FIC: Of Bastard Saints, 25

[nilchance]

Title: Of Bastard Saints
Authors: nilchance and beanside
Rating: Adult
Disclaimer: We make no claim of ownership on the Brothers and Daddy Winchester. No infringement is intended, no money is made.
Author Notes: Set after the episode "Devil's Trap."
WARNINGS: Character maiming, violence, more angst than you can shake a stick at, WIP.



Considering that the tomb was a gate to hell, the cemetery was surprisingly quiet, John thought. He leaned back on the tombstone he was sitting on, shifting his weight. Sam paced past him again, still muttering to himself. They'd tried driving around Lawrence most of the night, but Sam wasn't picking up any more information on where Dean was. It was like a void had opened and sucked his boy in.

"Where is he?" Sam asked for at least the twentieth time. "Goddamn it, if we missed him..."

"Sam, settle down. The gate won't open for a little while, he might still show up." John rotated his neck, hearing it pop alarmingly as he stretched.

"Do we have enough ammo if-"

"I don't know, Sammy," John said, voice sharper than he'd intended. "How much ammo do you bring to this kind of party?" he asked, trying to lighten his tone.

Sam shot him a look, and resumed pacing. "I know, I know," he muttered. "I'm a pain in the ass."

John looked to the darkening sky for help. "I didn't say that."

"I'm not Dean, I don't do this-"

John made a soft noise of annoyance. "Sam, Dean's worse than you at sitting still most times. Hell, I'm not that fond of it myself. This," he added, tapping the prosthetic, "just makes it necessary, not less infuriating."

"Oh." Sam tilted his head, considering for a moment. "If he doesn't show, what do we do?"

"If he doesn't show, I have no fucking idea, Sam," John said.

"That's a great attitude, Dad," Sam said sarcastically. "Didn't you train him? Shouldn't you know where he'd go?"

John closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the tomb. "I trained him to hide from me."

"Why the hell would you do a thing like that?" Sam snapped.

John just met his eyes, not saying a word.

Sam's eyes fell, staring at the ground. "Sorry. I'm just worried."

"I know," John said. "S'okay. I was always worried about shape shifters when you were little. I had one try to impersonate me to Bobby and Elkins once upon a time." John scratched his head, smiling a little. "I always thought that asshole Elkins was kind of sorry he'd actually shot the shifter instead of me. Dean's orders were always to grab you and hide if he thought anything was wrong."

"My family is so fucked up," Sam sighed. "Necessarily fucked up, but still."

"I took him up to Bobby's junk yard, would give him a couple of minutes to hide, and then I'd go looking. If he could hide from me for twenty minutes, he won." John's smile was sweet, wistful in a way that wrenched Sam's heart. "The first time, I found him in a couple minutes, but that was the only time he made it easy on the old man."

Sam sat on a tombstone, attention half-trained on the cemetery as he looked at the gentle smile on his father's face. He'd always assumed that Dean's training was harsh, judging from the way Dean snapped to whenever their father ordered him, but it sounded like a typical game of hide and seek.

"Then, the day came that at the end of twenty minutes, I hadn't found him. I called him in, but he didn't come, and I started to worry, so I went in, to ask Bobby to give me a hand. Dean was sitting at the kitchen table, having milk and cookies, and Bobby was laughing his ass off at me."

Sam laughed, imagining his father's face.

"I'd always told him that the best hiding place was somewhere that I wouldn't think to look. I'd forgotten about the dog door in the back." John shook his head, a soft chuckle slipping out of his mouth. "I was so proud of him that day."

Sam's smile faded as he remembered Dean trying to do the same exercise with him, years later. He'd been a petty kid, even then. Wouldn't go along with it, wouldn't hide. Just sat there on the steps pouting, half because he was bored and half because he was afraid nobody would come to find him. Dean had tried to talk him into it, promised Sam that Dean would always find him. Sam hadn't budged. Eventually, Dean had given up, lied to their father, told him that Sam had done well.

The first of many times Dean had covered for him to their father, Sam thought sadly. So fucking many regrets to put right. It was Sam's turn to find his brother, and so far he wasn't doing a fantastic job.

John sighed. "If he doesn't show up, I'll call Bobby in to help us search."

Sam nodded and seemed about to speak when a low, rustling noise came from across the graveyard. "Shit."

John levered himself up, gun already in hand. "Could be him."

Sam nodded, pulling his own gun. "Got it."

A harsh grating noise sounded from the tomb in front of them, clawed hands curling around the stone door.

"That is definitely not him," Sam observed, pulling out a second gun.

John looked at the first noise, seeing an enormous creature lumbering towards them. "Not him either. Ghul."

"Ghoul?"

John shakes his head. "No. G-H-U-L. Different breed. Stupider, stronger, and thankfully slower. Also, not contagious like a ghoul. Takes more to put them down though."

"Who the hell named them? Couldn't we call them... fucking Bob, or something?" A sharp noise from one of the tombs made Sam twitch. As a twisted hand groped up from the dirt, Sam asked, "Um, what the hell is that?"

"Sam, a little busy here," John muttered. "Just fucking shoot it. If it's not your brother, put it down."

"Got it," Sam said tightly.

If it is your brother, I'll put him down. Won't fail you, Dean, John thought, shouldering the rifle and aiming at the ghul. Not again.

They just kept coming, Sam thought wildly. Monsters, demons, twisted things that hadn't been seen on this earth in millennia. And he didn't have enough bullets for all of them.

They'd had to fall back, take up a defensive position near the old mausoleums, and the things were still coming. Slow, shambling things, fast, vicious things. Probably twenty of them still coming, maybe forty of them already down.

John had his back to the wall, reloading as quickly as Sam had ever seen, but he knew that look. It was the look of a man staring at losing the war. And still, no Dean.

It had never occurred to Sam that it might be him who didn't survive to see Dean. He'd never considered it. It was all about saving Dean.

Now, they'd have to save themselves.

He swung the hatchet at the thing he was fighting, feeling the blade slide through the exoskeleton to stick in bone, or whatever the thing had.

"Sam! Drop!" John yelled.

Obeying instantly, Sam let go of the hatchet, falling to his knees.

A bullet whistled over his head, missing by inches, and the thing teetered over him. Fuck. A quick push of the telekinesis forced it back, so it wouldn't crush him.

A low, eerie howl sliced through the chaos of the cemetery. Some of the demons froze where they were, then parted before something huge and close to the ground could barrel through them. As it ran, Sam caught a quick flash of teeth, the shine of white wet eyes and slick fur, but it moved too fast for him to get a good look at it.

"Hellhound," John barked, leveling a shotgun at the oncoming creature.

Great, Sam thought. Hellhound. How the fuck did you kill a hellhound? "Rock salt?"

"Don't know," John said. The two scariest words in the English language, coming from John Winchester.

The damned thing- literally- kept coming, tearing up earth in its path towards Sam. Sam swore, raising the shotgun to take his one admittedly crappy shot before it could plow into him. To his shock, the hellhound turned at the last minute, snarling flames, its fangs grabbing at the nearest monster and shaking.

"Dad?" Sam asked, twisting away for a heartbeat to take down a zombie with one quick shot.

"Don't know, not worrying about it," John yelled back. "Deal with the other ones."

Sam nodded, moving away from the hellhound to attack another creature, something like the one Dean had nearly incinerated. "Poisonous bite, right?"

"Yup." John cursed abruptly as a hand gripped his arm, yanking him away from the building, flinging him through the air to slam into a tombstone. He scrambled back to his feet, cursing as his body protested painfully. Oh, that was going to suck tomorrow, assuming they saw tomorrow. He turned, pulling another gun to replace the one he'd dropped inflight.

Oh, shit. "Sam, we've got daevas."

"Can't be," Sam said desperately, shifting his grip on the gun to club back a particularly lively zombie. "Not enough light."

"Tell him that," John said, firing again. "Shit. I think it's the muzzle flashes," he said. "We're making the light."

"That's just fucking great!" Sam snarled. "Flares?"

"Two for about-" John did a fast count- "five. So far. We kill those, they'll keep coming."

They needed to fall back. Now, before they were caged in. But Dean-

"He's not coming," Sam spat. "I was so fucking sure. Goddamn it. Let's get the fuck out of here."

John nodded, scooping up his gun and limping back towards the bag. He was almost there when Sam made a short, hurt sound, and he spun, just in time to see his boy go down, falling on his back under a Harpy, his hands scrabbling to keep its fangs away from him. "Sam!" he yelled, bending to grab the rifle-

Too late. He'd be too late.

Sam looked at the snarling thing above him, hands locked on its shoulders, cursing, screaming as he fought it back. It was too strong, had the leverage.

"You don't fucking touch him," a low, guttural voice snarled. A familiar voice.

The creature's head exploded in a hail of blood and bone, and Sam looked past it.

Straight into Dean's enraged eyes.