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"Wolves At The Door" 2/2
Title: Wolves At The Door - Final
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Rating: PG (Language)
Category: SPN - Gen (AU)
Word Count: 1,424
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Notes: A coda of sorts to A World Of His Own Making. Can be read as a standalone.
Prologue | Part One | Part Two
Dean wakes up with the smell of antiseptic in his nostrils and a faint beeping sound in his ears. He blinks a few times because the room he’s in is bright and thinks for a second that he’s going to look down and find himself back in slippers and the non-descript loony-bin pyjamas. He’ll find that everything that happened up to that point was a horrible hallucination.
He tilts his head sideways and sees Sam in another bed with the side rails up. There are big, velcro straps over his torso, legs and pinning his arms to his sides.
“What the fuck?” Dean grunts and sits up. The whole room tilts for a second.
“Lay back down you dumbass,” a voice snaps from the corner and Dean cranes his head back around and sees Bobby on an uncomfortable-looking chair with an old, leather bound book in his hands. “Least until the dizziness passes,” Bobby stands and stretched. He’s looking a little better than the last time Dean saw him, but not by much.
“What’s going on?” Dean demands, hating that he’s had to ask that over and over again. He feels like all control of his life has been ripped from him, spinning him out of control. Every time he tries to get a grip, his hands skid uselessly on the slippery fabric of his current existence.
“We pried the black outta your brother,” Bobby says, eyes ticking away towards Sam and back again before they can rest on him properly. “You gotta understand that we didn’t have any other options.”
“What happened?” Dean asks, sitting up slowly, letting his head rest against the wall behind when the room tilts again. It doesn’t spin quite so fast though so Dean figures he’s making progress.
“That… thing,” Bobby begins, his face tightening down into a grimace. “Was keeping us out as surely as we were keeping it in after a while. It got sick of us trying to help Sam and just locked us out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“We needed you to breech its defenses, but you couldn’t know that was what you were doing. It let you in because it wanted you to suffer but it couldn’t close up shop again while you were inside. We had to strike while you were at ground zero.”
“I felt…” Dean pauses, clenching his fists for a second. “What you did… he would’ve died if…”
“There was only two ways that ritual would go, yes,” Bobby agrees gently. “Sam was either going to come out the other side or he and whatever devil was down deep inside would have been destroyed together.”
“Tell me there was no other choice,” Dean grates out, feeling everything in him go heavy.
“There really wasn’t,” Bobby assures him and Dean looks at him for a moment before whatever drugs he has in his system pull him under again.
“I believe you,” Dean says, raising his hand enough to point a finger at Bobby. “Doesn’t mean we aren’t going to talk about what you thought was an acceptable risk.”
“Yeah kiddo,” Bobby sighs. “I know.”
000
Dean feels a lot less groggy the next time he wakes, enough to demand to be helped out of bed and to Sam’s side. He listens as the two healers Bobby had brought him explain how there is little chance Sam will ever wake up, let alone be himself again.
Dean nods, thanks them for their time and then kicks them out. When he’s strong enough he half drags, half carries Sam out to the Impala that had been rescued and restored by Bobby and drives them both to a cabin his father had purchased when they’d only been without Mary for a year.
Before he knew most of the hunters he had met afterwards.
Dean needs him and Sam to be somewhere no one will find them. Despite these measures, he isn’t exactly surprised when Missouri turns up on his doorstep maybe six hours after they’d arrived, waving off his protests that he didn’t need any help. “I appreciate you finding us somewhere secluded,” Missouri simply says. “It’s going to take me a while to reach down far enough to grab a’hold of him.”
“I don’t want anyone else messing with him,” Dean protests, moving into Missouri’s path when she makes a bee-line for the room he’d set up Sam in. His brother is still surrounded by monitors and IV stands and Dean hates that he had to make it look so clinical, how Sam will more than likely see machines the first time he opens his eyes.
Missouri just clucks her tongue in dismissal and shoves past Dean. “He’s asking me to help him,” she snaps, bringing a finger up to Dean’s temple and tapping. For just a second, Dean hears screaming and he staggers back, gasping. “So loud I’m surprised even you can’t hear,” she adds.
Dean doesn’t try to get in her way again.
000
Apart from Sam’s reference books, the only literature in the cabin is a stack of musty-smelling romance novels. Dean tosses out the ones that have pages stuck together, and boy does he not even want to think about that, and starts reading Sam something called Hot Hawaiian Nights.
“You tell anyone about this,” Dean warns to Sam’s sunken features and bruised-looking eyes. “And I’ll kick your ass.”
000
Missouri drives back into town to sleep and Dean can’t exactly blame her if she hears what he’d only caught a snatch of all through the day. He prefers the evenings when Missouri isn’t tending to Sam. There is something palpable at work when she is by Sam’s side, something that makes Dean think of the queasy feeling he got walking towards Bobby’s house and the crows circling above.
Every now and again Missouri will ask him to wait outside and he doesn’t argue.
But the nights are easier. Sam could’ve just been asleep in his bed and after Dean moves a second mattress into his room, he can almost convince himself that they are both just crashed out after a particularly hard hunt. Any moment Sam will start snoring like a buzz saw and Dean will have to throw a pillow at his head or get up and roll him off his back.
Sam stays silent through the darkness, the faint stirrings of his breath not enough to hear over the sounds of the forest around them.
000
Dean wakes up with bruises three months into their stay at the cabin and although he tries to hide it, Missouri knows as soon as she arrives in the morning.
“He’s getting closer to the surface and he’s hurt and confused. He’s going to lash out,” she explains with a gentle voice and soft eyes. “You’d better start coming back into town with me in the evening.”
Dean chuckles, the sound hollow. “He could smash my bones to make his bread and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference,” Dean says. “I won’t leave him alone.”
Missouri nods and doesn’t press it. Dean figures, even if she wasn’t psychic and all, she would have already known what he was going to say.
000
Sam breaks free fighting.
Dean hears a crash and Missouri swear for the first time ever and he’s running into Sam’s bedroom. Missouri has her hands held out and to the side and Sam has her by the throat. He isn’t squeezing though, just holding on and staring about, wild-eyed.
“Sam!” Dean barks and just like that Sam lets go, Missouri stumbling backwards and almost going over a chair, Dean arresting her fall and sending her towards the door. Dean is to Sam in an instant, hands on his shoulders and holding him down. Sam thrashes, head whipping back and forth and eyes rolling. His mouth is open and he is letting out a kind of guttural keening that turns Dean’s guts to water.
Dean bites almost through his lip, lets Sam go and backhands him across the face. Everything in Sam stills and then a hand comes up and prods gently at his face. “Ow,” Sam says, almost dreamily. His eyes rolled again but then finally came to rest on Dean. “Dean?” Sam curls up into himself, hands wrapping around his knees and a frown draws down his features. “I think I was looking for you but I… you were somewhere dark.”
“Yeah, little brother,” Dean says, kneeling down by Sam’s bedside and rubbing a thumb over his temple. “So were you.”
Author:
kellifer_fic Rating: PG (Language)
Category: SPN - Gen (AU)
Word Count: 1,424
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Notes: A coda of sorts to A World Of His Own Making. Can be read as a standalone.
Prologue | Part One | Part Two
Dean wakes up with the smell of antiseptic in his nostrils and a faint beeping sound in his ears. He blinks a few times because the room he’s in is bright and thinks for a second that he’s going to look down and find himself back in slippers and the non-descript loony-bin pyjamas. He’ll find that everything that happened up to that point was a horrible hallucination.
He tilts his head sideways and sees Sam in another bed with the side rails up. There are big, velcro straps over his torso, legs and pinning his arms to his sides.
“What the fuck?” Dean grunts and sits up. The whole room tilts for a second.
“Lay back down you dumbass,” a voice snaps from the corner and Dean cranes his head back around and sees Bobby on an uncomfortable-looking chair with an old, leather bound book in his hands. “Least until the dizziness passes,” Bobby stands and stretched. He’s looking a little better than the last time Dean saw him, but not by much.
“What’s going on?” Dean demands, hating that he’s had to ask that over and over again. He feels like all control of his life has been ripped from him, spinning him out of control. Every time he tries to get a grip, his hands skid uselessly on the slippery fabric of his current existence.
“We pried the black outta your brother,” Bobby says, eyes ticking away towards Sam and back again before they can rest on him properly. “You gotta understand that we didn’t have any other options.”
“What happened?” Dean asks, sitting up slowly, letting his head rest against the wall behind when the room tilts again. It doesn’t spin quite so fast though so Dean figures he’s making progress.
“That… thing,” Bobby begins, his face tightening down into a grimace. “Was keeping us out as surely as we were keeping it in after a while. It got sick of us trying to help Sam and just locked us out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“We needed you to breech its defenses, but you couldn’t know that was what you were doing. It let you in because it wanted you to suffer but it couldn’t close up shop again while you were inside. We had to strike while you were at ground zero.”
“I felt…” Dean pauses, clenching his fists for a second. “What you did… he would’ve died if…”
“There was only two ways that ritual would go, yes,” Bobby agrees gently. “Sam was either going to come out the other side or he and whatever devil was down deep inside would have been destroyed together.”
“Tell me there was no other choice,” Dean grates out, feeling everything in him go heavy.
“There really wasn’t,” Bobby assures him and Dean looks at him for a moment before whatever drugs he has in his system pull him under again.
“I believe you,” Dean says, raising his hand enough to point a finger at Bobby. “Doesn’t mean we aren’t going to talk about what you thought was an acceptable risk.”
“Yeah kiddo,” Bobby sighs. “I know.”
Dean feels a lot less groggy the next time he wakes, enough to demand to be helped out of bed and to Sam’s side. He listens as the two healers Bobby had brought him explain how there is little chance Sam will ever wake up, let alone be himself again.
Dean nods, thanks them for their time and then kicks them out. When he’s strong enough he half drags, half carries Sam out to the Impala that had been rescued and restored by Bobby and drives them both to a cabin his father had purchased when they’d only been without Mary for a year.
Before he knew most of the hunters he had met afterwards.
Dean needs him and Sam to be somewhere no one will find them. Despite these measures, he isn’t exactly surprised when Missouri turns up on his doorstep maybe six hours after they’d arrived, waving off his protests that he didn’t need any help. “I appreciate you finding us somewhere secluded,” Missouri simply says. “It’s going to take me a while to reach down far enough to grab a’hold of him.”
“I don’t want anyone else messing with him,” Dean protests, moving into Missouri’s path when she makes a bee-line for the room he’d set up Sam in. His brother is still surrounded by monitors and IV stands and Dean hates that he had to make it look so clinical, how Sam will more than likely see machines the first time he opens his eyes.
Missouri just clucks her tongue in dismissal and shoves past Dean. “He’s asking me to help him,” she snaps, bringing a finger up to Dean’s temple and tapping. For just a second, Dean hears screaming and he staggers back, gasping. “So loud I’m surprised even you can’t hear,” she adds.
Dean doesn’t try to get in her way again.
Apart from Sam’s reference books, the only literature in the cabin is a stack of musty-smelling romance novels. Dean tosses out the ones that have pages stuck together, and boy does he not even want to think about that, and starts reading Sam something called Hot Hawaiian Nights.
“You tell anyone about this,” Dean warns to Sam’s sunken features and bruised-looking eyes. “And I’ll kick your ass.”
Missouri drives back into town to sleep and Dean can’t exactly blame her if she hears what he’d only caught a snatch of all through the day. He prefers the evenings when Missouri isn’t tending to Sam. There is something palpable at work when she is by Sam’s side, something that makes Dean think of the queasy feeling he got walking towards Bobby’s house and the crows circling above.
Every now and again Missouri will ask him to wait outside and he doesn’t argue.
But the nights are easier. Sam could’ve just been asleep in his bed and after Dean moves a second mattress into his room, he can almost convince himself that they are both just crashed out after a particularly hard hunt. Any moment Sam will start snoring like a buzz saw and Dean will have to throw a pillow at his head or get up and roll him off his back.
Sam stays silent through the darkness, the faint stirrings of his breath not enough to hear over the sounds of the forest around them.
Dean wakes up with bruises three months into their stay at the cabin and although he tries to hide it, Missouri knows as soon as she arrives in the morning.
“He’s getting closer to the surface and he’s hurt and confused. He’s going to lash out,” she explains with a gentle voice and soft eyes. “You’d better start coming back into town with me in the evening.”
Dean chuckles, the sound hollow. “He could smash my bones to make his bread and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference,” Dean says. “I won’t leave him alone.”
Missouri nods and doesn’t press it. Dean figures, even if she wasn’t psychic and all, she would have already known what he was going to say.
Sam breaks free fighting.
Dean hears a crash and Missouri swear for the first time ever and he’s running into Sam’s bedroom. Missouri has her hands held out and to the side and Sam has her by the throat. He isn’t squeezing though, just holding on and staring about, wild-eyed.
“Sam!” Dean barks and just like that Sam lets go, Missouri stumbling backwards and almost going over a chair, Dean arresting her fall and sending her towards the door. Dean is to Sam in an instant, hands on his shoulders and holding him down. Sam thrashes, head whipping back and forth and eyes rolling. His mouth is open and he is letting out a kind of guttural keening that turns Dean’s guts to water.
Dean bites almost through his lip, lets Sam go and backhands him across the face. Everything in Sam stills and then a hand comes up and prods gently at his face. “Ow,” Sam says, almost dreamily. His eyes rolled again but then finally came to rest on Dean. “Dean?” Sam curls up into himself, hands wrapping around his knees and a frown draws down his features. “I think I was looking for you but I… you were somewhere dark.”
“Yeah, little brother,” Dean says, kneeling down by Sam’s bedside and rubbing a thumb over his temple. “So were you.”