(no subject)
It’s a goddamn stupid death. That’s the problem.
It’s a goddamn fucking stupid, messed up death, and Dean thinks that’s why he can’t handle it. He could deal with it if Sam had died on a job, saving someone or maybe protecting someone from getting hurt. He could see that. He could imagine Sam getting his fool ass shot or being strangled in order to help other people. Hell, the stupid bastard would probably even like it. He’d call it a good death, if he could call it anything at all. Which he wouldn’t be able to, being dead.
But this death. This. Sam should have died being thrown out of a window by a poltergeist or ripped to pieces by a Black Dog, not mugged in a back alley for Herbert Melville’s credit card, a fake ID that says he works for a gas company, and six bucks in singles and change. Dean shouldn’t have had to find him after Sam had called and choked up blood instead of words, Dean shouldn’t have had to hear him die slowly on the phone and Dean shouldn’t have found him ten minutes too late so that no amount of resuscitating would work.
Dean shouldn’t have had to drag him into the Impala, propping him up in the front seat because at least then he could pretend like Sam was just hurt or unconscious or whatever. Dean shouldn’t be sitting in a motel room making his way steadily through their entire supply of alcohol (which is a lot more then Sam knows - knew, he reminds himself - because he’d probably just accuse Dean of having a problem) and staring at the very lifeless, very dead body of his brother lying on the second bed and staring up at the ceiling through blank eyes.
Dean hasn’t yet been able to bring himself to close those eyes, because he knows that if he does, there won’t be anything stopping him from pretending that Sam’s still alive, nothing stopping him from just breaking instead of sitting here and shoring up his internal defences with bricks of whiskey and cheap beer.
In the morning, he will call Bobby and tell him what has happened. For now, he drinks silently and steadily, not taking his eyes off the body.
-
Dean dreams. The crossroads demon is there. They are sitting together on the hood of the Impala, at the crossroads where he first summoned her. Yarrow grows everywhere in bright sprays of yellow, and the dirt looks almost red in the light from the harvest moon.
She is wearing a black dress, all slinky curves and silk-shine. Dean can feel the chill of the night cutting through his leather jacket and takes a long pull off his beer, glancing over at her.
Don’t scratch the paint, he says automatically. The demon shrugs and swings her leg, pointing her toes in their black silk heels.
I know what you’re wondering, she says. The deal’s still on.
Yeah, he says, and stares at the sky. There are too many stars and it makes him uncomfortable, like they’re all staring down at him. The bottle is cool in his grasp, grounding him to the reality of the dream, to the hood of the Impala still warm from driving and the feeling of the demon’s hand as she rests her fingers on the back of his wrist.
Yeah, he says. I kind of figured.
-
Bobby doesn’t pick up the first time Dean calls him. He’s standing in a field outside of town and watching Sam’s body burn, canister of salt next to him and every possession that might keep Sam’s soul from moving on in the fire as well. He wonders how well laptops will burn.
There are four rings and then Bobby sounding sleepy or crabby or both. “This is Bobby Singer. Leave a message.”
“Uh.” Dean clears his throat, hoarse with smoke and hangover. “This is Dean. Uh, there was an accident, a mugging. Sam’s dead. Um, so, thought you should know. Uh. Yeah. Bye.”
Sam’s corpse sends flames shooting skywards. Dean can’t remember if his father burned this energetically or not, but regardless, it’s quite the sight. He tips his beer up and drains the last of it, tosses the bottle into the underbrush because Sam would have had his head for that. Always going on about not littering and how they shouldn’t pollute the environment and that kind of shit.
Dean waits until the fire burns itself out, then scoops dirt and water over the ashes so that the coals won’t reignite if the wind comes up. He makes sure that the bones are all together and far enough under the soil that they shouldn’t be dug up for a long, long time. He leaves salt rings and a rosary and blesses the water that he soaks the ashes with. When it’s all over and he’s covered in dirt and soot smudges, he climbs into the Impala and points her nose at the setting sun.
Bad Company thumps out of the speakers, too loud for the city. Dean doesn’t care. Dean goes ninety miles an hour down the highway like he’s invincible and only puts on the headlights when he can’t see the divider and only the rumble strips are saving him from driving into it.
-
Bobby calls when he’s somewhere, not sure where. A bar with low lighting and an ancient jukebox that coughs and eats quarters, where the bartender doesn’t look twice at Dean when he drinks whiskey down like water because for once, there’s no annoying baby brother waiting back at the hotel to tell him off when he stumbles in at three in the morning piss-drunk and staggering.
Sometime around the time he moves from shotglasses to just drinking straight out of the bottle, a woman sits next to him. They talk and Dean flirts clumsily but she doesn’t really seem to care. He fucks her in her apartment and walks back to the motel in the wee hours, where he left a room with two singles because he forgot right before he paid and his car, because he’s never going to drive his baby drunk, not ever. He sleeps in the bed farthest away from the door and when he wakes up his cell is blinking the red light for a message.
He stumbles to the bathroom to puke liquor and the taste of sex. He takes a shower and downs a few aspirin so he’s feeling vaguely human by the time he listens to the message, eating hash browns out of a takeout container with the cell pinned between his shoulder and his ear.
The message is short and to the point. “Come home,” Bobby says, voice rough like he’s been up all night too. Dean replays it once and then deletes it, settling down into the driver’s seat of the Impala. He knows every curve and contour of her seat, the way he knows that Bobby’s place isn’t home and never will be.
He goes anyway.
-
He pulls up outside the house and the dog barks from the front porch. Bobby shouts at it and it slinks off the porch, dragging a long chain as it circles around behind Dean warily.
Bobby appears on the porch with two bottles of beer and an expression like he’s not sure if Dean’s about to break or not. Dean kicks the dust and scuffs the side of his boot, ducking his head against the sun as he takes a beer and pops the top, flicking the cap into the bushes. “If your mutt so much as touches my car, I’m shooting it.”
Bobby scrutinizes him and says “Fair enough,” turning and disappearing through the front door. Dean follows him to the smell of chilli and gun oil, familiar from way back when they were kids. Ellen’s inside, sitting at the kitchen table, and she stands when Dean enters the room.
Her eyes are too sharp, watching him, like they can see all the way down to his soul. He squirms slightly, like a little kid, and meets her gaze.
“You okay?” Her voice is the same rough-rasp drawl that he remembers, tinged with concern. It gnaws at Dean’s skin, like the concern is going to strip all the layers away from him and leave him flayed bare in front of her.
“I’m fine,” he says, and he believes it. The smile he gives her isn’t the right smile, not quite as cocky as it should be, but it’s enough so she believes it too and sits back down.
Bobby hands him a bowl of chilli. It’s spicy and makes his eyes water, but it tastes good enough that he downs two bowls. Ellen and Bobby leave him alone in the kitchen while he eats, talking outside - he can just hear the sound of their voices, not quite the words - and he eats voraciously without giving a shit about table manners because Sam’s not there to remind him.
He washes his plate in the sink, after, and feels vaguely victorious. “See, bitch? I can be neat and tidy when I want to.”
The fond “Jerk” never comes, and he turns around. Bobby’s watching him from the door, silent and with an expression on his face that makes Dean’s heart drop into his stomach and splash chilli all around his insides so they burn uncomfortably.
But he doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and when he does it’s nothing more then “Ellen’s leaving.”
Dean nods, and slips past Bobby to escape into the yard. Ellen’s truck is already rattling down the road, the dog barking loudly after it, straining on its chain. He ignores the dog and goes to the Impala, pulls a change of clothes out of the trunk and ignores the scattered weapons.
He showers and changes and then he and Bobby sit on the porch and silently drink. Dean thinks maybe Bobby’s waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t care.
He sleeps on Bobby’s couch, where the springs dig into his back and somehow manage to find the scars that hurt the most. He swears out loud and there’s silence where there should be Sam telling him off for his language. He sleeps.
-
Dean dreams. The crossroads demon, again. They fuck languidly, like they have all the time in the world, on a bed of silk sheets and ruby red pillows. She whispers his name into his mouth when she comes and he feels the smoothness of her hair, traces the smooth perfection of her backbone.
She pulls away from him, rolling over and she is different, her back hard and broad and littered with small scars. He knows each one of them, here the three long scratches from a werecat’s claws, there the knife wounds from a vengeful spirit. And there, right in the cente, the angry red lump of a scar that comes from a jagged knife severing the spinal cord.
Sam shifts so that Dean can see his face, all open and smiling and so very Sam that it makes his heart clench inside him. The crossroads demon kisses him with Sam’s perfect lips and she strokes him with Sam’s perfect hands and when he comes he bites down on Sam’s perfect shoulder.
This time he’s the one who rolls over and stares at the ceiling, speckled with lights that look like stars and tiny stylized yarrow plants. He’s dead, he says, he’s my brother. You already have my soul, you don’t need me to sin.
She looks at him out of Sam’s perfect soulful eyes and says No, I don’t. Sam’s perfect laugh comes out of Sam’s perfect chest and she says But you want it.
Dean says Yes and kisses Sam’s perfect mouth and breathes in the sweet-spicy smell of his skin, not even caring when the crossroads demon cries out in pleasure with Sam’s perfect voice.
-
Dean helps Bobby out with repairing the cars for a week, eating what Bobby gives him and quietly drinking himself to sleep each night. The dreams come regularly, him and Sam except it’s never quite him, there’s always something a little wrong. They fuck in the Impala and on beds and on the dirt and up against a wall. Sam draws blood when he nips at Dean’s neck and when Dean wakes up he’s rubbing the invisible marks with one hand.
He tells himself that he drinks so that they won’t come to him. He knows it’s a lie.
At the end of the week Bobby pushes his hat back and stretches his back, scratching at the side of his neck. Dean’s under a minivan and cursing the sun that makes everything dusty and hot, so when he slides back out into the world and stands up he’s not thinking straight and says “Three hundred and two” when Bobby asks him how long he’s got left.
It takes a second to sink in and then he slumps, rubs his ribs where Sam left handprint shaped bruises last night that he can’t see. Bobby sighs like something’s broken inside of him and says “You’re sure the deal’s not off?”
Dean remembers the crossroads demon that night, sitting on the hood of the Impala and drinking beer. He thinks it might have been a dream, but he’s not sure. “I’m sure.”
“Shit,” Bobby says, and draws the word out like a prayer, already turning and tossing a rag striped with grease over his shoulder. “Y’know, Dean, you’re gonna have to talk about it someday.”
“Talk about what?” Dean knows already. Dean’s fingers tighten around the wrench like he could hit Bobby with it and make it so that he’d never ask that question again, never even think Sam’s name again.
“Sam,” Bobby says flatly, like the word doesn’t have any meaning. Like it’s not Dean’s brother, like it’s not Sam with his too-long hair and his girly coffee and his hands that are too big and somehow fit Dean’s hips perfectly. Dean’s knuckles crack because they’re gripping too hard at the wrench handle and he can feel muscle standing out in his forearm as he struggles not to give into the anger that’s simmering there, below the surface.
He can’t make words come that aren’t fucking cocksucking bastard don’t you fucking say his name like that don’t you fucking pretend like he’s not someone anymore for too long, and eventually Bobby shrugs and turns back to the semi-wrecked minivan.
“Don’t lose yourself in the bottle, ‘s all I’m saying,” he says and just like that the spell’s broken. Dean drops the wrench and it makes a pinging noise bouncing off the toolbox.
“I need a break,” he says, because the muscles in his arm aren’t taut and ready anymore, they’re shaking like leaves and there’s a sour taste at the back of his mouth like he’s going to throw up.
“Sure,” Bobby says, “okay.” There’s sympathy written all over his craggy face and Dean hates it, hates the way it makes him feel inside. He goes into the house and throws himself onto the couch with a beer, drinks and watches soft core porn on Bobby’s TV until he realizes it’s not turning him on at all
He turns the set off and jerks off in the bathroom, hard and fast and coming with Sam’s name on his lips.
-
The dreams don’t come that night. He sleeps the sleep of the dead and when he wakes he thinks for a moment that this, Bobby’s house, is a dream. He searches the house for Sam, calling his name, but when Bobby finally puts a hand on his shoulder and asks him if he knows what’s going on (like Dean’s fucking crazy or something like that), he gets it. He tells Bobby that he had a nightmare and goes back to sleep even though it’s ten in the morning.
He dreams Sam kissing up his back, drawing sigils on the bare skin with his tongue, and gasps as Sam nips his ear. He wakes not quite calling his brother’s name and achingly hard, staggering off the bed and clawing his way to the bathroom, and once he’s out he finds a case of beer and goes back to bed.
He does that for a long time. He’s not sure how long, marks time in beer and whiskey and Scotch, in dreams where he’s fucking his brother or his brother is fucking him, in the times he gets up to piss or puke or stagger outside to stare at his car.
After a while, Bobby throws a dust sheet over her and starts hiding the liquor. It’s like a game, but Dean’s good at it. Dean makes himself a nest of blankets and empty bottles that he can hide in and lives there day in and day out, not bothering to shower or shave so that a beard starts covering his chin after a while. He remembers what Sam said, a little more tequila, a little less demon-hunting and he laughs until he can’t stop and there are tears coming out of his eyes.
-
One day, Bobby stalks over and punches him. It’s a good punch, slamming into Dean’s jaw and leaving him reeling, falling back. He lands on the floor and stares at Bobby because he wasn’t expecting that, wasn’t expecting anything because after his ninth bottle of that shit beer Bobby keeps he never really expects anything.
“Get up, you little shit.” He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Bobby quite this angry, face red and fists clenched like he’s going to take another swing at Dean once he’s up. He stays where he is, and Bobby’s foot plants itself in his ribs. Breath whooshing from his lungs, he curls up, coughing. Bobby waits until he uncurls before kicking him twice in the stomach so Dean retches and vomits alcohol mixed with stomach acid over the floor.
“Get up,” Bobby repeats, voice flat and pissed beyond anything. Dean pushes himself to his feet and sways, trying to focus on the shorter man’s face, slurs something that even he’s not sure what it is.
“Six months left, you bastard.” Bobby’s holding a sheet of paper in one hand, and he shoves it in Dean’s face. It’s a piece of paper from one of those little desktop calendars, and Dean squints at the date. Huh. It’d been that long.
“Six months left, and what’re you doing? Pickling your brain with booze. And I don’t care if you want to fucking curl up and die, son, I really don’t, but I know for a fact your daddy and your brother would in here kicking the shit out of you with me if they knew.”
The anger is too bright, flashing in his mind so that he lashes out and caught Bobby square on the cheekbone. Pain cracks through his knuckles and he hisses even as Bobby rocks back on his heels, blinking.
“Don’t you.” Dean catches his breath as it jerks through his chest, like he can’t draw a full breath. “Don’t you even. Don’t you even fucking talk about him.” His breath hitches again and he thinks maybe Bobby kicked harder then he thought, broke a rib, but the pain is different and spreading all through his chest so when he opens his mouth again all that comes out is a sob and he goes down on his knees, hard.
He cries for a long time, gasping, heaving sobs that feel like they’re ripping him in two, tears and snot coursing down his face so that he hides his head in his hands and tries to control his breathing. It doesn’t work, of course, and he huddles on the floor until he can feel Bobby’s arms around him, the way Dad held him at seven when he’d broken his arm in three places falling out of a tree.
When the sobs eventually turn into hitching breaths and he can feel the tears drying in a salty film across his face, he pulls away, scrubbing his forearm over his eyes.
Bobby doesn’t say anything for a long moment, then hands him a razor, getting up and kicking a bottle out of his way
When Dean, pale and newly shaved and squinting in the sunlight that seems to be going right through his eyeballs joins him the yard, he just hands him a wrench,
Dean takes it, and silently goes to work.
-
Five months pass easily. Dean helps out in the yard and fixes the cars and works on the Impala in his spare time. He doesn’t really drink anymore, but Sam still comes. What looks like Sam, anyhow, and Dean knows it’s the crossroad’s demon even though sometimes the difference blurs in his head. They don’t really fuck, anymore. Mostly they sit and watch the featureless horizon.
Ellen drops by, sometimes. She gives Dean notices about jobs coming up, demonic possessions and banshees and Wendigos and vengeful spirits. Dean never takes the jobs and eventually she stops asking.
At the end of the fifth month, Dean sells everything in the trunk except for the journal. He burns that, silently and with plenty of salt, just in case. Everything else gets him a pretty tidy sum and he puts it in an envelope and writes Bobby Singer on the front. That night, he sits on the porch with Bobby and watches the dog chase a stick through the twilight.
“Don’t sell the car,” he says finally. Bobby tips his beer up and swallows, nodding.
-
Dean dreams. He and Sam are at the crossroads, standing together. The crossroads demon looks at him through Sam’s eyes, watching intently. Two weeks left, she says.
Dean shrugs. The yarrow blows in the wind - it sounds like it’s whispering rumors to itself. That’s not a lot of time.
It’s the time you bargained for. Sam’s hand touches the small of his back, the crossroads demon caressing the base of his spine. You know, you could have tried to get out of the bargain. He was dead, it wouldn’t have mattered.
I know. Dean takes a long breath and lets it out, watching the mist in the air.
She smiles with Sam’s mouth. Dean watches the yarrow and wonders what secrets it’s telling.
-
The night before, Dean shares a beer with Bobby and tosses a stick for the neurotic dog that still barks loudly when ever he’s around. They sit at the kitchen table, this time, and Dean listens half-heartedly for hellhounds. He can’t hear anything, so that’s probably good.
“It’ll be okay,” he says finally, and tips his bottle at Bobby. Bobby clinks his own longneck against Dean’s, and nods.
“It’ll be okay.”
-
Dean dreams. He and Sam are sitting together in the Impala. He’s driving, Sam’s riding shotgun like always and AC/DC is blaring out of the speakers.
Tomorrow’s the day, little bro. Dean rolls his window down and lets the air wash over him, tires humming over the asphalt and miles falling away behind them.
That’s not a lot of time, Sam notes, and leans over to press a kiss to Dean’s cheek. Dean swats at his head and says Stop it, bitch. I’m driving.
Jerk, Sam says, and leans back, closing his eyes to sleep. Dean sets his eyes on the road and watches the highway stretch out in front of him, smoothing a hand over the scarred dash in front of him.
He presses the accelerator, and the Impala purrs as she moves forward, chasing the horizon. Sam - and it really is Sam, now, the crossroads demon behind them - is asleep already, shifting quietly in dreams. There’s just the road ahead of them, leading into the horizon, and he knows it’ll take him where he needs to go.
Dean cranks up the radio as the first strains of Highway to Hell wash over him. The car vibrates to the heavy bass beat and coasts forwards into the sunset.