gavemea_45 | (no subject)

He turns blindly away, reaching out with one hand as if to catch his balance or brace himself against something, but there's nothing but air.

Dean--

"We're just gonna have to find a way to pick it, then. That's all."

"We will." Andrew's straightened up, turning toward him with worry in his eyes. "We'll do it."

He nods, then nods again, steeling himself, and turns back around. Sam meets Andrew's gaze.

"Okay."

A beat.

"So what do you need from me?"

He breathes out, and unships his backpack to start rummaging in it.

"Check my work," he says, and draws out a heavy manila envelope containing several 8x10 photo prints.

Sam rifles through it, holding each up to the increasing sunlight to get a good look.

"You did these from the Colt, didn't you? From back when I brought it in so you could see it."

"Yeah. I blew up the pictures to get a better look, and I'm gonna try a spell schematic using those patterns."

Hope is dizzying, Sam discovers, and terrifying in its intensity.

He breathes out, trying to steady himself, and nods.

"That sounds good," he agrees. "Sounds logical."

"Okay."

He bites his lip, looking at Sam's face, then reaches into the bag again and pulls out a spool of silver wire before offering the bag to Sam.

"I'm gonna start setting up. Can you hand me stuff?"

"Just tell me what you need."

Sam takes the bag and moves to stand beside and a little behind Andrew, out of his way.

"Right," he says, and rummages briefly in a pocket.

"Hold this a sec?"

And he hands Sam one of the energy bars he picked up back at Milliways, the wrapper already opened and folded down.

He gives it a startled look and Andrew a dubious one, but takes it and holds it for him.

Andrew starts moving back toward the mausoleum door.

"Actually," trying for offhanded, "you could go ahead and eat that one, I've got more."

"I'm not hungry."

Andrew throws him a swift look.

"Think of it as fuel?"

Sam gives him a sharp look, but subsides. It'll take longer to argue about it than it will just to eat the damn thing.

He takes a bite, grimly chewing and swallowing, then takes another.

His shoulders relax a little as he sees Sam starting to eat, and he moves to start on the setup.

The wire goes down first, forming the outermost ring. More than a ring, in fact; lines extend from its sides to the front of the mausoleum, incorporating it into the structure that's slowly taking shape. Shorter lengths of wire become internal nodes of the circle, or carefully formed replicas of the designs on the Colt.

Andrew only speaks briefly while he works, naming the things he needs: salt, chalk, candles, censer.

Knife.

At any other time, he'd be asking questions, maybe even taking notes for the hunter's journal he keeps faithfully the same way Dad had, fascinated by the spell itself and everything that's going into it.

Right now Sam couldn't care less, so long as it works.

He trails Andrew like a grim and silent ghost, handing over each item as requested, holding on to the rest.

"Okay," he says finally, low and a little hoarse. "Okay, if you can ... light the candles, and then step out."

He's got the last item hanging around his neck, for when it's needed: a length of white gauze, suitable for a blindfold.

Sam hesitates.

Are you sure?

The question trembles on his lips for an instant while he studies Andrew's face, and then he swallows it unsaid, and nods.

"Okay."

He pulls out his lighter and lights the candles, one after another, in careful sequence-- and then steps across the lines and stands back, watching.

He draws a deep breath.

Leans forward, touches a dried leaf to the flame of the central candle, and drops it onto the small pile of dried leaves in the censer.

Starts the incantation as the herbs catch fire, sending aromatic smoke up into the brightening sky.

Sam's own repeated litany echoes in haunting counterpoint in the silence of his mind.

Please.

Please let this work.

Please let us get Dean back.

Please.

"-- levate portae capita vestra," he's muttering as he turns from the center to face the mausoleum, "et erigite ianuae sempiternae --"

He crouches, makes a fist, holds his arm out over the foremost node -- the one with the shape of the entire schematic reworked in miniature. Braces himself.

Lifts the knife, and draws it carefully along the flesh of his forearm.

Sam hisses in a sharp breath between his teeth, but otherwise makes no sound.

His hands clench into fists at his sides.

Please let this work--

Andrew's breath catches, but only for a moment; he's chanting again even as he grips his cut arm and squeezes firmly, letting the blood drip down into the wire design, gleaming bright red against the brighter metal.

He doesn't move until the little space is filled, and then tugs the length of gauze off his shoulder and wraps it quickly two or three times around the wound. It'll stop the bleeding. Anything else can wait.

(Anything else like the memories pushing their way up into his consciousness: the pentacle, the earth, the blood against silver.)

Smoke continues to curl softly upward from the burning herbs. For a few moments, nothing else seems to happen.

Cold blue fire sparks upward with a hiss from the center of the pooled blood, drawing on it like fuel. It flares and races outward along lines of silver, setting the structured pattern ablaze with a wildly flickering flame.

The fire streaks along the carefully-laid wire lines to the tomb itself. There it flares again, and flows along the edges of the steel door, limning it in unearthly radiance.

A low thrumming begins to build, more felt than heard at first, rising upward from the ground through the soles of their feet.