Fic: Treasure - Chapter Six - (Sam/Dean - NC-17)
Back to Chapter Five
CHAPTER SIX
To Dean’s relief, Sanders acts like nothing has changed, like he hasn’t watched Sam stick his tongue down his big brother’s throat and grope his ass. Sam, like the good little actor he used to be, slides into it, behaving like Sanders is just another witness or victim of the week, putting on his most helpful and serious demeanor.
“A nest?” Sanders repeats, leaning back in his chair. “How sure are you?”
“Pretty sure,” says Sam.
“Really pretty sure,” adds Dean, feeling Sam shoot him an irritated look.
“Maybe nest is the wrong word, but we know they gotta have a base, a safe place where these new mutants are being born - or produced. What we gotta do is strike against this nest. Discover where it is and annihilate it,” Sam says.
Dean represses the urge to shiver, there’s something so matter-of-fact about his brother’s tone, something chilling in the way he’s laying this out there. Not that he disagrees of course. He’s not some freaking bleeding heart, standing up for mutant rights; hell, he’s killed more of the fuckers than anyone on this base. They need to be destroyed, it’s a simple them against us situation. But still, the way Sam’s talking about taking out this nest.
This is something else entirely.
Sanders nods. “I completely agree. Sam, do you have any idea what we’re looking for? Where this nest might be?”
Sam shakes his head. “Honestly, Sir, I couldn't say for certain. But my best guess is that it’s close. That’s it’s in one of the wooded areas, maybe underground or in some sort of cave.”
“Underground?” Dean queries. “Like under the earth, underground?
Sam gives him an indulgent look. “Yes, Dean, like that. The new specimens have soil ingrained in their feet and claws and it’s -“ he frowns - “it’s different to what the older specimens have. I mean, sure, they’re all covered in dirt, they live in the outdoors, but this is - different. And then there’s the physical changes we’re seeing, the way they’re evolving right in front of us. It all points towards them leading a more subterranean existence.”
Sanders nods again, his lips pursed in that way that means he’s taking in every word Sam’s saying. Dean slants a look at his brother, that warm, familiar pride in his chest, that almost awestruck sensation hooking at his insides. Sam’s so goddamn smart, so goddamn amazing. None of them have any freaking idea.
He clears his throat and Sanders narrows his gaze on him. “Commander?”
“Sir, we should arrange reconnaissance missions immediately,” he says. “Have teams go out there to explore each area systematically. Look for any signs of a nest or some sort of habitat or any kind of disturbance underground. We should start right away.”
“Yes, yes, I agree.” Sanders gets up from his desk, stalks towards the corner of the office to his ever-present coffee pan. He pours himself a cup, doesn’t bother asking them if they want a refill. He must be very distracted. He takes a long sip, leaning his ass back against the stove. “We will need to brief Gold and Silver Leaders immediately. Sam, you should be involved too. If that’s okay with you?” He turns his attention to Sam, raises his eyebrows.
“Uh, yeah, yes, of course, Sir,” Sam answers quickly.
“You can go now,” Sanders says, bowing his head to stare down into his coffee mug. He looks up again as they get to their feet, Sam curling his fingers around his cane and levering himself up from the chair. “And Sam, thanks for bringing this to me. This could be vital to the future of this base - indeed, to the future of all of us.”
Dean sneaks a glance at his brother, Sam’s blushing a little, but he’s meeting Sanders’ eyes, accepting the compliment as his due. “Thanks, but I’m just doing my job.”
Sanders nods in return, holding Sam’s gaze for a second, before his eyes sweep over them both in that assessing, scrutinizing way of his. Dean cringes, the urge to run from the room tugging at him. He clamps it back, ducks his head as he holds the door open for Sam to walk through, sighing in relief when they’re both on the other side.
They don’t speak for a couple of minutes as they make their way towards the lab then Sam says, “That guy remind you of Dad?”
Dean freezes, an instinctive reaction to Dad’s name; it’s only momentary, automatic, and something he should’ve gotten over years ago, just like he’s gotten over Dad’s death years ago, but still.
“Yeah,” he says, “sometimes.”
Sam nods, huffs out a breath, a faint smile. “Me too.”
**
Both Suzie and Ron are working when they get to the lab, the two of them hunched over an exam table holding a mutant cadaver, prodding and slicing into it with the sort of ghoulish satisfaction that reminds Dean disconcertingly of Robinson. At some point they must’ve removed the muzzle, it’s lying on the table holding their instruments, blood and pus-caked, stained brown.
He swallows back the nausea churning in his gut, and follows Sam across the room to his desk. He watches Sam log into his computer, but he’s looking up again before he realizes it, attention drawn irresistibly back to the dead mutant, to the way Suzie’s scalpel slices over the veiny protrusions in its chest. He doesn’t need to look, and he definitely doesn’t want to look, but he can’t help himself. It’s car-crash stuff.
“So, you guys find anything interesting?” he calls over to them.
Suzie raises her head and blinks at him, pushing her bangs out of her eyes with the back of her latex-covered hand. “Possibly,” she says, “we’re just looking into its circulatory system. Did you know that they’re cold blooded?”
“No,” he answers, “no, I did not know that.”
“Oh yes; they’re truly fascinating creatures. Right now, we’re just watching the way the blood goes round -“
“- wait a minute - are you telling me that thing ain’t dead?”
Suzie blinks at him again. “No, of course it’s not dead, Dean. Why would you think that?”
He wets his lips, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, a niggle of something at the bottom of his spine: unease, dread, his spidey sense. “Just that the way you’re slicing and dicing there, dude. Don’t ya think -“
“It’s the best way to examine them,” Sam cuts in. “Relax, man. They know what they’re doing.”
“We don’t kill them,” Ron adds. “It would be counterproductive to what we’re trying to achieve. We want to know how they function when they’re alive.”
“Oh right, so in that case, how many shots you -“
The mutant rears up from the exam table, and seizes Ron, teeth sinking into the fleshy part of his arm with a bone-crunching snap. Ron howls, and Dean’s moving, hauling Suzie away and reaching for his weapon with his other hand.
Except -
There’s nothing there. He’s not carrying.
He’s defenseless. They’re defenseless and there’s a live, really fucking awake mutant right there: chowing down on one of Sam’s co-workers.
“Dean! Get down!”
Sam’s yell has him hitting dirt, Suzie dragged down with him, and Sam’s firing - one - two - three - shots whistling over their heads and slamming into the mutant’s bloody torso.
They don’t stop it.
It howls, enraged, and jerks away from Ron, coming for Sam, coming right for Sam -
“Sammy! Head shot! Head shot! Go for the head!” he screams.
He pushes Suzie to the floor, staring wildly around the room for something to grab onto, something to put between the mutant and his brother - a chair - a desk - some way of stopping it getting to Sam. But Sam’s got it, of course Sam has it. This is Sam, his strong, capable, hunter brother, Sam who keeps a weapon in his desk drawer, Sam who’s already firing again, aiming for the head.
One - two bullets slamming into the scaly, empty eye sockets - three - another in its gaping maw - and finally - Jesus - finally - it staggers and drops.
The after-silence seems to last forever, but it must only be a few seconds, Dean’s ears ringing with the gun-shots and the creature’s howls. Distantly, he becomes aware of Suzie sobbing and shaking underneath him, and above that noise, more distinctive, his body attuned to it like nothing else: his brother’s voice.
“Dean, Dean, you okay? Dean?”
He raises his head, blinks, stares blankly at his brother. Sam’s eyes are wide, terrified, frantically running over him. He stumbles forward, looms over Dean.
Dean nods, catching his breath. “Yeah, yeah, we - uh. It didn’t get us. I’m okay, man.”
Sam nods, relieved. He leans in and curls his fingers around Dean’s forearm, pulling him in closer. Dean lets him, fists his own hand in Sam’s sleeve, holding onto him, steadying himself. He reaches down with his other hand and helps Suzie to her feet. Slowly, reluctantly, all three of them turn and look down at the dead mutant.
“Is it dead? Is it definitely dead?” Suzie whispers.
Dean swallows, unlatches his fingers from their death grip on Sam’s sleeve and moves to lean over the dead and bloody body. He kicks it in the head with the toe of his boot. It doesn’t move.
“Yeah, it’s dead.”
“Head-shots,” Sam murmurs, “head-shots - you never said they -“
“Sam,” Dean cuts him off, directing a look at his brother, then turning his head towards the broken, crumpled figure of Ron.
He’s slumped on the floor, cradling his arm against his chest, face stark and frozen, creased with pain, shoulders pressed into the wall like it’s the only thing holding him up. His arm is bleeding, rivulets of red rolling down it, dripping onto the floor, staining his pale blue scrubs.
Dean looks at his brother; watches his face fall as the realization dawns. He hasn’t got much time for Sam’s co-workers. Sure, Suzie’s a sweet girl and she’s vaguely hot in a cute, geeky way, and she genuinely likes Sam which gets Dean’s seal of approval and shows good taste on her part, but Ron and the other guy, they’re kinda douchey, pretentious and patronizing, and way too used to taking advantage of Sam’s workaholic nature. But still - this - Christ - no one deserves to go out like this.
He puts his hand on his brother’s shoulder, squeezes hard then reaches down to pry the Taurus out of his hand.
“It’s okay, man. I got this,” he says.
“Wait - what are you? You’re not gonna?” Suzie babbles.
He looks at her then looks at the petrified, curled-up figure of Ron. “It’s the best way, Suzie, trust me.”
She holds his gaze for a moment, her blue eyes wide and red-rimmed with tears, then she nods, giving in.
He gives her a weak smile and walks across the room towards Ron.
He stands over the guy, weapon dangling from one hand. Slowly, Ron tilts his head back and gazes up at him. He pulls his knees up to his chest, hugs his arms around them, uncaring now of the blood running freely down his arm, the small slick pool under him, soaked into his sneakers and scrubs. His face is drained of color, eyes burning and terrified, mouth disappeared in on itself.
“Just - make it quick - one shot. Not sure I could deal with more than one shot.” He makes a strangled sound and swallows hard, squeezing his eyes tight shut and hugging his knees closer to his chest in some deformed version of the fetal position.
“It’ll be quick,” Dean promises. He raises his hand.
“Wait! No, Dean! Wait!”
Sam’s voice stalls him. He whips his head around, stares at his brother.
“No, don’t. We could - not this time. We could leave it.”
“Leave it?” he repeats blankly. By his reckoning it’s been just over a minute since the mutant bit the poor sonofabitch cowering in front of him. He’s known change times to vary a lot, from twenty minutes to a full hour, and technically they have time, but the poor bastard’s got to die. He knows he’s got to die. He’s accepted it; delaying it any further would just be cruel.
Sam wets his lips, flicks a look at Suzie, but she’s looking just as blank and confused as Dean.
“It was one of the new mutants. We haven’t, I mean we don’t know the effects of getting bitten by one of the new mutants. We haven’t had chance to study it yet. These creatures aren’t infected humans, they’re different. They might not spread the infection; they might not have the ability to turn a human.”
“Sam, we can’t take that kinda risk.”
“I’m not asking us to. We put him in one of the cells. We lock him up,” Sam says. “Dean, listen to me. This is an opportunity. We’re not going to get this kind of opportunity, these kinds of conditions again. Out in the field, you can’t do this, but here in the lab…”
Dean blows out a breath, lowers his right hand. “Sam, come on, man, this is a human being. This is your friend. You gotta do the right thing. The humane thing.”
Sam looks at him, mouth curling up into a defiant shape. He drags his eyes away from Dean and shuffles forward, that awkward limp gait of his.
“Ron,” he says. “You agree with me, don’t you? You realize that we gotta do this? We gotta find this out?”
The guy on the floor raises his head, blinks at Sam, eyes tracking listlessly between the three of them.
“I don’t care,” he whispers. “I’m screwed either way.”
Sam hesitates, licks his lips, swings his head Suzie’s way. “Suze? You agree with me?”
Numbly, she nods her head. “Yes. Yes. We gotta do it. And it - Ron - it might not happen. You might not turn!”
“Right, I’m gonna be the lucky one.” Ron’s tone is bleak, but there’s no disguising the faint note of hope behind it, that vague, cruel wrinkle of it won’t be me, I’ll be the lucky one, I’ll be okay.
Dean’s gut wrenches, and he swallows hard, trying to still the rising sensation of foreboding churning at his insides. “Sammy, I don’t like this.”
“I know you don’t,” Sam says.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Sam looks unsure for a fraction of a second, then his face locks down, mouth sets. “Yeah, I do.”
Dean watches silently, finger grazing over the trigger of Sam’s Taurus as Suzie injects Ron with the tranq. He helps them move the heavy, unconscious body to the same gurney they use for transporting mutants. Sam goes to the intercom to speak with Robinson, and after a brief exchange, the doors to the cages slide open.
“You need me to come down there with you?” Dean asks. It’s the first words he’s said since Sam and Suzie decided upon this insane plan, and his voice sounds abrupt and strange in his own ears. Suzie startles and turns to look at him with frightened eyes, while Sam just shakes his head, saying, “No, we got this. You go, Dean.”
He doesn’t leave until he sees the doors to the cages slide closed behind them.
**
He doesn’t see Sam again until much later. It’s after 2am by the time Sam gets back to their room, and Dean’s still awake, staring at the dark ceiling, trying to rationalize what just happened.
It brings back unwanted memories of those months spent alongside that robotic, soul-free version of his brother. That non-Sam person wouldn’t have thought twice about using one of his friends in a science experiment. Soulless Sam let his own brother be turned into a vampire for the sake of a fucking hunt. This would be small change to soulless Sam. But his Sam - the Sammy he loves - he’d never expected this of his Sam.
Hell, maybe he’s being naïve. Sam used to accuse him of assigning noble character traits to him that he doesn’t possess while putting himself down, of insisting on seeing Sam as the more human side of hunting when maybe it was a label he’d never really deserved. Over the years, he’ll admit that Sam’s halo has gotten less shiny, though the way he feels about him hasn’t changed, probably even intensified, considering everything that’s happened to them. He knows that Sam is a great hunter, just like Dad was, and just like Dad, Sam can be pragmatic, single-minded and even occasionally, ruthless. And, now, well, the world is different now. There’s no constitution, no human rights, no real personal freedom. Everything is done for the greater good, for the survival of the human race. Surely, poor unlucky Ron is just a product of this new world.
The door opens with a scratchy click and Dean sits up in bed, murmuring: “Sam?”
The light goes on and Dean blinks as his eyes adjust. He watches his brother close the door behind him. Sam’s shoulders are slumped, back bowed, and Dean knows immediately that whatever Sam was hoping - whatever he was wishing for - it didn’t happen.
Sam turns around and Dean takes one look at his face and any remnants of anger or resentment fade away. He holds out his hand, beckoning Sam closer. “Sam, c’mere.”
Sam looks relieved as he hobbles across the floor, sinking to the edge of the bed with a wince. Dean pushes back the covers and scoots closer, pressing his bare chest up against his brother’s back and circling his arms around him.
“You stupid idiot,” he says softly. “You’re hurting again, ain’t ya? Just when it was getting better. How many freakin’ times I gotta tell you ‘bout wearing that damn thing for so long?”
Sam tilts his head back, pressing his forehead to Dean’s chin, breath puffing against Dean’s collarbone. “I love you,” he says.
Dean flushes - which is a ludicrous reaction, but they don’t actually say this shit to each other, not in actual honest-to-God words, and it feels… good.
“Yeah, well, that’s nice and all,” he says at last, “but you’re still an idiot.”
Sam snickers, and kisses the underside of Dean’s chin, grazing his nose against the stubble. He sighs and pulls away.
“Help me get this thing off? And before you start - I promise I won’t wear it tomorrow.”
“Damn straight.”
He helps Sam into bed and gets the lights. He hears Sam’s breathing start to lengthen, and he thinks his brother’s gone to sleep when Sam suddenly breaks the silence: “He turned, Dean. Just like the rest of them. He still turned.”
“You knew it was a slim chance.”
He can just about make out Sam’s face in the dark. Sam rolls onto his back, eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling, whites gleaming in the near-dark.
“He’s still alive. I mean - well - not him, it. It’s still alive.”
Dean blinks, shocked. “What? Why?”
Sam turns his head Dean’s way, looks at him. “’Cause he - it’s still useful to us. It’s the first known specimen of a human turned by a new-breed mutant. We can -“ he trails off - “well, you know the drill.”
Operate on it. Experiment on it. Dissect it. Use it for training. The same mutant that used to be one of Sam’s co-workers. Jesus, is this what they’ve come to?”
“It’s not human anymore, Dean,” Sam interrupts as if he knows just what Dean’s thinking. “And what d’you think all those other mutants, the old ones down in the cages are? The ones you kill? They were all human beings at some point.”
He sounds a shade defensive, insisting a little too much. But he’s pointing out the freaking obvious. Dean knows all this shit. He knows that most of the sonsofbitches he kills were once regular people, just like the monsters they used to kill back in the day - ghosts, demons, spirits, werewolves, vampires - all of them used to be human at one point. There’s never been any room for sentiment in hunting.
“No, I know that, man. And I agree with you. You know I do. ”
“Yeah, okay,” Sam says, sounding a little grudging. “And I did - I did think about just killing him but - “
“But you gotta think of the bigger picture,” Dean finishes for him.
Sam sighs, “Yeah. The bigger picture. God.”
He sounds tired, more than tired, exhausted, the stupid idiot running himself ragged as usual.
“Hey, c’mere,” Dean says. He shifts back, making room. He pats the empty spot on his pillow. “Put that enormous chrome magnum head of yours here.”
Sam squirms closer, rests his head on the pillow beside Dean.
“Night, Sammy,” he whispers.
He feels Sam’s smile against the back of his neck, then his voice, low and intimate. “Night, Dean.”
**
Sanders wastes no time getting Operation Search and Destroy up and running.
He calls Dean and Sam into a private briefing with the Gold and Silver Leaders. Dean’s the last to arrive, throwing a dirty look Weiner’s way as he knocks on the closed door, fucking dick trying to sabotage him in the most passive-aggressive way ever. Weiner just narrows his eyes at him and goes back to pretending to work or whatever the fuck else he does all day.
When he enters the room he sees Sam, Sanders, Ritchie (the Silver Leader), and Sagna (the Gold Leader), standing over the largest and most detailed map they possess, the one with each Sector marked off and labeled: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo and the grid squares within them.
“Did I miss anything?” he asks.
“No,” Sanders answers. “I was just telling Gold and Silver Leaders our new information.”
“Dean, you hear this shit?” Ritchie says, eyebrows climbing up his forehead. “Those bitches are breeding! There’s a fucking nest out there. Un-fucking-believable.” He shakes his head. “Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse.”
“Actually, this is a good thing,” Sam interrupts.
“How? How exactly is this a good thing?” Ritchie demands, swinging his gaze to Sam.
Sam shrugs. “If we find this nest and if we destroy it, then we’re gonna be a helluva lot better off than we are at the moment. You gotta remember, guys, that the human population on this planet is finite. Apart from people like us who have managed to establish bases across the country, and we’re not even sure how many more of them there are, the rest of humanity is either dead or was turned a long time ago. The old generation of mutants are living in a world with an ever-decreasing food chain, and with people like us out there mowing them down at every turn. If we wipe this nest out that extinguishes their ability to reproduce, at least in this part of the world. And it makes us not the only endangered species round here.” He hesitates, gives them all a bland smile. “In the short term of course, until they evolve again. ‘Cause they will evolve again.”
All three guys, Sanders, Ritchie and Sagna, are staring at Sam, hanging onto his every word. Dean feels a flush of pride and he lets the corner of his mouth quirk up a little. Sam’s been hiding out in that lab for too damn long; he should’ve been up here all this time. After all, he’s the only one among them who really knows what he’s talking about. And these guys have no idea what they’re dealing with here. No one on this base even has a clue what Sam really is behind the gimpy, nerdy exterior.
“So, you heard what Sam said,” Sanders says, turning to look at Sagna, Ritchie and Dean. “This is an opportunity. We gotta treat it like that. And I don’t need to add that this operation is vital to our future survival. We’ve all seen how much they’ve multiplied over the past couple of months. They’re harder to kill; they’re becoming immune to our tranqs. We need to do something now.” He waves a hand over the map spread out across the table between them. “Okay, so we take it sector by sector. We search every grid reference, every square foot on this map. We find this goddamn nest and then we nuke it.” He glances towards Sam again. “You think that the nest is somewhere on this map?”
Dean watches his brother’s eyes skim across the map, quickly calculating and assessing. He nods, raises his head to meet Sanders’ gaze. “Yes. It’s gotta be within at least a thirty mile radius of the base, considering what we’ve been seeing lately. You guys are killing, like, fifty - sixty - seventy a day, right?”
“More than that,” Dean says.
Sam’s eyes meet his briefly and he nods again, all business. “Yes. Well, it all makes sense. Don’t forget that they need to be close to us. They’re drawn to us; they like being close to densely human-populated areas.”
Sanders gives one of his decisive nods. “Okay. Then we get down to business, gentlemen. We start immediately. Divide up the sectors between the teams. Brief your fellow commanders. I want at least three grid squares covered today.”
“Yes, sir,” Dean’s lips move automatically, his voice almost in synch with Ritchie and Sagna.
“Okay, you can go.” Sanders waves a hand to dismiss them. “Sam, do you have a moment?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Sam says. Dean pauses, exchanges a quick glance with his brother - something that doesn’t go unnoticed by Sanders, his shrewd dark eyes narrowing in on Dean.
Dean feels his cheeks redden and he thinks about Sanders watching that footage of him and Sam, of Sanders knowing.
He twists his lips, manages a half-assed salute and runs out the room.
**
On the fifth day, Red Team is covering Charlie Sector Three. This Sector is primarily dense woodland; trees so close together it’s hard to navigate through them, never mind do any kind of tracking. No one’s ventured this deep into the woods for years, they’ve all learned to stick to wide open spaces, places with good vantage points, places where you can see the horizon. Being surrounded by so many trees, the sun barely filtering through the thick dark pines is claustrophobic, intimidating, and downright uncomfortable. And of course, it’s raining, drops clinging to the dark pine needles, seeping into their skin and hair and clothes as they brush past.
They’ve been walking for five hours and he’s pretty sure they’ve just been going in circles, even with Bryce’s freaky innate sense of direction leading the way. He casts a quick glance at the rest of his team, following sullenly in his footsteps; they look unhappy, misery etched into their faces, eyes shifting too quickly, jumping at shadows.
He swallows back the prickle of unease teasing at the back of his neck. He tries to concentrate, keep himself alert, eyes darting to every rustle of the bushes, every swaying branch. This is perfect ambush territory.
“Sir! Incoming!” Street yells from behind, and Dean whirls, cocking his revolver. A pack is heading towards them - four - five - six - of them skimming through the trees like they’re not even there, branches and twigs snapping and breaking to let them through, the air filled with snarls and howls, gnashing mouths and unsheathed claws.
It’s single shots only in this terrain. They can’t risk bullets grazing and ricocheting off the tall tree trunks. He forces his body still. He can take them all out if he keeps calm, if all twelve of his team keep calm. He squints, waits, then roars: “FIRE!”
He lets off a round, hearing the rest of his team joining in. A bullet slices into the nearest creature’s temple, chunks of brain matter and bone and blood exploding and splattering bright red against the brown, black and green.
He takes aim, fires again, sees another fall. The rest are tumbling, falling into the trees, stumbling and screaming; the sound of gunfire not the usual rapid clack of the machine guns, but a steady ear-splitting bang-click-bang-click.
Once he sees the last one fall, he screams: “HOLD! HOLD FIRE!”
Immediately, the shooting stops. His ears are ringing, deafened and foggy with tinnitus, then slowly, he hears someone calling, Lancaster’s panicked voice calling his name: “Sir! Sir! Boss!”
He spins, sees the boy’s terrified upturned face, Bryce on his knees beside him, and lying on the ground in front of them: Navarro, chest and belly stained red.
He springs forward, watches uselessly as Bryce gives CPR, his usually calm gruff voice high and cracked with panic and adrenalin.
“C’mon, Tommy, c’mon, man! Stay with us! Fuck, Navarro, hold on!”
Navarro’s face is slack, lips blue, eyes already glassy. Below him the blood is spreading, pooling underneath his body, seeping into the soil.
Dean swallows, puts his hand on Bryce’s shoulder and squeezes. “Hey, hey,” he says gently. “He’s gone, man. He’s gone.”
Bryce stiffens, freezes in place, hands threaded across Navarro’s chest, back arched. He sinks back on his haunches, brushes down Navarro’s shirt, rearranges his dog-tags, hands petting uselessly.
Dean pats his shoulder again, raises his head. The rest of the team is crowded around, staring down at their fallen comrade. Djourou is cradling his elbow against his chest, blood dripping from a deep graze.
“Gutierrez, see to Djourou’s arm,” he orders.
He turns his back on them, taking a few steps away from the group, coming to a halt by one of the bigger, older trees. There are chunks ripped out of the bark, mottles and marks where the bullets must have grazed. Maybe it was this tree that deflected the fatal bullet, the one embedded in Navarro’s gut. It could’ve been any of them, it could’ve been him. No matter how hard he’d tried, not every one of his bullets had been on target. Friendly fire, the worst kind of oxymoron.
He puts his hand to the back of his neck, eyes scanning listlessly over the never ending swathes of trees fanning out in front of them, dizzying layers and layers of trees, blocking out the sun and the sky above, hemming them in, claustrophobic and caged. His heartbeat is starting to quicken, and he swallows back the nagging edge of panic. They’re not hemmed in, they’re not caught. They’re gonna get out of there. They’re gonna make it back to base and he’ll see Sam again.
That could’ve been him - what happened to Navarro could’ve happened to him. Hell, it probably deserved to be him. He’s had too many second chances, too many escapes from death over the years. He’s disrupted the natural order too many times. And he’d have been okay with it being him. He’s ready to go; he’s been ready these past three years. Only -
He can’t go without Sam, and Sam’s not ready to go yet. Sam believes in what he’s doing. Sam still believes that he can save everybody.
He lets his hand fall to his side. Damn it, they were doing so good, hadn’t lost anybody since Clancy, getting cocky perhaps. Hubris, as Castiel called it all those years ago. He turns around, looks over his team. Some of the guys have tear tracks on their faces, not bothering to hide their sorrow. Some just look resigned, some blank and emotionless. There have been so many deaths. It’s easy - easier - to forget how to grieve for someone. It’s too easy to get immune to it, to the constant death and destruction.
But still, this is Navarro. And Navarro - Jesus - he liked that kid.
He crouches down on the other side of Navarro’s body. He reaches over to close the boy’s eyes, push the wet greasy hair off his face. The way it falls across his forehead in heavy thick clumps reminding him with a wrench of Sam at the same age.
“We should move out,” he says.
Bryce nods his head. “Yes, we should.”
Dean gets his arms under Navarro’s body, gathers him up. He slings him across his shoulders and stands up slowly, adjusting to the new weight. He can feel the blood seeping through from Navarro’s body into his own clothes, the boy’s arms dangling by his left hip.
“Let’s move!” he calls out. “Bryce, get us outta here.”
They walk for ten minutes, his shoulders and back aching with the weight of the dead boy. He’d like to carry him all the way back to the base. It’s what he deserves, though God knows he’s going to have to let someone else take over, stubborn pride and guilt will only get him so far.
Up ahead Bryce comes to a halt. Bryce raises his hand, still with his back to them, the signal for them all to stop. He creeps forward, absorbed in something. Dean frowns and bends down, depositing Navarro’s body carefully amongst the damp leaves and soil. He signals for the rest of the guys to stay put and jogs forward to join Bryce.
“What? What you found? Does it look like the nest?” he hisses.
“Look,” Bryce says. He points towards a couple of large mounds of soil and leaves, a few feet wide and high.
“What? What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“Tunnels,” Bryce says. “Someone’s been tunneling around here.” He takes a couple of steps, puts down his rifle, hunkers down in front of the mounds and digs one hand in, shifting his fingers through the earth and soil and dirt. He tilts his head back, wipes off the dirt on his bloodstained pants, and looks up at Dean. “Like I thought, it’s recent. Someone, or some thing’s been tunneling around here.”
Dean swallows, that prickle of unease - the one that really hasn’t left him at all - starting to edge back under the collar of his jacket, flutter up and down his spine, awaken those goddamn snakes in his belly.
“Some thing?” he repeats.
Bryce nods grimly and straightens up. “Yeah.” He gathers up his rifle, slinging the strap across his shoulder. “It’s too fresh to be human, boss; no human’s been in this part of the woods for years. And it’s too big to be an animal - not that there are any animals left round here, those sonsofbitches have eaten them all.”
“You think it’s the mutants? Digging? Burrowing?” He frowns. “I dunno, man.”
Bryce shrugs. He picks his way around one of the mounds and Dean follows, casting uncertain glances at the piles of earth and leaves. They walk a little way then Bryce stops again and hunkers down, points at something ahead. “Look, there.”
Dean tracks where he’s pointing. The trees are a little thinner here, and there’s a ditch, a spot where the ground falls away in a steep bank. Bryce is pointing to something on the other side of the bank, more piles of disturbed earth and small openings in the opposite bank: tunnel openings.
“Shit,” he breathes.
Bryce guides them out of the woods and back in the direction of the base. It’s less than a mile walk once they clear the edges of the wood, but Dean’s carrying Navarro again after a brief respite and he feels every step.
They don’t encounter any more mutants, thank God, but they do see more of the mounds of earth, more evidence of tunnels.
“These are really fresh,” Bryce mutters as he kneels down beside the last one - right on the edges of the wood - less than a mile from the wall. “Like, last couple of weeks or so. They’re moving fast.”
Dean nods and bites his lip. It’s beginning to dawn on him how truly screwed they are. About a year ago, the mutants gave up on trying to get past the wall, some vague lab-rat intelligence informing them that that way lay only death and pain. These new tunnels must mean only one thing: they’re trying something else.
**
He leaves Bryce to report their findings to Sanders and Sam. Instead, he takes Navarro’s body to the morgue.
He watches the morgue attendants strip and wash and sew up Navarro’s wounds. They unclasp the kid’s dog tags and hand them to him. He makes a fist around them and sighs, dropping his head in his hands as he listens to the attendants finishing up their work. He has to go tell the kid’s family, that cute little sister with the crush on him. He has to tell that their son - their brother - is dead. That he died on his watch. Just one stupid bullet, one damn ricocheting bullet, and they’d been trying so hard, trying to be so damn careful.
He hears the attendants leave then he gets to his feet. He stands over the gurney and pulls back the sheet. Navarro looks - well - he looks dead. Dead like Sammy looked all those years ago at Cold Oak, dead like Lisa, like Ben, like Bobby, like Dad in that hospital. So many people, everyone they know, all of them dead. Except for him and Sam, and what did they ever do to deserve to still be here?
He brushes the hair back from Navarro’s face, combs it neatly back into place with his fingers. For a dead body he doesn’t look too bad. He’s seen worse, and at least the boy was never bit. He’ll tell the family that. It was quick, a bullet wound to the gut, he bled out. Quick and relatively painless and human. He died a human. These days, that’s all they can hope for.
He pulls the sheet back into place. He closes his eyes for a fraction of a second, conscious of the burning behind his sockets, the twinge in his back and shoulders from carrying the body, the cramping stiffness in his joints and muscles from the constant fear and dread.
He leaves the morgue and makes his way towards the civilian quarters to give Navarro's family to bad news.
On to Chapter Seven