[Fic] The Most Cursed Name, pt 3
The Most Cursed Name
A Supernatural Story
Rating: R (Language, Violence), Gen
Betas: quakerhobbit, caladria
Warnings/Tags: Season 4, demon blood, discussions of hell, possession
Written for
spnaufestival
Part Three
A week later, Sam is still limping but the swelling in his eye is going down. Neither of them mention it, but it's there in the room. Sam still remembers Dean's voice cracking I'm sorry Sammy I'm sorry and Dean can't look at him and that's enough for Sam.
That stuff about Sam being evil from birth, it's not true, Dean doesn't believe that.
Sam looks down at his hands limp in his lap as they ride the highway and thinks If Dean doesn't believe that, he's wrong.
"It's not your fault," Dean says, out of the blue.
Sam frowns at his hands a moment before he remembers - Dean's talking about the hunt yesterday, another Seal they failed to save. A Seal Sam failed to save because he isn't strong enough these days, because Dean is watching his every move now, because every time he uses the knife, he imagines himself killing an innocent victim, actively imagines it, what they must be thinking, whether they're grateful for being freed from that hell, whether they know they don't have to die, except that some kid wants to keep some promise to his brother, and if it weren't for that, they could be saved to try to put their lives back together-
"Sam, you with me?"
"What?"
"I'm talkin' to you dude. I thought you were all about the Dr. Phil."
"No, I'm here, just thinking. Sorry. Yeah, not my fault, sure."
Dean rolls his eyes. "Real convincing. I'm trying to tell you you did good. So we didn't save the Seal. There are still like..."
"Thirty-eight," Sam says.
"Thirty-eight whole Seals to protect-"
"No, Dean. There are like two hundred Seals to protect. Demons only have to break thirty-eight more of them. We have to protect them all."
Dean's face darkens. "And let me guess. You think we could save them all if only you could do your wooboo freaky shit-"
"Maybe. But it doesn't matter. I can't do it anymore."
"Just like that, you can't do it."
"That's right."
"Not your best lie, bro."
"I haven't been practicing, Dean. It takes work."
Dean frowns. "So you could just start practicing again and get right back to poofing demons."
Sam looks out the window. It's more complicated than Dean knows, it'd require actually picking up one of Ruby's calls, but - "Yeah, I guess." He braces himself for the blowout.
"Don't do it, Sam."
Dean's voice is quiet. It's not what Sam expected. He looks over at Dean. Dean is white-knuckled on the steering wheel, focused on the road so hard.
"I know you feel responsible for what happened to me, Sam. But I made the deal-"
"For me."
"Yeah. And I'd do it again. Just don't do this to yourself out of some backwards idea of revenge-"
"Backwards?" Sam is incredulous. "Is that what you'd tell Dad if he were in my position? No, and you know how I know that? You didn't, not ever, not once did you tell him his quest for revenge was 'backwards.'"
"That was for Mom-"
"And this is for you!"
Silence.
Sam's last words ring out in the empty space between them, seem to scatter themselves on the road in front of them or stumble along behind them as they hurtle down the highway. This is for you, he said, and he still means it. Whatever he's doing, he's doing it for Dean.
If he's exorcising an army of demons to get to Lilith, he's doing it for Dean. If he's throwing himself onto a hundred Seals to save the world from Lucifer, he's doing it for Dean. If he's made himself powerless and finds himself lying in a pool of his own blood-
He's doing it for Dean.
He looks over.
Dean-
-is smiling.
Sam frowns. "Dean-"
Dean glances over at him and his smile vanishes briefly. He looks back at the road, the smile reappears like a ghost over his mouth. He shakes his head.
"Dean, what-"
"Sorry, I know I should be pissed. And I am, okay. That little slip of yours..." Dean laughs. "But you just have no idea how much I wanted - how long I've waited to hear-" He huffs out a breath, sobers. "I waited a long time to hear you say that anything you do is for me."
Sam pales, looks forward. Tries to remember that this isn't new information. Dean has called Sam selfish lots of times, when they were kids, when he was leaving for college in a spectacularly horrific blow-up that landed Sam out on his own three weeks before school even started.
The even keel he'd always gotten from reminding himself that wanting to go to school is normal, wanting safe isn't shameful - it's not there anymore.
"This hell thing really messed us up good, didn't it, Sammy."
Sam looks out the window. "Yeah. I guess."
Dean goes into the convenience store next time they stop for gas. Sam watches him go, still thinking about that strange smile on Dean's face.
He's perseverating; he needs a distraction. He pulls out his phone.
"Hey, Cas."
"Sam. Where's Dean?"
"Um. He's buying supplies."
"Oh."
There's a pause.
"Why have you called on me, Sam Winchester?"
Sam looks across the blacktop gas station parking lot, through the window to see Dean perusing the skin mags.
"We lost a Seal," he says.
"I know."
"No, I know you know. I just. What are we gonna do?"
"We will keep fighting to protect the rest of the Seals. Of course."
Sam nods, subdued. "Of course." More silence. "Hey Castiel."
"Yes?"
"What if... I mean is it possible... Could God have a plan even you guys don't know about?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, what if he has a plan that just doesn't fit our conventional ideas of good and evil? What if God was willing to use, say... an evil man to a good purpose?"
There's a pause. Sam gnaws on his thumbnail.
"Do you believe you are an evil man, Sam Winchester?"
"No, of course not." Maybe. "I'm just saying-"
"The demon's blood inside you is evil, Sam."
"Yeah, I know but-"
"You believe God would use something evil to work His will?"
"I'm saying that the only people I can hurt with this ability is demons. I can save people. Me, a hunter who's been raised his whole life to save people, a person who prays and believes and - I'm saying couldn't that be God's will? To use the enemy against itself? Why else did any of this happen?"
There's another pause, and even though he's been working up to this conversation for a long time, even though he's argued this point to himself many times, it falls flat to his ears now, and the dead air of the open phone line is condemning. Cas breathes out a breath.
When he speaks again, his voice is softer, closer to the phone. "There's both merit and precedent for such a thing- Sam, I've got to go. I'll contact you soon."
There's a shuffle on the other end of the phone, the deep voice of Uriel and then Cas hangs up before Sam can even say goodbye or ask if everything's okay.
And then Dean is coming out of the convenience store, so Sam puts his phone away and pretends to believe that everything's going to be okay.
"No, Bobby, I know."
"I'm serious. I know Dean don't sleep more'n four hours a night and if you're anything like you were as a kid, you don't sleep half that yourself. We're running a marathon, kid, not a sprint."
"I know. I'll sleep, I promise. And I'll make Dean sleep too."
"And you just call me if he... starts actin', uh, weird. You know."
Weird like, if he beats your face in again, weird like if he accuses you of something you just demonstrated you can't do and therefore haven't been doing - yeah, calling Bobby would be the first thing Sam does. Sure.
He'd asked questions, the first time they visited him after that last big blow up, when Sam woke up seeing double. What the hell did you boys tangle with Bobby asked as he turned Sam's face from side to side, and Sam pulled out of his grasp and he and Dean looked at each other - Sam had looked away and Dean had looked angry and later that evening Bobby got Sam alone to ask how things were between him and Dean. He hadn't gotten much in the way of answers, but for Bobby, just standing there was like handing him your private diary, and he heard him laying into Dean the next morning while they worked on a junker in the yard. Over beers, and quiet so they wouldn't wake Sam, or quiet because Bobby couldn't stand to really tan Dean's hide after Hell, or because he didn't want to discourage Dean from making sure Sam wasn't drinking-
Whatever.
"Sure, Bobby. I will." Sam hangs up the phone, his palm lingers on the handset a little.
Dean after Hell - Hell he went to for Sam.
Sam sighs, shoves his hands in his pockets. Goes to find Dean, wherever Dean's gone in this motel. Maybe to get ice. Sam wanders.
And as he wanders, he thinks.
About Dean in Hell, screaming, about how difficult it has been to get Dean to talk about anything, about how Dean seems to be opening up lately to him about it - about how he's been so angry, even after he's fully convinced Sam's not doing anything to make himself stronger.
And he thinks about Bobby, he thinks about Dad, what they'd do about Dean, or if they'd do anything about Dean, or if they'd think Dean was right to be angry and not let it go, if they'd think Dean was right to knock Sam on his ass. Dad had told Dean he'd have to kill him some day; what if Dad's calculations had just been off? What if Hell had hardened something in Dean, what if Dean could snap his neck without a thought, what if there was nothing holding them together anymore-
He thinks about Dean sobbing I'm sorry, Sammy, and he tries to remember why it felt manufactured.
"No, it's going great," Dean says, around the corner.
Sam peers, but Dean's just on the phone, so he retreats out of sight and listens.
"Super great and fun," Dean continues, sarcasm dripping. "No, he's not. But he could start again anytime. Because he told me he just needs practice and bam-" A finger snap. "He's up and exorcising." A pause.
"Yeah of course I believe him. I'm his big brother."
More sarcasm - Dean must be in a mood again. Sam'll have to watch where he puts his feet.
"He wouldn't lie to me."
Okay, that sounds better.
"Thirteen Seals left. How're you guys doing?" Some non-committal sounds of affirmation. "Well do better. This Apocalypse ain't gonna fix itself." Dean laughs a little. It sounds strange, Sam realizes, because it doesn't feel forced. "Yeah. Report back soon. I wanna know what all your little pawns are doing." Pause. "Because I'm doing all the heavy lifting over here, that's why."
A longer pause.
"Sam?"
Busted. Sam backs up a few steps and calls out, "Dean?" Then he breaks into a jog, looking back and forth, pulls up to a stop. "This is where you've been."
Dean doesn't look like he fully buys it.
"Who's on the phone?" Sam says, nodding down at the phone in Dean's hand.
"Oh, Cas. Just checking in. Dinner?"
"Sure," Sam says. "I'll run out for it if you demon proof the room, cool?"
Dean nods, distracted and watching Sam too carefully.
"Kay. I'll be back."
"Cas," Sam whispers into the phone. He's half a mile away, sitting at a table waiting for their pizza to finish.
"Has the situation changed in the hour since you called me last?"
"Yeah, I think so, maybe."
There's a pause on the line.
"Cas?"
"I'm sorry. That was meant to be a joke, based on the notion that it has been an incredibly short amount of time between now and our last conversation, during which it is extremely unlikely that catastrophic events have occurred-"
"I wouldn't underestimate the Winchester capacity for attracting catastrophe, Cas."
"Noted. Why have you called me, Sam?"
"Cas, have you talked to Dean today?"
"No. Why?"
"He didn't call to give you an update on the Seals business?"
"I don't need an update on the 'Seals business.' I am attuned to this matter in every way and do not require notice of defeat or success-"
"Yeah, I know, but-"
"Sam, is there something wrong?"
Sam sighs. "Yeah. I just..."
"Sam?"
Sam laughs a little, humorless. "I don't know which one of you is lying to me."
"I have no reason to lie to you."
"Which is exactly what you'd say if you were lying to me."
"I suppose that is true. Rest assured, however, that I am not."
Sam has to laugh at that. Castiel is so alien, it's hard to believe he and his kind listened to Sam's prayers - oh. Of course they didn't. He was an abomination. Right. "Okay. Whatever. I just-"
"You are not an evil man, Sam. I don't believe that, no matter what is inside you. I have been thinking since our last conversation, about God using the tools of Hell against those evil forces. If it could be anyone, it would be you, Sam. You possess that strength, I see that now."
Sam is stunned for a moment. All he can say is "...I..."
"Believe me when I say I did not talk to Dean today. I have not spoken to Dean in weeks."
Sam nods. "Okay. I believe you." Angels are dicks. Sam ignores Dean's voice in his head. "I'll call you when I've figured this out."
"Be sure that you do. Goodbye, Sam."
Sam hangs up with a strange sense of foreboding. Cas has never been warm with him.
Either way, Dean lied to him about talking with Cas, which means he was talking with someone else, someone who knew something about the apocalypse, someone who has pawns - that someone wasn't Bobby. And it wasn't Cas.
And it hits Sam then like a barrage of scenes in a movie:
Dean, talking about Hell.
Dean, smiling just too much, just too little.
Dean, talking about Hell, after beating Sam's ass - Sam forgiving him because it was Hell.
Dean, volunteering to lay down the devil's traps in hotel rooms, after making Sam show him every place he usually lays one down, something Sam forgave because Dean never did know all the lengths Sam went to to stay hidden.
Dean, wearing long sleeve shirts, Dean telling him it was because of Hell and Sam believed it and stopped fucking asking-
Dean talking on the phone outside the motel, while Sam was fading with his face in the carpet, the demon in the room saying "he doesn't have it," and then, then Dean happens to burst in, takes out two demons alone, and-
The smell of the pizzeria sticks in the back of his throat, the room spins. Sam pulls out his phone, presses speed dial.
"Hello?"
"Bobby."
"Sam? Everything okay? You know-"
"No. Everything's not okay. I think Dean's-"
"Oh my oh my, little brother."
Sam freezes at the sound of Dean's voice.
"Found you, bro. Time to go back to the room."
← Part Two || Part Four →
A Supernatural Story
Rating: R (Language, Violence), Gen
Betas: quakerhobbit, caladria
Warnings/Tags: Season 4, demon blood, discussions of hell, possession
Written for
spnaufestival
Part Three
A week later, Sam is still limping but the swelling in his eye is going down. Neither of them mention it, but it's there in the room. Sam still remembers Dean's voice cracking I'm sorry Sammy I'm sorry and Dean can't look at him and that's enough for Sam.
That stuff about Sam being evil from birth, it's not true, Dean doesn't believe that.
Sam looks down at his hands limp in his lap as they ride the highway and thinks If Dean doesn't believe that, he's wrong.
"It's not your fault," Dean says, out of the blue.
Sam frowns at his hands a moment before he remembers - Dean's talking about the hunt yesterday, another Seal they failed to save. A Seal Sam failed to save because he isn't strong enough these days, because Dean is watching his every move now, because every time he uses the knife, he imagines himself killing an innocent victim, actively imagines it, what they must be thinking, whether they're grateful for being freed from that hell, whether they know they don't have to die, except that some kid wants to keep some promise to his brother, and if it weren't for that, they could be saved to try to put their lives back together-
"Sam, you with me?"
"What?"
"I'm talkin' to you dude. I thought you were all about the Dr. Phil."
"No, I'm here, just thinking. Sorry. Yeah, not my fault, sure."
Dean rolls his eyes. "Real convincing. I'm trying to tell you you did good. So we didn't save the Seal. There are still like..."
"Thirty-eight," Sam says.
"Thirty-eight whole Seals to protect-"
"No, Dean. There are like two hundred Seals to protect. Demons only have to break thirty-eight more of them. We have to protect them all."
Dean's face darkens. "And let me guess. You think we could save them all if only you could do your wooboo freaky shit-"
"Maybe. But it doesn't matter. I can't do it anymore."
"Just like that, you can't do it."
"That's right."
"Not your best lie, bro."
"I haven't been practicing, Dean. It takes work."
Dean frowns. "So you could just start practicing again and get right back to poofing demons."
Sam looks out the window. It's more complicated than Dean knows, it'd require actually picking up one of Ruby's calls, but - "Yeah, I guess." He braces himself for the blowout.
"Don't do it, Sam."
Dean's voice is quiet. It's not what Sam expected. He looks over at Dean. Dean is white-knuckled on the steering wheel, focused on the road so hard.
"I know you feel responsible for what happened to me, Sam. But I made the deal-"
"For me."
"Yeah. And I'd do it again. Just don't do this to yourself out of some backwards idea of revenge-"
"Backwards?" Sam is incredulous. "Is that what you'd tell Dad if he were in my position? No, and you know how I know that? You didn't, not ever, not once did you tell him his quest for revenge was 'backwards.'"
"That was for Mom-"
"And this is for you!"
Silence.
Sam's last words ring out in the empty space between them, seem to scatter themselves on the road in front of them or stumble along behind them as they hurtle down the highway. This is for you, he said, and he still means it. Whatever he's doing, he's doing it for Dean.
If he's exorcising an army of demons to get to Lilith, he's doing it for Dean. If he's throwing himself onto a hundred Seals to save the world from Lucifer, he's doing it for Dean. If he's made himself powerless and finds himself lying in a pool of his own blood-
He's doing it for Dean.
He looks over.
Dean-
-is smiling.
Sam frowns. "Dean-"
Dean glances over at him and his smile vanishes briefly. He looks back at the road, the smile reappears like a ghost over his mouth. He shakes his head.
"Dean, what-"
"Sorry, I know I should be pissed. And I am, okay. That little slip of yours..." Dean laughs. "But you just have no idea how much I wanted - how long I've waited to hear-" He huffs out a breath, sobers. "I waited a long time to hear you say that anything you do is for me."
Sam pales, looks forward. Tries to remember that this isn't new information. Dean has called Sam selfish lots of times, when they were kids, when he was leaving for college in a spectacularly horrific blow-up that landed Sam out on his own three weeks before school even started.
The even keel he'd always gotten from reminding himself that wanting to go to school is normal, wanting safe isn't shameful - it's not there anymore.
"This hell thing really messed us up good, didn't it, Sammy."
Sam looks out the window. "Yeah. I guess."
Dean goes into the convenience store next time they stop for gas. Sam watches him go, still thinking about that strange smile on Dean's face.
He's perseverating; he needs a distraction. He pulls out his phone.
"Hey, Cas."
"Sam. Where's Dean?"
"Um. He's buying supplies."
"Oh."
There's a pause.
"Why have you called on me, Sam Winchester?"
Sam looks across the blacktop gas station parking lot, through the window to see Dean perusing the skin mags.
"We lost a Seal," he says.
"I know."
"No, I know you know. I just. What are we gonna do?"
"We will keep fighting to protect the rest of the Seals. Of course."
Sam nods, subdued. "Of course." More silence. "Hey Castiel."
"Yes?"
"What if... I mean is it possible... Could God have a plan even you guys don't know about?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, what if he has a plan that just doesn't fit our conventional ideas of good and evil? What if God was willing to use, say... an evil man to a good purpose?"
There's a pause. Sam gnaws on his thumbnail.
"Do you believe you are an evil man, Sam Winchester?"
"No, of course not." Maybe. "I'm just saying-"
"The demon's blood inside you is evil, Sam."
"Yeah, I know but-"
"You believe God would use something evil to work His will?"
"I'm saying that the only people I can hurt with this ability is demons. I can save people. Me, a hunter who's been raised his whole life to save people, a person who prays and believes and - I'm saying couldn't that be God's will? To use the enemy against itself? Why else did any of this happen?"
There's another pause, and even though he's been working up to this conversation for a long time, even though he's argued this point to himself many times, it falls flat to his ears now, and the dead air of the open phone line is condemning. Cas breathes out a breath.
When he speaks again, his voice is softer, closer to the phone. "There's both merit and precedent for such a thing- Sam, I've got to go. I'll contact you soon."
There's a shuffle on the other end of the phone, the deep voice of Uriel and then Cas hangs up before Sam can even say goodbye or ask if everything's okay.
And then Dean is coming out of the convenience store, so Sam puts his phone away and pretends to believe that everything's going to be okay.
"No, Bobby, I know."
"I'm serious. I know Dean don't sleep more'n four hours a night and if you're anything like you were as a kid, you don't sleep half that yourself. We're running a marathon, kid, not a sprint."
"I know. I'll sleep, I promise. And I'll make Dean sleep too."
"And you just call me if he... starts actin', uh, weird. You know."
Weird like, if he beats your face in again, weird like if he accuses you of something you just demonstrated you can't do and therefore haven't been doing - yeah, calling Bobby would be the first thing Sam does. Sure.
He'd asked questions, the first time they visited him after that last big blow up, when Sam woke up seeing double. What the hell did you boys tangle with Bobby asked as he turned Sam's face from side to side, and Sam pulled out of his grasp and he and Dean looked at each other - Sam had looked away and Dean had looked angry and later that evening Bobby got Sam alone to ask how things were between him and Dean. He hadn't gotten much in the way of answers, but for Bobby, just standing there was like handing him your private diary, and he heard him laying into Dean the next morning while they worked on a junker in the yard. Over beers, and quiet so they wouldn't wake Sam, or quiet because Bobby couldn't stand to really tan Dean's hide after Hell, or because he didn't want to discourage Dean from making sure Sam wasn't drinking-
Whatever.
"Sure, Bobby. I will." Sam hangs up the phone, his palm lingers on the handset a little.
Dean after Hell - Hell he went to for Sam.
Sam sighs, shoves his hands in his pockets. Goes to find Dean, wherever Dean's gone in this motel. Maybe to get ice. Sam wanders.
And as he wanders, he thinks.
About Dean in Hell, screaming, about how difficult it has been to get Dean to talk about anything, about how Dean seems to be opening up lately to him about it - about how he's been so angry, even after he's fully convinced Sam's not doing anything to make himself stronger.
And he thinks about Bobby, he thinks about Dad, what they'd do about Dean, or if they'd do anything about Dean, or if they'd think Dean was right to be angry and not let it go, if they'd think Dean was right to knock Sam on his ass. Dad had told Dean he'd have to kill him some day; what if Dad's calculations had just been off? What if Hell had hardened something in Dean, what if Dean could snap his neck without a thought, what if there was nothing holding them together anymore-
He thinks about Dean sobbing I'm sorry, Sammy, and he tries to remember why it felt manufactured.
"No, it's going great," Dean says, around the corner.
Sam peers, but Dean's just on the phone, so he retreats out of sight and listens.
"Super great and fun," Dean continues, sarcasm dripping. "No, he's not. But he could start again anytime. Because he told me he just needs practice and bam-" A finger snap. "He's up and exorcising." A pause.
"Yeah of course I believe him. I'm his big brother."
More sarcasm - Dean must be in a mood again. Sam'll have to watch where he puts his feet.
"He wouldn't lie to me."
Okay, that sounds better.
"Thirteen Seals left. How're you guys doing?" Some non-committal sounds of affirmation. "Well do better. This Apocalypse ain't gonna fix itself." Dean laughs a little. It sounds strange, Sam realizes, because it doesn't feel forced. "Yeah. Report back soon. I wanna know what all your little pawns are doing." Pause. "Because I'm doing all the heavy lifting over here, that's why."
A longer pause.
"Sam?"
Busted. Sam backs up a few steps and calls out, "Dean?" Then he breaks into a jog, looking back and forth, pulls up to a stop. "This is where you've been."
Dean doesn't look like he fully buys it.
"Who's on the phone?" Sam says, nodding down at the phone in Dean's hand.
"Oh, Cas. Just checking in. Dinner?"
"Sure," Sam says. "I'll run out for it if you demon proof the room, cool?"
Dean nods, distracted and watching Sam too carefully.
"Kay. I'll be back."
"Cas," Sam whispers into the phone. He's half a mile away, sitting at a table waiting for their pizza to finish.
"Has the situation changed in the hour since you called me last?"
"Yeah, I think so, maybe."
There's a pause on the line.
"Cas?"
"I'm sorry. That was meant to be a joke, based on the notion that it has been an incredibly short amount of time between now and our last conversation, during which it is extremely unlikely that catastrophic events have occurred-"
"I wouldn't underestimate the Winchester capacity for attracting catastrophe, Cas."
"Noted. Why have you called me, Sam?"
"Cas, have you talked to Dean today?"
"No. Why?"
"He didn't call to give you an update on the Seals business?"
"I don't need an update on the 'Seals business.' I am attuned to this matter in every way and do not require notice of defeat or success-"
"Yeah, I know, but-"
"Sam, is there something wrong?"
Sam sighs. "Yeah. I just..."
"Sam?"
Sam laughs a little, humorless. "I don't know which one of you is lying to me."
"I have no reason to lie to you."
"Which is exactly what you'd say if you were lying to me."
"I suppose that is true. Rest assured, however, that I am not."
Sam has to laugh at that. Castiel is so alien, it's hard to believe he and his kind listened to Sam's prayers - oh. Of course they didn't. He was an abomination. Right. "Okay. Whatever. I just-"
"You are not an evil man, Sam. I don't believe that, no matter what is inside you. I have been thinking since our last conversation, about God using the tools of Hell against those evil forces. If it could be anyone, it would be you, Sam. You possess that strength, I see that now."
Sam is stunned for a moment. All he can say is "...I..."
"Believe me when I say I did not talk to Dean today. I have not spoken to Dean in weeks."
Sam nods. "Okay. I believe you." Angels are dicks. Sam ignores Dean's voice in his head. "I'll call you when I've figured this out."
"Be sure that you do. Goodbye, Sam."
Sam hangs up with a strange sense of foreboding. Cas has never been warm with him.
Either way, Dean lied to him about talking with Cas, which means he was talking with someone else, someone who knew something about the apocalypse, someone who has pawns - that someone wasn't Bobby. And it wasn't Cas.
And it hits Sam then like a barrage of scenes in a movie:
Dean, talking about Hell.
Dean, smiling just too much, just too little.
Dean, talking about Hell, after beating Sam's ass - Sam forgiving him because it was Hell.
Dean, volunteering to lay down the devil's traps in hotel rooms, after making Sam show him every place he usually lays one down, something Sam forgave because Dean never did know all the lengths Sam went to to stay hidden.
Dean, wearing long sleeve shirts, Dean telling him it was because of Hell and Sam believed it and stopped fucking asking-
Dean talking on the phone outside the motel, while Sam was fading with his face in the carpet, the demon in the room saying "he doesn't have it," and then, then Dean happens to burst in, takes out two demons alone, and-
The smell of the pizzeria sticks in the back of his throat, the room spins. Sam pulls out his phone, presses speed dial.
"Hello?"
"Bobby."
"Sam? Everything okay? You know-"
"No. Everything's not okay. I think Dean's-"
"Oh my oh my, little brother."
Sam freezes at the sound of Dean's voice.
"Found you, bro. Time to go back to the room."
← Part Two || Part Four →