Fic: Treasure - Chapter Seven - (Sam/Dean - NC-17)

[sonofabiscuit77]

Back to Chapter Six

CHAPTER SEVEN

Dean’s dreaming again.

He’s in a forest and he’s running. Trees and branches whip against his face, a trickle of blood runs down his cheek, hot tears sting his eyes.

Something’s chasing him.

Dean…

He skids to a stop, tumbles to the ground, claws at the wet dirt, soil clinging to his fingers.

Dean…

“Sam! Sammy! Is that you? Sam, where are you?”

Sam’s not here, Dean. Don’t you recognize me? I’ve been trying to talk to you.

He scrabbles to his feet, spins around. He’s alone. The forest dark and claustrophobic, around him, closing him in. He staggers a couple of steps, stumbles against a tree. He grasps at it, steadies himself, screams out: “Who are you? What do you want?”

I’m your friend, Dean. I’ve always been your friend. I just want to talk to you.

“All my friends are dead!”

Not me. Listen to me, Dean. I can’t stay for long.

His fingers scrape against the bark, splinters dig under his fingernails.

“Who the hell are you? What did you do with Sam? Why are you chasing me?”

I would never hurt Sam. I would never hurt you. I’ve been watching you for a long time. I never abandoned you, Dean. Just listen to me, there’s something you have to -

“Dean!”

He jolts awake, chest heaving, body shaking, hands trembling.

“Dean? Dean?”

Sam’s face is looming over him. “Sam?” he croaks.

Sam leans in, cups his cheek, traces one finger over his eyebrow, another over his parted lips. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Just a dream, man. You were dreaming.”

He gulps, nuzzles into Sam’s hand, inhales the salty familiar scent of his brother’s skin.

“You wanna share?” Sam says.

He pushes Sam away, reaches for the cup of water on his nightstand. Sam shuffles back, giving him some space as he drains the entire cup. He’s still trembling, his muscles aching, stiff with exhaustion and the remnants of the dream. He feels clammy and disgusting, his body slick with sweat. He raises his hand to his neck, slides his fingers under the chain of his dogtags to massage at the cramped up muscles.

“Hey, let me,” Sam says.

He drops his hand, feels Sam scoot closer again then his hands are on Dean’s neck and shoulders, digging in with just the right kind of pressure.

He groans in relief, tips his head back. Sam bends closer, presses a dry kiss to his temple. “I think you should talk about it,” he says.

Of course Sam thinks he should talk about it. It’s what they do these days, they talk about stuff, they share stuff, even stupid nightmares.

“I can’t remember,” he lies.

“Bullshit,” says Sam, and he sounds amused. He pauses in the awesome massaging and says, “If you tell me, I’ll keep going. If you don’t then you’re gonna have to massage your own damn neck.”

“You’re evil.”

Sam chuckles. “Just tell me, Dean.”

“Something was chasing me,” he says at last.

“What was chasing you?”

“Take your fuckin’ pick. Maybe I was just remembering before - the hellhounds. Or maybe, you know - in the forest - with that trap -“ he trails off, feels Sam hesitate for a second in his massaging. “Or perhaps. Fuck, I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

“What do you mean, it’s stupid?”

“I don’t know, man, it was just that it - it felt familiar. It said that it was my friend, our friend, that it was watching us, that it hadn’t abandoned us.” He hesitates, licks his lips. “This, uh, this is probably gonna sound crazy, Sam, but I think it might be Cas. I think he might be trying to talk to me.”

“Cas? But the angels left. He said they couldn’t do anything. They abandoned us.”

“I know, I know. But think about it, man. He used to come to me in dreams all the time.”

“Did he?”

Dean turns around to look at him. “Yeah, you remember? It was like a safe place, where he could get to me without all those other sonsofbitches overhearing. Like our safe place?”

“Your safe place?” Sam repeats, trying and failing to keep the catty note from his voice.

Dean looks at him for a second before his mouth curls up into a delighted grin. “Oh man, you’re jealous. You’re totally jealous.”

Sam removes his hands from Dean’s shoulders and narrows his eyes. “I’m not jealous -“

“Yeah you are. You’re acting jealous of me and Cas. Oh dude, this is so awesome.”

“Jesus, Dean, I’m not jealous of you and Cas, I’ve never been jealous!”

“Haha, yeah, right, of course not.”

Sam makes a frustrated sound and body-checks him, sending him sprawling onto his side. Dean just keeps laughing, reaching out to prod his brother in the side with his big toe.

“You gonna stop laughing anytime soon?”

“You gonna make me?”

Sam raises an eyebrow and pounces, throwing himself down on top of Dean so his body smothers Dean’s own, blanketing him from head to toe. He grabs onto his brother’s flailing arms, jerking them above his head and pinning them down against the mattress.

Dean stares up into Sam’s shadowed face, heart rate quickening, heat awakening in his belly. He could flip them if he wanted, take charge and put himself on top, Sam’s missing limb gives him the advantage in all their brotherly and unbrotherly sparring these days. But this feels good, the weight of his brother’s body pressing him down into the mattress, his hot breath puffing against the side of his face.

“I should make you jealous more often if this is how you react,” he says.

Sam bites his earlobe, hisses: “For the last goddamn time, Dean, I ain’t jealous!”

He snickers. “Sure, Sammy, whatever you say.”

Sam makes an exasperated noise and rolls off him. “Ugh, God, you’re so annoying!”

Dean laughs again and props himself up on his elbows to glance at the clock.

“Aw, crap, it’s after five.”

He heaves himself out of bed and pads to the bathroom, feeling his brother’s gaze on him the entire time.

Sam follows him into the bathroom a minute later; crutch jammed under one arm, still wearing just his boxers. He sits gingerly on the edge of the tub and turns his head to watch Dean shower.

“Go back to bed, dude. You don’t gotta get up yet,” Dean tells him.

“No, it’s fine. Anyway, not gonna go back to sleep now. Today’s the big day, remember?”

Oh shit, of course. The big day. The big mission. He’d forgotten about that.

Yesterday, when Dean got back, when he went to the morgue, when he broke the bad news to Navarro’s parents, when he went back to their room and passed out from tiredness, while he was doing all that, Sam and Sanders and Ritchie and various other important people put together the big plan. The next step in Operation Search and Destroy.

The shower shudders to a stop and Sam grabs onto his hand as he steps out the tub. “Hey, Dean, c’mere,” he says.

Dean lets himself be tugged in; stepping between his brother’s parted thighs. Sam places his hands on his waist, thumbs caressing his slippery wet hip bones; he tilts his head back and stares up into Dean’s face.

“You remember what we talked about before? About you backing me up on this?”

Dean frowns. “I thought you had it all worked out already. You and Sanders and rest of the A-team.” He can’t stop his tone from getting a little sharp over that last part, which Sam doesn’t miss at all, the corner of his mouth quirking up a little as he keeps looking at Dean.

“Yeah, we got a plan,” he says. “But I need you to back me up. I want to come out there with you; I want be part of it. I’m sick of being stuck in here. I haven’t been past the wall in - Christ - you know how long it’s been. Not since we got here! And I want in on this. You know I can help, you know what I can do. You gotta help me convince Sanders.”

“Sam - I -“

“No, before you say it. Just - please. Don’t write me off. I lost my leg, I didn’t lose everything else! I can still shoot, I can still defend myself. Let me go out there. You know I can help.”

His stomach is churning, fingers twitching as he listens to his brother talk. He should’ve known. He should’ve known that Sam wouldn’t be prepared to stay behind, not now that he remembers what it was like to be a part of the real action.

Sam raises his hand from Dean’s hip, cups the side of his face and forces him to look down, to meet his eyes. Dean places his hands either side of his brother’s neck, thumbs brushing the edges of his jaw.

“I’m a hunter, it’s what I am. I want to hunt those sonsofbitches. I want to destroy them,” Sam insists. “I’m sick of watching you go out there on your own. We should be together, Dean, like we used to.”

He caresses his thumbs gently over the firm fragile bones of his brother’s jaw. He trusts Sam implicitly, as a hunting partner, he’s always trusted him. But it’s been years, and okay, so Sam is still Sam, still with the same knowledge and abilities, but -

What if they have to run? What if those things come at them and they have to run and Sam can’t run - that useless piece of shit leg of his - and what’s he gonna do? Crutch himself away?

He takes a breath, says, “You’ll listen to me? You’ll take orders and stay in the Jeep when I tell you to?”

“Yeah, yeah, course. I’m not dumb, I know I’m not gonna be able to keep up on foot.”

Dean swallows, says, “Then, yeah, okay. If this is what you want then I’ll back you up.”

Sam grins, wide and beautiful, and wraps his arms around Dean’s waist, pulling him in and pressing his lips to Dean’s damp chest.

“Thanks, man. You won’t regret it. You and me, huntin’ again. Like it should be, right?”

Dean nods and swallows back the uneasiness, pushing it to the back of his mind. “Yeah, Sammy, yeah.” He rests his hand on the top of Sam’s head and cards his fingers through the messy strands of hair. “You gotta promise me that you’ll follow my orders. You promise that?”

Sam tips his head back and rolls his eyes at him. “Dude, I’ve always followed your orders.”

Dean bites his tongue on all the many, many times Sam hasn’t followed his orders at all over the years. But it’s not gonna help to think of all that. What matters is the two of them and right now and going through with this big mission.

He sinks down to the floor, wet knees on the cold tile. He places his damp palms on Sam’s knee and stump and parts his thighs.

“Dean? What are you doing?”

Dean smirks, puts his thumbs under the edges of Sam’s waistband, and peels down his boxers. “Lift up your ass,” he says.

Sam does and Dean slides the shorts down over Sam’s stump, letting them pool around his one ankle. Sam’s cock is already hardening, filling and thickening as he watches, one eyebrow raised, smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. He leans in, nuzzles his face between his brother’s thighs, licks at his balls.

“Dean, Jesus!” Sam yelps, floundering and grabbing onto the edge of the tub.

Dean chuckles evilly, and tips his head back. “You want me to stop?”

“Fuck no, just - give me some more warning next time. Fuck, man.”

“Well, hold on tight, this is gonna be one helluva ride.”

Sam groans and Dean grins again, licks his lips and sucks the head of his brother’s cock into his mouth.

He makes it as messy as possible, drool running down the swollen red shaft of Sam’s dick, slicking down his own chin. Sam’s breathing heavily, one hand on the back of Dean’s neck, the other locked in a death grip on the rim of the tub. Dean’s got his own hand braced on the end of Sam’s stump, the other cupping and caressing his brother’s balls, fingers playing with the wiry pubic hair.

Sam’s gasping his name, murmuring breathy nonsensical words, Goddamn best blowjob, Dean, so fuckin’ good, so good at this, no one gives head like you…

Damn fucking straight, Dean thinks, and he smiles around his brother’s cock, swirls his tongue against the thick vein on the underside, tongues at the slit. He can feel it when Sam’s about to come, breath hitching, fingers tightening their hold on his neck. Sam holds him in place as his dick pulses and comes into Dean’s mouth. He relaxes his hold and Dean pulls back, cheeks plumped and mouth full of Sam’s release. He raises his eyebrows at his brother, taking in his sweaty, red-faced appearance, and leans over the side of the tub to spit into the bath.

“Oh, man, gross,” Sam says, but he’s laughing, turning his head to watch the goopy white slick of his own jizz and the translucent bubbles of Dean’s saliva circle the drain in one gooey mess. Dean licks his lips and grins unapologetically. He gets to his knees and cups his own erection; holding the base of his cock, he pushes the head towards his brother’s face, smearing it across his lips.

“Now it’s your turn,” he states.

Sam hesitates, but it’s only for a second, then he tilts his head back and smiles. He parts his lips and widens his eyes and lets Dean guide his cock inside his mouth.

Dean sighs blissfully, rests his hands on his brother’s shoulders and closes his eyes.

**

In addition to Sam and Dean, the mission group includes five members of Red Team, five members of Gold Team, Sagna - the Gold Leader, Field - the base’s tall no-nonsense sergeant at arms, and a swarthy, thickset guy called Aprille, an explosive and demolitions expert who usually works with the construction teams.

Sanders pulls Dean aside after the briefing’s over, his dark weathered face unusually tense.

“Are you going to be able to handle this, Dean?” he says. “Having your brother out there with you too?”

Dean blinks, surprised. It had been Sanders who’d suggested that Sam join them in the end, seconding Sam’s proposition with no hesitation, stating that they needed to have an expert in the field, that Sam was the obvious choice.

“I - yeah - yeah - course. Look, Sir, you don’t gotta worry about Sam. You have no idea what he’s capable of. He’s a damn fine hunter, the best. I know you don’t really know what that means, but as a soldier, I’d pick Sam over every other guy in my squad, and you know how good my guys are.”

“I wasn’t asking about Sam, Commander, I was asking about you. Are you going to be able to handle it? Or will it prove a distraction - having your brother out there with you?”

Dean feels his face heat up, and he grits his teeth. He knows exactly what Sanders is implying, but he can be a professional, goddamnit, and this is old news for him and Sam.

“No, not at all, Sir,” he says.

“Okay. Just don’t prove me wrong.”

Sanders’ words are still ringing in Dean’s ears when he climbs into the front of the Red Team’s Jeep alongside Jackson. Sam’s in the back with Bryce, Tachman, Street, Gutierrez and the explosives guy, Aprille, and he has to stop himself from glancing over his shoulder every few seconds to check up on him.

He hates to admit it, but Sanders is right. Having Sam out here with him is distracting. It’s been a long time since it was him and Sam on a hunt, and the old automatic trust and easy synchronicity seems unfamiliar. He can’t help it, but he’s already worrying about Sam, wishing he’d stayed back at the base, safe and snug in CIC with Sanders and that bastard, Weiner.

He’d helped Sam get dressed this morning, helped him pull the military green fatigue pants - the biggest they could find - over the prosthetic. They’d been tight around the bulky prosthetic and baggy around Sam’s slim waist and good right leg, and wonder of wonders, they’d been even a little too long. Sam had stood straight and waited patiently while Dean fiddled with the drawstring and applied safety pins, cinching in the waist and turning up the hems as much as he could. It had reminded him of the times when they were young, when Sammy would go through one of his growth spurts and they’d have to make a trip to a thrift store for new clothes. Dean had usually ended up buying clothes that were too big for his little brother, turning up the hems on Sam’s pants or the cuffs of his shirts, taking in the waists, making do with his less than mediocre sewing skills, ripping the stitches out a couple of months later when Sam hit yet another growth spurt.

He bites his lip and concentrates on the landscape spooling out in front of them, Gold Team’s Jeep just a couple of lengths ahead. The sun is just beginning to rise, the day cloudy and chill, dampness in the air as always.

Unlike humans, the mutants don’t seem to have a particular preference for night or day; the lack of light is irrelevant to them, (they’re blind after all), tracking by smell and sound. He wonders sometimes why they haven’t become fully nocturnal, like other animals with poor vision, hell, like most zombies in most zombie movies. Maybe it’s some sort of leftover human thing, some instinct in them that has them staying out during the daytime. Or maybe, like other cold-blooded animals, they just like the feel of the sun on their skin.

He reviews the plan as they bump across the terrain. It’s pretty simple, though there’s plenty of room for error, and he’s not naive or hopeful enough to think that they’re going to succeed this time around. They have no foolproof way of knowing the exact location of the tunnels. They don’t even know for sure if that’s what the mutants are doing. Still, they’re hoping to cause some damage today, and if Dean’s got anything to say about it, then that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Field and Aprille will place explosives in strategic spots along the tunnel lines, or at least where they think the tunnel lines lie. The explosives should take out the tunnels, render them impassable, and hopefully kill off a few of the motherfuckers at the same time.

Just ahead of them, the Gold Team Jeep skids to a halt. Jackson jams on the brakes, grinding them to a stop a few feet behind. Dean jumps out and walks over to Sagna who’s climbing out of the Gold Team Jeep.

“This the first one?” Dean asks.

Sagna nods, “Yup.”

Dean stands beside Sagna and watches Field, briefcase of explosive devices tucked under his arm, go to join Aprille by the blast site. The rest of Red Team, including Sam, stay in the Jeep, rifles raised, scopes up and barrels pointed out towards the edges of the wood. From this spot, they could be easily caught out; the dark shadowed trees masking all movements inside the wood.

The five members of Gold Team form a perimeter around Aprille and Field as they place the devices, pushing them down into the earth like they’re planting bedding plants. The explosions should be enough to collapse and destroy any tunnels underneath, hopefully suffocating or exploding a good many mutants in the process.

Or at least that’s the plan.

Dean swallows and licks his lips. His mouth is dry, and he thinks about going to fetch his canteen. His arms and shoulders are aching with a dull, persistent throb, muscles still protesting from carrying Navarro’s body for so long the other day and last night’s lack of sleep.

His gaze drifts over towards his brother, unchecked; Sam’s got his rifle on his shoulder, half his face hidden by the scope. He looks calm, almost serene, his face locked into that characteristic Sammy concentration.

“We’re done!” yells Field, dragging Dean’s attention away from Sam and back towards the action. Field’s grim face looking even grimmer as he retrieves the briefcase and jogs back towards Gold Team’s Jeep. Aprille climbs into the back of their Jeep, the remote detonator clutched in one hand.

They drive about twenty yards, still within close sight of the blast points, but out of the blast radius. The explosions should be contained, they’re supposed to be kept mainly underground, but they don’t know how far the tunnels extend underground or how far the reverberations could travel. The two Jeeps, not to mention the guys inside them, are some of the base’s most important assets; they’re not taking any chances.

Dean’s in the back of the Jeep, squashed up close next to Sam, their thighs pressed together. He raises his head, meets Aprille’s eye and gives the order. “Hit ‘em.”

Aprille smiles dourly and presses the button on the detonator in his hand.

The explosion is loud; louder than Dean was expecting. Chunks and clods of earth, leaves and branches rain to the ground. Even at this relative distance, he can feel the dust and soil against his skin, in his lungs, on his tongue, the scene around them reminding him of a climactic scene from one of those old movies about trench warfare. He blinks, wipes the dust from his eyes, and stares.

There are craters in the ground, stones and earth and clods of soil tumbling away at the edges, rolling into the newly formed ditch. He’s overwhelmingly grateful that they moved the vehicles out of the way, if they’d stayed where they were the earth would’ve given way right under the tires, sent them tumbling ass over ears into the ditch.

“Christ,” Sam murmurs beside him.

He snorts in acknowledgement and jumps down off the Jeep, followed by Aprille and Bryce. They approach cautiously, and peer over the edge of the crater.

The first thing that surprises him is that it goes pretty deep. The fuckers must’ve been living underground for a while, building their own little world down here, maybe using some existing underground cave; the hole is certainly deep enough to indicate that this used to be an existing cave. He shudders at the thought, all those mutants living and breathing and maybe even breeding underground like hideous humanoid blindworms.

The second thing he notices when the dust starts to clear is that there are bodies: broken, shredded, blown-up mutant bodies, lumps of flesh and bone and meat, a horrific mass grave.

“Holy shit,” he breathes.

“Must be about hundred of them under there,” Bryce murmurs beside him.

“How much freakin’ Semtex did they use?” Dean snorts.

“It wasn’t Semtex,” the sergeant at arms, Field, corrects him. “And it was the right amount for the size of the blast we wanted. It did the job, didn’t it?”

“Yes it sure did,” Sagna says, quick and soothing.

Dean resists the urge to roll his eyes; he’d forgotten what a prickly bastard Field could be.

“Shit, I think some of ‘em are still alive,” Bryce murmurs.

Dean swings his attention back to the crater. Bryce is right. Some of the mangled limbs and bodies are moving, some staggering and crawling and clawing at the edges of the crater, burrowing into the dirt, scrambling around and over each other like bees in a hive.

“Not for long,” says Sagna. He raises his revolver, and shoots, two of the slithering, struggling creatures collapsing like broken mattresses. “Like sitting ducks.”

Dean huffs out a breath, knocks off the safety, and fires where he sees signs of movement, watching the bodies crumple one by one. Fucking poetic justice.

“Sir! We got company!” yells Street from the Jeep, voice only just registering over the noise of gunfire. “Boss! Incoming! Three o’clock!”

Dean spins around, vision taking in an impression of blurred, mangled mutant flesh emerging from the dark shadowed trees. They’re heading straight for them - for the five of them standing out by the crater - exposed, totally exposed.

He dimly registers Sam’s voice, or maybe he’s imagining it, hearing his brother yell his name, muted out by the sounds of wild gunfire and mutant howls.

Beside him, Sagna is firing like a mad-man, like freaking Scarface, pumping out round after round, the bullets slamming uselessly into soft tumorous flesh. Not headshots - why’s he not going for headshots? He knows that it’s gotta be headshots these days.

“Move!” Dean roars, and he grabs Bryce’s collar, snatching up a handful of Aprille’s jacket with his other hand, dragging them in his wake. “C’mon! Move! Move! Move!”

They run, sprint for the Jeep, the howls and screaming and gunfire in their ears, twenty yards - fifteen yards - ten yards - five yards - and he can see the whites of his brother’s eyes, can see where Gutierrez has kicked down the tailgate. He pushes Aprille first, hand on his back shoving him into the jeep, his knees scuffing on the metal bed, then Bryce scrambling, leaping up to safety, twisting around to fire.

Dean whirls around and it’s there - the mutant - there - it’s fucking there - he can smell its putrid rank body, and he’s frozen - petrified - snaps of memory making his legs fail - heavy as water: hellhounds - the rack - hell - slathering mouths and smoke and demons and rotting flesh and flies - so many fucking flies - he’d forgotten the flies - hatching their maggots into the half-dismembered bodies on his rack -

“Dean!”

Someone grabs him, big hands under his armpits and he’s hauled up, snatched from the jaws of the mutant, and the mutant’s head snaps back, face shot clean in two like a bad special effect, the thunder of a shotgun round ringing in his ears. And Sam’s arms are wrapped around him, Sam’s voice in his ears, shaken and frightened and beautiful, “Jesus Christ, Dean, that was close. It nearly got you… God, Dean…”




He pulls away from his brother, consciousness flaring back, hellfire fading as Sam helps him to his feet. He’s still clutching his .45, white knuckles around the pearl handle. He swallows, raises his head, meeting his brother’s eyes for a second before blinking and pulling away, turning to take aim at the nearest mutant.

They’re attacking the sides of the Jeep, dozens of them, hands grasping and clawing, mindlessly scraping at the metal. Tachman is kicking one in the face, big heavy boot smacking soft and wet into its bulbous, spongy flesh.

“Tachman! Back!” Dean roars. She dives back and he takes aim, slams two shots into the thing’s head. Beside him, Sam is pumping his shotgun, firing one shot after the other at the bastards clawing at the Jeep, dispatching them as quickly and effortlessly as targets on a fairground booth, bodies flung back one after the other until they circle the ground around the vehicle, a fleshy circumference of blood and guts and gore.

Dean takes a couple of breaths, does a quick scan: Jackson peering through the window in the driver’s seat, Gutierrez, Street, Tachman, Aprille, Bryce and Sam in the back with him.

“Everyone okay?” he says.

A round of “yes, Sir’s” and nods answer him and he breathes a sigh of relief. At his belt, his radio crackles, Sagna’s voice coming over the com-link.

“Red Leader? Confirm status.”

“All healthy and sane, Gold Leader. Ready to move out when you are.”

“Copy that.”

The next location is about half a mile east, following the edges of the wood. Dean settles into the seat beside Sam, feels his brother press his thigh up against his own as they jolt and rock.

“You alright?” he asks in a low voice.

Sam grimaces with half his mouth. “Is it always like that?”

Across from them Tachman snorts, pumps her shotgun. Dean smirks. “I think that’s a yeah, pretty much.”

“Jesus,” Sam breathes. “I did not need to know that.”

“Hey, quit worrying, you did good.” He nudges Sam in the side.

“Yeah, dude, that was some awesome shooting just then,” Gutierrez adds. He looks genuinely impressed. “What, you took down, like, eight of those motherfuckers, like one after the other? Don’t even think the Commander can shoot that well.”

“Hey, you watch what you’re sayin’,” Dean says, raising one finger to the kid. “Anyway, he learned it all from me, right, bro?” He nudges Sam in the side again, watches Sam huff out a smile, roll his eyes at him in an almost playful way. He’s stoked that the guys have noticed just how freaking good Sam is, just what he’s capable of, that he’s not just this weirdo gimpy scientist guy who spends all his time locked up in the lab with monsters. And well, it is true. Sam’s always been a better shot that him. He’s man enough to admit it.

The Jeep pulls up a moment later, and he gets down, watches Field and Aprille do their thing again. This time there are no mutants. No swarming bodies deep down in the blasted craters, no unwelcome surge from the trees.

“You think we got it?” he asks Sagna as they walk back to the vehicles.

Sagna shrugs. “It’s the right coordinates. Though, sure, the coordinates could’ve been off. We’re just guessing here, Winchester.”

The next two sets of coordinates take them into the woods which means no Jeep, no rifles, and more importantly, no Sam.

Dean stalks back to the vehicle, prepared to put up with his brother’s complaints when he announces that Sam’s got to stay behind this time, but Sam is uncharacteristically deferential, nodding in agreement and promising to stay and protect the Jeep. One of the Gold Team guys is also staying behind on their Jeep, and Dean can’t help but feel relieved that Sam won’t be left completely alone. Not that he has any concerns about Sam not being able to handle himself; Sam proved that he can handle himself just fine only minutes before when he took out ten mutants with ten shotgun rounds, it’s just that…

Old habits die hard, and in Dean’s case, they don’t die at all, and deep down, despite his faith in Sam’s abilities, he’s still the same overprotective big brother he’s always been.

The trek into the woods is no better than it was the day before, the day Navarro died. It’s just as dark and creepy and he’s feeling just as antsy, more antsy ‘cause he can’t get his mind away from Sam sitting alone on that Jeep like Sasquatch sized bait.

The next explosion goes smoothly. This time there are mutants in the hole. Not as many as in the first crater, but enough for them to feel like they’re actually getting somewhere, like they’re not just blowing up random bits of Western Oregon countryside in a deranged scavenger hunt.

It freaks Dean out to see all the mutants packed into the craters, crawling over each other like monster-sized maggots, all that identical spongy tumorous flesh. This time they lob a grenade in there; watch it rip the remaining bodies into chunky soup.

They trudge onwards, following Sagna’s map to the final location, getting deeper into the wood, close to the spot where Bryce had first noticed the tunnels. The air seems to get heavier, the trees thicker, everything darker and more oppressive, or at least that’s how it seems, he could be imagining it all, getting some sort of tree-related cabin fever.

Everything goes wrong this time. The remote detonator doesn’t work. Aprille smashes at it with his big shovel-like hands, but nothing happens, no tremors, no noise, no big-ass explosion.

“We gotta do this manually,” Aprille announces, tossing the detonator back into Field’s briefcase with a look of disgust.

Field groans and Dean watches the two guys trudge back to the packs of not-Semtex. They dig out the blocks of explosive and wrap wires about them, fixing and fiddling until they seem happy. Field gets to his feet and bends over almost double to unwind and lay the wire across the ground from his enormous spool, the thin red wire snaking across the muddy soil.

Dean looks away, and stares into the dim dense trees. It’s mesmerizing, staring at the endless array of dark tall tree trunks, fanning out endlessly in front of him. Hypnotic, he thinks absently, he could go into a trance right now; it would be so easy to -

Someone screams. He jumps, whirls on the spot, hazy mind trying to pinpoint the source.

Something’s got Aprille. Something’s pulling him down into the earth, Aprille screaming, shouting, yelling for help, his arms flailing. One of the Gold Team guys is standing over him, emptying his weapon, another grabbing and tugging at Aprille’s arms. But whatever has him has got him harder than that snake monster got Luke Skywalker in the freaking Death Star garbage chamber.

Aprille vanishes, sucked into the earth right in front of their eyes.

Dean skids to a stop, not even aware that he’d been running towards them. His heart is thumping so hard he can’t hear his own thoughts.

A few yards in front of him, Sagna barks out an order: “Back! Retreat! Everyone back!”

The grouped soldiers seem to come back to life, scurrying back, Dean among them, caught up with the shell-shocked others.

“Finish laying the charge,” Sagna tells Field, and even Sagna, even grizzled, seen-it-all veteran Sagna, Gold Leader, sounds rattled.

Field swallows hard and nods, bending over again to continue unspooling the wire.

“Christ, what the hell was that?” Dean hisses under his breath at Sagna.

Sagna grimaces, lip curling up into a snarl. “No fuckin’ clue, but we need to blow this shit and get the hell outta here.”

Damn straight, Dean thinks, gritting his teeth. He swallows hard, sets his shoulders. He strides back towards his own team. “Everyone okay?”

Shaky “yes, sir’s” and wide-eyed nods greet him, and he thinks again about how fucking relative their lives are these days. No one is really okay, they just saw a guy sucked into the earth right in front of them for Christ’s sake, but just because no one’s been bitten or is mortally wounded, they’re all okay. They can deal. Not like they got a choice.

He thinks of Sam, sitting out in that Jeep on his own with just a shotgun, assault rifle and a couple of grenades to keep him safe. He pushes the thought away and watches Field finish up laying the wire and fixing it to a new manual detonator. He looks up when he’s done, and nods at Dean.

“Okay, let’s get clear,” Dean says to his team, herding them backwards and away from the blast site.

He can see Sagna doing the same thing on the other side, and he waits for him to raise his hand, the signal that they’re ready. He glances at Field and nods. “Okay, hit it.”

Field grunts and presses the button. This blast seems bigger than the others, the reverberation lingering for longer. It rips up earth and roots and pebbles and stones and plants and body parts - mutant body parts - raining to the ground around them.

Dean cradles his head, ears ringing with the blast; he blinks in disbelief as a severed arm drops to the ground beside his foot. This really is like the freaking Somme.

Mutants are crawling out of the crater, swarming across the floor like enormous maggots, claws outstretched and teeth gnashing, some without legs or arms, slithering over each other to get towards the stench and smell of the humans.

“Jesus Christ,” Bryce whispers beside him.

Dean chokes back the bile at the back of throat, and gives the order. “Fire! Attack!”

Gunfire rips apart the air around him. From the other side of the crater, he watches one of Sagna’s guys lob a grenade into the swarming pit of mutants.

“Aprille’s somewhere in there,” Bryce pants. “The guy was a civilian, just doin’ Sanders a favor!”

Dean doesn’t say anything. What’s the point? The guy is dead. Nothing they can do now.

His radio crackles to life, Sam’s voice: “Dean! Dean! Come in! Dean, are you there?”

He fumbles with his radio, barks out: “Sam? What is it?”

“I got company, Dean, a lot of ‘em.”

He swallows hard, panic gripping at his gut. He forces himself under control.

“How many?”

“Like, thirty, thirty-five, maybe more, all round the Jeep. I, uh, I’ve taken out a few but - there’s so fuckin’ many of them, Dean, and that other guy - “ a crackle and Sam’s voice catches, the sound of gunfire - “he bought it, Dean. He’s dead.”

“Hang on, Sammy, just hang on. We’ll be there.”

He spins around, mouth already screaming the words to the rest of his team: “We’re moving! Now! Now! Move out!” He doesn’t wait to see if the order registers, just takes off, sprinting back through the trees, the way they came. He’s got to get back to the Jeep, got to get to Sam.

His radio crackles, Sagna’s voice: “Red Leader! Come in, Red Leader! Winchester, where the fuck you goin’?”

He ignores it. He doesn’t care. Got to get to Sam. Got to get to Sam. He bursts through the trees, jumping, bounding over roots and surging through bushes. He can hear voices behind him, someone calling his name. He ignores it.

The trees start to thin, becoming sparser, and he can see the glint of metal through the green and brown, make out the pale fleshy blur of the mutants, and he roars out his brother’s name, scream ripped from his throat.

Half a dozen of the fuckers turn away from the Jeep, drawn to his voice. He raises his shotgun and fires, taking them out as he runs, screaming and bellowing like a deranged GI Joe. Behind him, he’s half-aware of more voices, more shots, more mutants falling as they draw them away from the vehicles.

He lowers his weapon and sprints to the Jeep, jumps up into the bed, ducking his head at the spray of gunfire around them.

Sam’s hunched up over one side of the Jeep, cradling his left arm against his chest, blood seeping from a wound, staining his sleeve and chest. He’s still firing, rifle clutched awkwardly in his other hand.

He cranes his head up at Dean and blinks, mouth falling inwards, crumpling. Dean stares back at him and feels his heart snap open.

Silently, Sam holds out his arm, the ripped, bloodstained sleeve, the mark. The bite mark.

“Dean, I’m sorry,” he whispers.

Dean shakes his head, falls to his knees, kneecaps ringing at the impact.

“No.” The word barely made, barely formed. “No, Sammy, no. Not you. It can’t be you.”

He bows his head, curls his arms around himself, face touching his knees, palms slipping loose to smash against the grooved metal of the jeep bed.

“No,” he repeats, “no, no.”

“Boss? Commander?”

He freezes; raises his head.

“Dean?”

He twists around, still kneeling. It’s Jackson, she’s eying him nervously, the rest of the guys grouped around her. He hadn’t even noticed that they’d killed all the fuckers, that they’d won.

“What do we do now?” she asks.

He looks over his shoulder, sees Sam curled up in the corner of the jeep, his arm wrapped and hidden in his camo jacket, eyes hooded. He takes a breath and decides.

“We head back,” he tells them.

He hears the guys take in the order, Jackson moving to slide into the front seat, Bryce with her. The truck bed creaks as the rest get in. Dean just stares at Sam, their eyes locked.

“Shh,” he mouths, “don’t say a word.” He bores the words into Sam, sees him blink then nod, terror and fear in the whites of his eyes. Dean sits down beside him, presses their bodylines together, only half-aware of the strange looks being thrown his way by his team. “It’s gonna be okay,” he whispers into Sam’s ear. “Trust me. I know what we gotta do.”

On to Chapter Eight