in the shuffling madness of the locomotive breath [SPN, gen, case!fic] [3/3]
Written by Samantha Simard, © 2011
Title: in the shuffling madness of the locomotive breath
Author: the_sammykinz
Artist: dollarformyname
Beta: gerolyn7
Rating: R (the boys like the F-word)
Genre: Supernatural - written for the spn-gen-bigbang 2011.
Timeline: Season 3, set between "The Magnificent Seven" and "The Kids Are Alright" - spoilers for anything before then.
Word count: Just over 15,000.
Warnings: Language, some violence and gore, lots of fire, a good-old-fashioned ghost hunt, major mockery of New Englanders, as much brotherly schmoop as I could stomach, and... a moose-themed motel room.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, so mad props to Kripke and company. The legend of Joey McCabe, the bridge, and the accident are real. I changed the date (but not the year) of the original accident, and also tweaked the story of Joey McCabe-you’ll see why. To my knowledge, the Museum of New England History doesn’t exist, but if it did, it would be that weird. The title is from “Locomotive Breath” by Jethro Tull.
Summary: With Dean’s doomsday clock hovering at eleven months to go, the Winchesters decide that a good old-fashioned ghost hunt is in order, in the wilds of White River Junction, Vermont. What begins as an old local legend turns out to be much more, and what they thought was a simple case is anything but. In the end, it all comes down to two brothers-because, really, irony’s a b*tch.
art masterpost!
(part two)
“This is a shitty plan, Sam.”
“You don’t get to say ‘no’ unless you have a better idea, Dean.”
“I’m not saying ‘no’, I’m just saying this is about as smart as that ‘plan’ we had to take out that freaky hoodoo guy in Nevada-we should’ve just gone to Vegas.”
“Slot machines probably would’ve been better than getting cursed to lose all our body hair. You get that one, but there’s no better way to do this-besides, you’re the one that’s always after me to let you blow crap up.”
“‘Let’ me? Oh, that’s cute-do I get a friggin’ dog collar next?”
“No, but I’ve got a ball gag with your name on it.”
Secretly, Sam was considering if he could construct a hellhound-proof neck accessory for his brother. They came up the hill from Route 4, where they’d left the Impala for a third time. Then they crouched in the tall grass on the east side of the bridge in West Hartford, in almost the same spot they had been in before. Everything stank like propane and flame.
It was Monday night, nine o’clock, and all the emergency response vehicles from the explosion of the propane rig were gone. The incident had been ruled an accident, having to do with sparks from the tracks or a leak. The only death had been the engineer, and there were no witnesses-at least, none that were there by the time the cops showed up.
The charred, skeletal remains of the burned-out railroad yard blended in with the dusky sky. What was left of the rig had been hauled away so it wouldn’t interfere with other trains commuting through the town. Sam had gotten a schedule and didn’t like what he found; there was an Amtrak passenger train due to come into the station at White River Junction around the time they were hiding in the grass. That meant it would reach the bridge by quarter-past-ten, give or take. If that train crossed the bridge, Benjamin’s ghost would go apeshit, and if it crossed at the wrong time it would get blown up along with the bridge. There was also the possibility that the train engineer wouldn’t be informed by his home base about the missing bridge in time for him to stop.
Dean’s right, Sam thought, as they walked out carefully onto the crooked vehicle-travel side of the bridge, this plan sucks balls.
They had wired together eight charges each for both of the concrete structures and the steel Y-beams. They were going to use their rock-climbing gear-Sam had found it in with their laundry and a significant layer of dust-to hook them to the guardrail that ran along the part of the bridge with the road. Each of them would take a set of fuses, a putty knife, and a block of moldable C-4, and stick the charges to the joints in the concrete pillars and the Y-beams. Both chains of bombs had to be set off remotely, and they both put their little red buttons near the wreckage of the railroad yard, where they’d be easy to find.
The brothers strapped themselves in and tested their lines before descending. It was sort of like rappelling down a cliff face, which they had done before-the last time, Sam’s line had snapped about halfway down and he landed in some really thorny bushes. He had thought Dean was going to murder the salesman at Dick’s Sporting Goods.
They got the bombs hooked up to the bridge and hung the cables as near to where they wanted the fuses to go as possible. Facing it from the front, it probably looked like two half-assed spider webs. They were fairly sure they had enough blast power to take down the whole thing.
Dean was almost through placing the second charge when he realized they were in deep shit.
The idea of the multiple fuses and the C-4 wasn’t practical, at least not in their situation. He kept having to take a fuse out of his pocket and clamp it in his teeth; hold the block of C-4 against the surface in front of him; cut off a precise amount with the putty knife; make the knife and the fuse switch places; mold the C-4 around the fuse; tie the fuse to the exposed wires at the end of the cable; and stick it to the bridge. He was fairly sure Sam was doing the same thing, because he wasn’t the only one swearing.
Dean was also fairly sure the faint, fine tremor he was feeling wasn’t Bigfoot crashing around in the tall pines.
It was about five minutes before Sam noticed Dean was gone.
That was kind of shameful, considering Sam’s Dean-senses had been on high alert ever since Cold Oak and that goddamn deal. So when he glanced to his right and didn’t see his brother, his heart leapt up in his throat. “Dean? Dean!”
Sam scrambled hand-over-hand on his line, pulling himself back up to road-level and peering over the guardrail and groaning a loud “Fuck!” when he saw that the Impala was gone. He wondered, not for the first time, just how crazy his older sibling was.
Then, because he had his elbows resting on the concrete, he felt it. The bridge was shivering, just a little, like it was cold, probably only on some kind of molecular level. He could only feel it if he concentrated, but it was getting worse by the second.
And then Sam realized what his devil-may-care, shit-eating-grin, pain-in-the-ass brother had gone to do.
Dean had left to slow down the train.
If Sam’s plan had been shitty or hairy ball sucking, Dean’s plan was a gargantuan, monstrous, insert-a-third-long-adjective-here fucking disaster.
He gave in and hopped on I-89, leapfrogging over to the western side of the river before finding a residential street that paralleled the train tracks. The whole drive took about five minutes, and Dean jammed to a stop outside a house that looked vacant.
Dean popped the trunk and dug through the arsenal, grabbing a shotgun, loading it, and filling his pockets with extra salt rounds. He locked up the car and looked up at the house for a moment, there in the darkness. He thought about what he was going to do, and how, if he screwed it up (and don’t I always screw everything up), Hell would own his ass eleven months early and Sam… God, Sam.
But Dean didn’t have a choice, and he knew it. “Burn baby burn,” he muttered to himself, before running around to the backyard of the house, just in time to see the nose of the Amtrak passenger train whiz by him. He timed it as near to perfect as he could and took a running leap at the last car, hitting the little steel deck on the caboose hard enough to jar his ribs. Dean sucked it up and got to his feet, struggling to keep his balance against the constant rocking motion of the train.
Then he noticed the smell-propane, from the tanker explosion the night before.
Dean peered through the tiny window in the emergency door. It had been an empty car the night before, probably being towed between stations for maintenance-now it was full of luggage. He couldn’t see into the next car, but it was probably one with people inside.
Dean’s original plan was to blow by everyone and run through the train, get to the engineer, and, ah, persuade him into stopping, but he never got the chance. Suddenly, Dean was flying up and over the roof of the caboose, landing hard on his back on top of the car. He held on to the shotgun with a one-handed, white-knuckled grip on the stock, even as the wind got knocked out of his body.
What the… and then Benjamin McCabe flickered into reality, leaning over him and leering, and it made sense. The ghost had destroyed the propane tanker; not surprising he’d pop up on one of its cars.
Instinct had Dean scrambling backwards on his ass and firing the shotgun, the salt buckshot blasting Benjamin apart and giving him time to get to his feet. Blood was trickling down the back of his neck and his head felt heavy. Great, having a concussion makes shooting at a ghost on top of a moving train so much fucking fun, I can barely stand it. Dean kept his feet apart, trying to sway with the movement of the train instead of against it, and wondered if his brain could be any more sarcastic without coming out his ears.
Dean had built up the nerve to take two steps forward when Benjamin reappeared. He was in front of him now, and with a wave of his hand sent him crashing backwards, this time landing on his left shoulder with a crunch that made him see stars. Gasping through the pain of having his shoulder dislocated, Dean rolled onto his back and brought the shotgun up with his right hand, the boom of it firing deafening when combined with the train’s whistle.
Benjamin vanished as Dean forced himself to sit up, cracking the shotgun open against his thigh before holding it with his knees while he reloaded. He looked at the spot the ghost had vacated, dread pooling in his stomach. The stand of tall pines was coming closer and closer, the only thing between the train and the bridge.
Sam worked as fast as his hands would let him, glancing to the east every once in a while, waiting for the single bright eye of the locomotive to shine through the pine trees.
He finished wiring his side first, and then moved over to Dean’s side. He wasn’t sure if the roaring in his ears was the rush of blood in his head or the rush of the water below him. He finished wiring the bombs in what felt like Olympic time and got back on the bridge, gathered everything up, and made a break for the westerly side of the river. Sam moved about thirty feet back from the tracks, lying down in front of a blackened railroad yard building.
Sam heard the train before he saw it.
The trembling of the ground was constant and strong; it reminded Sam of one of those Magic Fingers beds Dean liked so much. The engine blew its whistle, loud and insistent as it shattered the night and all of its noises.
Sam felt a flare of panic in his chest. If the train was still on time, then whatever hair-brained scheme Dean had come up with to slow it down wasn’t working, which made him think of something else-where the hell was Benjamin’s ghost in all of this?
And then he understood-Benjamin wasn’t on the bridge because he was with Dean.
Getting beat up by a ghost hurt like… well, not like hell, but like something really bad and possibly on fire. Getting beat up like a ghost while tumbling around on top of a moving train, trying to keep a shotgun in your hands, and having a dislocated shoulder was like the really-bad-possibly-on-fire thing, but on steroids.
They rounded the pine trees. Dean had jumped forward a car, but Benjamin had followed, and now Dean had blood running into his eyes from a split by his hairline, and at least three broken ribs. He hoped that Sam would be bright enough to wait to blow the bridge until after the train crossed, and then he just hoped that Sam was done rigging the damn thing.
The train blew its whistle and deafened him again, so he didn’t even hear the report of the shotgun when he blasted Benjamin McCabe away again. The locomotive started a different kind of rocking motion, and Dean knew without looking that they were crossing the bridge. The sound of the river was drowned out by the glide of the train on its tracks.
He looked at about his two o’clock and could see Sam, his giant, moose-y head sticking out against a charred wall. It was looking at Sam that threw Dean’s metaphorical bacon in the shitter.
Benjamin made one last-ditch, go-getter effort and popped back up before Dean expected him to. Later-although he wouldn’t really remember thinking it-Dean could’ve sworn the guy smiled at him.
And then Benjamin threw Dean off the train with a move of his hand, and it didn’t matter anymore.
The next sequence of events happened in a total of about two minutes.
Sam had been about to raise his own hand-to flip his brother off or give him a thumbs-up, he hadn’t decided-when he saw Benjamin materialize, and proceed to throw Dean off of the top of the train.
That was a horrible moment. Sam thought his heart stopped beating. His chest compressed, like his breath had been stolen away-and then he screamed his brother’s name, long and loud and anguished. He watched Dean tumble through the air and down into the water, plunging into the ravine in a split second. Sam stood, despite the adrenaline suddenly pumping through his body, making his knees quake and his head pound.
Sam waited painstakingly for the train to clear the bridge before he hit both of the little red buttons he held. The bridge exploded in an outpouring of orange flame and bright, flashing light. Debris flew everywhere, including some burned, melted pieces of the rails, which followed Dean and his shotgun into the river.
The black solidity of them reminded Sam of the lid on a coffin. Don’t you dare, Dean-don’t you fucking die on me. Not now and not eleven months from now, either, you ass.
Dean had fallen from high places in the past.
His old record, in case you wanted to know, was the fourth floor of a burning apartment building into a Dumpster. This time was different, almost… freeing. For a ridiculous second, he felt like he was flying, like he was weightless and didn’t have a care in the world. His life didn’t flash before his eyes; he didn’t notice the shotgun leaving his hand; he didn’t feel the heat from the bridge exploding above him.
Dean felt good, in a really trippy way, but then he hit the water and there was nothing but pain.
If there was such a thing as being open-hand slapped all over your body, that was what hitting the water felt like. Thousands of tiny needles seemed to sting Dean’s skin; the breath was knocked out of him like he’d been punched in the solar plexus. He also made one of the biggest mistakes you can make when you suddenly find yourself in a body of water-he opened his mouth. It was just for a second, but it left him choking.
Dean ended up floundering for a while, fighting to get above the water. He couldn’t hear anything, because either the rush of water or the sound of his own struggle drowned it out. The current was fierce and turbulent, and there were plenty of obstacles to run into. There was crap falling from where the bridge had blown up, and some big-ass pieces of metal and concrete missed him by about a foot. The river was surprisingly cold for June, and the temperature left Dean’s muscles slow and sluggish.
After about a half-minute’s struggle, he finally broke the surface. Dean managed to gasp in a couple of breaths before the current pulled him under again. He was fighting a losing battle, as per usual; the water was going to win unless he found a way out of it.
He managed to get himself facing upright, so that the current wasn’t dragging at him as much and he could breathe every once in a while. He knew grabbing for the jagged rocks on either side of the ravine wouldn’t work too well; that would probably just get him another concussion for his troubles.
So, Dean did something he wasn’t fond of-he waited, until opportunity came in the form of a twisted piece of railroad track that was floating behind him. He waited until it was almost level with him and then made a grab for it, hooking his right hand underneath one rung and over the next, almost like a ladder. It made it easier to stay afloat, so Dean thought it was pretty kick-ass. Until it hit a rock with an upward slope, near the western side of the ravine, and the powerful water and his own momentum sent Dean over it.
He flew and fell until stars lit behind his eyes and he felt nothing at all.
Sam was running.
It was more like jogging, but he wasn’t doing to tone his fucking thighs. He was heading downstream along the ravine, ducking low to avoid being spotted by the responders to the site of the bridge blast. For Sam, “ducking low” was basically crawling in the grass, but it did make it easier to look for Dean-not that he was having much luck there.
The water was turbulent and choppy, and it was dark out; even the light from the blaze burning about a half-mile away wasn’t helping much. Sam had that too-tight, breathless feeling in his chest again, and his scalp was tingling-he knew something was very wrong with his brother.
Sam wondered absently what he’d feel in sympathy if his aforementioned jackass of a brother actually went to Hell, and the chastised himself for it, because that wasn’t going to happen. Nope.
About a mile from the bridge if you were following the current, the ravine started to slope downwards, and as Sam rounded a forested corner, he could see why. A large chunk of earth was missing from a bend in the river, which created a beach-like ditch similar to the one Dean had scouted a few days before. The difference with this one was that only a steep slab of granite separated the river from the ditch, and plenty of water managed to kick up over it, forming a large puddle.
Suddenly, Sam spotted a soaking-wet arm in the shadows under the rock, clad in an olive-green jacket.
“Shit shit shit,” Sam panted, running now, sliding down the embankment at full-tilt to get to his brother. He sloshed into the water feet-first, slipping and landing on his ass and ending up wet up to his waist. Sam grabbed Dean’s arm and pulled, but found out he was a lot heavier than he remembered, and then noticed the giant, twisted section of metal lying next to Dean in the sand. Sam felt around and deduced that Dean’s other arm and possibly his other leg were pinned under the railroad tracks. “Oh, fuck me. Jesus, Dean!”
All of his swearing wasn’t getting a response, and the little paranoid voice in the back of Sam’s head was chanting: he can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t breathe HE’S NOT BREATHING. Needless to say, the younger Winchester’s subconscious wasn’t helping him out much, even as he locked a hand underneath Dean’s left elbow and pulled his arm free of the rung. Sam then used his own weight to lever up the railroad piece with some serious effort, and kicked Dean’s leg out from underneath it with the foot he wasn’t using as a brace.
Sam released the tracks with a grunt, unflinching at the sound of them hitting stone. He grabbed his brother around the chest and dragged him backwards over rock and sand, rolling him onto his back. That’s when Sam discovered the arm he’d been pulling on initially was connected to a very dislocated shoulder. But he couldn’t worry about that just then, because Dean still wasn’t breathing, and hadn’t been since God only knew when.
Sam started CPR, cursing Dean all the while. The first time he sealed their mouths together to give him a breath, Sam was trembling; the second time, tears were streaming down his face, because the air supply and the goddamn chest compressions were supposed to make everything okay. They had to! Everything was supposed to be okay with Dean around-Sam refused to believe that his brother was dead, that he was downstairs eleven months early, that some stupid ghost hunt in Nowheresville, Vermont had taken Dean away from him.
And then Dean’s chest fluttered under Sam’s massive hands as he took in a breath on his own. Sam turned Dean onto his good side, keeping his big brother’s head pillowed on his thigh even as he puked up water. Once Dean finished heaving, Sam rested his forehead against the side of his head for a moment, taking a minute to get his own breathing under control.
Dean held on to one of Sam’s ridiculous arms with the hand he could use, staring up at the clear, starry sky and envisioning melting flesh and cages made of bone. Bloody lights danced inside his head as water rasped in his lungs.
Dean ignored the itch under his skin that burned faintly of hellfire.
Looking back on it, Sam’s wasn’t sure how they made it to where Dean left the Impala-hell, he didn’t know how they got out of the goddamn ravine without killing themselves.
Actually, the ravine part isn’t a puzzler-they got out the same way Sam came in. Only, going out, Sam had to carry Dean on his back. Funny, both of them found the trip much faster coming down-Dean via falling a number of feet Sam didn’t want to count into a raging river, and Sam by playing mountain goat down a craggy slab of granite.
Nonetheless, Sam winced every time his brother hissed and swore every time Dean made one of those noises that sounded like a cat on a hot tin roof. The extra weight and the hernia he was giving himself didn’t even register in Sam’s brain, until the two combined nearly caused him to collapse-by which time, they were on level ground again.
Sam knew he couldn’t just carry Dean to wherever the car was, and he needed to check him for injuries, shock, and a shitload of other things. Sam couldn’t do that with those red-and-blue lights flickering in his peripheral vision, a constant threat. Those lights could equal salvation if Dean was badly injured, but hospitals and Fed wagons were something they were trying to avoid, casework aside.
He had to find somewhere they could hide out, the burned-out railroad yard being the obvious choice. Sam hooked Dean’s good arm over his shoulder, palming his brother’s hip to support him and hitching up their bags with his other hand. Sam felt worry flare in his chest, watching Dean out of the corner of his eye. The older Winchester was putting weight on the leg that hadn’t been crushed under the piece of railroad track, obviously in pain; in general, he was pale, wet, and sort of bloody.
What Sam was doing his best to steadfastly ignore was the look in Dean’s eyes. It was a look that spoke of hopelessness, of despair, of agony-it spoke of Hell, with a capital “H”, and he recognized it without having to ask what it was.
It left Sam wondering how dead Dean had been, and for how long, and how badly he’d managed to screw up this time.
They ducked under the sagging entryway of what appeared to be some kind of hardware store in its previous life; now it was barely a skeleton of a building. Sam located a wall that seemed stable and had Dean sit down, noting that his brother was starting to shake. He checked Dean for injuries and found nothing worse than what he’d expected: a couple of broken ribs; a nasty concussion; bruises and lacerations, although nothing too serious; what appeared to be a damaged tendon in one of his knees; and one dislocated shoulder.
Sam tried to be as gentle as possible while he was poking around, but he furrowed his eyebrows when Dean didn’t react-usually he was bitching up a storm by now. “Dean? You with me?”
Nothing, at first-then Dean raised his eyes and stared in a way that was so blank it had Sam flinching backwards. One of his brother’s pupils was much bigger than the other, causing the latter eye to be almost all emerald green. Recognition dawned slowly and Sam welcomed it like the sun, didn’t move when Dean’s good hand came up to fist his shirt. “Sammy?”
“Yeah, Dean, it’s me.” He shifted, having been crouched down for so long that he was losing the feeling in his legs. “Hey, uh, I’m gonna have to do something with your shoulder. You up for it?”
Dean blinked and nodded, standing up with Sam’s help and only threatening to vomit a couple of times. He wasn’t really with it until Sam’s large hands snapped his shoulder back where it belonged-then he was all too with it, and tossing his cookies all over the floor.
“God,” Dean panted, hating the way he was trembling, but glad his brain was starting to function again. “That sucked. That r-really fucking s-sucked.”
“Usually does,” Sam agreed, moving them away from the puddle of puke. He made sure Dean would stay upright, and then he found something to stand on, peering out between charred boards at the flashing lights and still-burning bridge. Nobody was coming their way, but he knew that could change. “Try not to pull the drowning bit on me again though, okay?”
Dean gave a mock-salute to his brother’s back. “You g-got it.” His sluggish mind finally caught up with him and he said, “C-Car. Left the d-damn car… somewhere.”
Sam could hear the frustration in his voice on the last word and turned around, groaning inwardly. “You don’t remember where you left the car?”
Dean shook his head in answer, also trying to clear the sound of screaming and tearing of flesh and breaking of bone racing through it. “No… I think I took t-the interstate somewhere. That’s i-it.”
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, hopping down and clapping Dean on his good shoulder. “It’s okay man, I’ll-we’ll find it.”
“H-How, smartass?”
“Uh… good question.” Sam had the beginning of a decent plan, but it meant they had to walk through the skeleton of the railroad yard to get back to civilization-or the New England version of it. “Come on, we’ve gotta get out of here. Can you walk?”
Dean’s mouth quirked, even as he continued to shake. “Guess I’ll h-have to. You’re not carrying m-me again, I don’t care if you’re an Amazon w-woman or not.” He groaned as he pushed off the wall and put weight on his bad knee; it was painful, but not unbearable, since his shoulder hurt worse. “Get the s-stuff, Sundance, and let’s g-get the fuck out of dodge.”
They crossed the railroad yard at a slow, limping gait and hopped the rusty fence that separated the property from the road. Sam made a beeline for the first sleepy-looking house he saw, which was dark on the inside and had a car sitting out front. He held out the duffel bags to Dean as he crouched down next to the driver’s door. “Can you hold these?”
Dean grunted something intelligible and took the bags with his good arm.
Less than two minutes later, they were in the car, heading for I-89. “Guess I
s-shouldn’t doubt your c-car jacking skills, Sammy… even if we’re in a chick c-car.”
Sam rolled his eyes, but smiled to himself all the same-and okay, a Prius was kind of chick-y, even for him, but it was doing all right as a getaway vehicle. “Yeah, yeah… I know I’m awesome. You got any idea where you left the Impala?”
They merged onto the highway and Dean sniffled. “Yuppie house. It w-was definitely a y-yuppie house. You’d like it, just like you like this corn-oil-snorting piece of crap.”
“Creative insult-so a new development, then? Which exit?”
“Uh… the one w-we just went past. I think. H-Had the big real estate billboard.”
“You light up my life.”
It took them about ten more minutes of hemming and hawing and a lot of shivering on Dean’s part-even with the shitty little heater turned up to full blast-before they found the neighborhood. Sam also had to wrestle the keys away from Dean, because there was no way in hell he was driving. One go-around with a concussed and hypothermic Dean behind the wheel was enough, thank you very much. That had scarred them both for life.
Once they were on the right street, the Impala was impossible to miss, black and chrome in the moonlight. Even though he would never admit it to his brother, Dean and the Impala were the closest things Sam had ever had to a home. Living with Jessica had been an experience… but not the same. She was comforting and warm, but not in the leather-jacket, Old Spice way that Dean-and even John-had been. The car, in a sense, was what had bound them all together-the car and Mary, the only two reliable women in the Winchesters’ lives.
Sam would sooner be damned then let some red-eyed bitch that lived under a crossroads take that away from him. And if Dean was going to Hell-for real this time-then they were both going to go down swinging.
“Hey Sam? Could y-you have your g-goddamn introspective emo moment later a-and open the d-damn car before my balls f-freeze off?”
“Sure thing… jerk.”
“B-Bitch.”
(master post)