Fic: Broken (Part 2)
Title: Broken (Sequel to Kintsugi)
Author: brightly_lit
Rating: PG-13
Genre: gen, intense angst, h/c (mainly hurt!Sam, some emotionally hurt!Dean), brother feels, heroics and badassery, pathetic first time
Characters: Sam, Dean, OCs
Word Count: 16,000
Warnings: language, horrific concepts, mentions of child abuse and torture, PTSD
Summary: Dean spent his whole life searching for the little brother who was taken from him at age 6. He thought once he finally found him, everything would be perfect, but Sam is more broken than Dean could have imagined someone could be and still be able to function. Worse yet, Dean can't even tell if Sam wants his brother back in his life ...
Continued from here.
Sam was in the bathroom at the shop. It often took a while; maybe a holy-water thing. He didn’t actually bathe in holy water every time; it seemed to go in phases, but other times he even washed his hands in holy water. Dean was standing at the counter, looking at a porn mag. He never thought he’d be a workaday sort, but the kind of job where you could read porn all day if you wanted to suited him just fine. After he carefully brought it up with Sam, Sam had started giving him a cut of the take (Dean tried not to remember how freaked out Sam had been, how willing he was to give Dean all he asked for), which was great, because now he could afford gas and cell phone bills and all that stuff without having to leave Sam’s side, as well as food he knew Sam would like but would never buy on his own--basically, all the good stuff: fruit pies, chips, coffee, candy ....
He happily flipped a page, rummaging below the counter for some chips, and looked up even happier when he heard the door jingle--probably a paying customer! Or maybe Cammy, who came in regularly for her thrice-weekly booty call, but that would be good, too, because it would put Sam in a good mood. Dean’s grin evaporated when he got a gander at this guy. Something was off. Dean didn’t get the sense he was there for a tattoo. Also, he looked scary as shit. Was he some kind of hunter come for Sam? That was as far as Dean’s thoughts got before the guy pulled a gun and demanded money.
Great, a fucking hold-up? Dean rolled his eyes. “We don’t have any!” he said honestly, holding his hands out so the guy could see he was unarmed. “We haven’t had any customers today!”
“Bullshit,” the guy snarled.
The guy’s eyes went to the door to the back room, from which Sam was just now emerging, wiping his hands on his pants, and Dean got really scared for the first time--for how traumatized Sam would be; for what stupid shit he might do, overpowered with terror; and for his health, since the appearance of another employee ratcheted up the robber’s anxiety significantly, now pointing the gun at Sam and Dean alternately. His demands grew louder and more intense.
Dean only had eyes for Sam, who for his part showed no expression as he quickly took in the scene. Unhesitatingly, he strode behind the counter next to Dean, ignoring the guy’s hysteria. Sam grabbed a gun from under the counter that Dean had noticed but not thought a whole lot about before, figuring since Sam grew up with hunters, of course he had a gun at hand. Dean didn’t think he actually used it. In one smooth motion, Sam pointed it directly at the guy’s head. Oh, shit. “Uh, Sam, maybe we should just scrounge up some money to give him,” Dean suggested as lightly as he could, because the last thing ol’ wound-up-tight psychopath robber needed was for something to push him over the edge.
“You hurt my brother and I’ll kill you,” Sam said evenly. His hand didn’t shake in the slightest.
“I swear to God, I’ll kill him!” said the robber, pointing the gun at Dean and slowly, dramatically cocking it.
Sam didn’t bother with drama; he just cocked and fired instantly. Dean flinched and fell back, staring at Sam disbelieving, then at the would-be robber, who was feeling frantically at the side of his head and looking at his hand. There was no blood on his hand, but he now seemed to be missing part of his cap. The guy took one terrified look at Sam and fled.
Sam watched him go warily. Once he seemed convinced the guy was gone for good, he put the gun back under the counter, went to the door, and locked it, peering out through the glass. “We should probably keep this locked today,” he said to Dean conversationally. “Only open it if they look legit.” Dean could only nod, huge-eyed. Then Sam took a spatula-looking thing and a little tub of plaster that had always sat under the counter next to the gun and started busily filling the hole in the wall left by the bullet he’d fired, like he’d done this dozens of times.
Dean, frozen, watched in disbelief for a few seconds. “Guess I see why the plaster’s peeling,” he joked--again, just to ease his own anxiety. No response from Sam, naturally. “I gotta pee,” Dean said, and hurried to the bathroom in the back room, muttering, “if I haven’t already pissed myself.”
He shut the door to the bathroom and ran cold water over his shaking hands, staring at them for long minutes. What the hell just happened? Not like he loved running into a gun-toting robber, but it wouldn’t be the first time, and he knew how to handle himself. No, it was Sam who had his mind swirling. The kid who cried all the time in the bathroom just comes out and almost blows a guy away? Terminator-style, no emotion, cold as an assassin. He doesn’t even break down after the danger was over, just starts plastering the wall? Dean thought back on the floor of the shop, wildly trying to remember if he’d seen blood stains there. Had Sam missed? If he’d been caught a little less off-guard, would Dean be helping him bury a body? Sam, little Sammy, his little brother he didn’t, honestly, know that well yet ... was he now a cold-blooded killer? Is that what those hunters turned him into?
He didn’t know how long it was before he finally turned the water off and staggered back out to the main area in a daze, where Sam was sitting behind the counter reading his physics book ... and nibbling the chips now himself. Dean sank into his folding chair and surreptitiously watched Sam, looking for signs of delayed trauma or anxiety. Nothing.
“So ... ’dja miss?” Dean didn’t mean to sound sarcastic ... and actually, with the way his voice quavered, he probably didn’t.
Sam glanced at him without moving his head, this side-eye thing he often did. “No.”
“No? You weren’t planning to shoot him in the face?”
Dean was relieved to see Sam look alarmed at the idea. “No!”
“Then you’re a fucking great shot.”
Sam nodded. He wasn’t exactly the picture of self-esteem, but at least he knew when he was good at something. “I always hit all the targets, even at three hundred yards.”
Dean nodded, feeling a little better--but only a little. There was a little silence, but Dean couldn’t keep it in. “You’re, uh ... calm in the face of danger,” he noted pointedly.
Sam made a little noise of irritation, like he hadn’t expected this conversation to keep going and he didn’t want to be interrupted from his reading, but he looked up from his book again and considered what Dean had said, as if trying to divine what he meant by it. At last, he looked like he thought he’d figured it out, and dutifully, he set down his book. “You all right?” he said, perfectly imitating the way Dean said it to him when Sam was freaking out about something. It was touching, but weird. Sam had started imitating him in all kinds of ways. Dean had heard of the phenomenon before, that when people had nothing else to go on, they copied the people around them, which only made sense, Dean supposed. When in Rome .... “Need anything?”
“Um ... uh, yeah, Sam, I do need something. I need to understand why when some psycho’s waving around a gun, you’re not afraid,” Dean couldn’t help but say.
“I wasn’t going to let him shoot you,” Sam said calmly, like he thought it would reassure Dean, like ... like he thought all Dean was concerned about was himself.
Dean was caught between horror at the clear implication of the statement--that Sam was willing to do whatever it took to keep him safe, including kill a man--and deep feeling at the declaration of brotherly devotion he’d been so longing to hear since they’d found each other. Just, why did this precious gift have to come in the form of an offer of murder? “Um ... yeah, that was clear, but ... that’s not what I asked.”
Sam had plainly thought he was answering what Dean really wanted to know--rare for him, usually taking everything literally. For once, Dean wished he’d be so literal, instead of trying to do what he thought Dean wanted him to. Sam thought back on Dean’s question, and said, “There was no danger.” Dean started to protest, and Sam interrupted him. “Once he saw me and I was on the move, he would only have shot me, especially once I had a gun. You were never in any danger.”
Dean jumped to his feet, and the chair banged back down to the ground. Now Sam looked a little scared, flinching back at Dean’s vehemence. “But you were! Wh--Is that nothing to you?! Why weren’t you afraid??”
Sam looked completely taken aback--by the question, by Dean’s sudden emotional outburst--everything. “I--I--” he fumbled nervously, getting more scared by the second. “I ... don’t know,” he said weakly at last. All the fear and feeling Dean had needed to see on Sam’s face was finally there, but still not because he could have been killed today; rather, because Dean was upset. What kind of life could make a man more afraid of a little conversation than of death itself??
“I need to take a walk,” Dean said abruptly, and headed for the door.
Sam scrambled to his feet, grabbing the gun and holstering it in the back of his pants. “He’s still out there--I’ll come with you!”
“I’ll be fine. That dude’s never coming within a mile of this place again, after that. And anyway, I’ve got my gun.” He took it out from the drawer where he stashed his stuff during the day, checked the magazine, and holstered it as Sam had.
“No, Dean--”
“I need to be alone!” Dean shouted. He really didn’t mean to yell at Sam, especially not right now, but this was all too much. Not one thing about this was okay. Sam looked most anxious ... but nodded and let him go.
Dean walked around the shitty neighborhood for a long time, trying to clear his head. So many things bothered him about this--the fact that Sam’s gun that was always lying around like a coffee-table book was loaded with the safety off, the fact that Sam’s shop was in such a lousy neighborhood that he acted like it was de rigeur to get held up, the fact that Sam acted like mortal danger was so commonplace for him that it didn’t even get his heart rate up. The fucking plaster sat right next to the gun, like the whole reason it was there was to repair bullet holes! The rent on that place better be next to nothing, Dean thought, dangerous as it was to be in there, his little brother defending himself from bad guys just so he could make a living. Dean had recently learned the shop came in that state with all the junk in the back room and under the counters; Sam had just utilized the empty space and left the rest as he found it.
So much about Sam’s reality was driven home by that thirty-second encounter: the perpetual danger in which he lived, and how that was what he considered normal. But ... truth was, the most dangerous thing in that shop--more dangerous than the safety-off gun, more dangerous than the psycho robber--was Sam. Hunters were about the most hardcore people out there, rough and violent and kamikaze as hell ... yet still, Dean had never seen anything to compare to Sam in there. Where Sam had no reference points for so much of what Dean had introduced into his life, Dean had no reference point for this, because it was off the scale of cold and calculated and competent and violent and merciless. He couldn’t even admire what a badass Sam was (and he was), because it was so disturbing, so ... inhuman. But then there he is afterward, all concern for Dean, offering rare reassurance, getting all flinchy because Dean was--bafflingly, as far as Sam was concerned--upset. It didn’t make any sense. His little brother, his flesh and blood, the little boy whose scrapes Dean used to bandage while snot ran down his face, wailing ... Dean couldn’t begin to comprehend him. Dean couldn’t let himself think it, he couldn’t, but it flashed through his mind anyway. Was Sam ... was he really ... evil?
The thing was, Sam’s cool analysis of the scenario was spot-on. Even if Dean had suddenly pulled a gun, psychologically speaking, the robber would still have had it in his mind that Sam was the dangerous one because he was moving toward him and then because he had a gun first, so if he’d been startled, it’s Sam he would have shot, even if he was trying to manipulate Sam by aiming at Dean. This meant Sam knew full well his life was in danger the whole time, but he’d never brought that up, as if ... as if it was irrelevant. What did that mean? Everyone, when it came down to it, put their life above everyone else’s ... didn’t they?
Dean walked for an hour or more. It was only when he arrived back at the shop and Sam hurried up next to him to unlock it and let him in that Dean realized Sam hadn’t let him walk by himself at all--he’d followed him at a distance, to make sure he stayed safe. Which was sweet, right? Yet Dean found himself doing the flinchy thing Sam did all the time to him, afraid to get too close to Sam, who seemed like a half-unpinned grenade that might go off at any time. He couldn’t stand that he felt this way about his own brother ... but he couldn’t help it. He watched Sam surreptitiously for the rest of the afternoon, the way Sam never appeared to have any expression, the way he could focus on some boring-ass physics book with a persistence and intensity that resembled a machine, the way he didn’t even squirm or shift around. Over the course of the afternoon, Sam sometimes moved a foot from the shelf under the counter where he was resting his feet to the floor, and vice versa. That was it.
They usually spent the evenings eating, resting, watching stuff, bathing, and sometimes Sam was by himself in his room doing whatever he did. Dean tried not to torment him with questions, since he hated it so much. But tonight, Sam was going to have to tolerate it, because Dean had to know.
“So,” said Dean, “I take it that ain’t the first time you’ve been held up there.”
Sam looked a little nervous, but only because he associated the subject with Dean getting upset. He seemed to have already forgotten the altercation. “Yeah, it happens occasionally.”
“And do you always shoot at ’em first thing?”
Dean’s tone was kind of condemning, but Sam took it at face value. “I’ve found it’s the most efficient way to go.”
“And you want it to be efficient because ... you want to get back to reading?”
Sam shifted a little uncomfortably. Maybe he was starting to notice Dean’s tone. “I’ve found that the longer you let that kind of interaction go on ... the more trouble it becomes.” He looked at Dean uncertainly, almost pleadingly, pleading for understanding, and said hesitantly, “I mean ... don’t you think that if someone points a gun at you, you probably shouldn’t give them the benefit of the doubt?”
Dean couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay, but did you mean to shoot his cap? I mean, it was ugly as shit, so I understand ....”
Sam chuckled, too, incongruously softly and sweetly. “I ... did try to, yeah. He was intense enough that he might have shot back if he hadn’t been able to ... feel it.”
Dean collapsed in chortles. It wasn’t funny, it really wasn’t. Was it? Yet it was too surreal not to laugh. Plus, hearing that Sam had such a good rationale, Dean couldn’t help but shed a couple of tears of relief. He wiped them away as he got back to business. “All right, but Sam, you know that most people don’t have to live like that, right?” At Sam’s uncomprehending gaze, Dean went on sadly, “... But you did, huh? Did ... did those hunters pull a gun on you a lot or something?” Sam hunched at the introduction of the topic of his youth, and he looked down quickly. He shook his head. Dean sighed. “Sam ... you know you’re gonna have to tell me about it sometime. You can’t get around it forever.” Sam didn’t volunteer anything ... but at least he didn’t get up and walk away like he sometimes did. Dean decided it was time to push the matter. “Did they threaten to kill you?”
Sam shook his head again.
“Was there some other kind of danger?”
“Define ‘danger’,” Sam said coolly.
“Um ... why don’t you?” Dean suggested carefully.
“They were gonna do whatever they were gonna do to me, and I couldn’t escape.”
“And they tortured you, you said.”
“Purified me,” Sam amended mutedly.
“Which involved ...?”
“The tattoos and the rituals.”
“I know the tattoos hurt. Did the rituals?”
Sam nodded, barely, like the question was too heavy to answer.
Dean didn’t want to ask it, but he had to get some sense of degree. “Which, um ... which was worse?” Dean had had tattoos, so if they were the worst part, at least he knew about how bad it had been.
“Um ... depends on the ritual, but ... I really hated the tattoos. I hated them the most. That’s why ... when ... when they were gonna give me one, I finally asked if I could give it to myself, and, and they said I could, if it was perfect. I worked so hard, I was so careful ... and I learned they weren’t trying to torture me with the tattoos, they just hurt that much. It was better when I could control it.”
“That’s where you got your gentle touch,” Dean said, agonized, imagining little Sam, ten or eleven, having to put himself through that, having no other choice. If Dad knew, it would kill him. “And that’s how you got so good at it.”
Sam nodded, and the look on his face ... it was still flat and unmoving, but now it held only an all-consuming sorrow.
“So ... what were these rituals?” Dean could hardly get the words out. He couldn’t bear to hear it, but he had to know.
“These hunters ... they found all these old prophecies, and they dug up symbols and rituals and things that worked to counteract them. They ....” He lost all volume for a second, and Dean winced a little. When even Sam couldn’t get the words out, you knew it must have been bad. “They were for getting the demon blood out of me, and pre--preparing me for--for Lucifer--” He was so overcome, he was starting to stutter.
Dean put a hand on his shoulder, and knew he should have expected Sam’s flinch in response. “It’s okay, Sam. And is that it? The tattoos and the rituals? Is that the worst stuff they did to you?”
Sam had to think through that one, and Dean understood why: the psychological damage was far, far worse, surely. Sam seemed to decide Dean meant only physical things, not psychological ones, and nodded.
“They trained you to be a good shot. And a hunter? Did they teach you that?”
“Yeah, everything. I think they thought if they taught me to destroy evil, it would help make me good. Plus, they had me do research for them.”
“Were they ever ... Sam, were they ever nice to you?” Of all the things Dean had ever wondered, this one niggled at him the most often.
Sam looked untroubled enough by the question that Dean got the impression that at least they weren’t unrelentingly cruel. He shrugged. “At first, they treated me like I was a ... well, like I was a demon, I guess, locking me up and keeping me under guard, but after a while they seemed to realize I wasn’t going to do anything.”
“How long did that take?”
“Couple of years.”
“And after that?”
“One of ’em found a prophecy that said the demon-blood powers don’t kick in until you’re twenty-two and that it’s dormant before that, so after that, they kept me locked up at night so I couldn’t escape, but during the day, as long as someone was around to keep an eye on me, they let me out and let me do stuff, help out. By the time I was giving myself tattoos, though, it was like ... it was almost like I was one of them. I mean, I wanted the demon blood out of me as bad as they did.”
“So ... they treated you like you were one of them?”
“No. I was always set apart. But they trusted me not to try to escape. That’s why it was so easy when I finally did.”
“Because you found out about something else they were gonna do to you.” Dean caught it: the flash of betrayal in Sam’s eyes as he nodded and looked down. Dean understood. A kid needs a family. He’ll make a family out of whatever he’s got, no matter how much it sucks, but when you find out they plan to use you and kill you, no matter how bad you want to believe in it, you can’t anymore. Sam didn’t just walk away from everything he’d ever known that day, knowing they’d come for him. He walked away from any concept of family he’d ever had, thus agreeing to stand completely alone in a world he didn’t understand ... and then he had to kill the people he’d once believed were family with his own hands. The pieces were all coming together. What they did to him ... that was bad enough. Anyone would have been nine kinds of messed up from that. But what he had to do to them ... that was the final straw. When everything he ever believed in and did and tried to achieve was betrayed, that’s what broke him.
“Sam ... you know they were nuts, right? There was never any demon blood in you.”
Sam looked away vacantly, then got up. “I gotta take a bath.”
Dean hung his head as he listened to Sam chanting through the bathroom door. It seemed like everything he tried to do to help Sam only made him worse.
Sam was going to be working late finishing a tattoo for some douche Dean had almost come to blows with. The guy didn’t seem to get to Sam, though. Almost nobody did. All the kinds of customers Dean knew from time spent in other tattoo shops that tattoo artists tended to hate--the whiny ones, the braggy ones, the stupid ones, the pretentious ones--didn’t bother Sam a bit. Even direct insults rolled off him for the most part. If he decided he didn’t like you, though, he ordered you out of the shop and that was that, so Dean had made a “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” sign.
Dean decided it would be better to go home than to drive away a paying customer, especially in the middle of a large tattoo that would cover the rent on the shop for the month--good thing, because they were going through a dry spell, no customers for days at a time. This way he could make a decent dinner for them for once without Sam’s surreptitious surveillance of Dean’s attempts to take care of him making it awkward.
Dean got inside (he’d finally lifted the key one morning when Sam was sleeping in and had a copy made), and set down the groceries. He was just getting out some pans when an unfamiliar voice made them clatter to the floor. Dean drew his gun and cocked it instantly at a nondescript man standing in the doorway to the kitchen smirking at him, evidently not the least bit troubled by the gun. “You’re not Sam,” he said.
Dean had a wild moment’s thought that Sam had some friend (/lover/sugar daddy??) he’d never bothered to mention to Dean when Dean’s gun went flying out of his hand and across the room, and then Dean knew what it was. “Demon,” he growled.
“Hunter,” it replied accordingly. “One of Sam’s little zookeepers? I was going to kill you all when I came for him, but then Sam made that unnecessary.” A twisted smile spread across its face. “He’s my most promising project of all.”
Dean blinked, then again. Was this real? Was this really happening? Was this ... was all that garbage about demon blood for real?? Or--or was this-- “Lucifer?” Dean choked out.
The demon sighed with a lazy smile. “You flatter me. Just a loyal servant, prepping dear Sammy for his arrival. I’ve got a lot of plans for Sam, though. Lots.”
Dean gasped, abruptly fighting back tears. It was real?? Little Sam, everything they did to him-- “They purified him,” he managed to get out.
“Oh, that’s not possible,” the demon said, all smug self-indulgence. “I mean, nothing’s impossible, but what Sam would have to go through ... he’d probably rather have gone to hell.”
“What are you planning to do to him?” Dean had to ask. This one was a talker--chances were, it would tell him, and if Dean knew, maybe he could stop it. He could at least try.
“Well, first, we have to get him back together with his brother, because we have plans for him, too,” it said with a sinister grin. Dean hoped he managed to keep the poker face he’d worked so hard on, because it had never come naturally to him. He listened intently, scarcely breathing. “Then, there’ll be a battle for supremacy between all my children, which I’m afraid Sam’s probably too soft-hearted to win, and then--oh, all kinds of goodies; I won’t bore you with the details. Just know it’ll be fun. Too bad you won’t be around to see it.” It smiled and flicked its wrist. Dean looked at it nervously. It looked at its own hand, consterned, and flicked it again. Dean took a surreptitious step back, waiting for something big, but nothing happened. The demon stood between him and the salt, but Dean was casting through his mind for anything in the kitchen that might be made of iron. “What the ...?”it said. It frowned at Dean, baffled.
Dean heard the front door opening. No, no, no, no ... of all the worst things that could happen right now ... not Sam! Dean would have said he never prayed, but a prayer came to his lips, to keep Sammy safe, no matter what happened to Dean. Not this, too, not after everything Sam had been through. What would this, the realization of all his worst fears, do to Sam? The demon looked pleased as he greeted Sam’s arrival. “My boy! Daddy’s home.”
There was only a moment’s expressionless hesitation, then Sam strode purposefully across the apartment and pulled open a drawer in the living room, from which he withdrew a knife--one of the knives he’d described making, tattooed with symbols all over it. “No, Sam, it’s a demon!” Dean cried. With everything Sam knew, he didn’t know demons couldn’t be killed with a knife??
“Come and get me,” Sam said to it, with a grin Dean would have to admit looked way more evil than the demon’s.
“Sam,” the demon cooed, moving slowly toward him. “I haven’t seen you since you were a baby--those hunters who kept you locked up were aces with the warding. ’Dja miss me?”
“Why me?” Sam demanded.
The demon shrugged. “Mommy made a deal. Don’t be too mad. If she hadn’t, you and your brother would never have been born, and we couldn’t have that, could we? You’re both too important.”
Dean was reeling with the news about their mother, but Sam must be so accustomed to horrifying revelations that this didn’t appear to impact him that much. His eyes flickered briefly to Dean in the kitchen. “Why? What’s my brother got to do with this?”
“You’re my master’s perfect vessel, and your brother ... he’s gonna suit up for the other guys. You’ll kill each other in the most spectacular battle of all time--it’ll be awesome. I’ll have ringside seats. Can’t wait.” He winked.
“You gave him blood, too?”
“No, they don’t know how to take care of their own the way I took care of you, Sam.” Sam did squint at this, and Dean could see the fury rising in his brother. “But my blood in you ... where is it? I’m not seeing it at the moment ... probably one of those hideous warding tattoos.” It shrugged, but Dean didn’t miss the briefest hint of bliss pass across Sam’s face, and he knew Sam, for the first time, really was convinced he was free of demon blood, as the hunters had said.
“So, these ringside seats--how much are they going for?” Sam asked with a cool smile.
The demon beamed. “Sam! You do have a sense of humor about this! Ugh, all my other children are so pissy about the whole thing. I always knew you were the best one. My very favorite.” There was a flicker in Sam’s eyes at this, Dean saw it: the parental praise he’d been starving for his whole life long--here it was, at last.
“Sam, no!” Dean shouted, but not only the demon but also Sam held out a hand to stop him coming any closer, both looking equally murderous right now. Equally evil. What had those hunters made Sam into? All their efforts to turn him into something else drove him right into the arms of the enemy, because they left him nowhere else to go, no better option. When humans are incapable of love, when they torture and destroy you, how are demons worse?
“And Lucifer--when will he come for me?” Sam asked conversationally, letting the knife drop to his side, letting down his guard.
“Sam!” Dean cried, trying again to get around the demon to Sam, who looked remarkably unwelcoming.
“Stay where you are, Dean,” Sam ordered coldly, not looking at him.
“Only a few years now,” the demon assured him comfortingly. “You don’t have that long to wait. None of us do.”
“Oh, good, because I have something for him,” Sam said, taking off his shirt and revealing an incredibly complex tattoo Dean had only seen pieces of before. It stretched all over his torso, across his ribs, meeting over his heart both in front and in back. Dean heard the demon hiss as Sam fixed it with an empty stare. “You think he’ll like it?”
“What have you done?” the demon gasped. “You’ve--you’ve made yourself useless! USELESS!” it raged. It flicked its wrist again, this time at Sam, who gave a wicked grin and raised his arm, where Dean saw a little tattoo identical to the one he’d given Dean in the same spot. Whatever the demon was trying to do with all the wrist-flicking, apparently that tattoo they both had made them immune to it. The demon roared and lunged for Sam, who took a casual step back. Dean ran for him, but the demon stopped just short of being able to grab him, trying several times, and finally screaming in fury. Sam kicked aside the rug a little, where Dean saw a demon trap painted on the floor. Clever, clever. And to think Dean used to think Sam was too paranoid with all this stuff. Dean made sure to stay outside of the trap himself.
“Useless?” Sam pressed. “Are you sure?”
“I’ll fry every last stain of that abomination off your skin,” the demon chanted. “I’ll singe every last--”
“Well, you won’t, because I’m about to kill you,” Sam said, with a friendly tone that was undeniably creepy, not to mention that Dean had never seen him so animated and relaxed, “but as for the rest, I don’t think they could, because this ritual we did, see, burned it deep, into my bones, into my heart. Can’t destroy that without destroying the vessel. Right?” Dean could see Sam intently awaiting the response. He knew his brother well enough by now to know what this was about: he was egging the demon into telling him whether all his obsessive attempts to thwart Lucifer had succeeded or if he still had to do more, and Dean knew in that moment that whatever it cost him, Sam would never, ever stop until he was sure he’d gotten it right.
Dean thought it was safe to say from the demon’s reaction that he had. Sam and Dean smiled at each other across the room, the most genuine, happy smile Dean had seen out of Sam since he found him again. “Dean? Anything else you need to know?” Sam asked. When Dean mutely shook his head, a little baffled by the question, Sam took a step inside the devil’s trap and plunged the knife into the demon, which flickered red and fell to the floor. Sam got some holy water out of the bathroom and splashed it a couple of times, then salted it, but it didn’t react, as if the demon inside the body was gone.
Then Sam examined the knife, making a little sound of dismay at a chink he seemed to find in it, cleaned it on the demon’s clothes, and set it back inside the drawer whence it came. Dean remembered Sam telling him about tattooing weapons, all that nonsense about how it made them able to kill the unkillable. Everything, everything Sam had ever told him, it seemed, was true after all. No wonder Sam had despaired when Dean hadn’t believed him. This was the reality Sam had been grappling with all his life. Even if they could do nothing else to help, he needed someone to believe him. Sam wasn’t well-adjusted. He wasn’t happy, he wasn’t balanced, he wasn’t mentally healthy. So far from it. It would be a long time before he was, if it ever happened. But Dean knew the biggest step toward being able to help him was one he’d just taken: to believe his brother’s truth, strange and horrifying though it may be, so he could help him carry the burden.
Sam surveyed the body, and sighed heavily. “Fuck.” A body to dispose of, just as Dean had always feared it would come to one day. But this was a body he was all too happy about.
“I’ll help,” Dean offered, and Sam looked up hopefully. “What are brothers for?”
Dean groaned and fumbled for the glass of whiskey he was keeping at hand for this monster of a tattoo, but it was empty. “The ribs are the worst part,” Sam informed him mildly, “but it has to be perfect to keep the angels out.” They were in the shop after hours, the door locked, and Sam was continuing work on this tattoo that would take weeks.
“And you know how to do this ritual?” Sam lifted the needle from Dean’s skin. Dean knew he’d gotten to Sam whenever he had to stop working and breathe through the feelings it brought up in him. “Sorry,” Dean muttered.
“Yeah. I can do it.” Sam had already told him that particular ritual was the most painful thing he’d ever experienced, but whatever, anything was worth it to forestall what Sam had informed him was the freakin’ apocalypse. The apocalypse! Dean never would have believed it, but Sam had been right about everything. Dean’s believing him had brought them abruptly closer together than Dean would have thought possible in such a short time. Maybe it was also partly that he was no longer afraid his evil was going to infect Dean, and maybe it had something to do with successfully fighting the demon together. It surely had to do with how much more Sam now felt he could relax about the future, but whatever the reason, nothing had ever made Dean happier in his whole life than getting to feel like they were brothers again. That ritual would be worth it for another reason, though: so that Sam wouldn’t be alone in the things he’d had to go through anymore. It wasn’t like Dean was looking forward to it, but he’d heal in a few weeks, Sam said, and Sam ... maybe it would heal a little something in Sam, too.
“So why’d they give you this tattoo if they were gonna let Lucifer have you anyway?”
“Guess they changed their minds after they’d already given it to me. I think they decided not long before I ran away. It has to be perfect. They could have marred the tattoo, done another ritual to mar the marks on my ribs and heart, and I’d have been open for business again, I guess.”
“How’d they plan to make you say yes?”
Sam’s voice got quiet. “I don’t know.”
“Well,” Dean said briskly, trying to lighten the mood while simultaneously distracting himself from the pain of the tattoo, “say what you want about those hunters, but I guess they actually knew what they were talking about. No more demon blood, no more Lucifer comin’ for ya ... maybe it’s time to go to Disneyland!”
Dean had hoped for at least a smile, but Sam just worked. At last, he mumbled, sounding kind of embarrassed, “I don’t know what that is.”
Dean grinned. “Well, it’s not like I’ve ever been there. Wasn’t on the top of Dad’s sightseeing list. I always hoped there’d be a ghost haunting the place or something, but no such luck.” He sighed. “Seriously, though, maybe we should go, just you and me.”
“What is it?”
“It’s an amusement park! Like, huge. It has everything.”
“What’s an amusement park?”
Dean tried to smile, but he couldn’t suppress the flare of pain Sam’s affectless voice, which had come to sound agonizingly innocent to Dean, caused in him. Sam had had no childhood. None. Treated like a monster and locked up at age six, tortured, however good the hunters’ intel was, Sam had been an innocent, confused, tormented man since he was a little boy--or, well, rather, taller than any man by any rights should be, Dean supposed it was really that Sam would always be an innocent, confused, tormented child. But it could be better. Dean could make it better. “I guess you’ll just have to find out.” Sam looked nervous--which only made sense, Dean figured, since most of the surprises he’d ever had hadn’t been good. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”
“Actually, I was just hoping ... have you heard of this thing called a Home Depot?” Dean couldn’t hold in his chortle, but Sam didn’t seem offended. Dean managed to nod, now laughing too hard for Sam to keep working anyway. Sam took the opportunity to clean the tattoo gun a little. “Well ... do you know how we could get to one?” Still smirking, Dean nodded. They were everywhere; Sam just didn’t know it. Sam looked more excited than Dean had ever seen him look. “Really? Because I hear they have lumber there, and with lumber, you can build things, and, well ... there’s all kinds of things I want to build. Like a bed, for starters. So you have someplace to sleep.”
Dean beamed to himself and barely heard another word as Sam excitedly described this carpentry that to him seemed like an impossible dream come true. Apparently hard work of his own choosing sounded like heaven on Earth to Sam. Oh, Sam. Still, if Sam wanted to build Dean a bed, then that meant that Sam was making a place for Dean in his life, which meant that he wanted Dean to stay.
Dean’s family had never been whole. Dad had died before they found Sam. Mom had died long before that. But Dean had completed the quest, defeated the dragon (or, okay, Sam had, and it had been a demon, not a dragon), and now they could finally live happily ever after, even if it wasn’t as gilded and perfect as it was in storybooks. Even if his Disneyland was going to be Home Depot for a while. Even if the pieces of their family lay scattered across the years. All that mattered was that they’d gotten here at last, they’d lived. They made it.
~ The End ~
Author's Notes:
- Even as I wrote "Kintsugi," I felt like there was way more potential in the setup than I'd explored. After I was done writing it, I found the idea wouldn't let me go and I had to write more, hence this story. Others have indicated feeling the same way about "Kintsugi," like it wouldn't let them go, so anyone who's into this 'verse is more than welcome to contribute their own works to it--I'd be most honored!
- Throwing around potential names for this fic with a friend, inevitably we got silly, and I thought you might get a chuckle out of some of them, including "Kintsugi II: The Reckoning," and "There's No Place Like Home Depot." ;-)
Author: brightly_lit
Rating: PG-13
Genre: gen, intense angst, h/c (mainly hurt!Sam, some emotionally hurt!Dean), brother feels, heroics and badassery, pathetic first time
Characters: Sam, Dean, OCs
Word Count: 16,000
Warnings: language, horrific concepts, mentions of child abuse and torture, PTSD
Summary: Dean spent his whole life searching for the little brother who was taken from him at age 6. He thought once he finally found him, everything would be perfect, but Sam is more broken than Dean could have imagined someone could be and still be able to function. Worse yet, Dean can't even tell if Sam wants his brother back in his life ...
Continued from here.
Sam was in the bathroom at the shop. It often took a while; maybe a holy-water thing. He didn’t actually bathe in holy water every time; it seemed to go in phases, but other times he even washed his hands in holy water. Dean was standing at the counter, looking at a porn mag. He never thought he’d be a workaday sort, but the kind of job where you could read porn all day if you wanted to suited him just fine. After he carefully brought it up with Sam, Sam had started giving him a cut of the take (Dean tried not to remember how freaked out Sam had been, how willing he was to give Dean all he asked for), which was great, because now he could afford gas and cell phone bills and all that stuff without having to leave Sam’s side, as well as food he knew Sam would like but would never buy on his own--basically, all the good stuff: fruit pies, chips, coffee, candy ....
He happily flipped a page, rummaging below the counter for some chips, and looked up even happier when he heard the door jingle--probably a paying customer! Or maybe Cammy, who came in regularly for her thrice-weekly booty call, but that would be good, too, because it would put Sam in a good mood. Dean’s grin evaporated when he got a gander at this guy. Something was off. Dean didn’t get the sense he was there for a tattoo. Also, he looked scary as shit. Was he some kind of hunter come for Sam? That was as far as Dean’s thoughts got before the guy pulled a gun and demanded money.
Great, a fucking hold-up? Dean rolled his eyes. “We don’t have any!” he said honestly, holding his hands out so the guy could see he was unarmed. “We haven’t had any customers today!”
“Bullshit,” the guy snarled.
The guy’s eyes went to the door to the back room, from which Sam was just now emerging, wiping his hands on his pants, and Dean got really scared for the first time--for how traumatized Sam would be; for what stupid shit he might do, overpowered with terror; and for his health, since the appearance of another employee ratcheted up the robber’s anxiety significantly, now pointing the gun at Sam and Dean alternately. His demands grew louder and more intense.
Dean only had eyes for Sam, who for his part showed no expression as he quickly took in the scene. Unhesitatingly, he strode behind the counter next to Dean, ignoring the guy’s hysteria. Sam grabbed a gun from under the counter that Dean had noticed but not thought a whole lot about before, figuring since Sam grew up with hunters, of course he had a gun at hand. Dean didn’t think he actually used it. In one smooth motion, Sam pointed it directly at the guy’s head. Oh, shit. “Uh, Sam, maybe we should just scrounge up some money to give him,” Dean suggested as lightly as he could, because the last thing ol’ wound-up-tight psychopath robber needed was for something to push him over the edge.
“You hurt my brother and I’ll kill you,” Sam said evenly. His hand didn’t shake in the slightest.
“I swear to God, I’ll kill him!” said the robber, pointing the gun at Dean and slowly, dramatically cocking it.
Sam didn’t bother with drama; he just cocked and fired instantly. Dean flinched and fell back, staring at Sam disbelieving, then at the would-be robber, who was feeling frantically at the side of his head and looking at his hand. There was no blood on his hand, but he now seemed to be missing part of his cap. The guy took one terrified look at Sam and fled.
Sam watched him go warily. Once he seemed convinced the guy was gone for good, he put the gun back under the counter, went to the door, and locked it, peering out through the glass. “We should probably keep this locked today,” he said to Dean conversationally. “Only open it if they look legit.” Dean could only nod, huge-eyed. Then Sam took a spatula-looking thing and a little tub of plaster that had always sat under the counter next to the gun and started busily filling the hole in the wall left by the bullet he’d fired, like he’d done this dozens of times.
Dean, frozen, watched in disbelief for a few seconds. “Guess I see why the plaster’s peeling,” he joked--again, just to ease his own anxiety. No response from Sam, naturally. “I gotta pee,” Dean said, and hurried to the bathroom in the back room, muttering, “if I haven’t already pissed myself.”
He shut the door to the bathroom and ran cold water over his shaking hands, staring at them for long minutes. What the hell just happened? Not like he loved running into a gun-toting robber, but it wouldn’t be the first time, and he knew how to handle himself. No, it was Sam who had his mind swirling. The kid who cried all the time in the bathroom just comes out and almost blows a guy away? Terminator-style, no emotion, cold as an assassin. He doesn’t even break down after the danger was over, just starts plastering the wall? Dean thought back on the floor of the shop, wildly trying to remember if he’d seen blood stains there. Had Sam missed? If he’d been caught a little less off-guard, would Dean be helping him bury a body? Sam, little Sammy, his little brother he didn’t, honestly, know that well yet ... was he now a cold-blooded killer? Is that what those hunters turned him into?
He didn’t know how long it was before he finally turned the water off and staggered back out to the main area in a daze, where Sam was sitting behind the counter reading his physics book ... and nibbling the chips now himself. Dean sank into his folding chair and surreptitiously watched Sam, looking for signs of delayed trauma or anxiety. Nothing.
“So ... ’dja miss?” Dean didn’t mean to sound sarcastic ... and actually, with the way his voice quavered, he probably didn’t.
Sam glanced at him without moving his head, this side-eye thing he often did. “No.”
“No? You weren’t planning to shoot him in the face?”
Dean was relieved to see Sam look alarmed at the idea. “No!”
“Then you’re a fucking great shot.”
Sam nodded. He wasn’t exactly the picture of self-esteem, but at least he knew when he was good at something. “I always hit all the targets, even at three hundred yards.”
Dean nodded, feeling a little better--but only a little. There was a little silence, but Dean couldn’t keep it in. “You’re, uh ... calm in the face of danger,” he noted pointedly.
Sam made a little noise of irritation, like he hadn’t expected this conversation to keep going and he didn’t want to be interrupted from his reading, but he looked up from his book again and considered what Dean had said, as if trying to divine what he meant by it. At last, he looked like he thought he’d figured it out, and dutifully, he set down his book. “You all right?” he said, perfectly imitating the way Dean said it to him when Sam was freaking out about something. It was touching, but weird. Sam had started imitating him in all kinds of ways. Dean had heard of the phenomenon before, that when people had nothing else to go on, they copied the people around them, which only made sense, Dean supposed. When in Rome .... “Need anything?”
“Um ... uh, yeah, Sam, I do need something. I need to understand why when some psycho’s waving around a gun, you’re not afraid,” Dean couldn’t help but say.
“I wasn’t going to let him shoot you,” Sam said calmly, like he thought it would reassure Dean, like ... like he thought all Dean was concerned about was himself.
Dean was caught between horror at the clear implication of the statement--that Sam was willing to do whatever it took to keep him safe, including kill a man--and deep feeling at the declaration of brotherly devotion he’d been so longing to hear since they’d found each other. Just, why did this precious gift have to come in the form of an offer of murder? “Um ... yeah, that was clear, but ... that’s not what I asked.”
Sam had plainly thought he was answering what Dean really wanted to know--rare for him, usually taking everything literally. For once, Dean wished he’d be so literal, instead of trying to do what he thought Dean wanted him to. Sam thought back on Dean’s question, and said, “There was no danger.” Dean started to protest, and Sam interrupted him. “Once he saw me and I was on the move, he would only have shot me, especially once I had a gun. You were never in any danger.”
Dean jumped to his feet, and the chair banged back down to the ground. Now Sam looked a little scared, flinching back at Dean’s vehemence. “But you were! Wh--Is that nothing to you?! Why weren’t you afraid??”
Sam looked completely taken aback--by the question, by Dean’s sudden emotional outburst--everything. “I--I--” he fumbled nervously, getting more scared by the second. “I ... don’t know,” he said weakly at last. All the fear and feeling Dean had needed to see on Sam’s face was finally there, but still not because he could have been killed today; rather, because Dean was upset. What kind of life could make a man more afraid of a little conversation than of death itself??
“I need to take a walk,” Dean said abruptly, and headed for the door.
Sam scrambled to his feet, grabbing the gun and holstering it in the back of his pants. “He’s still out there--I’ll come with you!”
“I’ll be fine. That dude’s never coming within a mile of this place again, after that. And anyway, I’ve got my gun.” He took it out from the drawer where he stashed his stuff during the day, checked the magazine, and holstered it as Sam had.
“No, Dean--”
“I need to be alone!” Dean shouted. He really didn’t mean to yell at Sam, especially not right now, but this was all too much. Not one thing about this was okay. Sam looked most anxious ... but nodded and let him go.
Dean walked around the shitty neighborhood for a long time, trying to clear his head. So many things bothered him about this--the fact that Sam’s gun that was always lying around like a coffee-table book was loaded with the safety off, the fact that Sam’s shop was in such a lousy neighborhood that he acted like it was de rigeur to get held up, the fact that Sam acted like mortal danger was so commonplace for him that it didn’t even get his heart rate up. The fucking plaster sat right next to the gun, like the whole reason it was there was to repair bullet holes! The rent on that place better be next to nothing, Dean thought, dangerous as it was to be in there, his little brother defending himself from bad guys just so he could make a living. Dean had recently learned the shop came in that state with all the junk in the back room and under the counters; Sam had just utilized the empty space and left the rest as he found it.
So much about Sam’s reality was driven home by that thirty-second encounter: the perpetual danger in which he lived, and how that was what he considered normal. But ... truth was, the most dangerous thing in that shop--more dangerous than the safety-off gun, more dangerous than the psycho robber--was Sam. Hunters were about the most hardcore people out there, rough and violent and kamikaze as hell ... yet still, Dean had never seen anything to compare to Sam in there. Where Sam had no reference points for so much of what Dean had introduced into his life, Dean had no reference point for this, because it was off the scale of cold and calculated and competent and violent and merciless. He couldn’t even admire what a badass Sam was (and he was), because it was so disturbing, so ... inhuman. But then there he is afterward, all concern for Dean, offering rare reassurance, getting all flinchy because Dean was--bafflingly, as far as Sam was concerned--upset. It didn’t make any sense. His little brother, his flesh and blood, the little boy whose scrapes Dean used to bandage while snot ran down his face, wailing ... Dean couldn’t begin to comprehend him. Dean couldn’t let himself think it, he couldn’t, but it flashed through his mind anyway. Was Sam ... was he really ... evil?
The thing was, Sam’s cool analysis of the scenario was spot-on. Even if Dean had suddenly pulled a gun, psychologically speaking, the robber would still have had it in his mind that Sam was the dangerous one because he was moving toward him and then because he had a gun first, so if he’d been startled, it’s Sam he would have shot, even if he was trying to manipulate Sam by aiming at Dean. This meant Sam knew full well his life was in danger the whole time, but he’d never brought that up, as if ... as if it was irrelevant. What did that mean? Everyone, when it came down to it, put their life above everyone else’s ... didn’t they?
Dean walked for an hour or more. It was only when he arrived back at the shop and Sam hurried up next to him to unlock it and let him in that Dean realized Sam hadn’t let him walk by himself at all--he’d followed him at a distance, to make sure he stayed safe. Which was sweet, right? Yet Dean found himself doing the flinchy thing Sam did all the time to him, afraid to get too close to Sam, who seemed like a half-unpinned grenade that might go off at any time. He couldn’t stand that he felt this way about his own brother ... but he couldn’t help it. He watched Sam surreptitiously for the rest of the afternoon, the way Sam never appeared to have any expression, the way he could focus on some boring-ass physics book with a persistence and intensity that resembled a machine, the way he didn’t even squirm or shift around. Over the course of the afternoon, Sam sometimes moved a foot from the shelf under the counter where he was resting his feet to the floor, and vice versa. That was it.
They usually spent the evenings eating, resting, watching stuff, bathing, and sometimes Sam was by himself in his room doing whatever he did. Dean tried not to torment him with questions, since he hated it so much. But tonight, Sam was going to have to tolerate it, because Dean had to know.
“So,” said Dean, “I take it that ain’t the first time you’ve been held up there.”
Sam looked a little nervous, but only because he associated the subject with Dean getting upset. He seemed to have already forgotten the altercation. “Yeah, it happens occasionally.”
“And do you always shoot at ’em first thing?”
Dean’s tone was kind of condemning, but Sam took it at face value. “I’ve found it’s the most efficient way to go.”
“And you want it to be efficient because ... you want to get back to reading?”
Sam shifted a little uncomfortably. Maybe he was starting to notice Dean’s tone. “I’ve found that the longer you let that kind of interaction go on ... the more trouble it becomes.” He looked at Dean uncertainly, almost pleadingly, pleading for understanding, and said hesitantly, “I mean ... don’t you think that if someone points a gun at you, you probably shouldn’t give them the benefit of the doubt?”
Dean couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay, but did you mean to shoot his cap? I mean, it was ugly as shit, so I understand ....”
Sam chuckled, too, incongruously softly and sweetly. “I ... did try to, yeah. He was intense enough that he might have shot back if he hadn’t been able to ... feel it.”
Dean collapsed in chortles. It wasn’t funny, it really wasn’t. Was it? Yet it was too surreal not to laugh. Plus, hearing that Sam had such a good rationale, Dean couldn’t help but shed a couple of tears of relief. He wiped them away as he got back to business. “All right, but Sam, you know that most people don’t have to live like that, right?” At Sam’s uncomprehending gaze, Dean went on sadly, “... But you did, huh? Did ... did those hunters pull a gun on you a lot or something?” Sam hunched at the introduction of the topic of his youth, and he looked down quickly. He shook his head. Dean sighed. “Sam ... you know you’re gonna have to tell me about it sometime. You can’t get around it forever.” Sam didn’t volunteer anything ... but at least he didn’t get up and walk away like he sometimes did. Dean decided it was time to push the matter. “Did they threaten to kill you?”
Sam shook his head again.
“Was there some other kind of danger?”
“Define ‘danger’,” Sam said coolly.
“Um ... why don’t you?” Dean suggested carefully.
“They were gonna do whatever they were gonna do to me, and I couldn’t escape.”
“And they tortured you, you said.”
“Purified me,” Sam amended mutedly.
“Which involved ...?”
“The tattoos and the rituals.”
“I know the tattoos hurt. Did the rituals?”
Sam nodded, barely, like the question was too heavy to answer.
Dean didn’t want to ask it, but he had to get some sense of degree. “Which, um ... which was worse?” Dean had had tattoos, so if they were the worst part, at least he knew about how bad it had been.
“Um ... depends on the ritual, but ... I really hated the tattoos. I hated them the most. That’s why ... when ... when they were gonna give me one, I finally asked if I could give it to myself, and, and they said I could, if it was perfect. I worked so hard, I was so careful ... and I learned they weren’t trying to torture me with the tattoos, they just hurt that much. It was better when I could control it.”
“That’s where you got your gentle touch,” Dean said, agonized, imagining little Sam, ten or eleven, having to put himself through that, having no other choice. If Dad knew, it would kill him. “And that’s how you got so good at it.”
Sam nodded, and the look on his face ... it was still flat and unmoving, but now it held only an all-consuming sorrow.
“So ... what were these rituals?” Dean could hardly get the words out. He couldn’t bear to hear it, but he had to know.
“These hunters ... they found all these old prophecies, and they dug up symbols and rituals and things that worked to counteract them. They ....” He lost all volume for a second, and Dean winced a little. When even Sam couldn’t get the words out, you knew it must have been bad. “They were for getting the demon blood out of me, and pre--preparing me for--for Lucifer--” He was so overcome, he was starting to stutter.
Dean put a hand on his shoulder, and knew he should have expected Sam’s flinch in response. “It’s okay, Sam. And is that it? The tattoos and the rituals? Is that the worst stuff they did to you?”
Sam had to think through that one, and Dean understood why: the psychological damage was far, far worse, surely. Sam seemed to decide Dean meant only physical things, not psychological ones, and nodded.
“They trained you to be a good shot. And a hunter? Did they teach you that?”
“Yeah, everything. I think they thought if they taught me to destroy evil, it would help make me good. Plus, they had me do research for them.”
“Were they ever ... Sam, were they ever nice to you?” Of all the things Dean had ever wondered, this one niggled at him the most often.
Sam looked untroubled enough by the question that Dean got the impression that at least they weren’t unrelentingly cruel. He shrugged. “At first, they treated me like I was a ... well, like I was a demon, I guess, locking me up and keeping me under guard, but after a while they seemed to realize I wasn’t going to do anything.”
“How long did that take?”
“Couple of years.”
“And after that?”
“One of ’em found a prophecy that said the demon-blood powers don’t kick in until you’re twenty-two and that it’s dormant before that, so after that, they kept me locked up at night so I couldn’t escape, but during the day, as long as someone was around to keep an eye on me, they let me out and let me do stuff, help out. By the time I was giving myself tattoos, though, it was like ... it was almost like I was one of them. I mean, I wanted the demon blood out of me as bad as they did.”
“So ... they treated you like you were one of them?”
“No. I was always set apart. But they trusted me not to try to escape. That’s why it was so easy when I finally did.”
“Because you found out about something else they were gonna do to you.” Dean caught it: the flash of betrayal in Sam’s eyes as he nodded and looked down. Dean understood. A kid needs a family. He’ll make a family out of whatever he’s got, no matter how much it sucks, but when you find out they plan to use you and kill you, no matter how bad you want to believe in it, you can’t anymore. Sam didn’t just walk away from everything he’d ever known that day, knowing they’d come for him. He walked away from any concept of family he’d ever had, thus agreeing to stand completely alone in a world he didn’t understand ... and then he had to kill the people he’d once believed were family with his own hands. The pieces were all coming together. What they did to him ... that was bad enough. Anyone would have been nine kinds of messed up from that. But what he had to do to them ... that was the final straw. When everything he ever believed in and did and tried to achieve was betrayed, that’s what broke him.
“Sam ... you know they were nuts, right? There was never any demon blood in you.”
Sam looked away vacantly, then got up. “I gotta take a bath.”
Dean hung his head as he listened to Sam chanting through the bathroom door. It seemed like everything he tried to do to help Sam only made him worse.
Sam was going to be working late finishing a tattoo for some douche Dean had almost come to blows with. The guy didn’t seem to get to Sam, though. Almost nobody did. All the kinds of customers Dean knew from time spent in other tattoo shops that tattoo artists tended to hate--the whiny ones, the braggy ones, the stupid ones, the pretentious ones--didn’t bother Sam a bit. Even direct insults rolled off him for the most part. If he decided he didn’t like you, though, he ordered you out of the shop and that was that, so Dean had made a “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone” sign.
Dean decided it would be better to go home than to drive away a paying customer, especially in the middle of a large tattoo that would cover the rent on the shop for the month--good thing, because they were going through a dry spell, no customers for days at a time. This way he could make a decent dinner for them for once without Sam’s surreptitious surveillance of Dean’s attempts to take care of him making it awkward.
Dean got inside (he’d finally lifted the key one morning when Sam was sleeping in and had a copy made), and set down the groceries. He was just getting out some pans when an unfamiliar voice made them clatter to the floor. Dean drew his gun and cocked it instantly at a nondescript man standing in the doorway to the kitchen smirking at him, evidently not the least bit troubled by the gun. “You’re not Sam,” he said.
Dean had a wild moment’s thought that Sam had some friend (/lover/sugar daddy??) he’d never bothered to mention to Dean when Dean’s gun went flying out of his hand and across the room, and then Dean knew what it was. “Demon,” he growled.
“Hunter,” it replied accordingly. “One of Sam’s little zookeepers? I was going to kill you all when I came for him, but then Sam made that unnecessary.” A twisted smile spread across its face. “He’s my most promising project of all.”
Dean blinked, then again. Was this real? Was this really happening? Was this ... was all that garbage about demon blood for real?? Or--or was this-- “Lucifer?” Dean choked out.
The demon sighed with a lazy smile. “You flatter me. Just a loyal servant, prepping dear Sammy for his arrival. I’ve got a lot of plans for Sam, though. Lots.”
Dean gasped, abruptly fighting back tears. It was real?? Little Sam, everything they did to him-- “They purified him,” he managed to get out.
“Oh, that’s not possible,” the demon said, all smug self-indulgence. “I mean, nothing’s impossible, but what Sam would have to go through ... he’d probably rather have gone to hell.”
“What are you planning to do to him?” Dean had to ask. This one was a talker--chances were, it would tell him, and if Dean knew, maybe he could stop it. He could at least try.
“Well, first, we have to get him back together with his brother, because we have plans for him, too,” it said with a sinister grin. Dean hoped he managed to keep the poker face he’d worked so hard on, because it had never come naturally to him. He listened intently, scarcely breathing. “Then, there’ll be a battle for supremacy between all my children, which I’m afraid Sam’s probably too soft-hearted to win, and then--oh, all kinds of goodies; I won’t bore you with the details. Just know it’ll be fun. Too bad you won’t be around to see it.” It smiled and flicked its wrist. Dean looked at it nervously. It looked at its own hand, consterned, and flicked it again. Dean took a surreptitious step back, waiting for something big, but nothing happened. The demon stood between him and the salt, but Dean was casting through his mind for anything in the kitchen that might be made of iron. “What the ...?”it said. It frowned at Dean, baffled.
Dean heard the front door opening. No, no, no, no ... of all the worst things that could happen right now ... not Sam! Dean would have said he never prayed, but a prayer came to his lips, to keep Sammy safe, no matter what happened to Dean. Not this, too, not after everything Sam had been through. What would this, the realization of all his worst fears, do to Sam? The demon looked pleased as he greeted Sam’s arrival. “My boy! Daddy’s home.”
There was only a moment’s expressionless hesitation, then Sam strode purposefully across the apartment and pulled open a drawer in the living room, from which he withdrew a knife--one of the knives he’d described making, tattooed with symbols all over it. “No, Sam, it’s a demon!” Dean cried. With everything Sam knew, he didn’t know demons couldn’t be killed with a knife??
“Come and get me,” Sam said to it, with a grin Dean would have to admit looked way more evil than the demon’s.
“Sam,” the demon cooed, moving slowly toward him. “I haven’t seen you since you were a baby--those hunters who kept you locked up were aces with the warding. ’Dja miss me?”
“Why me?” Sam demanded.
The demon shrugged. “Mommy made a deal. Don’t be too mad. If she hadn’t, you and your brother would never have been born, and we couldn’t have that, could we? You’re both too important.”
Dean was reeling with the news about their mother, but Sam must be so accustomed to horrifying revelations that this didn’t appear to impact him that much. His eyes flickered briefly to Dean in the kitchen. “Why? What’s my brother got to do with this?”
“You’re my master’s perfect vessel, and your brother ... he’s gonna suit up for the other guys. You’ll kill each other in the most spectacular battle of all time--it’ll be awesome. I’ll have ringside seats. Can’t wait.” He winked.
“You gave him blood, too?”
“No, they don’t know how to take care of their own the way I took care of you, Sam.” Sam did squint at this, and Dean could see the fury rising in his brother. “But my blood in you ... where is it? I’m not seeing it at the moment ... probably one of those hideous warding tattoos.” It shrugged, but Dean didn’t miss the briefest hint of bliss pass across Sam’s face, and he knew Sam, for the first time, really was convinced he was free of demon blood, as the hunters had said.
“So, these ringside seats--how much are they going for?” Sam asked with a cool smile.
The demon beamed. “Sam! You do have a sense of humor about this! Ugh, all my other children are so pissy about the whole thing. I always knew you were the best one. My very favorite.” There was a flicker in Sam’s eyes at this, Dean saw it: the parental praise he’d been starving for his whole life long--here it was, at last.
“Sam, no!” Dean shouted, but not only the demon but also Sam held out a hand to stop him coming any closer, both looking equally murderous right now. Equally evil. What had those hunters made Sam into? All their efforts to turn him into something else drove him right into the arms of the enemy, because they left him nowhere else to go, no better option. When humans are incapable of love, when they torture and destroy you, how are demons worse?
“And Lucifer--when will he come for me?” Sam asked conversationally, letting the knife drop to his side, letting down his guard.
“Sam!” Dean cried, trying again to get around the demon to Sam, who looked remarkably unwelcoming.
“Stay where you are, Dean,” Sam ordered coldly, not looking at him.
“Only a few years now,” the demon assured him comfortingly. “You don’t have that long to wait. None of us do.”
“Oh, good, because I have something for him,” Sam said, taking off his shirt and revealing an incredibly complex tattoo Dean had only seen pieces of before. It stretched all over his torso, across his ribs, meeting over his heart both in front and in back. Dean heard the demon hiss as Sam fixed it with an empty stare. “You think he’ll like it?”
“What have you done?” the demon gasped. “You’ve--you’ve made yourself useless! USELESS!” it raged. It flicked its wrist again, this time at Sam, who gave a wicked grin and raised his arm, where Dean saw a little tattoo identical to the one he’d given Dean in the same spot. Whatever the demon was trying to do with all the wrist-flicking, apparently that tattoo they both had made them immune to it. The demon roared and lunged for Sam, who took a casual step back. Dean ran for him, but the demon stopped just short of being able to grab him, trying several times, and finally screaming in fury. Sam kicked aside the rug a little, where Dean saw a demon trap painted on the floor. Clever, clever. And to think Dean used to think Sam was too paranoid with all this stuff. Dean made sure to stay outside of the trap himself.
“Useless?” Sam pressed. “Are you sure?”
“I’ll fry every last stain of that abomination off your skin,” the demon chanted. “I’ll singe every last--”
“Well, you won’t, because I’m about to kill you,” Sam said, with a friendly tone that was undeniably creepy, not to mention that Dean had never seen him so animated and relaxed, “but as for the rest, I don’t think they could, because this ritual we did, see, burned it deep, into my bones, into my heart. Can’t destroy that without destroying the vessel. Right?” Dean could see Sam intently awaiting the response. He knew his brother well enough by now to know what this was about: he was egging the demon into telling him whether all his obsessive attempts to thwart Lucifer had succeeded or if he still had to do more, and Dean knew in that moment that whatever it cost him, Sam would never, ever stop until he was sure he’d gotten it right.
Dean thought it was safe to say from the demon’s reaction that he had. Sam and Dean smiled at each other across the room, the most genuine, happy smile Dean had seen out of Sam since he found him again. “Dean? Anything else you need to know?” Sam asked. When Dean mutely shook his head, a little baffled by the question, Sam took a step inside the devil’s trap and plunged the knife into the demon, which flickered red and fell to the floor. Sam got some holy water out of the bathroom and splashed it a couple of times, then salted it, but it didn’t react, as if the demon inside the body was gone.
Then Sam examined the knife, making a little sound of dismay at a chink he seemed to find in it, cleaned it on the demon’s clothes, and set it back inside the drawer whence it came. Dean remembered Sam telling him about tattooing weapons, all that nonsense about how it made them able to kill the unkillable. Everything, everything Sam had ever told him, it seemed, was true after all. No wonder Sam had despaired when Dean hadn’t believed him. This was the reality Sam had been grappling with all his life. Even if they could do nothing else to help, he needed someone to believe him. Sam wasn’t well-adjusted. He wasn’t happy, he wasn’t balanced, he wasn’t mentally healthy. So far from it. It would be a long time before he was, if it ever happened. But Dean knew the biggest step toward being able to help him was one he’d just taken: to believe his brother’s truth, strange and horrifying though it may be, so he could help him carry the burden.
Sam surveyed the body, and sighed heavily. “Fuck.” A body to dispose of, just as Dean had always feared it would come to one day. But this was a body he was all too happy about.
“I’ll help,” Dean offered, and Sam looked up hopefully. “What are brothers for?”
Dean groaned and fumbled for the glass of whiskey he was keeping at hand for this monster of a tattoo, but it was empty. “The ribs are the worst part,” Sam informed him mildly, “but it has to be perfect to keep the angels out.” They were in the shop after hours, the door locked, and Sam was continuing work on this tattoo that would take weeks.
“And you know how to do this ritual?” Sam lifted the needle from Dean’s skin. Dean knew he’d gotten to Sam whenever he had to stop working and breathe through the feelings it brought up in him. “Sorry,” Dean muttered.
“Yeah. I can do it.” Sam had already told him that particular ritual was the most painful thing he’d ever experienced, but whatever, anything was worth it to forestall what Sam had informed him was the freakin’ apocalypse. The apocalypse! Dean never would have believed it, but Sam had been right about everything. Dean’s believing him had brought them abruptly closer together than Dean would have thought possible in such a short time. Maybe it was also partly that he was no longer afraid his evil was going to infect Dean, and maybe it had something to do with successfully fighting the demon together. It surely had to do with how much more Sam now felt he could relax about the future, but whatever the reason, nothing had ever made Dean happier in his whole life than getting to feel like they were brothers again. That ritual would be worth it for another reason, though: so that Sam wouldn’t be alone in the things he’d had to go through anymore. It wasn’t like Dean was looking forward to it, but he’d heal in a few weeks, Sam said, and Sam ... maybe it would heal a little something in Sam, too.
“So why’d they give you this tattoo if they were gonna let Lucifer have you anyway?”
“Guess they changed their minds after they’d already given it to me. I think they decided not long before I ran away. It has to be perfect. They could have marred the tattoo, done another ritual to mar the marks on my ribs and heart, and I’d have been open for business again, I guess.”
“How’d they plan to make you say yes?”
Sam’s voice got quiet. “I don’t know.”
“Well,” Dean said briskly, trying to lighten the mood while simultaneously distracting himself from the pain of the tattoo, “say what you want about those hunters, but I guess they actually knew what they were talking about. No more demon blood, no more Lucifer comin’ for ya ... maybe it’s time to go to Disneyland!”
Dean had hoped for at least a smile, but Sam just worked. At last, he mumbled, sounding kind of embarrassed, “I don’t know what that is.”
Dean grinned. “Well, it’s not like I’ve ever been there. Wasn’t on the top of Dad’s sightseeing list. I always hoped there’d be a ghost haunting the place or something, but no such luck.” He sighed. “Seriously, though, maybe we should go, just you and me.”
“What is it?”
“It’s an amusement park! Like, huge. It has everything.”
“What’s an amusement park?”
Dean tried to smile, but he couldn’t suppress the flare of pain Sam’s affectless voice, which had come to sound agonizingly innocent to Dean, caused in him. Sam had had no childhood. None. Treated like a monster and locked up at age six, tortured, however good the hunters’ intel was, Sam had been an innocent, confused, tormented man since he was a little boy--or, well, rather, taller than any man by any rights should be, Dean supposed it was really that Sam would always be an innocent, confused, tormented child. But it could be better. Dean could make it better. “I guess you’ll just have to find out.” Sam looked nervous--which only made sense, Dean figured, since most of the surprises he’d ever had hadn’t been good. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”
“Actually, I was just hoping ... have you heard of this thing called a Home Depot?” Dean couldn’t hold in his chortle, but Sam didn’t seem offended. Dean managed to nod, now laughing too hard for Sam to keep working anyway. Sam took the opportunity to clean the tattoo gun a little. “Well ... do you know how we could get to one?” Still smirking, Dean nodded. They were everywhere; Sam just didn’t know it. Sam looked more excited than Dean had ever seen him look. “Really? Because I hear they have lumber there, and with lumber, you can build things, and, well ... there’s all kinds of things I want to build. Like a bed, for starters. So you have someplace to sleep.”
Dean beamed to himself and barely heard another word as Sam excitedly described this carpentry that to him seemed like an impossible dream come true. Apparently hard work of his own choosing sounded like heaven on Earth to Sam. Oh, Sam. Still, if Sam wanted to build Dean a bed, then that meant that Sam was making a place for Dean in his life, which meant that he wanted Dean to stay.
Dean’s family had never been whole. Dad had died before they found Sam. Mom had died long before that. But Dean had completed the quest, defeated the dragon (or, okay, Sam had, and it had been a demon, not a dragon), and now they could finally live happily ever after, even if it wasn’t as gilded and perfect as it was in storybooks. Even if his Disneyland was going to be Home Depot for a while. Even if the pieces of their family lay scattered across the years. All that mattered was that they’d gotten here at last, they’d lived. They made it.
~ The End ~
Author's Notes:
- Even as I wrote "Kintsugi," I felt like there was way more potential in the setup than I'd explored. After I was done writing it, I found the idea wouldn't let me go and I had to write more, hence this story. Others have indicated feeling the same way about "Kintsugi," like it wouldn't let them go, so anyone who's into this 'verse is more than welcome to contribute their own works to it--I'd be most honored!
- Throwing around potential names for this fic with a friend, inevitably we got silly, and I thought you might get a chuckle out of some of them, including "Kintsugi II: The Reckoning," and "There's No Place Like Home Depot." ;-)