FIC: Supernatural - Shades of Comfort: 13- 14
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Chapter 13
Owen and Gillian moved competently enough behind Dean, with Sam watching their six. Not that Dean was really all that concerned anymore. The spell had been closed… and all the shades had vanished. Owen and Gillian should be fine.
It was the third guy, Derek, that had Dean worried. The dude had obviously blown a gasket at some point during the night. It could happen that way, especially with the wanta-sees - in Dean's experience, the people who were most desperate to lay eyes on the supernatural were the first ones to go ga-ga when the spooks actually did show up.
Derek had definitely gone round the bend. The whole situation had just burnt his mind out like an overheated engine, and they needed to find him, fast. They'd heard nothing from Squirrel-bait after the original scream - but Dean knew they'd have no problem locating him. They just had to follow the blood trail.
It led to a set of familiar-looking swinging doors.
"Oh, Christ," Dean muttered. He glanced at Sam, and received back an equally appalled look.
It was the surgical theater.
"You two stay here," he snapped at Owen and Gillian. The shades were enthusiastic about performing medical procedures… not competent. He'd learned that after what happened to Sam. If this had gone down the way Dean expected it had, then those two didn't need to see Derek like that. If there was anything recognizable left at all.
"What? No," Gillian snapped back. "We're going to see what happened to Derek."
"No," Dean said, equally as stubborn and twice as harsh. "You're going to wait right here. Take care of Owen. That's an order. Sam," he called, and the two of them slipped inside the room, leaving the 'kids' behind.
There was blood on the table. On the floor. On the walls. It was fresh - it dripped from the rusty steel surgical tools laying scattered on the floor where they had fallen when the shades evaporated.
But there was no sign of Derek.
Sam watched as Dean slipped further into the room. His lighter was still the best source of light, but Sam could make out a subtle, almost grimy glow beginning to seep in through cracks in the walls. The sun must be coming up. They'd been here all night.
He fought the urge to clear his throat - it itched and burned.
Dean turned a bit, nudging a bloody scalpel with the toe of his boot. "What do you think they did with him?" Dean asked.
Sam shrugged. The shades hadn't really had Derek long enough to do much…but then again, with the old scalpels in their hands it wouldn't have taken much time to do irrevocable damage. After all, the shades had almost killed him with their intubation tube in just the few minutes he'd been awake. With the kinds of surgical tools available in this room, they could have easily slit Derek open all the way down to the bone in just seconds.
Sam watched Dean move toward the far corner, looking for any sign of what could have happened to the camera man. Without much light, there wasn't any real way Sam could help in the search -
Something moved in the shadows behind his brother.
Sam opened his mouth to shout a warning, but his torn throat betrayed him - producing a sound made more of ash and fire than noise.
Dean turned to look at Sam, and the shape behind him moved, taking advantage of his distraction and darting forward.
It was Derek - shirtless and bloody and completely insane.
Everything happened at once. Sam jumped for the shape, but was too far away, and the form hit Dean, taking him to the ground. Dean cursed, turning in the fall so that he hit on his back, already reaching for whatever had body checked him. But Sam had arrived, grabbing Derek by the shoulders and heaving him back.
Derek twisted in his hands like a cat, swinging his upper body around, angry and agile. The move was so wild and unexpected that it threw Sam off balance. Derek turned on Sam, and he was hissing.
Sam took an automatic step back, catching himself and compensating for the sudden momentum coming toward him. In that moment he could see the wide, red gash that ran all the way from the wound Gillian had put in Derek's side, to the opposite ribcage. The shades must have begun some sort of surgery on him, the stab wound in his side fitting into their patterns for cutting. Sam blanched, fighting to hold Derek off, yet loath to really engage him in any real fight. One solid hit to the midriff could kill him, evisceratinghim and leaving his guts on the floor.
The deep, precise slash across Derek's stomach gaped and pulled as he struggled, his mind so far gone that he wasn't even aware that he'd been all but disemboweled. Blood spurted and seeped from the raw wound.
His mouth forming a curse word that his voice couldn't supply, Sam fought to keep his grip on the man's bare, clammy shoulders, struggling to keep the wild man away from himself as much as Dean. Sam was vaguely aware of Dean scrambling to his feet, as Derek's hand swung around in a large and obvious strike.
Sam saw it coming. Problem was, Sam wasn't in a position to dodge without literally tearing Derek in half.
Shrieking wildly, Derek plunged the long, thin, rusty pair of Metzenbaum scissors into Sam's side - low and toward the back.
Sam screamed, the sound as thin and sharp and rusty and painful as the blades that sank into him. He felt Derek tug at the scissors, but they were caught and wouldn't come loose.
"Sam!"
Dean had made it to his feet. He slammed his pipe into the back of Derek's skull, and Derek dropped like a rock.
Sam did too; falling to his knees, pushing both hands against the thin piece of steel still wedged in his side.
Dean dropped down next to him, gently prying at his fingers, already talking. "It's okay, it's okay. Let me see."
Sam dropped his hands and Dean tugged aside the bulk of jacket and shirts. A few feet away, Derek lay, not even twitching. Dean's hands hesitated.
"What the hell?"
Dean shifted something, and it hurt, it really really hurt, but no where near as much as it should have. "Hold on, Sam. The scissors caught on something…"
Dean pulled, a motion that Sam felt all the way from the base of his neck to the tops of his toes - a hot, electric pulse. Sam tried to shout again, but his voice was now completely gone.
Dean cast the scissors aside, their cutting edges stained red, and then pulled again. This time Dean held up the little spell book. The one Sam had seen sitting forgotten in the morgue. The one that he'd forgotten he'd stuffed into his jacket pocket.
Dean held it out with raised eyebrows. Sam took it with shaking hands. Dean shook his head and went back to checking the wound.
"Well, it's deep and it's nasty, but no where near as deep as it could have been," Dean finally pronounced. "It's right over your kidney, Sam. A couple of inches deeper and you wouldn't be walking out of here. As it is, I think you'll live." Dean sounded relived and tired. "Let's get you out of here and cleaned up, huh? I think I'm done with this place. And with doing Bobby any more favors."
Sam nodded, bemused. He stared at the little book in his hands - the one that now had the thin, perfect puncture all the way through it. It had blunted the force of Derek's blow, and taken that couple of inches that had kept the scissors from reaching his kidneys.
The vilest spell book ever written… and it had just saved Sam's life.
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Chapter 12 Chapter 14