More than the dirt it takes to bury them (part two) - Supernatural, Sam/Dean.

[cho_malfoy]

one | master post | three

"Sam? Hey, Sam!"

Hands are shaking him. It's only when Sam blinks and looks up at Dean that they stop. Through the windshield behind Dean, there's a seemingly never-ending line of pine trees stretched out to the distance, tall enough to obscure the sky overhead.

"Yeah?"

Dean shakes his head. His voice is a little rough, but it mostly sounds normal again. “Damn it, you've gotta answer me when I'm talking to you.”

“S-sorry.” Now that he's kind of awake again, his teeth are chattering.

“You're the one that knows where we're going, man.” Dean's got cold weather gear on, but Sam's still dripping sweat. Just looking at the expensive coat and gloves Dean's using makes Sam shake a little more. “How far are we?”

"Just a couple more miles." He pauses and looks out his window. He shouldn't know, especially since he was out for so long. But this...this is definitely familiar.

Dean starts the car again, and sure enough, Sam sees a side path's that's no more than dirt cut into a line of trees within ten minutes. If he didn't know where to look, he wouldn't know it.

“There,” he croaks, pointing when Dean slows.

The car turns onto it. They have to go slow because the Prius is so close to the ground and there's still remnants of winter snow on the ground, but they round the corner, and a lake appears.

A lake, and parked under the trees next to it, a car.

Dean parks and tells Sam to wait. “I'll check it out,” he says.

Sam gives Dean about a minute of squinting at the car and looking in the windows before he drags himself out of the car and across the lightly muddy path. The other car's an Impala, which Sam doesn't need the decal on the side to confirm, much older than the computerized car at his back, and definitely bigger. Sam leans against it for a moment before he reaches in one of the wheel wells and pulls out keys.

Dean huffs a quiet laugh. "Seriously?"

"Just wait until you see the trunk," Sam says, smiling despite himself.

Dean snatches the keys from his hand. “You should sit down, asshole.”

“And miss the grand reveal? No way.”

Dean rolls his eyes, but he bends and rolls a shoulder forward. Sam throws his shoulder around, letting Dean take some of his weight, and they make their way to the back together.

“Think you can stand on your own for five seconds?”

Sam snorts, but he slips his arm down and stands. He shakes again, but the cold air feels amazing on his skin, so he waves Dean off when Dean gestures at his coat.

“Just get it open,” Sam says.

When Dean pulls the trunk open, the door tries to close dramatically on Dean's head before it's all the way up. It creaks when Dean forces it all the way up. Definitely better that Sam didn't try it.

“There's nothing here.” Dean drags his hand across the bottom, like he can reveal something magician-style.

Sam steps forward. It only takes him a few seconds to feel where the false bottom comes up, and when he pulls it up, Dean's eyes go cartoon-style big.

“A little help?” Sam asks when his arm starts to tremble. “It won't stay up on its own.”

“You want me to hold it?”

Sam points to a shotgun. "Use that."

"What?"

Sam grabs the shotgun and braces the false bottom. He leans on the bottom once that's done, winded, but it's his turn to take everything in.

Guns. Ammo. All the ghost fixings. Weird bottles and boxes and necklaces that he wouldn't even begin to know how to use.

"Well," Dean says, voice awed. "This'll make a difference."

-

The cabin they break into on their side of the lake doesn't have much. Sam doesn't see power outlets or anything resembling a furnace. It does, however, have a working toilet, and after Sam pukes three times in two hours, he really appreciates what a different that makes.

The first time, Dean hovers in the doorway, clenching and unclenching his hands like he can fight whatever evil stomach monsters are causing the nausea. Sam would laugh if he wasn't busy hurling up his insides.

When Sam gets a break, he finally says aloud what he's been thinking. "You should get rid of the Prius."

"My car?"

"We have another car." Sam sighs and leans on the toilet seat. He can still see his breath mist in the air, so it's not a good sign that the porcelain feels delightfully cool on his skin. "And it's not on any cameras."

"That we know of."

Sam pushes to his feet. "Fine, I'll do it."

"Just...hold on, okay?" Dean holds out his hands, and when Sam leans against the sink, he grumbles, "That beast outside probably gets negative gas mileage." But he also claps a hand on Sam's arm and heads outside.

When he comes back in, he's wearing a leather coat and holding another one. He still has his own peacoat and khakis and polo on underneath, along with the gloves and hat that go with the outfit, but he looks a lot warmer that way.

He holds the second coat out to Sam, but Sam shakes his head.

"Take the freaking coat," Dean says, scowling.

"Too hot."

"Do I look like I care?"

Sam's more worried about dehydration than hypothermia - he had another hurling session while Dean was gone, so it's not like there's much in his stomach as it is - but he doesn't have the energy to fight. He takes the coat and shrugs it on.

"I'll be poking through the guns when you're done."

"You ever fire a gun?"

Dean shrugs. "Looks like it."

Sam's too busy dropping back down to the toilet to ask more, but as Dean goes back into the room, he sincerely hopes Dean doesn't shoot something important. Like himself.

-

"So you've been using your freaky ESP stuff?"

Sam shakes his head, sweaty bangs falling in his face. "No."

"You sure about that?"

Sam doesn't answer again. He won't rise to the bait.

"Sam?"

"I said no, okay, Dean?"

A hand shakes his shoulder, and Sam jerks awake.

"I was just checking on you, what the hell," Dean says. Sam winces. "There's a couple beds in this place, you know."

Sam sits up from the toilet, rubbing his back. Yeah, that was a bad idea. “Lead the way.”.

The cabin's not very big. If it had been set up for the winter, Sam would say it was for hunters looking for game, but it's not, so maybe its lakeside position means it's for boating or something. When it's not below freezing, that is.

The beds Dean mentioned are in a bedroom, dark and tucked away from the rest of the house. It's small, and Sam'll need to fold in half to fit on his, but still, it's better than using a toilet for a pillow. It isn't until his cheek hits pillow and his body unloosens that he realizes just how much pain he was in.

"Sleep," Dean says, sticking a bucket by his head. "Don't die."

If Sam wasn't half-unconscious, he'd grunt. But he's closing his eyes, and he doesn't even think to pull up the comforter until Dean does it for him, and he's out.

-

"I gave him what he wanted. And it wasn't some bitch in a g-string."

The knife tightens at Sam's throat. He laughs a little, trying to wriggle his way free. But the hand holding it - even in a dream, Sam feels the texture and knows Dean - doesn't give ground.

In front of him, the man leans forward. "It was you."

A shadow passes in front of Sam's eyes.

When he pushes the lids open, all he sees is Dean in the other bed, snoring quietly, fully dressed and half-sitting, like he'd been watching Sam and just happened to fall asleep. If it wasn't for the dim flashlight illuminating dust motes on the floor, Sam wouldn't see anything, like the door to the rest of the cabin slightly cracked.

He squeezes his eyelids shut and open again, but nothing happens. Probably just some weird trick of the not-light.

Sam grabs the flashlight and eases out of bed. His mouth's dry and his bladder's full, which isn't a good combination.

The floor boards creak as he makes his way to the rest of the cabin, and occasionally, other parts creak in the wind. He can't be sure if the place is haunted or not...except there's something on the table, and Sam paid enough attention to the Ghostfacers videos to know it's an EMF detector. There aren't power lines this far out, and when he switches it on, it doesn't so much as blip. At least ghosts aren't a problem.

That's what he tells himself when he sees his shadows distort on the floors and walls as he makes his way to the bathroom. Sometimes, they look like smoke, and not the kind that comes from a fire. Regular smoke doesn't twist around his head and...menace, if that's possible. Other times, the shadows take the shape of other people's shadows, people he should know, people who gesture and seem to scream without words or sound.

“No,” Sam mutters. He stops and rubs his eyes, and when he opens his eyes again, he's staring at his own silhouette on the wall.

He uses the toilet. He's looking over his shoulder the whole time, but nothing happens. Not until he goes back out to the living room, and a woman's standing right in front of him.

"You're a hard man to find," she says. "You disappeared a few days ago, and I thought I'd never catch up."

Rubbing his free hand against his eyes doesn't make her disappear. She quirks her lips and tilts her head, and...

"You!" Sam says, nearly dropping the flashlight. "My dreams."

The woman lifts her hands and looks toward the ceiling. "Great. Still mind whammied."

She takes a couple steps forward, and Sam shrinks back against the wall.

"Whoa, hey." She stops. "I'm just going to help you with your little problem you're having. Again."

Sam frowns. "How do you-"

"You've been dreaming about me. You know me, Sam." She moves again, and there's something about the way she smells that's very familiar. Sweet, with just the barest edge of something not.

"Maybe," he says. "But I don't right now. So maybe you should just go."

She shakes her head. "Can't do that. Not until you're at fighting strength again."

"I said no."

The woman sighs, and she twitches a hand. The bedroom door creaks shut. "You'll thank me later."

Sam stumbles backward against the wall. "You're a demon."

"Duh." She pulls out a knife, but when Sam's hands ball into fists, she holds out a hand and says, "Not hurting you, remember? I'm helping."

She draws the knife against her skin, and blood wells out. It looks nearly black thanks to the cold blue beam coming from the light in Sam's hand.

So why does it suddenly look like the best thing in the world?

He blinks, and she's in front of him, cradling his neck, sticking her arm against his lips. He jerks, but she shushes him and mutters soothing nothings he can't hear until he tentatively licks, and...

Sam groans, and he holds the arm to his mouth.

It doesn't really taste like blood, not like what gets on his tongue when cuts his mouth or has a nosebleed. But then, it's not like he's tasting the blood itself, but what's underneath. It's hot and glowing and filling Sam head to toe with everything he's been missing for days. The mist huffing from his nose doesn't seem like cold condensation so much as smoke from a fire in Sam's gut.

It's heady. It's too much. And it's fucking perfect.

But another murmur fills the air, and the woman jerks back, turning on her heel. Sam doesn't hear what she says; he's slipping down the wall and licking his lips and staring without seeing as everything slots back into place. He almost feels the wall in his brain separating him from what he needs to know, can feel the holes where the memories trickles out, and if he pushes just a little bit...

A gust hits his face, and Sam can focus again.

The woman's on the floor, still with eyes unblinking and blank. Dean's crouched in front of Sam, pushing his face until his staring into his eyes.

"...hurt you? Sam? Sammy? Can you hear me?"

"Don't..." Sam lifts a hand to push Dean away from his face, but Sam touches his hand, and it's Dean. His palm lingers, and Dean's hand should be cold, but it's just the perfect amount of warmth, better than the raging fire through his veins, better than the chilled air around him. It's just what he needs.

“Sam?”

Right. He was saying something. "Don't call me Sammy," he finishes, but his voice is breathy, and Dean pales.

"What'd she do to you?"

He looks down. There's still blood on his fingertips from where he'd touched his lips, and Dean looks at it, too. Then Dean's staring at his mouth, and the heat under Sam's skin flares even more.

"I don't..." He forces himself to move his hand away from Dean's. "What did you do?"

Dean pats Sam's face, laughs quietly, and pats a book nearby. "Exorcism. Turns out us mundanes can get demons out, too."

Sam laughs too, but it's giddy for a second until he reigns it in. Mundane is the last word he'd use for Dean.

-

They can't stay in the cabin with a body there - or won't, if Dean's disgusted face is any way to tell - so they pack up and climb in the Impala.

It's nothing like the Prius. That car was everything modern that Sam's usually familiar with: soft interiors, cozy, computerized and extremely efficient. But this car's a beast, and it growls up the road with Dean cranking the steering wheel. Sam has a lot of room to stretch out, and that's kind of awesome.

Dean's plan had made sense back at the cabin. He'd held up a business card that had been a page holder in the exorcism book - Singer Salvage, it read - and Dean had said, "Probably has something to do with the car. I figure we travel for a while, get a motel, give this guy a call."

"Why not call now?" Sam asks.

Dean tosses him his smartphone. The screen's dark.

"Doesn't matter that the car doesn't have a place to charge," Dean says with a wistful sigh. "There's no reception out here anyway."

Something's off about the way Dean drives the car. He's wearing a suit Sam recognized from their office days - all the rest were dirty, Dean had said, and he'd given the rumpled clothing bag in the Impala's trunk a good scowl - with the leather jacket over it for warmth. But he's also got an arm across the back of the bench seat, and every now and then, he gives the old-school speedometer a slightly awed expression. And then his gaze flicks over to the gas meter, and his face is a dark cloud again.

"I'll have to spend half my savings keeping this thing running," he grumbles.

"But maybe we won't have demons get the jump on us again," Sam says.

"Jump on you, you mean."

Sam shrugs. Despite the itch under his skin - not from feeling deprived like before, but feeling too much - he's willing to be charitable.

They stop in a town that's probably a lot busier during the summer. Now, with snow falling and the roads half-plowed - at least the Impala had chains, and putting them on had taken him five seconds, like he'd done it a million times before - the only people they find are one man running a gas station and an older couple running the one open inn. Even Dean, looking a little ragged around the edges, doesn't object to the weird musty smell when they get inside.

"How long until we can make the call?" Sam asks.

Dean plugs his phone into the room's one unused outlet, made free when they unplugged one of the two lamps, and flips it on. He sighs. "No reception here, either."

"We can use the handset."

"If I feel like paying collect charges out of my ass. Or you can."

Sam shrugs. "I can be patient."

And he can. No cops would probably make it their way in this weather, and Dean put salt at every possible entrance the second they got inside. But the TV isn't working, and Dean keeps shooting Sam looks, so Sam grabs a book from the pile he'd taken out of the car and holds it out to Dean.

"You think..." Dean looks at the spine. "'Physical Demon Protections' is a fun, light read?"

"It's not in Latin. Or ancient Greek."

Dean rolls his eyes.

"You want to wait for a demon to tear you apart?" Sam shakes the book. "I'd rather be ready."

"Yes, Dad," Dean mutters, but he grabs the book. And Sam's hand.

They both still. Sam's looking down at Dean, but he's feeling the connection made with both of their hands, like electricity runs through their touch. And judging by the way Dean's thumb runs once, very slowly, over the tips of Sam's fingers, he's feeling it, too.

Sam makes himself pull back first. The warm feeling in his hand spreads when he does, curling through his body, until it disappears again.

"Right," he says, flexing his fingers. "Reading."

He grabs the book on the top of the stack and sits in the chair next to the table. He feels Dean's gaze on him for a few more moments, and it's only when it drops that Sam can breathe again.

Sam tries to read. He really does. But his eyes skim over the print over and over, taking in nothing, for long enough that he's about to give up on it when Dean speaks.

"Guess the tattoo on my chest's for a reason," he says. When Sam looks up, the book's tilted down in his hands, and Sam can see him dragging a finger over a symbol on the page.

"You've got one, too?"

"Hmm?" It doesn't really sound like he's listening.

Sam sits up in his chair. His mouth goes try, but it doesn't stop him from shrugging off his t-shirt. "Like this?"

Dean looks up from the book. His eyes widen, not dramatically, but enough for Sam to see the pupils expanding over the irises. He's not staring at the tattoo, or just the tattoo; he's looking up and down Sam's torso, biting his lip...

The flush is back in Sam's skin, spreading and dropping lower. He can't take it anymore. "Dean? You with me?"

"Uh." Dean shakes himself and stares back down at the book. "Yeah. Exactly like that."

"Dean?"

Instead of looking back Sam's way, Dean snaps the book shut and throws it on his nightstand. "I'm going to take a shower. We should probably get an early start tomorrow."

But Sam doesn't want to let him leave. He jogs across the room and puts his hand over the bathroom to keep Dean from going in. Dean does look at him then, jaw set. But his eyes are pleading, asking Sam for a break without words, and Sam can't fight it. He doesn't want to.

"Early start," Sam says quietly, and he eases back.

Dean stares for another second. Finally, he swallows and gives a curt nod, and then he lets himself inside the bathroom.

Sam sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

-

Sam woke alone. He wasn't cold in Dean's arms, kneeling in the mud, but on a bed, dry and safe. As he sat up, the skin on his back tugged, and he winced with pain.

It took him a little while to ease out of bed and pull up his blood-stained shirt to look in a mirror, but there it was: an ugly, mostly-healed scar on his back where a wound had been. How long had he been out?

The door clicks open, and he turns to see Dean, pale and tired, staring at him. "Sammy? Thank god."

"Hey," Sam says.

Dean crosses the room and grabs Sam, hugging him for all he's worth.

Sam feels the edges of the memory, knows he winces and Dean draws back, but in the dream, he lets it linger, lets him feel Dean clinging, and knows it's everything he'll ever need.

Until he wakes up.

"Sam?"

He rolls over and sees Dean staring back, eyes lit up from the light of the alarm clock's numbers. It feels like he's been looking at Dean in dark motel rooms his entire life. It's not far from the truth, really; this life, whatever it is, has only existed since Sandover's. Even back then, Dean might not have been in his apartment every night, but he was in his head, fighting and bleeding and smiling and crying.

"What are we?" Sam whispers. "To each other?"

Dean shifts until he's sitting up. If the fact that he's lying fully dressed on top of his covers is any way to tell, he hasn't done much sleeping. "Wish I knew."

Sam stands, and the only sounds in the room are the blankets rustling as he pushes them away. It even sounds like Dean's holding his breath. Maybe he is. But he doesn't try to move away when Sam sits on his bed; if anything, it seems like he's keeping himself from leaning forward.

They sit quietly, Sam poking absently at the bed, Dean playing with the hem of his shirt. Something's different, and since Dean's letting Sam figure it out, Sam won't push.

It's when Dean drops the hem that he gets it. Of course. He's not wearing his clothes.

Instead, he's wearing whatever the Dean before wore: a black t-shirt, jeans, boots. The boots are even a little dirty, messing up the bed, but Dean doesn't seem to notice.

Sam reaches forward and lays his hand on the sleeve of Dean's shirt. Dean starts, but he relaxes when Sam pinches the fabric, rolls it between his fingertips.

"Why?" Sam whispers.

"Because I thought I'd feel like myself again," Dean whispers back. His head's turned, like he can't say what he's thinking and look at Sam at the same time. "Like I even know who that is."

Sam runs his hand up Dean's arm. He started it as a gesture of comfort, some kind of pat, but the shirt and the hair on his arm feels like Dean, and Sam feels like Sam, and he can't stop.

"You're you," Sam says. "I feel it more every day."

Dean does look at Sam then. The wind kicks up outside, and it's the only thing Sam hears besides his own beating heart. He leans in, and Sam lets him.

For some reason, Sam's first thought when their lips touch is that Dean's breath is fresh. It's minty, like he brushed while Sam was drifting in his own world, and it shouldn't be. It should taste like cheap beer or shitty food. Dean's more himself every day, but this part, the overly clean and tidy bit, is still a construct, and the fact that he still clings to it makes Sam grab for Dean, growling a little.

This, Sam can fix. This is always something he can fix.

Dean lets Sam tug off the t-shirt, lets Sam drag his hands over his lightly muscled body. Sam's fingers skim where scars should be, but his body's healed, fresh. It's like the map to Sam's life has gone blank, and no amount of grabbing can make it come back. He kisses the bruises around Dean's throat, nibbles on his jaw, and bites Dean's lip instead, and Dean groans into his mouth.

At the same time, Dean's hands are skimming over Sam's back as well, like he's looking for the same scars mirrored in Sam's skin. He won't find anything - Dean's hands skim over where the back scar from his dream should be without resistance - but Sam pulls back enough to let Dean toss off his shirt. At least he can make this part easier.

"Jesus, Sam," Dean whispers, staring like he stared earlier.

Sam kisses him again. The lack of familiar that makes his jaw set and his hands clench eases with every bit that Dean relaxes, every moment that Dean lets Sam work closer and closer to full nudity and doesn't shrink in and cover himself. It feels like he should, but Dean doesn't give a damn about "should", and neither does Sam.

Dean's not grabbing for Sam, but he doesn't need to. He's waiting. And Sam won't leave him hanging.

He presses his hand to one of Dean's shoulders, spreading his fingers. There should be a welt the shape of a hand, and it's like it was never there. But sure enough, the tattoo on his pec is exactly the same as Sam's. Probably. Sam's never seen his own tattoo in the detail he's seeing Dean's now, never had his lips and teeth lighting grazing the skin, never had a back arch toward his mouth like he can't get enough.

"It's you," he finds himself whispering, like he hasn't known for weeks. This is the Dean from his dreams more than the man who's driven with him for a couple weeks now. Even though Dean knows too, he nods.

Dean's fully hard against Sam's bare thigh, leaking and shaking, but he isn't asking for more, not with words. It doesn't stop him from grabbing at the bed when Sam wraps his hand around him, spreading precome as he jerks him, slow and steady.

"Sammy," Dean says, and it's kind of like the way he said it in Sam's dream. That moment of rediscovery, destroyed and saved all at the same time.

He meets Sam's movement with his own until he comes, barely making a sound.

They stare at each other for a while, both of their breathing heavy.

“You haven't,” Dean says finally, looking down.

Sam nods and spreads his legs, letting Dean reach down.

It isn't surprising that the feel of Dean's hand on his cock is almost like his own hand. Or that he clutches Dean's shoulder, looking to anchor himself. What is surprising is that Dean ducks his head to take the head of Sam's cock inside his mouth. He licks and nibbles and draws back every few seconds, staring up at Sam like he's looking for something.

“Yeah,” Sam finally says. He wants to caress Dean's cheek, wants to feel the shape of his own cock inside Dean's mouth through the skin, but it's too much. He grabs at the sheets instead, does his best not to look at Dean's fluttering lashes as he closes his eyes. Dean's moaning something, his tongue dragging underneath Sam's cock as his lips move, but Sam can't hear anything, nothing but the roar of his blood surging as he gets closer...closer...

He must manage to get some kind of warning out to Dean because he finishes in his own hand. But when Sam drops his head at the end of the climax, Dean's watching, and Sam knows where he's seen that look on Dean's face before.

His dream. When he hugged Sam like there was nothing left in the world but them. There's wonder and...relief.

“I'm right here,” Sam whispers. “I'm not going anywhere.”

And even though they're both sweaty and covered in their come, when Dean hugs Sam just like he did in the dream, Sam can only hug back.

-

The snow's stopped long enough the next day for Sam to leave the room. The storm was pretty brutal for late winter; the Impala's half-buried in the slightly sunken parking lot, trunk included. What they've got in their motel room is all that they have access to until they get dug out. Judging by the plows he sees around, it'll probably be midday at least. But the sidewalks are mostly clear, and the parking lot of the diner's free, so he heads that way.

Snow stings Sam's face as the wind blows the top layer off the trees. The raw cold on his cheeks is pretty nice, actually. He spent all night warm and next to Dean, and Dean didn't stir when Sam took his shower and dressed. He'll probably wake up if Sam brings him black coffee - he's given up on having his usual mix this far out from civilization - but he couldn't bear to do it before he left. Not when Dean was smiling in his sleep, and not when Sam was the cause.

"Winchester."

Sam frowns. The word's obviously directed toward him, but it doesn't mean anything. It's a gun, right? Like Wesson.

Like Smith and Wesson.

He turns, and a middle-aged man in a puffy jacket and plaid lowers into an aggressive crouch across the sidewalk from him.

"What did you say?" Sam asks.

"Your name, asshat. Or have you forgotten these days?" The man smirks.

Sam takes a step toward him. He isn't sure what he'll do, or even why he's doing it, but it doesn't matter. He hears the crunch of snow behind him, and when he turns, an older woman's grinning and balling her hands into fists. And then there's a couple men in the road, knee-deep in drifts. And another woman closing in from the motel he'd just left behind.

Fuck.

"You didn't think Lilith would keep letting you take us out, did you?" The original man asks. He's obviously not worried about standing out in the middle of the street, and hell, that's a scary thought. "Not without saying hello?"

It's obvious Sam's supposed to know this Lilith person - or demon, since that seems to be the way this is going - so he doesn't ask "Who?" Instead, he says, "You guys can't touch me."

"Maybe not," the woman behind him says. "But we can touch Dean. And listen to him scream. You can too, if you'd like."

"Probably squeals like a pig," another man murmurs. "Hunters usually do."

All of a sudden, Sam feels taller and wider. He tilts his head down, until he's looking over his nose at all the demons, and curls his lip.

"None of you," he hisses, "are going near Dean."

They laugh, of course. It's fine by Sam. It'll make the moment they shut up even better.

The man in front of Sam is the first to choke. And he really is choking; smoke is spilling out of his throat like he's heaving smoke out of his stomach and up. Sam keeps tugging with the invisible force that's a part of him, and he turns to the next and pulls, and it should get harder, it should be too much, but his blood positively sings.

By the time he's got all five of them writhing and yelling, there's some resistance. It's like a wind that isn't actually blowing, stinging his eyes and making the lids hard to keep open. But he probably couldn't stop even if he wanted. And he really, really doesn't.

The second the demons are gone, and a burst of power blows the top layer of snow onto Sam's pants, the thread of power cuts completely. Sam staggers, and when he throws out a hand to keep from faceplanting onto cold concrete, blood drips onto his skin. He touches his fingertips to his upper lip, and the blood trickling down from his nose covers them.

"Crap," he says quietly, and the world goes dark.

-

"Sam? Sam, please."

He'd thought it hurt before. And it had; the explosions were more extreme than the exorcisms. But he hadn't tried dealing with five demons at once before, either.

Sam should've known. Even as great as he felt, the blood the demon fed him could only carry so far. She'd actually helped, was an ally of some kind like his dreams suggested, and Dean had exorcised her. Their only face-to-face help.

"Damn it, Sam."

He can't unclench his eyes, or his hands, or any of his muscles on his own. It takes several minutes before anything does relax, and then it starts up again, with Sam clawing at the air. The pain is white in his head, too much for his eyes to handle even closed.

For a second, he arches off the bed, and it almost feels like he flies through the air. But he hits mattress again, so that's a stupid thought.

Something shoves in his mouth, and he bites down into leather.

Blood rushes in his ears, drowning out the rest of the room, and his one tether to the world disappears. Sam lets himself drift away, drift to some places quieter and darker, half-hoping that he'll never come back.

-

But he does.

The motel room's quiet and sunny. It's cold, not to the point of the cabin, but enough that the leftover sweat beading Sam's skin makes him shiver.

He gets to his feet, and god, he's aching head to toe, but it's so much better than it was before. More problematic are the stabbing hunger pains in his stomach, his dry mouth, and his barely-moving muscles. But again, after the past...however many hours, his half-hunched slumping is leap years forward.

The bathroom door's closed, but the light makes the crack between the floor and the door glow.

"Dean?" Sam doesn't know when he turned got an old man's croak, but it's not pretty. Sam grabs a water bottle from the table next to the bed, cracks the top, and takes a generous swig before trying again. "I'm awake. You doing okay?"

There's no answer.

Sam frowns. He doesn't hear the shower. He glances at the clock, but it tells him nothing. The wet paper where the bottle of water had been, on the other hand, is much more promising.

"Went to meet up with Bobby Singer," it reads. "Should be back in a couple days, if not call-"

The last two words are a guess, since the water makes the ink impossible to read. He can make out a nine and a seven afterward and nothing else.

A couple days. A couple days from when?

The paper's dated April 7th. Sam went to get coffee...the 6th, maybe? Had he been out of it more than a day?

Sam closes his eyes.

Dean tipping water in his mouth, Dean holding back his hair while he barfs, Dean and two others that look exactly like him...

Wait. What?

No, that's what happened. There was the Dean in a sweater and khakis sitting next to him on the bed, pale and sweating. Then there was a Dean wearing the clothes from the trunk and looking like a complete natural in them, face tight with some unspoken emotion. And behind him, a Dean looking sad in a way that looks completely un-Dean-like, light glowing around him like a halo.

Sam shakes his head and looks back at the paper. Why didn't Dean leave the number on his phone? Why did Dean leave in the first place? Being sick for a full day, even really sick, wasn't that bad.

He shuffles over to his phone. Maybe Dean did leave the number. Or the card he'd been talking about before. Something. If nothing else, he could order pizza and get to work putting the pounds back on that he's clearly lost. His pants are slipping off his hips with every step he takes.

The phone screen illuminates when he hits a button, and...

"No way," Sam whispers.

The date reads April 11th. It doesn't change when he stares at it.

He thumbs down to the only working number in his contacts and presses the call button.

"Please," Sam whispers. "Come on, Dean, come on-"

"Your call has been forwarded-"

Sam hangs up. And then he dials again. The voice mail picks up again. It does the third and the fourth time he calls, too.

When he calls a fifth time, he hangs up after the third ring and mutters, "Doesn't mean anything. He might not have his phone. It might be dead."

But as Sam looks out the window, at the melting snow and the completely clear roads, he knows better.

-

Sam's first instinct is to take the remaining wad of cash in his bag, find the nearest rental place or clunker dealership, and drive. Never mind that he has no useful leads, or that he's actually not in the same room he and Dean had driven into together. He'd checked around for a city guide, and they weren't even in the same state they'd been in before.

But he's half-crawling across the room. He's way more likely to drop dead before he makes it anywhere near a car and that's not something Dean would forgive him for. Especially since he should probably be dehydrated or starving to death at this point.

Dean didn't leave books. He didn't leave anything but weapons and tools: salt and medallions and holy water and drawn sigils under the rugs. It's probably why Sam hasn't been jumped by a demon in the days since Dean left.

He has enough energy to order a pizza and shake out a couple bills to give to the driver when he delivers it. And he has enough energy to put the pizza on the bed that he's not using and eat one slice before he passes out again, almost half on the floor from leaning to try to get more food.

It's dark when he wakes up, and the pizza's cold, but it doesn't matter. He eats another couple slices and drinks four bottles of water - he skips the sink and uses the tub to fill the bottle Dean left - before he settles onto the mattress for even more sleep. At least he's under the covers this time.

The sun's half up when he opens his eyes again, and he can't bring himself to check his phone to see if it's sunrise or sunset. Dean hasn't called him. Dean hasn't come back. There's no telltale Impala engine roar, or a courier bringing a message, or a freaking paper airplane. Dean went to find help for Sam - it's the only reason he'd go - and he has to be...he can't be...

"Sam."

Sam jerks against the headboard, heart pounding.

In the middle of the room, where there was previously nothing, is a man. A man with tousled black hair and a trenchcoat and a very steady expression. He steps forward, and Sam tries to push off the bed, but his legs are still lacking what he'd need to support his weight.

"Who the hell are you?" he croaks instead.

The man blinks and tilts his head. His face is very neutral, so it almost reads as surprise. "Zachariah didn't restore your memories."

"What?"

The man strides over to Sam. Sam falls off the bed in his attempts to get away, but the man catches up, cradles Sam's face in his hands, and-

It happens in the blink of an eye. Literally. Sam's eyelashes tangle together and push apart, and maybe he loses time, but when he looks up at Castiel again, his head is full. Not a bad or painful full, necessarily. Just the full it should be.

"Holy crap," Sam whispers. He sits up. "Dean's gone."

"I know." Now, Sam reads more than just puzzlement; Cas is downright tense.

"Was it Lilith? Did she open the last seal? When-" Sam stops. The demon Dean exorcised. Ruby. His key to Lilith.

Sam only realizes that he's rubbing as his head when Cas stills the motion with a light touch to his wrist. "Prepare yourself."

"For what?"

Cas puts his hand on Sam's chest, and pain flares. A couple of days ago, it would've more seemed intense than anything but the most devastating wounds. Now, since the worst of it goes away when Cas pulls his hand back, it's almost forgettable. It probably doesn't hurt that Sam's hunger and weariness disappears, too.

"Ow," he says anyway, rubbing at his skin and frowning.

"It was necessary. Gather your things. We need to find your brother."

Sam nods and pushes to his feet with a strength he hasn't had for days.

-

We need to find your brother.

The words ring in Sam's head when he appears in Bobby's muddy scrapyard with Cas. Sam shakes his head almost immediately and pulls Dean's note out of his pocket.

"They won't be here. Dean said he was going to meet Bobby, so Bobby would've met him closer to our location." He shouldn't have missed that. But then, it feels like his brain's made up of two Slinkies trying to push together. It works in some places, but mostly, the memories clang against each other.

"Where?"

Sam shakes his head and hands over the note. Cas's face grows progressively more furrowed as he reads.

"This is bad news," Cas says, giving the note back. "Zachariah's been hiding you two from my sight for weeks, but it's only in the last few days that I haven't seen Bobby Singer."

"What? How'd you find me?"

"I don't know. But no one will find you now."

Sam pats his chest. "Is that what this was?"

Cas nods. "You can't kill Lilith, Sam."

"I will if she took Dean," Sam says with a snarl, and a flush springs goosebumps onto his skin.

Cas grabs his sleeve sharply. "Don't give in, Sam. The blood is out of your system now."

"How do you...never mind. What do we do?"

Cas stares at nothing for a moment. His gaze focuses on Sam when Cas takes his arm more solidly into his hand. "Hold on."

In an instant, they're standing in a dingy hallway outside of a door labeled 2B. Cas drops Sam's arm and knocks.

"Since when do you knock?"

Cas eases out of direct view of the door. "Since I can't appear in the room we need access to."

Sam's about to ask more questions, but the door opens as far as the safety chain will allow, and a familiar face grins at him in pleased surprise. "Sam!"

He returns her grin. "Anna."

Anna unlocks the door, but she freezes when she looks around the frame. "Castiel."

"Anna."

She slips a hand behind her back, and Sam slips a hand to the gun he brought from the motel room. Not that it would do any good here. "Uh, aren't you on our side?"

Anna doesn't change her stance. "Am I?"

After a moment, Cas nods very slowly. And after another moment, Anna exhales slowly and hugs Cas hard around the neck. There's something silver in her hand that catches the light, but somehow, Sam doesn't think she's going to plunge it into Cas's back. Anna's not the type. She'd stab from the front.

"I knew you'd come around," she says, grinning. She beams up at Sam. "Let's not talk in the hall, huh?"

Sam's throat thickens when they step inside. It's never comforting to move into a room where every single wall and the ceiling and probably the rug-covered floors are painted in sigils. But Cas isn't holding himself as rigid, so Sam swallows, and some of the tension disappears.

"What's the story?" Anna asks. She puts the silver thing - a sword of some kind - on the table next to her and picks up a steaming mug, cupping it in her hands. "I'm guessing this isn't a social visit."

Cas shakes his head. "We needed somewhere to talk without being watched."

"So it's like that." Anna looks at Sam with a soft expression. "Where's Dean?"

"Gone." And there's the choked feeling again. "We're trying to find him."

"Can I trust you, Anna?" Cas asks quietly.

"I won't sell you out to the big guys, if that's what you mean." She sips and shakes her head. "I told you with Alastair-"

"You were there?" Sam asks, eyebrows going up.

"-that we needed to find our own path." Anna's eyes flicker quickly, and Sam knows she's looking at the room. "Heaven isn't mine. And if you're here, it's not yours."

Cas stares at the sigils as well, but his look isn't quite as neutral. Finally, he lets the breath he's holding out. "Zachariah ran them through a scenario."

"Did he?" Anna chuckles. "Haven't seen that trick in a while."

"And he didn't restore their memories."

Anna's eyes widen dramatically. "That's not playing fair."

"I suspect that's the point."

"So what about..." Anna looks at Sam and bites her lip.

"The demon blood should be out of his system, judging by his weakened state when he was revealed to me."

"You both knew about it?" Sam resists the urge to throw his hands in the air. Barely. "Tell me you didn't tell Dean."

"I had orders not to," Cas says.

"And I only found out in the last week." Anna puts her mug back on the desk and draws her fingers over her sword, still worrying her lip between her teeth. "Lots about you two on the wire these days."

"Why did you and Dean part ways?" Cas asks, his voice tight.

"We didn't...it wasn't like we fought or anything."

Anna sighs. "That would've been just what we needed."

"Demons had been following us for a while. I think they tracked our cars." Dean had been right about that all along. Of course. "I got cornered, and when I took them out, it pretty much drained my resources."

"So you detoxed," Anna says, beaming like it wasn't a complete accident. "What happened to Dean?"

"He left me a note saying he would find Bobby."

"And he's been gone for days," Cas says. "Both of them are."

Anna turns quickly toward Cas. "You don't think..."

"Don't think what?" Sam asks, but Cas is already shaking his head.

"I think he would've made a bigger move by now if he'd gone after Dean."

"You sure?" Anna takes a couple steps, staring at the ground. "If he took Dean out of the picture and waited for Sam to get more blood-"

Sam takes a big step back, and both angels turn to look at him. "Took Dean out of the picture?"

"She doesn't mean kill," Cas says immediately, but not in a tone that sounds comforting. "If Zachariah wanted you dead, you would be dead."

"We need to find Bobby Singer." Wind whips in the room, and Anna disappears and reappears in seconds, dressed in jeans and a jacket.

Despite the gnawing worry in his stomach, Sam can't help but ask, "Can all of you do that?"

"Some people don't care to," Anna says, looking Cas up and down. "Let's go. Bobby won't find himself."

-

Jumping around the country with angels sucks.

They only take breaks when Sam stops to puke, whether it's by the side of the road or in a line of bushes or whatever. Every time he does, Anna and Cas whisper to each other in low tones that only make it to Sam's ears in odd hisses that barely lift over the breeze.

"I can keep up, you know," Sam says after the fourth time, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Nearly a Stanford grad, after all."

Anna gives him a sad smile. Before she can talk, he says, "Skip the pity. What do you know about Dean?"

"Nothing," Cas says immediately with an unmistakable shut-up look to Anna. "We have theories and nothing to back them up."

"But we'll find him," Sam says.

Anna nods. "Cas would know if he's dead."

Sam winces. That's...something. He squares his shoulders and says, "Let's go back to work."

Cas grabs his arm, but before they leave, he gives him a thoughtful expression, and a tingle runs through Sam. It takes him a second to realize he's healing. Maybe it's Cas's way of saying he's sorry.

Then they start all over again.

Sam's the tag-along - it takes about three seconds in each place for Anna and Cas to scan for a sign of Dean - so the only way to keep the whirlwind of scenery from getting to him is to think. And who else will he think about?

Jump.

Dean's gone, and he doesn't even have the ghost of Sam's memories to help.

Jump.

Dean can kind of deal with ghosts and demons, but he's one guy. And if it's not ghosts or demons...

Jump.

What about angels? The ones on their side are with Sam, and Dean doesn't have what's on Sam's ribs. If they decided to do something...

Jump.

Sam breathes in and holds up a hand. "You guys smell that?"

Anna nods immediately. She gestures west, and together, they crunch over the remnants of snow.

It doesn't take Sam long to separate the smells in his nose, probably because they're familiar :sulfur and blood. The red sprays on the snow seconds later confirms it. A couple of houses appear; they're probably not too far from a town, judging by the way small trails of smoke curl over the treetops. But it's too quiet.

"Stay here," Anna says, and she disappears. She's back before Sam counts to five. "He's in there."

"Dean?" Sam asks, but he asks while he's running, and when he bangs the broken screen door open, his own question's answered.

Bobby's lying on the floor of the cabin, blue-lipped and still. Judging by the snow that's blown in the front door and the ice on his beard, he's been there a long time.

“Is he...”

"He's alive," Anna says right away, crouching beside him.

"How?"

Cas says, "Revive him" before she can answer. It's an evasion, but when she looks at Sam, Sam kneels down quickly and nods.

She lies her palm on his forehead, and before Sam's eyes, the shallow movements of his chest - which were there, if hard to see - deepen, and pink tones return to his skin. By the time Bobby takes a long jagged gasp of air and opens his eyes, Anna's sagging against the wall.

"Sam?" Bobby says. "That you?"

"Yeah," Sam says, smiling despite himself, eyes flickering between Bobby and Anna. "What the hell happened?"

Bobby struggles up on his elbows, and Sam helps him stand.

"You...you got your noggin fixed, I'm guessing?"

Sam nods, and Bobby grabs at his head. His hat's a few feet away, so Sam grabs it and hands it over. But instead of putting it on his head, he wrings it in his hands.

"Those sons of bitches tailed him," Bobby says. "And he didn't...he couldn't..."

"It's not your fault," Sam says quickly. Instead of saying it's mine, he tells him, "Zachariah took away our memories for some kind of lesson, I guess."

Bobby looks around the front room, eyes wide. "How long have I been like this?"

Sam shrugs.

Bobby pulls out his cell phone and frowns when it's dark. "Balls."

"Dean?"

"Right, sorry." Bobby sticks his phone back in his pocket and taps at the watch on his wrist. He shakes his head and continues. "The demons circled us, and it didn't look good, 'specially because that brother of yours didn't trust me further than he could throw me."

Sam winces. "Not even to get rid of the demons?"

"Oh, sure. But he wasn't paying full attention because he expected me to stab him in the back, and they broke all of the crap defenses we'd managed. We were screwed."

"So the demons took him," Sam says tightly.

"Will you let me finish?" Bobby jams his hat on his head. "They didn't have a chance because a really powerful white light burned them all out of existence."

Anna and Cas both look up from their corner.

"Like..." Anna begins.

"Not even like you two put together," Bobby says, "and I saw what you did to that barn, Cas. No. This was something way beyond."

"So the white light happened," Sam says, "and what, Dean left?"

"The white light happened, and then I woke up five seconds ago."

Sam's jaw drops.

"Well," Anna says after a few moments of silence. "Guess it isn't just a theory anymore."

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