Chapter Nine

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” Cari remarked with a sly smile when Dean and Buffy returned to the house ten minutes later.

Buffy immediately turned bright red and a satisfied smile crept across his face at that. Dean had to admit he found the appearance of that blush, every time sex was discussed, to be utterly irresistible. Still, he decided that while he liked Buffy quite a lot, she needed to get laid in the worst way. It was the only time Dean thought it was his sacred duty to make it happen or else the woman was going to break something or turn crazy like some of those Catholic nuns. Nevertheless, Dean's natural attachment to his balls told him voicing this thought would put them in eminent danger.

Instead of letting Buffy discombobulate trying to respond to Cari's observation, Dean brushed past the awkwardness by directing Cari to the only topic of importance right now; Sam.

"So how is he?" Dean asked as they settled down at the kitchen table where Cari had been sitting when they returned to the house.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Cari answered, stating the obvious but soon resumed her report. "But thanks to the information you provided about his blood type, I was able to give him the transfusion he needed.”

When Buffy had first contacted Cari, the physician had asked for as much detail about Sam's current state as possible so that she could bring the appropriate supplies since going to a hospital was out of the question. While Dean shared the same blood type as Sam, Cari had still brought packs of blood in Sam's type in case that wasn't enough. Upon her arrival, her first order of business, after shoeing them out of Buffy's bedroom where Sam was; was to replace Sam's loss of blood. Fortunately, the blood packs had been enough without Dean having to step in as donor.

“So he's going to be alright?” Dean asked, eager for to get on with it and tell him if Sam was going to okay. The image of Sam hanging suspended like meat on a hook, dangling above the killing floor, his blood draining from him was an image that Dean never wanted to see again. Not to mention how frightened Sam had been, thinking he was back in the cage. Dean hadn't heard Sam scream for him like that since he was a kid and his cries had pierced Dean like knives.

"I believe so," Cari nodded and then quickly added, "but the lacerations are severe. It won't be an easy or quick recover. Muscle tissue was lacerated and in some case almost penetrated all the way through. What was done to him was deliberate, ensuring no major arteries were damaged so the bleeding, while profuse was not immediately fatal. He could have been kept alive like that for hours."

For eternity you mean, Dean thought to himself. If what took place in Buffy's spare bedroom was a personification of Sam's fears of being in the cage, then Michael and Lucifer would have wanted to torture Sam for as long as they could. They'd want to wring out every second of agony for as long as it lasted. However Dean knew one thing with absolute with certainty; if that had really been Michael and Lucifer that he and Buffy had faced, neither of them would be alive. The real Michael and Lucifer could have killed them both without breaking a sweat.

"I’ve had to suture all of the wounds," Dean heard Cari say and return his attention to her update. "The damage was just too significant for me to use dermabond or steristrips. He'll need to be on antibiotics and I've given him a tetanus shot. He’s in a lot of pain so I’ve also administered some pain killers. He'll need them for the first few days as well as complete rest for a few days. Nothing strenuous like slaying." She directed that comment at Buffy.

"He'll get it," Buffy stated firmly before Dean had a chance to answer. "He can stay here." No way was Sam going to recover in that seedy hotel. She liked the younger Winchester brother for reasons she'd never tell Dean and was not about to let him languish alone in a hotel room.

Dean opened his mouth to protest and then thought better of it. Buffy was opening her home to him and Sam and Dean was touched. There was real concern for Sam in her eyes and Dean found his affection for her deepening even more. Still he had no desire to impose on her and he had always taken care of Sam, it was not a duty he could easily relinquish to anyone.

"For now," Dean added after a moment, nothing the raised brow from Buffy indicating the subject was far from decided.

Sensing that this could become a 'thing' between the two of them, Cari decided not to pursue it and made a diplomatic change of subject. "So do you know what kind of monster you're dealing with?"

"No." Both Dean and Buffy said in unison and then shot each other a look of embarrassment.

Oh this was too good, Cari thought to herself. She was going to have a field day when she texted this to Faith and the other slayers she was still friends with.

"We're not sure yet," Buffy spoke again, feeling awkward again. "We know it’s telepathic. It seems to read our thoughts and able to throw our worst fears at us."

"Ewwww...." Cari wrinkled her nose in distaste and Dean wondered if those Shadow Men had included essence of Spice Girls to the mix when they'd been working their spell to create Slayers.

Suddenly a thought struck her and she recovered her composure and turned to Dean. "Is it safe for Sam to be here? If you’re expecting this thing to come back, maybe he needs to be someplace safer?”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to him,” Dean said firmly. “He’s safer where I can keep an eye on him.”

Buffy suspected that Dean was going to unmovable on this subject and left it alone. Besides, she didn’t think it was good idea for Sam to be alone either.

“And I can keep an eye on both of them,” Buffy told Cari with a smile.

*****

It was still the middle of the night when Dean raided the Impala to ensure that he was properly armed if any son of a bitch came after him. As she saw him laying out his weapons on her kitchen table, she had to admire the arsenal in front of her. The more she learned about these ‘hunters’, the more it became clear that these weren’t just civilians playing at monster hunting. Their weapons were well thought out, specialized to deal with the particular threat, whether it was demon, vampire or ghost. Iron, rock salt and silver ammunition, along with knives that gave her own cache of weapons some serious competition.

Dean had even let her look through his father’s diary and Buffy saw an cryptozoology of creatures she never knew existed and was convinced that the Watcher Council were unaware of either. John Winchester had travelled all across the country on his hunts, just as Sam and Dean had done. It made Buffy wonder about being based in Sunnydale. For all of John’s travels, the word ‘Hellmouth’ never entered his vocabulary and Giles had believed that all nature of evil had gravitated to the one in Sunnydale. There was such an obvious discrepancy in their knowledge that Buffy made it a point to investigate once this job as Dean called it was done.

Reading his father’s journal was also an insight into Dean Winchester. Buffy had never met a demon or an enemy who had ever been as insidious as Azazel, referred to in the early segments of the diary as the Yellow Eyed Demon. There was never any chance for Dean and Sam to be anything other than what they were because the demon had ensured it. It had torn his family apart and even if it had only killed his mother and Buffy guessed his devotion to Sam was the same as her own when Joyce had died; to hold on to what was left.

It was also not lost on her that he’d let her read the diary, sensing it was not something he shared and that it had done so now meant something. Unlike Angel who was so filled with secrets, Dean was willing to share the uglier parts of his life with her, without hesitation. After what had happened with Angelus and then with Sam, what was there left to hide? She liked the fact that he trusted her with the diary and as they spent their evening waiting for the creature to return, Buffy found he was fun to be with even when he wasn’t trying to put the move on her.

Forcing themselves to stay awake through the night, both were conscious of the fact that Dean’s fears might manifest themselves in a threat to Sam. They’d taken turns checking on the younger Winchester after Cari had left, only to see that thanks to the medication she had prescribed, Sam was in a deep sleep and wasn’t walking up any time soon. Oblivious to their vigil, Sam slept fitfully, unaware that Buffy and Dean would be up all night to keep him safe.

As the hours stretched, they began to relax a little and though neither were about to say for certain the danger had passed, they’d decided remaining in each other’s company for the rest of the night was a way to keep safe. Buffy had made popcorn and the two of them had ended up on the sofa, watching reruns of Doctor Sexy, MD which Dean claim he didn’t watch even if he knew who Doctor Jenny Piccolo was.

By the time Doctor Sexy had ended, they’d flipped to a channel broadcasting cheesy monster movies and Buffy and Dean watched while pointing out plot holes and authenticity from their own experiences. She didn’t know if it felt the same to Dean but after a while, it didn’t feel as if they were waiting for a monster to arrive but more like they were on a date watching old movies on the sofa and filling up on junk food. It had been so long since Buffy had enjoyed being with a guy in this way, where she hadn’t had to lie about being a slayer or hide the fact that she knew the world was inhabited by meaner things, that it felt almost normal being with him.

By the time dawn approached and they were snuggled against each other as watching Arachnaquake (WTF?), Buffy started thinking about what would happen when they killed this creature. For the first time since meeting Dean Winchester, Buffy realised that when he was finished in Lawrence, he and Sam would be on the road again, going to their next job.

Despite herself, despite the independence she’d been enjoying these three years, knowing that inevitability approached left a heavy sensation in her gut. She was going to miss him.

She was going to miss him a lot.

******

Sam woke up and found himself in a girl’s bedroom.

It took him a moment to remember that this was either Buffy’s bedroom or else Dean had checked him into the gayest hotel room in the world. There were flowers print sheets and too many pillows on his bed. Living out of motels for the past eight years and sleeping in an ‘67 Impala had made him forget what it had been like sharing an apartment with Jess for a nearly two years. Girls? They liked flowers on stuff and lots of pillows, usually with frills of some kind. He spent the first few minutes after waking debating on this point, largely because processing any thought beyond that felt too hard for his just conscious brain.

It was better than remembering that only last night, he’d been in the cage.

Closing his eyes, he dispelled the images that crowded on him like a collapsing building once he’d allowed himself to remember. He’d been living with the memories of the cage for quite some time now and part of his recovery from that awful experience had been how he faced such recollections. After yesterday, he felt as if the wall had just collapsed inside his brain, allowing him to face the tortures and degradations by Lucifer and Michael anew. Logically, he knew that the creature or whatever the hell it was that had hit him and Buffy with its mojo, had created that nightmare but it still felt real.

He supposed if anything told him that world was a facsimile, it was the fact that Dean was able to kill Lucifer. If that had been the real Lucifer, the one he’d faced and said yes to, no one would have survived. Not him, once Lucifer was done torturing him that is, not Dean and certainly not Buffy, Slayer or not. He considered that the creature would have drawn from Sam’s memories and despite Sam’s fears, he knew that Lucifer could be defeated. By recreating Lucifer out of his memories, the creature had also built in its own vulnerabilities. The real Lucifer would have none.

He didn’t know how long he stayed in bed, only that after a while, he got tired of it and felt the need to get out of bed. Sam could hear no movement beyond the room and he wondered if Dean and Buffy had gone out, chasing down more leads on the case. They had something of theory to follow up the night before and even with Sam laid up, there would be no stopping Dean to put an end to this threat, whatever it was. Perhaps Sam could help and remembered his laptop was in the living room. If he couldn’t work the job for Dean and Buffy, perhaps he could do some research on the Net.

Forcing himself to get out of bed, Sam’s whole body ached with pain. He could tell by his dry mouth that he had been medicated so he guessed that he was experiencing the version with medication. It made him wonder how it would feel without Cari’s pain killers. The thought was daunting. As he stood upright, he grabbed the corner of the bedside table to brace himself as he accustomed his body to movement. Noting the bottle of pills on the table, he reached for it and read the label. Vicodin. It would do. Helping himself to one after reading the instructions on the label, he downed a pill with the glass of water on the bedside table. Once done, he started towards the door when his eye caught sight of something.

They hadn’t noticed it before because when they had last been in this room, Buffy had just been attacked by Angelus. She’d been freaked out and emotionally wrought so conducting an examination of the room hadn’t been a priority. However now Sam bent over, grimacing in pain as he ran his fingers along the base of the closet and noted the residue found there. It was a fine powder of concrete along with chips that looked very much like paint. Dean had found the same thing at Sherman’s office and also at the alley where Benson had been found. Sam wondered if they would find the same if they went to Buffy’s spare room.

It was like something was opening a door to this room and then closing it again, leaving everything the way it was, except for the residue of tearing through the wall in the first place. Sensing this was important, Sam pulled on his jeans carefully over his bandaged legs and then went outside to find his brother.

As he emerged into the hallway, the silence reinforced his belief that Dean and Buffy had gone out without him. The clock on the wall indicated it was almost noon. It seemed to fit as he glanced outside and saw the activity on the street. It was quiet with few people out and about since they were either at school or work. It was only then that Sam saw the Impala was still parked in the driveway. Could they have taken Buffy’s car? Sam doubted it. Dean couldn’t stand not being the driver and worse yet, he couldn’t stand driving any other car but the Impala, unless of course Buffy had him more whipped than Sam originally thought.

Dean was awful sweet on her after all.

Sam padded slowly into the living room and stopped short when he saw the scene before him. He found himself suppressing a laugh as he saw just what Dean and Buffy got up to last night. From the arsenal on the kitchen table, it appeared as if they were waiting to see what else would come their way after the double whammy of Angelus and Lucifer in one night. However, at some point in the evening, this was abandoned for what Sam was now witnessing with great amusement.

The coffee table had all the signs of a couch picnic with remnants of popcorn, empty coke cans and microwaved nachos strewn across the surface. Somewhere in the empty Twinkie wrappers and empty potato chip bags, was the remote control and the TV Guide. Shaking his head, Sam picked up the half empty bowl of popcorn and stood over Dean with a contemplative expression that soon disintegrated into mischief.

Dean Winchester was presently lying on the couch, spooning Buffy Summers, fast sleep. The scene was so domestic that Sam briefly entertained the notion of capturing the image on his phone and sending it to Charlie and Garth just for the hell of it. Hell he was even tempted to send it to Chuck Edlund as fodder for the man’s next book. Deciding that was too cruel and Buffy was an innocent in all this, he was satisfied with rounding the sofa to stand directly above Dean and start pelting his brother’s face with popcorn.

One kernel at a time.

Dean felt something against his face and immediately swatted it away. A second later, he felt something else against his cheek and rubbed his nose, trying to wave away the nuisance. By the fourth drop against his face, he was properly annoyed and roused out of his sleep. Blinking his eyelids open, Dean became aware of two things. Someone’s hot and awesome body was pressed so tightly against his, he could feel the delicious curves enticing him back to sleep again and secondly, he saw Sam standing over him, grinning.

“What?” Dean grumbled.

“You two are just sooo cute,” Sam teased in his best Sean Hayes voice.

Dean blinked and craned his neck to see that Buffy was sleeping in his arms, her petite frame fitting so perfectly it was like they’d been doing this forever. She looked beautiful asleep, golden hair framing her face and popcorn on her cheek. Huh? Then Dean felt the popcorn kernels on his face and shot Sam a glare.

“You’re a dick.” He hissed.

Sam grinned and turned away, making his way slowly to the kitchen table before lowering himself into it with a soft grunt of pain, waiting for Dean.

An expert at getting out of bed and hotel rooms without waking the women he’d been with, Dean was able to extricate himself from Buffy and the sofa to join Sam a moment later. As he sat down across Sam, he studied his brother, examining the man’s state. Sam had already looked strung out of shape before the incident last night but now he looked positively wasted. There were dark circles under his eyes and Dean swore his cheeks looked hollow. The bandages around Sam’s arm were barely concealed by his t-shirt and Dean made a mental note to change the dressing at some point today.

“You look like hell,” Dean pointed out, sugar coating nothing because Sam would be able to tell if he was lying anyway.

“Thanks,” Sam shrugged, aware of his condition and had made peace with it when he’d been made responsible for the trials. “I’ve been better.” He admitted. “I just wanted to know what was happening.”

“I could have told you that if you’d called me to the room,” Dean retorted and then asked in a gentler tone, “You okay?”

Sam nodded aware that Dean was concerned about his mental state after reliving the cage again. He didn’t blame his older brother. It had taken no less than an angel to repair the damage when the wall inside his brain, keeping all those horrific images of the cage at bay, had lowered. Even if it wasn’t real, Sam could have relapsed after last night’s experiences. “It felt so real Dean,” Sam admitted. “I almost believed I was there but I’ll get over it. I’ll live.”

Dean wasn’t so sure but he didn’t want to argue about it now. “You should go back to bed,” Dean pointed out. “The doctor said you needed to take it easy for at least a week.”

Trying to deflect, Sam gave Dean a knowing smile. “She was kind of hot. What I remember of her…”

Casting a furtive glance over his shoulder to make sure Buffy wasn’t awake, Dean turned back to his brother and grinned, “She was smoking.”

Both of them chuckled before Sam got back on track again. “So this thing didn’t come after you last night?” He asked Dean, guessing from how he’d found Dean and Buffy that they’d spent the whole night in anticipation of trouble which had not come.

“Nah,” Dean shook his head, “we waited all night for it to show up, kept each other in sight and checked on you, just in case but there was no sign of it. I don’t know Sammy, something weird is going on here. I mean we were all at that antique shop, it should have come after me too.”

“It should have,” Sam nodded and then recalled what he had found in Buffy’s bedroom. “I found the same kind of dust you found in the alley with Benson and in the office with Sherman, in Buffy’s room.”

“No shit,” Dean sat up straighter, “so maybe that’s what it leaves behind when it gets in.”

“That’s what I think,” Sam agreed. “I’ll bet if you go into the spare room where I was, you’ll find the same thing.”

“Still leaves us with the same problem,” Dean eased back into his chair with a frown. “It should have showed up last night. We were waiting for it. ”

“Well it wasn’t a complete loss,” Sam gave a Dean a look of innocence and quipped, “You and Buffy got to have a slumber party.”

“Bite me,” Dean growled and got off his seat to make coffee. “So why you and Buffy and not me?”

“Maybe, it’s because of that puzzle thingee,” the two men heard Buffy suddenly reply in a drowsy voice. She pushed her head above the top of the sofa to reveal her dishevelled hair and her half sleep features and added, “You know, the one you and I were messing with.”

Dean put down the coffee pot he was holding and stared them both down. “What puzzle thingee?”

“It was this puzzle cube that Buffy picked up,” Sam explained, concentrating hard because it hadn’t occurred to him. They’d barely had contact with it for less than a minute. “When we were walking around the antique shop, Buffy saw this cube. It looked old with markings I’ve never seen before so I figured it was made up like those two dorks did with the tulpa. It didn’t look like any iconograph or symbols I’d ever seen so I figured it was just artistic design. Anyway, you had to turn it this way and that for it to open…”

“What’s a tulpa?” Buffy asked with a yawn as she climbed off the sofa and sat down at the table next to Sam.

“Nevermind that,” Dean declared, his tone taking on a decidedly impatient air. “So let me get this straight. We’re hunting a monster that has so far killed two people and you two decide to go antiquing while we’re in the place that probably got them ganked in the first place?”

When he said it like that, they really sounded dumb, Buffy thought.

“Well not exactly…” Sam stared to explain.

“Not exactly?” Dean exclaimed. “So you didn’t pick up some ancient Rubik’s cube and start trying to unlock it?” His annoyance was clear.

Sam and Buffy exchanged guilty looks. This time it was Buffy who answered, only because she thought the kissing the night before might make him less mad at her. “It was pretty,” she said guiltily.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Dean rolled his eyes in exasperation more upset at Sam than he was at Buffy. “Jesus Christ! How many times did dad warn us about stuff like this? If it’s old and looks weird, don’t touch it! I’m telling you, when this is done I am so schooling you both on the lore about cursed objects!”

Buffy winced at the fact that he’d included her in this lesson. Then again, he’d included her in the lesson which implied he cared enough to bother. Really Summers? That’s what you’re thinking about? She chided herself.

Dean’s self-righteous rant was far from done. “You two could have been killed! I’ll bet my ass that Sherman and Benson probably went wandering through the place and got up close and personal with the damn thing as well. They probably just touched it, figured it some cheap piece of crap and put it down again without any clue that it just put the fear mojo on them”

“Wow,” Buffy looked at Sam, “so not a morning person huh?”

“He’s better after breakfast,” Sam replied, letting the air out of Dean’s tirade.

“Oh you two are hilarious,” Dean shook his head and went back to the counter to resume making coffee. “You could have gotten yourselves killed. You almost did.” Dean shot Sam a reproachful glare.

“Look can we do the spanking later?” Buffy exclaimed, deciding enough was enough. “We need to figure this out.”

Dean stopped short as the image of spanking, cheerleader costumes and Buffy flashed in his brain and derailed his thoughts for a second before he shook it off. “Don’t try and distract me,” he declared.

Buffy smiled sweetly. It was worth a try.

“Dean if this is it,” Sam spoke up trying to propel them past the moment as well as thoughts of spanking cheerleaders, “I’ll need to get a picture of it so I can do some research. This box has got to come from somewhere right? The antique store owner may not know what he’s sitting on.”

“It might have a certificate of authenticity,” Buffy suggested, recalling that for some of the more interesting pieces Joyce had bought for her gallery, the items usually came with some paperwork. While she wasn’t certain that the same thing applied for antique stores, it was worth a try.

“Can’t hurt until we ask,” Dean replied thinking it was a place to start. You and me are going to check this thing out and get a picture of it for Sam. Meanwhile, if you’re up to it.” He looked at Sam who should have been resting but Dean knew his brother better than that, “Call Diane Lee and find out if Benson had the spook on for anything in particular.”

“I can call Mrs Sherman on our way to the antique shop,” Buffy offered.

“So what do you do when you find this thing?” Sam asked. “You can’t touch it.”

“I don’t know,” Dean said with a shrug. “We’ll see when we get our hands on it.”

TO BE CONTINUED