mamapranayama | Time and Chance Happens To Them All, Part IV

Part IV

Sam hadn’t been expecting the rough, scarred skin, the missing patches of hair, the thin, disfigured nose, missing eyebrows, and skin stretched too tight across his bones … Clearly the man had been burned badly at some point in his life. Nathan took quick advantage of Sam’s shock at seeing the face that had been hidden under the hood and swung out with the blade, slashing through Sam’s coat and shirt and piercing skin.

Despite the stinging sensation, Sam knew it was more of a scratch than anything else, but it was enough for him to stumble off-balance in surprise. Nathan immediately tackled Sam to the ground. The back of his head smacking the concrete plus the aftereffects of both his fractured skull and the vision-induced headache whited out the world for a moment.

Nathan raised the knife in one smooth motion and Sam had no adrenaline left to push Nathan off. It was reflex – survival instinct alone that sent Sam’s hands up, his fingers wrapping around the blade and stopping it a mere hair’s-breadth away from entering his chest.

Nathan struggled with all of his strength to press the knife down further. Underneath him, Sam grunted in pain, his hands refusing to let go of the knife’s blade even as it sliced into his fingers and blood dripped onto his shirt.

Using every last ounce of energy left in his arms, Sam pushed back. His muscles were shaking, on the verge of failure as he battled to keep the knife from his chest, but it wasn’t enough – Nathan had the better leverage and Sam’s body was giving in to exhaustion.

The blade pierced his shirt over his right pectoral muscle. Surreally, Sam watched it pop through the outer layer of skin and slide into muscle. Sam groaned at the searing pain, but he refused to let go of the blade, he hadn’t given up … not yet.

Nathan’s mouth curled up into a contorted grin, killing Sam may not be have been what he had come for, but he was clearly enjoying it, delighting in the sight of the bright, red blood expanding around the end of the blade.

Sam dimly registered the sound of the gunshot echoing loudly against the walls in the alley. He shouldn’t have been surprised by what happened next, but his field of view turned to horror as, in slow-motion, blood erupted outward from his attacker’s head, pieces of bone, skin, and brains hitting Sam in the face. He felt Nathan’s body jerk back violently with the impact and land on the pavement beside him, dead before he hit the ground.

A familiar voice was shouting his name, but his thoughts were too muddled and confused with shock for him to react. In the back of his mind he knew it was Dean that had fired the shot, but Nathan’s dying momentum had pushed the knife deeper into his chest.

His slickly bloody hands stung but that didn’t stop him from pulling the blade up and out. His first aid training told him that he shouldn’t have done that – that it would only make the bleeding worse, but he didn’t care, he wasn’t about to leave it sticking out of his chest.

Sam breathed heavily through the growing pain as he attempted to disengage trembling fingers that had become embedded in the cutting edge of the blade. Finally getting his grasp to release it, he let his hands fall and heard the knife clatter to the ground.

He turned his throbbing head to the side, trying to focus his vision, and made out Nathan’s blurry and scar-ravaged face. Naked, open eyes stared back at him lifelessly, a trail of blood snaking its way from the gaping wound in his temple and down the side of his uneven and mottled cheek. Sam shut his eyes, closing out the image of those eyes glaring at him accusingly as his body was overcome with pain and merciless exhaustion.

Someone was talking to him and he felt hands on his chest, applying a searing and lancing pressure over the wet spot spreading across his shirt. He heard barked commands and he knew it was Dean who was ordering him to open his eyes, but sleep was the more welcome option, he was so tired and Sam liked that idea better than Dean’s so he let himself drift away.

OOOOO

Dean woke to the sound of the door opening and shutting just before a fresh cup of coffee was thrust under his nose. He glanced up and gratefully gave Bobby a brief nod before taking the warm cup in his hands and sipping the bitter brew. It certainly smelled better than it tasted, but it was caffeine and it would suffice to meet Dean’s need to wake up fully.

“How is he?” Bobby asked, pointing towards the bed at the other end of the room.

“Still sleeping,” Dean replied, wiping a hand across his stubbly face before he stretched, working out the kinks that had formed in his back after dozing off in the uncomfortable chair. He glanced across the room and studied Sam, drugged out of his gourd with painkillers. “I think he was more exhausted from exerting himself with that cracked skull of his than anything else.”

Bobby walked across the room and carefully peeled back the bandage taped to Sam’s bare chest and made a grunt of satisfaction, “Well … looks like the stitches I put in are holding and there’s no sign of infection. Kid’s damned lucky it wasn’t very deep.”

“Were you able to take care of things?” Dean asked, since Bobby had just returned from tasking himself with cleaning up the scene and the body left behind.

“Yeah …” Bobby said solemnly without offering any further explanation. Not that Dean really needed to know – he knew Bobby would make sure there was no evidence left behind that could be traced back to them.

Dean nodded and drank more coffee. Sam was going to be fine physically. What worried him now was how Sam was going to react when he woke up. He hadn’t had a choice when he killed Nathan – he would have killed Sam.

But would his brother see it that way?

Dean pushed aside his darkening thoughts and watched as Bobby grabbed one of Sam’s limp hands and inspected it as well. “His hands and fingers are gonna hurt like hell, but I think they should heal okay too."

“That Sara girl … I talked to her,” Bobby changed subjects. “I told her I was a cop investigating the break-in at her apartment and that Nathan had been killed while fleeing the scene. She remembered him from high school. He was apparently badly burned in a fire that killed his parents when he was six months old. Sound familiar to you?”

“Unfortunately,” Dean agreed, trying to hide the gnawing anxiety and guilt over killing the guy. In many ways Nathan was like him and Sam – they had lost so much to that demon, yet Nathan had had it much worse, not only losing both parents in the fire, but enduring the pain of his injuries alone after that."

Dean was pretty shaken by the whole thing himself. It didn’t take a genius to know that Sam would see himself mirrored in that psycho, even if Sam was as far from becoming a killer as Dean was from earning a PhD. But with Dad’s words still rattling around in his head about the possibility of killing his brother one day, taking Nathan out felt one step closer to a reality that he didn’t want to approach.

“What’d she have to say about him?” Dean pressed.

“Well … she regrets it now, but admitted that she and her two friends, Amy and Bridget, had been pretty crappy to him back then and had given him grief about his scars. Guess we can see now what his motivation for killing was.”

“A little overboard for getting picked on, don’t ya think? Like Carrie at the prom ...”

Bobby grunted in agreement, but added with a pointed and knowing expression, “Sometimes words can hurt more than punches, Dean.”

Dean hid his eyes from Bobby. Yeah, he knew he had said some pretty awful things to his brother the last couple of weeks and he wasn’t too proud of himself for being such a dickhead.

Dean looked up when a groan issued from Sam’s bed and he was on his feet a second later. Sam mumbled something incoherently then flung an arm over his face before Dean could get to him.

“You say something, Sam?”

Sam shook his head which caused another deep throated moan to come forth. Dean reached for the bottle of Vicodin and shook out a couple of pills before grabbing the bottle of water sitting on the nightstand next to him.

He put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, “Think you can sit up?” he asked and Sam mumbled a ‘yes.’ Dean helped him up, one hand on an elbow guiding him until he was propped up enough on the pillows to take the offered pills and swallow a few mouthfuls of water.

Sam leaned back after that, his head sinking into the pillow again, but awake enough to keep his eyes at half-mast.

“How you feeling?” Dean asked, even though it was a stupid a question and Sam was obviously in a lot of pain.

“I’ll live,” Sam muttered.

“I guess you heard what Bobby said about Nathan?” Dean asked, taking a seat beside Sam on the bed.

Sam nodded, “Yeah … I wish we could have helped him or at least tried to talk to him.”

“I know …” Dean wanted nothing more than to avoid this subject, but he knew Sam would bring it up if he didn’t and it was better to just get it over, like ripping off a band-aid. “I couldn’t see him, Sam. I would have just winged him if I had … but, all I saw was that knife and … “

“I know, Dean … it’s okay.”

“It doesn’t feel okay …” Dean swallowed hard, “He was a human and he was …“

“Like me?” Sam softly finished for him.

“You’re not like him, Sam." Dean shot back forcefully before reining in his temper and softening his tone. “Look … I know you wanted to find some answers from this kid …“

Sam cut Dean off short, “I don’t think I would have gotten anything from him anyway. I saw the look in his eyes …” Sam blinked sluggishly, his voice low and husky. “He was too far gone – too filled with hate to ever listen to anything I might have had a chance to say to him.”

“All the same … m’sorry …” Thinking about how he’d let himself get so wrapped up in his own misery that he lost himself in a bottle of Jack every night and how he had been too drunk to be there for his brother when Sam needed him made him add quietly, “I’m sorry about a lot of things.”

Dean ducked his head down, not daring to make eye contact with his brother and he silently vowed to never let himself lose control and get so wasted again. He didn’t expect Sam to forgive him but, when he felt a hand land on his knee, he knew Sam understood.

Dean looked up and met Sam’s glistening eyes.

His little brother nodded, “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have taken off without you.”

A ghost of a grin began to creep up on Dean’s face and he was glad that the sharing and caring time was coming to an end, he wasn’t overly comfortable with the stinging sensation he felt in his eyes. He cleared his throat in order to push down the lump that threatened to expand in it, “So … we’re good then?”

“Yeah.” Sam sighed with a yawn.

“Good … then why don’t you go back to sleep, Sammy?”

“ ’Kay,” Sam replied, already closing his eyes and drifting off, but before he was completely taken under by the wonders of modern pharmaceuticals, Sam spoke one last time, “Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“At least we saved the girl … We made it in time to keep Sara from getting hurt,” Sam pointed out quietly, “I guess being a psychic freak can come in handy sometimes.”

“You’re not a freak, Sam …” Dean countered, carefully ruffling his brother’s hair, “You’re a dork, yes … and a stubborn ass … but not a freak.”

The End