but you’re not. I’m still here and we’re still in this.” He looked away for a moment before looking back to Sam. “I’m strong enough to do whatever we gotta do.”
“I know you are. It’s about time you saw it too.”
“Yeah, whatever. Do you know what else I am?”
“What’s that?”
“Starving. My gut is telling me we’ve got days worth of missed meals to make up for and you weren’t wrong about the local diner’s claim to fame - world’s best huckleberry pie. And double stack cheeseburgers.”
Sam shook his head and smiled. “I’m sure that’s exactly what Ellen had in mind for your first real meal.”
“What can I say? You gotta do what you gotta do, Sammy.”
He could tell by the look in Dean’s eyes that his brother wasn’t talking about eating, but it didn’t matter. As he watched Dean slowly get up and walk back to the car he knew that his big brother had a long way to go, but he was going to be okay. They both were.