Consequences (Part 1)
Consequences Part 1
Dean remembers. He remembers every second, can’t forget no matter how hard he tries, and that’s not even the worst of it. It wasn’t like being possessed - having to sit back and watch as some evil thing used his body to commit wicked acts. No, he’d been the evil thing, he’d made all the choices that led to pain for everyone around him. He hadn’t even cared. He left Sam behind without a thought. He told Cole to kill Sam - the little brother that he’d spent his life protecting, who had always been the center of his universe, who he’d sold his soul to bring back - and he’d meant it. That same brother had never given up on Dean, even as Dean spewed the most hateful, hurtful venom at him, Sam had administered the cure that made him human again…mostly. His fingers traced over the mark that still scarred his forearm. And now he couldn’t even drown all his guilt and regret in whiskey. He stroked a hand over his abdomen.
Dean Winchester, knocked up and not even positive who the father is.
He wasn’t sure he was pregnant yet, in fact he’d argued with Sam when Sam had brought it up. Dean wanted to believe he was tired from weeks and weeks of not caring for his body, that the waves of nausea were related to his recovery from a steady diet of booze and grease or possibly Cain’s mark still scarring his arm and doing god knows what to the rest of him. Dean as a demon hadn’t cared about the timing of any cycles or birth control any more than he’d cared about whose bed he was hopping in and out of; it was Sam who’d done the math, counted out weeks and brought the home test kit to Dean, saying he guessed Dean would be about six weeks along. Dean had angrily flung it across the room, not ready to entertain the notion of the enormity of trouble his demon self could have caused for his now human self.
The kit remained in the corner where it landed. However, Dean refusing to test himself didn’t deter Sam from trying to make his older brother take better care of his body and the fetus that may or may not have been taking up residence in Dean’s more than reluctant womb. The liquor disappeared, and a whole variety of healthier food appeared in the cupboards and fridge. Sam made meals regularly and insisted they sit and eat them together; always serving up a second helping to his older brother’s raised eyebrows. Sometime between 10 and 11 every night, Sam would start to yawn and stretch, hinting around about how tired he was and asking Dean to come to bed with him; Dean would argue that he wasn’t tired, but as soon as his head hit the pillow, his own yawns would pour out and he’d be snoring long before his little brother. As a result, Dean was getting more sleep than he may have ever had in his life.
Sam tried to put off any hunt Dean tracked down, saying it was too far, or was more likely not a supernatural killer but a human problem, and sometimes he’d pass them off to other hunters nearby because it was a simple issue that any hunter could handle. Dean got frustrated with the lack of hunting more than any of the other changes Sam manipulated him into, and eventually he set up all the research and leg work on a hunt before he presented it to Sam. After setting all the records in front of his little brother, Dean finished by insisting it was only half a day’s drive from them and they were the most qualified hunters for the job.
“Kids, Sammy. This son of a bitch is taking kids. I won’t sit on my ass and let that happen for another minute. You come with me or I’ll go on my own.”
Sam sighed, fingers rubbing circles into his tense temples. “Yeah, okay.” He looked up into Dean’s eyes. “You’re right, we gotta take this one. Just…” Sam took a deep breath, “Just promise to be careful, Dean. No taking unnecessary risks with your…” Sam’s gaze drifted to Dean’s stomach, “safety. Alright?”
Dean rolled his eyes but nodded. “Grab your duffle; if we get on the road now we can be there by dusk.”
* * * * *
The hunt had not been simple. It was not a witch as Dean had suspected, it was changelings, and when three of them had teamed up to corner Sam, Dean threw himself between his little brother and the danger. He’d gone crazy, taking each of them out and then flying after the mother so quickly Sam hadn’t been able to stop him. Sam watched in horror as he saw the same look in his brother’s eyes as the day he’d killed Abaddon, hacking into her lifeless corpse over and over. Saw the same cold demeanor that allowed Dean to abandon his humanity settle over him, causing Sam to panic.
Dean’s ears buzzed, Sam’s voice called to him from the distance, but he couldn’t make out the words. He turned and saw Sam’s contorted face, some kind of…emotion…clouding his features, and Dean thought he should probably care what his brother was feeling, should at least be able to recognize the expression on the face of the one person that he had always cared about. But a red-hot burn flashed over the mark on his arm and he felt it spreading everywhere. Then felt nothing. He smiled at Sam as all the guilt and pain ceased to exist.
Sam shook his head, stuttering out, “No…n-no. This-it can’t…this isn’t happening…Not again. Dean!” He watched as Dean raised his head, and before his brother looked at him a chill ran through Sam’s blood at what he was sure he’d see. Dean smiled and Sam cringed as he took in the black eyes and cold twist of lips, and then his brother was gone.
Pushing the wreckage of the cabinet off his body, Sam struggled to his feet. He limped in the direction his brother had run, but there was no sign of Dean. “Dammit!” This couldn’t be happening, not again, not after everything he’d gone through to cure Dean.
Before Sam could make it up the stairs from the basement, he heard the rumble of Baby’s engine and he burst through the front door just in time to see her taillights disappear into the night. “No!” He shoved his hands through his hair pulling it tight at the temples.
* * * * *
It took Sam hours to walk back to town where he could find a car to boost, and then another four hours to drive back to the bunker. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find there; it was incredibly unlikely that the demon version of his brother would feel some tug on his heart to go home. Sam was just so lost. He had no other ideas and figured maybe the resources at the bunker would help him to regroup and figure out how to find Dean.
Sam flicked on the police scanner and the news as he booted up his laptop. It was times like this, his brother in danger and Sam left alone to figure it out, that he missed Bobby the most. Even if Sam was smart enough and determined enough to track down Dean alone, a reassuring word from the gruff old hunter would do so much for Sam’s spirit. He sighed as he dialed Cas’s number. The angel quickly agreed to keep feelers out for any sign of Dean, and Sam sat down to scour the internet.
Four hours later, Sam rubbed his bleary eyes. He was no closer to a lead on Dean, and he was slowly resigning himself to the fact that it was probably too soon and he was going to be forced to sit back and wait. Recalling the first search for his demonized brother, Sam knew he was in for a marathon, not a sprint, and to get through it he would need sleep. Though he doubted a restful slumber would actually happen, Sam pushed up from his chair and headed towards his room.
At the door to Dean’s room, Sam stopped. His hand rested on the knob as he weighed the comfort of being near reminders of his brother with the pain of being surrounded by Dean’s scent without Dean’s flesh. He pushed the solid wooden door open, inhaling deeply despite the twinge in his chest. Sam smiled at the neatly made bed and the stack of photos on the desk. He stepped into the room, running his hand over the flannel hung on the back of Dean’s chair, and sat on the edge of the bed.
His mind replayed moments he’d shared with Dean in this room, this bed. The last to replay was the morning they’d fought when Sam came home with the pregnancy test. His brother’s automatic reaction to jump past his fear right to anger had had him ripping the box from Sam’s grasp and flinging it across the room. Sam cringed at the image and when he opened his eyes to look in that corner, he found it empty. Sam’s head tilted and he pushed off the bed for a closer look, but the box was definitely missing. He checked the other corners just in case his memory was off, but found the box in the trash, torn open and empty.
Sam’s eyes widened, he dug further into the bin looking for the stick, but found nothing. His gaze swept the room frantically and then he saw it. Sam slowly crossed the room, not sure how he’d missed it earlier. He picked it up from the nightstand and collapsed onto the memory foam mattress of Dean’s bed again. His empty hand swiped down his face as the one grasping the pregnancy test fell to hang between his knees. A tiny “+” visible just below his thumb.
* * * * *
A serpentine smile appeared on Dean’s face as he wiped a bloody hand through the sweat on his brow, leaving a crimson streak. He pulled open the door to the Impala and slid into the driver’s seat. His last kill hadn’t just given him the rush that he needed to keep his eyes black and stop the nauseating burn the mark spread through his body. Now he had a solid lead.
* * * * *
Sam sifted through a stack of papers; clippings that detailed weather anomalies and crop failures amounting to signs of demon activity, each closely followed by a bloody unsolved murder. He looked up to the map stretched across the wall and the pins he’d stuck into each location. They made an unholy path across the country and Sam could guess at who his demon-brother was tracking.
* * * * *
“You tell me where that son of a bitch is hiding,” Dean paused, onyx eyes catching the dim light as he pushed the knife snug against the weaker demon’s throat, “or I skin you alive.”
“I already told you, Winchester,” he sneered, “I haven’t seen him in a week.”
“Yeah, you did say that.” Another press of the knife and blood trickled down the blade. “But demons lie. So where is he?”
The demon held his hands up carefully in surrender. “Alright, alright. Look, I can’t tell you where he is right now. Last I heard, boss was headed toward Louisiana. Best I can do.”
Dean pulled the knife away from the other demon’s throat and smiled. There was no warning when he lunged forward plunging the blade deep into the demon’s stomach. “Not good enough,” Dean said as he kicked the body out his way. But it was a start.
* * * * *
Sam pulled his “borrowed” car up to the hotel. This had been the most recent town with a demon kill, and though he was sure Dean had already moved on, he hoped to find some indication of where he was headed. A quick flash of a badge at the front desk got him a room number and the cheap lock was an easy pick.
As soon as he got in the room, it was obvious Dean was already gone. His brother must have left in a hurry, though, he’d missed several items when packing up, and the room itself was a bigger mess than the militarily-raised Winchester boys ever left anyplace. It stank of sex and the sheets of one bed were tangled and half-hanging off the side. Sam sighed as he shoved take-out containers away from the center of the table to look at the scribbled markings on napkins where Dean had obviously been trying to work out some mystery. He glanced around the room again, smiled when he saw a flannel shirt still draped on the back of a chair, but when he took in the mess on the table next to the TV, his shoulders sagged. An open whiskey bottle and several plastic cups with an amber film.
“Dammit, Dean.” Sam sat heavily on the still-made bed. He’d been prepared for the junk food, even the sex. And though he knew the demon version of his brother wouldn’t be concerned with the baby’s safety, the undeniable evidence of the danger and harm Dean was inflicting on it was like a punch to the gut. He leaned forward, dragging the flannel from the back of the chair, pushing his nose deep into it, and trying to ignore the tinge of sulfur and focus on the familiar scent of his brother. He had to get to Dean, soon.
* * * * *
“I know you have all the info on where that limey bastard stashes his top secret shit, Carter.” The sentence rolled over Dean’s lips in a low dangerous hiss. The demon tied to the table flinched behind the filthy blindfold. Dean slid the blade over the bared and already shredded skin of his chest, stopping to bury the tip in the hollow below his breastbone. “Spill it, or I spill your filthy guts.”
The demon grunted against the press of the knife. “I tell you and Crowley will do worse than that.”
Dean smiled, though his victim couldn’t see it. He could play this game - hell, he was dying to play this game. He pulled on leather gloves and grabbed the jug of holy water. “Alright, I’m flexible,” a dark chuckle rumbled in his throat as he tipped the jug over minced flesh.
* * * * *
All Dean’s scribbles and every lead Sam had found so far indicated Dean was heading east, so Sam had gathered up all Dean’s notes. He was already out the door when he turned and went back for the dirty flannel shirt, which now sat in a pile on the passenger seat. His brain shuffled through all the information, flashing on images of Dean’s black eyes, the battered remains of demon vessels, symbols and drawings from ancient books. Words tumbled around, different languages, different scripts, Dean’s own hand-writing. Dean’s hands, on him…on someone else, wrapped around the steering wheel of the Impala…around the handle of his pearl-handled gun. Around the first blade.
The tires on Sam’s crappy rental squealed as he slammed on the brakes and yanked it to the side of the road. He reached into the back, grabbing his bag and ripping out all his notes, looking for the napkins from Dean’s hotel room. His mouth fell open then clapped shut in a grin. “Gotcha.” He huffed at himself for having missed the obvious for so long.
* * * * *
Knowing the target of Dean’s search gave Sam an advantage, and he knew who to call for help. Crowley didn’t want Dean on the loose in his demon form any more than Sam, though the King’s reasons were very different from the little brother’s. Crowley had planted several demons in Dean’s path, instructing them to resist the torture just long enough to make it believable when they cracked and fed Dean the information he wanted.
Dean was smart enough to question why it was suddenly getting easier to get the low-down on Crowley, but his compulsion to get the First Blade was desperate enough that he ignored any warning signs and arrogantly chose to believe he was just getting better at the hunt. It meant when he pulled up at the five star hotel that he’d been told housed the King of Hell, he was sure he would find Crowley, even as he ignored the niggling sensation in the back of his mind that he was about to walk into trouble.
Inside the presidential suite on the top floor, Sam paced back and forth across the bedroom behind the devil’s trap painted on the ceiling. Cas’s eyes tracked his movement, though after the first time Sam snapped at him, the angel hadn’t spoken about Sam’s restless activity. Crowley sat in a high-backed chair with a tumbler of scotch, watching them both and his comments about the “anxious moose,” hadn’t stopped yet. Sam loathed working with the demon who’d once stolen his brother away from him, who was the reason Dean bore the mark of Cain, but he would do anything, anything, to save his brother and the baby that grew inside him.
When Dean burst through the door, things moved quickly. Ignoring his brother and not even registering the angel standing in the corner, Dean lunged for Crowley, who snapped his fingers and disappeared. Dean found himself bound by the devil’s trap; his eyes flashed black and an inhuman growl ripped from his chest. He thrashed against the invisible barrier, throwing his body against it over and over as Sam stared on in horror.
Sam surged forward, into the trap with his brother, capturing his wrists and pinning him to the wall. “Stop!” He shouted as Dean still struggled against him. “Stop it, Dean. It’s over! It’s over.”
Dean bared his teeth in a sneer. “Get off me, Sam. I’m not your brother, and I will hurt you.”
“You are my brother. And you won’t get a chance to. I’m not going to let you hurt me, or yourself. Not any of us.” Sam looked down to Dean’s stomach pointedly.
Dean laughed darkly. “I don’t care about that thing. I’m sure it’s already dead. Or worse.”
Sam’s head dropped, hair brushing Dean’s cheek as he pulled in a shaky breath. “You don’t mean that.” He drew back up to look Dean in the face. “You wouldn’t want that. And I’m putting a stop to this.” Lighting fast, Sam pulled the first syringe from his pocket and sunk it into Dean’s neck.
Dean’s fist connected with Sam’s jaw in a bright burst of pain, and was followed quickly by a knee to his gut. Cas stepped in, restraining Dean once more.
“I can’t let you hurt your brother, Dean. You will regret it once we’ve cured you again.”
Dean laughed, but it was an icy sound that held no joy. “Didn’t work last time, not gonna stick this time either.”
Sam spit out a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “I know this-” he held up another syringe of blood, “-is only a temporary fix. Until we get that fucking mark off your arm, you are in danger.” Sam stopped to take a slow deep breath, looking at Cas briefly before he turned his swirling hazel eyes back on Dean. “But, if we can get you thinking straight, feeling human again…at least the baby will be safe.”
Cas’s blue eyes widened. Sam knew Dean’s pregnancy would be a surprise to the angel, and he doubted Dean had planned on sharing the news this soon, but Sam had little choice. Another innocent life on the line would only get Cas to fight even harder to save Dean, and after months without a single lead on how to remove the mark, Sam could use an angel on his side.
Sam cupped a large hand over the side of Dean’s face. “Then we find the real cure.”
* * * * *
Part 2