GNM: Chapter 10: PART TWO

[dragonfly11]

Make sure you read PART ONE first. Again, sorry for the lack of lj cut. *kicks it*

Goodnight Moon, Chapter Ten: Part Two

Hugging her warm and refilled thermos to her, Missouri leaned against the Impala and watched the scene on the hill with an aching heart. Both of Dean’s arms were wrapped wholly, greedily around his brother, his chin on Sam's shoulder. Sam didn't seem to mind. His own face was buried in the crook of Dean’s neck.

It was a candid moment of unguarded need; a rare moment where bravado and pride fell away completely, leaving what was left of a battered and beaten family clinging to each other and whatever else it took to get them through the rest of the day.

She didn’t think she’s ever seen them both so vulnerable before. Not at the same time. Not without one standing guard over the other with a determined, threatening look in his eyes.

A gust of wind cut across the land, rocking the boys. Leaning further into each other, they stood their ground. It was how they had survived every storm they’ve ever weathered. It was how they would survive this one too.

And Missouri was gonna stand guard over the both of them until they were ready to face it again. She had a promise to keep after all.

~*~*~

They drove through the night. Sammy seemed to be trying to tuck himself away now, according to Missouri—which made it somewhat less painful for Sam when he was awake. The brief intervals when Sam was awake, however…he was clingy. Not just a hovering ball of nervous energy; clingy as in—pressed into Dean’s side, nearly have a panic attack if separated—clingy.

“It’s Sammy,” Missouri explained as Sam fell back to sleep under Dean’s arm. “Although he’s trying to keep himself in the background, his fears are bubbling to the surface.”

Dean’s brow furrowed. “What fears?”

She looked down at the boy, his inner terror reflecting out from her watering irises. “The fear of dying.” She said it so softly, Dean had to strain to hear her. And then his heart had to strain to comprehend. “He knows that by helping you…he’ll die.”

Bobby glanced at her from the driver’s seat and Dean’s face turned partially confused, partially incredulous as his mind denied what he was hearing. “He’s not gonna die.”

“In a way,” her sober gaze remained on the cuddle bug. “Sammy will.”

At that, something twisted inside Dean. Something painful. Looking down at his brother, he couldn’t imagine a world where Sam lost completely what made him Sammy.

“We’re almost there,” Bobby announced, probably for his own sake as much as it was for theirs.

Dean pulled his brother in closer.

~*~*~

Just before dawn, Dean’s eyebrows rose as they pulled alongside a small cottage with wildflowers hugging both sides of a stone path to the door. “Uuh…BobBob? I think you made a wrong turn.”

They turned right on the road after the house and parked along the woods that bordered the property.

It was a straight, short shot that offered them cover of the forest and what remained of the darkness…if they acted fast.

Bobby and Dean immediately started loading an assortment of weapons onto their persons and into a bag. Sammy still hadn’t filled them in on how to kill the thing. They were going in blind. But they were still going in.

“Maybe we can just snake the juice without it noticing and get outta there. Come back and gank it later,” Dean offered.

Bobby’s eyebrows rose as their eyes met. “Think we’ll be that lucky?”

Dean thought for a moment, then gestured at something in the trunk. “Grab me that hand scythe too.”

Missouri came around the back of the car, tugging her shoulder wrap tighter around her. “He’s still sleeping.”

Dean nodded, slapping a clip of consecrated rounds into his 45. “Good. Hopefully we’ll be back before he wakes and makes like the static cling.”

“Remember it’s in the basement and looks like…”

“I know. I know. ‘Night in a bottle’,” Dean shook his head at Sammy’s description. “He was a girl even then.” Lowering the trunk hood, he pushed on it gently until it clicked. “Let’s go.”

As they entered the woods, Missouri called out softly and Dean turned.

“We’ll be waiting,” she said, raising her chin and clasping her hands in front of her. As in, ‘So you get your ass back in one piece, you hear?’

They stood barely twenty feet apart, but within that small distance lay a world of possibilities…that could all go wrong.

And wrong they would go.

Nodding, Dean turned and disappeared into the woods.

~*~*~

Getting in proved to be fairly easy. Actually finding the correct elixir among the thousands of glass bottles lining the shelves upon shelves in the basement…not so much.

“I bet it’s a bitch to dust down here,” Dean mused, walking down one of the aisles, looking for ‘night in a bottle’. Bobby quickly took another aisle, the lights from their flashlights bending and warping around the bottles. They had no time to waste. Daylight was breaking—already starting to shine its way through the basement windows and they were losing one of their advantages.

“Missouri didn’t say on what end of the basement it was on? Cause, you know, that would’ve been helpful.” It was surprisingly huge. “Maybe if we…” Body tensing, Dean stopped in his tracks. Slowly turning around, he brought up his sawed-off. Stance ready for a fight, he scanned the barely lit room with trained eyes. The hair rising on the back of his neck told him there was trouble. Bobby sailing through air along with about a dozen bottles confirmed it. “Son of a…!”

Before Dean could even see something to aim at, he too was flying through the air. Hitting a rack of potions, he fell to the ground, gun sliding across the cement floor.

Whatever the hell this thing was, it was fast. And really, really pissed.

“Not a morning person either, eh?” Dean quipped, struggling to his feet.

There was a flash of darkness in the morning lit room and Dean swung his hand scythe. The creature howled and black tar-like substance sprayed across Dean’s chest, but it wasn’t enough to immobilize it, let alone kill it.

Dean again found himself airborne.

~*~*~

He was tired. He was hurting. Bobby hadn’t answered him and he’s tried every damn weapon they brought, but nothing would bring the bastard down. Not a full clip of rounds into the black shrouded mass he assumed was its skull and not a sword straight through its neck. It just seemed to…instantly heal—the gooey substance filling its wounds. It was like trying to gank the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man’s super evil anorexic twin with a butter knife.

What Dean wouldn’t give for a proton pack.

His vision swam as he looked up at the creature after being thrown for a second time into the wall. Wheezing, “You’re…really starting to piss…me off. You know that?”

A low, almost growling chuckle was the first sound the creature made. It slowly walked/floated towards the injured man. Dean tried to push himself up, but his ribs protested. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to be thrown this time. The Vetus was done playing with its food. “Sorry to disappoint you, fugly,” Dean breathed heavily, snarling defiantly, blood dripping from his brow and into his eye. “But my soul is already promised to sizzle on another hot platter.”

Grimacing, Dean pushed himself back as far as he could as a long, oily finger reached for him. “And these guys?” he panted. “I doubt they’re fans of double dipping.” At that he pulled the knife from his boot and thrust it up into the creature’s abdomen. He didn’t expect to incapacitate it…just buy him a second or two.

It wasn’t long enough.

Pain exploded in his chest and he screamed. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe as black boiling agony slithered through his body swallowing him from the inside-out. His world was quickly graying into nothingness, into hopelessness. Sam was his only thought as…

It was faint. So faint. On the edge of consciousness and through the haze of pain he heard something. It seemed forever away, but it was gaining strength and closing distance. And just as abruptly as it had started, the pain stopped. Collapsing back, gasping for breath, Dean opened his eyes in time to see something shatter at the feet of the creature. A child’s voice rose high in the air with a man’s determination in a language Dean recognized, but whose words he couldn’t decipher. The creature howled in anger…then melted like the wicked witch of the freakin’ west right before Dean’s wide eyes.

Looking up from the billowing pile of hissing tar and ancient fabric, Dean’s eyes met Sam’s. Jacketless and showing off his “Princess” shirt; he was heaving, swaying and shaking before him. And then he was collapsing.

Ignoring his screaming body, Dean rushed to his brother’s side, catching him in his arms before his body hit the ground. “Sam?” On his knees, he pulled the tiny frame up against him. “Hey, hey…open your eyes. Come on.”

“What happened?” Bobby groaned next to them, sitting up. Missouri helped him stand, her worried eyes never leaving the boys.

“What the hell, Missouri? You were supposed to watch him!” Dean yelled, then turned back to trying to rouse his bite-sized super hero.

“Don’t you use that tone with me, Winchester,” Missouri advised. “Ain’t nothin’ stopping either of you when the other’s in trouble. Besides…” Her tone and eyes soften. “The boy’s small, but he sure is…”

“I know,” Dean stroked his brother’s hair proudly, voice thick. “I know.”

Bobby was looking between the three. “Is someone gonna tell me what the hell is…” Large steel doors sliding over their exits with a thundering jolt cut him off. “What the…”

Just as suddenly as they were all locked in, Missouri and Bobby were thrown violently to the floor as the building began to shake. Shielding Sam’s body with his own, Dean crawled to the corner away from the crashing bottles.

“It’s a damn trap!” Bobby yelled above the noise.

“Ya think?!” Dean hollered back, then turning to Missouri, who was stumbling around looking for the elixir they came for, “How the hell do we get out?”

Finding it right where Dean had been before they were attacked, she snatched it up and staggered back towards Bobby. The two made it to the cellar door with each other’s help and searched frantically for a latch or anything that would release them from the deathtrap. They found none.

~*~

Tucked into a far corner on the floor, Dean curled even tighter around Sam when a light fixture crashed merely inches from them. “Now would be a good time to tell us how to get outta here, kiddo.”

Pulling away slightly to look at his brother, he was relieved to find him conscious, but…Dean’s bloody brow creased. “Sam?” He smoothed sweaty bangs aside. “Sammy?”

Studying him with a confused, unsure look in his eyes, “I know you,” the boy whispered slowly.

A stab of fear twisted in Dean’s chest and it took him a moment to find his breath, to center himself in a world where his brother didn’t inherently recognize him. “Yeah,” he replied, his words breaking along with everything inside him that made him…him. “You know me.”

~*~

Glass shattered, sending sharp multi-colored shards in every direction, sparks showered their bodies, wood and stone fell in resonating impacts and Bobby was hollering something…but in that moment the brothers heard nothing… knew of nothing but each other.

Sam blinked. Sluggish, but determined, he slowly looked down at what was digging into his palm, at what he held so tightly. His little fingers uncurled and he knew instantly and said undoubtedly, “You got me.”

A hand immediately wrapped firmly around his and the amulet. Fierce green eyes bright with tears and conviction pierced his. “I got you.”

“Dean!” Bobby’s cries finally punctured their world as a beam from the ceiling crashed next to them.

Sam in his arms, Dean stumbled towards the older man. He was lunging for the now open cellar door…when the ceiling caved in.

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TBC

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Comments

[dragonfly-sg1.livejournal.com]

LOL I promise the next chapter won't be as long coming.