SPN Gen Fic: Over the Hills and Far Away 3/6

[superbadgirl]

Sam slammed the cover of the book in complete frustration. All the move got was a glare from every direction, a moderate dust explosion and one outright stereotypical librarian’s shush. He was beyond caring about what people thought. He was almost beyond everything. He hated 1975, with all of its stupid lack of technology, no resources on the occult and the dearth of over-the-counter painkillers that actually put even a dent in a major headache. He didn’t think it was too much to ask for a damn Exedrin Migraine. Or a Tylenol Extra Strength. He pinched the bridge of his nose, the only thing that worked, though on a very short-term basis. Life had become about the small victories.

It had been nearly four whole days, three separate libraries and he was no closer to finding a way home now than he had been while standing on a street corner in a state of confused shock. He couldn’t even track down their witch, who apparently hadn’t been housed in the LA area and even if he had been, probably wouldn’t have the same level of skill and power three decades in the past. Sam worried at his lower lip, tugging at a flake of skin with his front teeth. If he kept it up, he’d draw blood. Knew it, and kept on gnawing. The longer they were stuck, the less time he had to get Dean out of his deal, which was something he had started to believe wasn’t going to happen even in their regular time. When he thought of it this incredible sense of panic overcame him, so much that he had a hard time containing it around his brother. It was getting worse, because Dean was being … nerve-wracking in other ways these days.

“I don’t know why you’re wasting your effort on that stuff, Sam,” Dean said. “I already told you what we’re dealing with here. I also don’t know why you had to bring me along. This place is worse than a morgue. ”

More glares.

“Oh, relax.” Dean spread his arms out and glared back. “I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been to a lot of morgues.”

In honor of their current place in time, Dean had started growing a moustache and sideburns. Both were in baby stages, looked more like he’d just done a bad job shaving, which was altogether too possible considering they were squatting in warehouses and cleaning up in gas station bathrooms where and when they could. The people around them didn’t look like extras on Starsky & Hutch, but Dean sure did. His brother had, down pat, that kind of dirtiness that always seemed pervasive on 1970s cop shows. All he needed was to lose the short haircut. As Dean said, get a greasy mop like Sam’s. Dean’s pornstache in progress plus his own unruly (it wasn’t greasy) hair combined onto one person would make the lucky guy blend right in. Sam hoped to all that was holy that they wouldn’t be here long enough for him to grow his own facial hair, or for Dean to ponytail up. Long story short was that Dean looked unbalanced at the kindest, and they both looked a little skeevy.

“Dean, cool it,” Sam said softly and pulled by the sleeve one of his brother’s arms down.

“It’s your own fault for dragging me here.”

The more troublesome thing to Sam was that Dean didn’t just appear unbalanced because of the facial hair. The pit in his stomach wasn’t reserved for thoughts of Dean being torn apart by Hellhounds. It was everything. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he had realized that Dean wasn’t one hundred percent Dean. Part of him lived in denial, always had, and that was a stubborn trait to lose and a difficult one to fight. In his head, he’d been denying that something had happened to Dean, but in his stomach he’d known. Oh, he had.

Sometimes Dean … went away. That was the only way Sam knew how to think about it, give it a definition. One moment, Dean was sharp and on point. The next, he might as well be from Mars, raving and ranting about fire and demons. It was getting worse and worse, if he were going to admit it fully to himself. Sam had spent nearly a full day concentrating on that problem to the detriment of his primary goal of bending time and space. He supposed it was still making things more difficult than they actually were, that niggling worry of what the witch had done to his brother back in the warehouse. The hand on the forehead, the mumbled words he now suspected had been more than just a time spell of some kind. It would explain why he was fine and Dean was gone.

“Of course it’s my fault.” Everything was. “Just settle for a while. I’m almost through.”

“You said that four hours ago.”

“It would go faster if you helped me.”

Sam hated how he sounded like he was having a conversation with a five-year-old. That description wasn’t too far off, really, considering how half the time he expected to look over to Dean shooting rubber bands or spitballs at people the way he’d done yesterday. Somewhere in all the confusion and worry of the past few days, he’d figured out that Dean was more himself, kind of, whenever they stayed close together. When he stuck with Dean, Dean was mostly okay. Functional, anyway. If he left Dean in the warehouse to go out to score dinner from a diner or corner store, he’d come back to barely understandable ramblings about fire and demons. Or, worse, he’d come back to find Dean gone off somewhere. That would have been no big deal, but they were in 1975 for one thing and for another, nothing was normal even less than nothing ever was. Distracted as he was, it might have taken him longer than usual for the dots to be connected, but he still connected them.

It all meant that as long as Dean stayed with him everywhere, they’d both be fine. Just fine.

That was what Sam tried to tell himself, though in his heart of hearts he knew even when with him now Dean was starting to splinter. He rubbed his forehead even though the pain stemmed from the back. Definitely tension, not migraine. As much as he knew it would do him a world of good to stop worrying, he couldn’t. He didn’t want … the last months of Dean’s life couldn’t be with him like this. He wanted his brother. He wanted to get out of 1975 and he wanted to devise a brilliant plan to save Dean. He’d sworn to do that, and that horrible feeling in his gut told him he wasn’t going to be able to live with failure.

Unfortunately, today’s attempt at research had been just that - failure. And, worse, he was starting to think there was no simple human way to accomplish time travel, let alone unscramble a brain. Frankly, he wasn’t too sure the latter could be done, period. Sam frowned and squinted at the library clock, noted that there was only half an hour left before close. He looked at his watch next, seeking some kind of mental reminder of the time they were supposed to be in. It never did anything but make him vaguely sick, since his watch had stopped at 2:17 AM, presumably the time they’d been sent back. He wasn’t sure why he kept looking at it, maybe some deep-rooted irrational belief that the next time he’d see the minute hand moving and they’d be home. Poof, like that. Because that was precisely how their lives went.

Sam decided he’d had about as much as he could take of research for the moment. He couldn’t say he was hungry, he hadn’t been for days, but he knew Dean was. Dean always was. They were exact opposites, pretty much always but more often lately. They’d find a bar, he’d try to hustle some pool. It’d be a damn miracle without cash and feeling like he did. He’d take any shot. He didn’t know how many more stolen meals he could choke down, and if they were somehow stuck here for weeks, they needed to come up with a better plan than petty theft or dumpster diving. His stomach did a flip he couldn’t ignore.

“Be right back,” he said and made a break for the restroom.

Five minutes later, Sam was more certain than ever that food was the last thing he wanted to see or think about. He wished like hell he could trust Dean to handle himself for one night. He couldn’t. He’d have to suck it up and deal with the headache and queasiness and frustration. It wasn’t so much to ask, considering that Dean had shouldered so much of that for most of their lives. He splashed water on his face, rinsed his mouth out and headed back to his brother.

Only Dean was nowhere to be seen. Over half the other patrons had cleared out, so spotting his brother should have been easy. Sam started feeling anxious right away, which was ridiculous. He didn’t think Dean was that far gone, except what if he was? He pulled his jacket off the chair it was draped on, tugging it on as he walked to the librarian’s desk.

“Excuse me?” he said to get her attention.

The librarian gave him the stink eye, which she’d been doing all afternoon thanks to Dean. Her lips pressed into an unhappy line, then she said, “Yes, what can I do for you?”

“Did you happen to see the guy I was with leave?”

“Mister, I’m not a babysitter for you down-and-out hypes. I’m afraid I wasn’t paying any attention.”

Sam called bullshit on that. She hadn’t taken her eyes off them very infrequently the whole time they were there. He glared at her, but left her alone. He didn’t really need her confirmation. His newly-empty gut was telling him Dean was no longer in the building. With any luck, he’d be out at their borrowed car, waiting. Hah, luck. When he got out there, not only was Dean not at the car waiting, but the car was gone altogether. If Dean went all fire-demony in five minutes’ time, things were deteriorating too fast. Not for the first time, Sam wanted to call Bobby for help and reassurance. Except even if he could find Bobby in 1975, Bobby wasn’t hunter and knower of all things obscurely supernatural Bobby then. Now. Jesus, was it any wonder his head ached? Still, part of him wanted to call every Bob Singer in South Dakota on the off chance he’d hear something familiar in a much younger voice.

He had called John Winchester in Lawrence, Kansas, though, when Dean had been sleeping once. Just to hear someone familiar, only John didn’t sound like Dad and all it had gotten Sam was a lump in the throat so big he couldn’t croak out “wrong number” before hanging up. He felt like he was alone here.

“Damn it, Dean,” Sam muttered and ran a hand through his hair.

He had no real idea where Dean could have gone. So far, Sam hadn’t been able to track the guy down before he made a reappearance back at their little corner of a disused warehouse halfway across town. If Dean were Dean, Sam could have figured a pattern. This scrambled version of Dean was a whole different kettle of fish. Still, he had some ideas. He didn’t like those ideas, but they were there and getting more solid with each passing day. Well, one thing was sure, and that was he couldn’t stand outside the library all evening. They were in a significantly different neighborhood to the one where they usually picked up a car for their daily excursions, so he didn’t want to risk a hotwire. Too many witnesses, and the librarian would be sure to peg him for it. Shit, he’d probably accidentally boost her car.

It was going to be a hell of a long walk back, though. Maybe if he wasn’t six foot five, dirty and rough-looking he might manage to hitch a ride somewhere closer. Maybe if he sat on the steps, Dean would snap back to himself, remember he’d ditched his brother at the public library and come back for him. At any rate, Sam could use a minute, so he sat without that expectation. He closed his eyes and leaned the side of his head against the handrail. He wouldn’t stay long; he had a suspicion that the librarian would call the cops on him regardless if he’d done anything wrong or not.

After a bit, he remembered the loose change he had in his pocket. It was less likely anyone would notice money dropped in a bus till was minted in a different decade or century. He should have thought of that long ago. He didn’t know the transit system, but there was a stop across the street which looked to have frequent pick-ups all going the direction he wanted to go. He grabbed the handrail and hauled himself upright. By the time he got to the warehouse, Dean could be there. He tried not to think about the trouble his brother could be getting himself into, those ideas he didn’t want to have proven correct.

The bus turned out to be a great option, and the driver helpful about what connections to take and generally kind. Sam doubted he’d have received the same treatment in his own time, so he had to put a check on the virtual pro column, though he was still anti-70s. About ten minutes into the route, the bus slowed and pulled to the side of the street as far as it could. A faint trill of sirens drew close and loud as a small red truck, then an engine roared past them.

“I wonder if that damn firebug hit another one,” the driver said, edging the bus back onto the road.

“Hmm?” Sam said.

“You know, the fires they think an arsonist is starting in abandoned warehouses.” The driver laughed humorlessly.

“There’s a suspected arsonist?” Sam was mostly thinking out loud. That idea he had about Dean was getting more and more alarming.

“You bet. Going on three weeks now, pretty regular. Getting more regular, apparently. Guess you’re not big on watching the nightly news, eh, buddy?”

“Not lately.” That was true for both now and then. World events somehow seemed less important given all he and Dean had gone through, were going through and were about to go through. Past, present, future. Funny, except not funny so much or even a little. “Haven’t had a TV for a while.”

“Fair enough. Anyway, it’s a damn shame they haven’t caught the guy yet,” the driver said. “This here’ll be where you need to get off for your transfer.”

“Thanks, man, have a good night,” Sam said.

He stepped off the bus, heard more sirens in the distance. The fire must be a big one, like the one that they’d witnessed when they first got here. Sam sat on a bench under the bus stop shelter, leaned his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands.

“Damn it, Dean,” he said again, “I’d better be wrong about this.”

&&&

Flames shot out windows and trailed up the side of the building. Dean stood at the edge of the crowd. Unlike the gawkers that always arrived to watch the spectacle, the fire itself wasn’t what pulled his interest. He searched the faces that made up the crowd for a telltale sign, and kept an eye on the firefighters too. He’d seen demons possessing firefighters before once, he swore it. Wasn’t sure, wasn’t clear. But one of these times, it was going to slip up and then he’d have it. He’d fix everything, and get them back home at the same time. Because he was pretty confident this wasn’t home, or at least he didn’t think so. Too many men with mutton chop sideburns. Sammy would … Sam. Where was Sam? He felt like there was a gaping hole in his memory suddenly, didn’t know when he’d gotten to the fire. He bit down on the panic. No, no. Not important. He had to focus. Finding and getting rid of the demon was the only important thing.

The atmosphere outward from the fire for at least half a block rippled from the heat waves, made it more difficult for him to know what was real. He wouldn’t be able to tell … there. Eyes black as coal stared at him. One face, then another, and another. Holy shit, they were everywhere. Dean took a step back, bumped into the person next to him, who turned and sneered, oil slicks for eyes. He wasn’t prepared for this many of them.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,” Dean said.

It got an instant reaction. The demonic son of a bitch didn’t cringe or hiss or anything like that. It frowned at him and said, “You okay there, pally?”

Then the eyes were normal, slightly bloodshot white surrounding the iris. Dean knew that didn’t mean much. Demons could turn on their eye special effects at will.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,” he started over, still with no outward sign it was making an impact. “Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio.”

This wasn’t, something wasn’t right and Dean knew it but he didn’t know what it was. He kept reciting the exorcism, and all it seemed to get him was a small circle of demons surrounding him. They didn’t attack. They looked … worried. Some of them seemed amused.

“Hey, back off,” a deep voice shouted. “Give him some air.”

Sam, Sammy, Sam. Maybe if they both recited the rite in tandem it would work on this many at once. No, no, didn’t make sense. Dean saw his brother tower over those closest to him, his face orange from the fire’s glow, eyes dark. Dark, not black, not a demon, Sam.

“What’s wrong with that guy?” someone asked.

“He got a knock on the head earlier this week and he’s been a bit off since. Sorry for the trouble.”

“You want we should get one of them paramedics over here, maybe?”

“No,” Sam barked. Then, more quietly, “No, it’s okay. He’s fine. I’ve got him.”

Sam’s hand was on his shoulder, steering him. Knock on the head? Dean didn’t remember, but it seemed possible. Not fire, no demons. He knew that. Except he didn’t. They were everywhere, too many for them.

“Sam, all of ‘em are…”

Like the snap of fingers, Dean didn’t know what he meant. Nothing was what he thought it was. Seconds ago there were demons everywhere. He’d seen them with his own two eyes. Now all he saw were people. Nosy people, half watching the destruction of an old building and the other half staring at him as if he were the demon. He shook his head, tried to think. Everything jumbled all together. Brain oatmeal. Thwapthwap. He remembered someone once told him confusion was one of the signs of a concussion. Just now, Sam said he’d hurt his head. He trusted Sam. That much he knew. If nothing else stayed focused around him, his brother always would.

“I was so sure,” Dean said.

“I know you were. It’s okay.”

Sam squeezed his shoulder, and Dean felt better. Clearer. That was messed up, somehow. Dean glanced at his brother. In the dim light of dusk further compromised by smoke and water, Sam looked tired. Sam sounded tired. Both of those things would probably be true even without the smoke, and both felt like they might be Dean’s fault. He wanted to apologize, didn’t know if he should or if that would only make it worse.

People needed to stop rubbernecking at them. It didn’t matter. Sam got them out of the area fast, the sound of men shouting and the fire crackling, sizzling as it fought being extinguished fading into the night. They didn’t speak, but Sam didn’t let go of him either. He felt like a puppy being tugged along the street when all it wanted to do was sit tight. He took a backwards look at the flames high in the sky, knowing as surely as he had to get away from there that he had to get closer. Any attempt he made to get out of Sam’s grasp failed. He gave up after a while. Later, he’d go back later.

When they got to their little squatter’s corner, Sam eased down onto the floor, pulled his legs up into an inverted V and rested his head on them. Dean stood, watched his brother from above. They’d been at the library. Sam had a headache, always had a headache.

“Sammy?” he said, and crouched next to his brother.

“Dean, I need to know.” Sam’s voice was low, almost too quiet to hear. “Did you start that fire?”

“No. No, of course not.” The denial was out of Dean’s mouth for all of a millisecond before the doubt crept into its place. “Why would you ask me that?”

The lighter in his jacket pocket felt heavy, the taste of smoke was dense at the back of his throat like it had been there for weeks.

&&&

Static in his ears, slight vertigo feeling. He woke slowly, head fuzzy from sleep instead of the constant pain that had plagued him all week. For a second, he thought the pain was gone. It wasn’t. For a second, he thought maybe he wasn’t in 1975 after all. He opened his eyes, saw a rough warehouse ceiling and regretted that this was all real. He was alone. He knew it before he looked to where he’d last seen his brother. Not good. Sam shook out his stiff muscles and stood.

“Dean?”

The answer Sam’s yell got was from someone else squatting in the warehouse telling him to fuck off, not Dean. Déjà vu. He thought of the witch pretending to be a homeless bum before sending them packing. Part of him wished it would be the same, a magic button. Part was sick to his stomach for his carelessness, and what might happen as a result.

“Dean?” he shouted, louder, more out of habit and frustration than any real belief his brother was somewhere in the building.

He gathered up what few belongings he and Dean had between them that couldn’t be worn and headed for the exit. He didn’t know exactly where Dean had gone, but Sam now knew all he had to do was listen for the sound of sirens. He hoped this time Dean hadn’t gotten too far away. They didn’t need another close escape; last time it had almost taken Sam too long to track Dean down, and both of them too long to get out of a burning building. Somehow, Dean seemed physically stronger when he was so keyed up about the demons only he could see. Or maybe exhaustion and the chronic headache made Sam’s own larger size irrelevant.

Sam couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment it had become more about keeping Dean from flying apart at the seams than finding a way home. It could have been yesterday or last week or both of those. Time didn’t matter anymore, really, which was an irony he didn’t want to think about. He was sure there was no way out of this mess, no lead any more reasonable than a book of ramblings of a man and his theory of time travel and how it was done with giant magnets. It wasn’t done with magnets, large or small ones; that was about the only definitive thing Sam knew about time travel outside of its human impossibility. He simply couldn’t do it on his own, not before Dean’s deal … but he held onto some hope that time was fluid, that it moved differently depending on where on the timeline a person was.

What would help was a hunter network. There had to be hunters in the 1970s, but he had no idea how to find them. Most of the people he knew in this life through Dad were too young or not in the game yet. He’d imagined tracking down Bobby or Pastor Jim about four hundred times, though he knew even if he could, he couldn’t risk messing with that whole Grandfather Paradox thing he wasn’t sure was real or not. Or maybe it was that he didn’t want to find out that he and Dean contacting either of them now was why Bobby was in the life and Jim was dead.

None of that was the first thing on his mind anymore, though it simmered back there in the same spot his head ached from tension and fatigue. That seemed an appropriate place for it. The real problem now was that Sam was only one person. He had crashed, suddenly and soundly judging by the kink in his neck. He must have dropped, and without figuring out how to keep Dean, Dean. Short of chaining his brother to a post, he didn’t know what to do. That was starting to be the only practical option. He knew Dean had started at least one warehouse fire, and that he was convinced it was the way back home. It didn’t make any more sense than the guy talking about magnets, but sense wasn’t in Dean’s vocabulary at the moment.

One of scariest things to Sam in all of this was that he had no idea if by a stroke of nonexistent luck they got back home somehow that event would reset Dean’s brain or if he’d spend precious weeks tracking that motherfucking witch down to get Dean back to himself. God help him, though, sometime along the way he’d started to wonder if it would be better for Dean to stay scrambled if Sam couldn’t find a way to keep him out of Hell, if it would be easier that way. Every time that through cropped up, he hated himself for it. He knew deep down he didn’t mean it, and that if it was the last thing he did, he was going to save his brother, not this scattered mess of a person.

He wished he didn’t have to keep resolving himself to that. It was like the more he reiterated it the more it actually revealed how unsure he was.

When he got outside, Sam realized there were no sirens to follow yet. That was both good and bad. He might still be able to talk his brother back into himself and prevent the need for those sirens, provided he found Dean in time. He didn’t want to consider the chances of him actually finding Dean first beyond knowing they weren’t great. He knew better than anyone how resourceful his brother could be, a trait that didn’t seem to be impacted at all by whatever had happened to his brain. Neither was Dean’s stubbornness. Sam had a feeling it would keep escalating until Dean managed to kill a demon only he could see, and he was afraid what that would mean to some unsuspecting person.

Sam felt the cell phone in his pocket, heavy only because it was useless. All he could do was shout his brother down, only he couldn’t do that at all, not without attracting the wrong kind of attention. He doubted Dean would pick a warehouse too close to their squat; he wasn’t so far gone that he’d endanger Sam. Of course, Sam didn’t actually know that. It was true when they were in close proximity to each other, but once Dean left his side, he would go where the imaginary demon was, which was close to the original fire they’d made their grand entrance to 1975 in. He oriented himself briefly, then took off at a trot in that direction. He hadn’t made it far when he heard telltale sirens fill the air.

“Shit,” he muttered.

If he could get there in time, he might be able to talk Dean down and get them out of the area before anyone knew they’d been there. After he had put two and two together, Sam started making it a habit to steal a newspaper along with food, and according to what he’d read the police and fire departments felt close to finding their arsonist. The guy they wanted wasn’t Dean. They wouldn’t know that. If they caught Dean anywhere near a burning building, they’d see the lighter, smell the gasoline and they’d lock him up and throw away the key, and if the actual arsonist was smart, he’d lay low. At least in jail Dean would be safe, another of those random thoughts Sam hated himself for thinking. It would just be so much easier to concentrate on finding a dark magic practitioner that wouldn’t kill first, ask questions later, if he didn’t have to worry about Dean.

He followed his nose rather than the sirens, a trace of smoke filling the air and reawakening his headache. Sam didn’t beat the fire engine, saw the flashing red lights strobe against a nearby building wall and heard the rumble of it idling. He cursed again and rounded the corner cautiously. There was already a crowd gathering. He didn’t see Dean amongst it, which meant his brother was probably still inside the building. He hoped that didn’t mean Dean had found some poor guy and thought he was the demon. The possibility had him move fast.

The interior of the building was dark with smoke. Sam took a moment to take off his jacket, then his outer shirt. He wrapped the shirt around his nose and mouth, and put the jacket back on. His heart pounded, and he had to fight the natural urge to flee which was every bit as strong as his natural instinct to find his brother. Fire had such bad connotations to him, to them as a family. He thought it cruelly ironic that this version of Dean was so obsessed with it, thought maybe the witch had planted the idea in Dean’s head as a nasty joke. Then, all of this was a nasty joke.

Sam tried to keep track of directions and the layout of the building as he searched. After what seemed like forever, he saw a shape ahead that could be a person. Maybe Dean, maybe not. Whoever it was, they needed to get out. He approached with some caution.

“Dean,” he shouted, voice muffled and distorted by the roar of fire and crack of the building protesting the assault on its inner structures.

“Sam, what are you doing here?”

He turned toward Dean’s voice and saw there were two shapes, one standing and one cowering on the floor. Shit. Sam rushed to Dean, grabbed his arm and cringed slightly at the wild-eyed stare he got in return. Dean had his blade out and by the looks of it had been about to flay the disheveled man at his feet. He switched his hold to Dean’s wrist and gripped him tight.

“Go,” Sam told the guy. “Get out of here. Back the way I came about twenty feet, then take a left. It should lead you out. Keep as low as you can.”

The guy didn’t hesitate, though his steps faltered from fear, drunkenness, smoke inhalation or all three. Sam watched him go for a second, his attention returning to Dean when his brother tensed as if he were about to go after the man.

“Sam, what are you doing? You’re letting him get away,” Dean said.

“He’s just a man.” Sam leaned close and tried to keep his voice soothing, calm. “There’s no demon here, Dean.”

“Yes, there… ” Dean blinked, then coughed. His eyes looked bleary, but not as wild. “Isn’t there?”

“We can talk about this later. Right now, we have to get out of here. The cops and fire department are outside.”

“Well, good,” Dean said. “This building’s on fire.”

Jesus, it was like there was a reset button in Dean’s head, so that every time Sam was able to get his feet back on the proverbial ground, he was a blank slate when it came to reality. He let go of Dean’s wrist.

“Put your blade away and follow me.”

“All right, fine.”

Sam didn’t know how a fire could get so bad so fast. The warehouse sounded like it was groaning in agony, and though his ears rang with the rush of adrenaline making his heart pump the blood faster in his veins, he heard booms and thumps from behind and below. He also heard men shouting. He increased his pace, while maintaining his line on Dean, who stayed no more than three steps behind him despite pausing to cough more and more frequently.

“Dean, you okay, man?”

Dean nodded, but Sam wasn’t convinced. It seemed they’d gone twice the twenty feet he knew it took to the turn which would get them out of danger. They didn’t have time to mess around. Still, he unwrapped the shirt from his face and tossed it at his brother.

“Hold that over your nose and mouth,” Sam instructed, though he shouldn’t have had to.

He started to think he’d gotten them turned around, though he didn’t know how would be possible. He thought of the other guy; if he’d given wrong exit directions, Sam may have killed the guy as surely as Dean had been about to. Only worse. His own chest felt tight. He raised his left arm, tucked his nose and mouth in the crook. He tried to control his fear, no easy task since now he could see flames as well as smoke. He did not want die seven years before he was born. He turned to check on Dean again, found him five feet back.

“Dean.”

“The bastard’s following us,” Dean said, thumbing at nothing behind him. “Playing my own game against me.”

“No one’s there, man. We have to get ou …”

A tremendous crash drowned out his words. For a second, Sam felt intense weight on the back of his neck and head and shoulders. It pressed him down, into pain and the dark.

To Chapter Four
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