Number One With A Bullet - post AHBL SPN one shot
Every evil being has his Achilles tendon. Sam wonders if when his fears come true, the silver bullet, wooden stake, or other instrument of lethal means will be enough to stop him. He doesn't want to hurt anyone. He needs the peace of knowing for sure that Dean will keep his promise.
It was never a good sign when Sam started tossing and turning in his bed. But anyone would toss and turn if they didn’t have a place to call home and slept in a different bed every night. Dean was standing in the small kitchenette of their hotel room trying to not to let the light from the refrigerator fall across Sam’s eyes. Neither of them were sound sleepers, but Sam got so little sleep these days since the nightmares began. It would be a matter of minutes before Sam would wake up drenched in sweat, swearing that he hadn’t had another nightmare.
Dean got out another plate silently, even though he knew Sam wouldn’t want to eat when he woke. It was just something to do. Some way to offer to help. The monster who had killed their mother was dead, but reports about yellow or red eyed demons still continued to file in and Sam’s nightmares had flared again. Dean hadn’t wanted to take this case. He knew Sam could use a break. He’d wanted to leave it to another hunter and go off chasing a yeti or something. But there were so few hunters left since the roadhouse had burned. He wondered if there were endless replacements for the yellow eyed demon they had chased for so long. He himself had dreamed of killing more of them in a bizarre whack-a-mole game but they had just kept popping up. The Winchester brothers had just been at it for too long.
First it was a low moan, ending in a painful gasp and then Sam sat up and rubbed his head, looking this way and that in the darkness to check if Dean had slept through the noise. Dean flicked on the overhead light causing Sam to block the glare and frown.
“You woke me up,” Sam growled, without any real hope that Dean hadn’t seen or heard his struggle to pull himself out of his dreams. He stood up, wishing that he had a robe to put on, but this hotel was hardly the complimentary robe sort of place. The heat was controlled from the main office and wasn’t turned on, despite the mid November cold. He continued to glare at Dean.
“Sorry. Hungry.” Dean never bothered to ask anymore. Sam got up and stretched, ignoring the plate that was passed in his direction, reaching instead for the glass of milk that stood on the table beside it. His stomach turned as Dean bit into a cold chicken leg. The red numbers on the old clock radio flashed a steady twelve, twelve, twelve. Sam stared at it until he could see the numbers etched into his eyeballs even when he shut them.
“What time is it?” Sam asked, washing the milk residue from the bottom of his glass and filling it with water.
“Twelve,” Dean smiled. Sam was about to retort but Dean tossed his watch at him, and it was indeed only midnight. “Even broken clocks are right twice a day.”
“Thanks oh wise one.” Sam shook his head at Dean as he sat down. Dean continued to gaze at him as he chewed. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“So, what did you find out about our new case, Dean?” Dean asked himself to break the new silence. “Oh, not much, Sam’s the computer geek but he was sleeping,” he said in a high-pitched voice while puppet mastering his chicken leg to speak and gesture.
The truth was that Dean hadn’t been sleeping much lately, either. Ever since Sam had figured out the secret. Had figured out that people like him had a destiny of evil, or, at the very least, a destiny to be used as pawns in a game between good and evil. Dean had promised his father that he’d kill Sam if it became apparent that he was to live only to carry out evil acts. To kill him the moment he stopped being Sam. But Dean had also promised to save Sam from his destiny. This had heartened Sam some, but nothing could take away the fear altogether that one day he’d lose himself to evil like so many of the people like him had.
Every time Sam was out of Dean’s sight, Dean would worry. Sam wasn’t a child anymore and there was no ordering him to stay put. Dean liked things better when he was the one coming in at all hours. He wasn’t surprised when Sam pulled on his hooded sweatshirt and told him he was going for a walk. Dean tried to engage Sam in a conversation about their new case, turning Sam’s laptop towards him and taunting Sam that it had crashed twice while he had fiddled with it while he’d been sleeping. Sam didn’t seem to care. About anything. Dean knew better than to ask where Sam was going. That only made him stay out longer. He tossed the cell phone to Sam who pocketed it, likely with no intention of using it.
Sam stepped out into cold fall night, the grass still green but crunching under foot with a white frost that looked fake and sprayed on in contrast with the late leaves that still clung to the trees. A light breeze blew his hair back. Normally he would have put his hood up, but somehow he couldn’t manage to care enough that his ears were cold. He was glad that he and Dean hadn’t found a parking spot right in front of their room as he opened the trunk of the Impala and took out his bag.
Sam closed the trunk as quietly as he could and made his way to a playground nearby. The swings were broken and the teeter totter screeched with metal on metal as it was blown back and forth by the breeze that had now turned into a wind. He reached into the bag, sitting down on the only unbroken bench in the park. It was nearly finished, and it was perfect. Sam’s bullet. He’d done the research, concentrated the ingredients to over one-hundred percent of their normal strength with chants and science. If this bullet had been intended for anyone else, it would have been a thrilling invention the likes of which no one save maybe Samuel Colt himself had ever achieved in the field of killing evil beings. But Sam was numb as he put the finishing touches on it. The bullet was a thing of beauty. A small forty-five case with mere drops of holy water, salt, iron, gun powder and markings of destruction etched into the metal shell.
The cold weld was finished in five minutes. It had taken him months to finish, not quite long enough to go through the five stages of death. He had first denied that he was evil, until he was forced to wonder. He had feared until he found his faith again. He wasn’t sure he had reached acceptance yet, but there was no time to figure that out. He didn’t know if he’d ever accept death but better that than hurt someone when he found out what the yellow-eyed bastard had had in store for him. Was the contract now broken, null and void and Sam was just a normal young man now? He hoped, but he couldn’t take the chance. He’d seen too much. He’d felt too much.
The bullet shone in smooth perfection as Sam held it up to catch the rays from the highway lights, which flickered over it as cars zoomed past. He would give this bullet to Dean and make him promise. Promise to save him from living a life that wasn’t his own. His first thought had been to take his own life before he had to face whatever was in store for him but he knew that would be a disservice to Dean. Dean believed that Sam could be saved, so much so that he gave his soul to save him. Dean had ten months left to live. Sam would give himself ten more months trying to save Dean, and if he was successful, whatever time either of them had after that would be a gift.
Sam hid the bullet back in the leather pouch. Just as he stood up, his jeans stiff from cold, damp air, he heard a crunching sound. The footfalls were familiar, wary. It was Dean.
Usually, Sam would yell about lack of privacy. He’d stalk off on his long legs and Dean would go back to the room to wait out his bad mood. This time, however, Sam picked up his bag and walked back to the room with his brother, a load off his mind.
“What were you doing out there?” Dean asked as Sam’s sweatshirt was flung over a chair to dry, flecks of light frost hitting the floor from its sleeves. Sam rummaged in the bag and held out the single bullet to Dean. Dean’s jaw twitched as took in the runes and symbols of evil destruction codes etched minutely on the golden surface. Sam braced himself for a fight as Dean ran his fingers over his initials, the bonding sign on the bullet.
“I told you I was going to save you.” Dean sounded more hurt and scared than angry. Sam could deal with angry Dean, but he wasn’t prepared for Dean wordlessly opening and closing his mouth and staring at him.
“You promised me, Dean, that if I turned … if I did something that I couldn’t live with, that you’d do it.”
“I didn’t …” Dean trailed off. He’d already come close to having to kill Sam when he’d been possessed, but then there had been choices. Flesh wounds. Exorcisms. Something. He wanted to remind Sam that the demon was dead. But he knew the threat was still there. Things that were dead, should stay dead. The taunts ran through his brain. Are you sure that what you brought back is one-hundred percent Sammy? This bullet was meant to kill. Once again, this was all his fault.
“You did, Dean, and it’s all that keeps me going, knowing that you’ll be there to stop me.”
Dean looked into Sam’s face. There were tears in the corners of his eyes that he could tell Sam was trying to keep to himself. But there was also a certain peace about him now. He looked tired, too. Like he’d worked for a long time and finally accomplished something. Like he no longer needed to go for those silent walks to wherever. Like they could both go back to pretending that in ten months, unless they found a way to bargain for Dean’s soul back, Dean would be dead, the bullet passing into Sam’s hands once again to use at his discretion if he felt himself slipping with no one to watch over him.
If the bullet gave Sam peace, Dean would leave it alone for now, but be damned if he would ever use it on his only brother. Dean refused to carry the bullet on him at all times like Sam wanted, electing instead to put it in the trunk with all the other weapons. He hoped it would get lost. Dean couldn’t sleep with the bullet in the room. He walked the half block or so to the car in his bare feet, gaining his bearings and numb toes. He thought about tossing the bullet into the field adjacent to the motel but he couldn’t betray Sam like that, no matter how much he wanted to. He buried the damn thing deep under all the other weapons and junk. Closing the lid, he pounded his fist on it, feeling like it would shatter as cold as it was.
Back in the room, Dean raised his leg painfully into the air near the sink and ran some warm water over his foot, causing it to itch. Sam tossed him a towel and he sat down rubbing the rough terry cloth over it, wiggling his toes without feeling them.
“Thanks for not tossing it,” Sam said simply.
“Yeah.” It was all Dean could manage.
Sam seemed to have regained his appetite. He poured himself another large glass of milk and ate two chicken legs that only an hour ago would’ve gagged him. “Y’want anything?” he asked Dean through huge mouthfuls.
“Coffee,” Dean said. Normally Sam would have lectured him about caffeine so late in the night. Tonight, though, he made a face as he changed the coffee filter that looked and smelled as thought it hadn’t been used in a week, washed the glass decanter that was so scaled with lime it looked like etched glass and put on a fresh pot. Dean felt like putting his toes into the steaming brew as it was passed to him.
The four-cup coffee pot was empty as Dean turned off the light. Sam was already asleep. Dean’s bed was cold and as he climbed in, stretching his still cold toes to unfasten the blankets from under the mattress where it was tucked too tight. Somehow he knew that Sam would be at peace for the remainder of the night, despite the coffee. He didn’t know if it was nerves or the fact that he’d been so cold outside, or if it was the coffee that kept him up all hours.
Dean was getting back into bed, bleary-eyed, with spots from the bathroom light still flickering before his retinas in the darkness when he saw a light from outside the window. A small light. A trunk light. Yelling, he flung a blanket over his shoulders and ran outside into the cold, losing the light the moment the night air hit him. He wanted to run towards the car but his legs wouldn’t move. He could see the car again, the light blocked only slightly now that a huge figure was standing hunched over the trunk holding the bullet up, laughing maniacally. Yellow eyes flashed as the bullet was fed into the mechanism of the gun and Dean tried to yell for Sam to run.
“Sammy!” He wanted to shout but his voice would only come out in a terrified whisper and he was rooted to the spot. His legs wouldn’t let him pivot to see back into the room where his brother slept on with no knowledge of what was happening. Why did he have to be such a coward? Why couldn’t he just carry the damn bullet around like Sam had asked?
Dean’s body spun about not of its own accord so that he could now see his brother’s face, for the first time since Jessica’s death, peaceful in sleep, lying on his back. The hammer cocked, the yellow eyes smiled. The flash was blinding.
“NOOOOO!” Dean’s voice broke out at last. Too late.
It was never a good sign when Sam started tossing and turning in his bed. But anyone would toss and turn if they didn’t have a place to call home and slept in a different bed every night. Dean was standing in the small kitchenette of their hotel room trying to not to let the light from the refrigerator fall across Sam’s eyes. Neither of them were sound sleepers, but Sam got so little sleep these days since the nightmares began. It would be a matter of minutes before Sam would wake up drenched in sweat, swearing that he hadn’t had another nightmare.
Dean got out another plate silently, even though he knew Sam wouldn’t want to eat when he woke. It was just something to do. Some way to offer to help. The monster who had killed their mother was dead, but reports about yellow or red eyed demons still continued to file in and Sam’s nightmares had flared again. Dean hadn’t wanted to take this case. He knew Sam could use a break. He’d wanted to leave it to another hunter and go off chasing a yeti or something. But there were so few hunters left since the roadhouse had burned. He wondered if there were endless replacements for the yellow eyed demon they had chased for so long. He himself had dreamed of killing more of them in a bizarre whack-a-mole game but they had just kept popping up. The Winchester brothers had just been at it for too long.
First it was a low moan, ending in a painful gasp and then Sam sat up and rubbed his head, looking this way and that in the darkness to check if Dean had slept through the noise. Dean flicked on the overhead light causing Sam to block the glare and frown.
“You woke me up,” Sam growled, without any real hope that Dean hadn’t seen or heard his struggle to pull himself out of his dreams. He stood up, wishing that he had a robe to put on, but this hotel was hardly the complimentary robe sort of place. The heat was controlled from the main office and wasn’t turned on, despite the mid November cold. He continued to glare at Dean.
“Sorry. Hungry.” Dean never bothered to ask anymore. Sam got up and stretched, ignoring the plate that was passed in his direction, reaching instead for the glass of milk that stood on the table beside it. His stomach turned as Dean bit into a cold chicken leg. The red numbers on the old clock radio flashed a steady twelve, twelve, twelve. Sam stared at it until he could see the numbers etched into his eyeballs even when he shut them.
“What time is it?” Sam asked, washing the milk residue from the bottom of his glass and filling it with water.
“Twelve,” Dean smiled. Sam was about to retort but Dean tossed his watch at him, and it was indeed only midnight. “Even broken clocks are right twice a day.”
“Thanks oh wise one.” Sam shook his head at Dean as he sat down. Dean continued to gaze at him as he chewed. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“So, what did you find out about our new case, Dean?” Dean asked himself to break the new silence. “Oh, not much, Sam’s the computer geek but he was sleeping,” he said in a high-pitched voice while puppet mastering his chicken leg to speak and gesture.
The truth was that Dean hadn’t been sleeping much lately, either. Ever since Sam had figured out the secret. Had figured out that people like him had a destiny of evil, or, at the very least, a destiny to be used as pawns in a game between good and evil. Dean had promised his father that he’d kill Sam if it became apparent that he was to live only to carry out evil acts. To kill him the moment he stopped being Sam. But Dean had also promised to save Sam from his destiny. This had heartened Sam some, but nothing could take away the fear altogether that one day he’d lose himself to evil like so many of the people like him had.
Every time Sam was out of Dean’s sight, Dean would worry. Sam wasn’t a child anymore and there was no ordering him to stay put. Dean liked things better when he was the one coming in at all hours. He wasn’t surprised when Sam pulled on his hooded sweatshirt and told him he was going for a walk. Dean tried to engage Sam in a conversation about their new case, turning Sam’s laptop towards him and taunting Sam that it had crashed twice while he had fiddled with it while he’d been sleeping. Sam didn’t seem to care. About anything. Dean knew better than to ask where Sam was going. That only made him stay out longer. He tossed the cell phone to Sam who pocketed it, likely with no intention of using it.
Sam stepped out into cold fall night, the grass still green but crunching under foot with a white frost that looked fake and sprayed on in contrast with the late leaves that still clung to the trees. A light breeze blew his hair back. Normally he would have put his hood up, but somehow he couldn’t manage to care enough that his ears were cold. He was glad that he and Dean hadn’t found a parking spot right in front of their room as he opened the trunk of the Impala and took out his bag.
Sam closed the trunk as quietly as he could and made his way to a playground nearby. The swings were broken and the teeter totter screeched with metal on metal as it was blown back and forth by the breeze that had now turned into a wind. He reached into the bag, sitting down on the only unbroken bench in the park. It was nearly finished, and it was perfect. Sam’s bullet. He’d done the research, concentrated the ingredients to over one-hundred percent of their normal strength with chants and science. If this bullet had been intended for anyone else, it would have been a thrilling invention the likes of which no one save maybe Samuel Colt himself had ever achieved in the field of killing evil beings. But Sam was numb as he put the finishing touches on it. The bullet was a thing of beauty. A small forty-five case with mere drops of holy water, salt, iron, gun powder and markings of destruction etched into the metal shell.
The cold weld was finished in five minutes. It had taken him months to finish, not quite long enough to go through the five stages of death. He had first denied that he was evil, until he was forced to wonder. He had feared until he found his faith again. He wasn’t sure he had reached acceptance yet, but there was no time to figure that out. He didn’t know if he’d ever accept death but better that than hurt someone when he found out what the yellow-eyed bastard had had in store for him. Was the contract now broken, null and void and Sam was just a normal young man now? He hoped, but he couldn’t take the chance. He’d seen too much. He’d felt too much.
The bullet shone in smooth perfection as Sam held it up to catch the rays from the highway lights, which flickered over it as cars zoomed past. He would give this bullet to Dean and make him promise. Promise to save him from living a life that wasn’t his own. His first thought had been to take his own life before he had to face whatever was in store for him but he knew that would be a disservice to Dean. Dean believed that Sam could be saved, so much so that he gave his soul to save him. Dean had ten months left to live. Sam would give himself ten more months trying to save Dean, and if he was successful, whatever time either of them had after that would be a gift.
Sam hid the bullet back in the leather pouch. Just as he stood up, his jeans stiff from cold, damp air, he heard a crunching sound. The footfalls were familiar, wary. It was Dean.
Usually, Sam would yell about lack of privacy. He’d stalk off on his long legs and Dean would go back to the room to wait out his bad mood. This time, however, Sam picked up his bag and walked back to the room with his brother, a load off his mind.
“What were you doing out there?” Dean asked as Sam’s sweatshirt was flung over a chair to dry, flecks of light frost hitting the floor from its sleeves. Sam rummaged in the bag and held out the single bullet to Dean. Dean’s jaw twitched as took in the runes and symbols of evil destruction codes etched minutely on the golden surface. Sam braced himself for a fight as Dean ran his fingers over his initials, the bonding sign on the bullet.
“I told you I was going to save you.” Dean sounded more hurt and scared than angry. Sam could deal with angry Dean, but he wasn’t prepared for Dean wordlessly opening and closing his mouth and staring at him.
“You promised me, Dean, that if I turned … if I did something that I couldn’t live with, that you’d do it.”
“I didn’t …” Dean trailed off. He’d already come close to having to kill Sam when he’d been possessed, but then there had been choices. Flesh wounds. Exorcisms. Something. He wanted to remind Sam that the demon was dead. But he knew the threat was still there. Things that were dead, should stay dead. The taunts ran through his brain. Are you sure that what you brought back is one-hundred percent Sammy? This bullet was meant to kill. Once again, this was all his fault.
“You did, Dean, and it’s all that keeps me going, knowing that you’ll be there to stop me.”
Dean looked into Sam’s face. There were tears in the corners of his eyes that he could tell Sam was trying to keep to himself. But there was also a certain peace about him now. He looked tired, too. Like he’d worked for a long time and finally accomplished something. Like he no longer needed to go for those silent walks to wherever. Like they could both go back to pretending that in ten months, unless they found a way to bargain for Dean’s soul back, Dean would be dead, the bullet passing into Sam’s hands once again to use at his discretion if he felt himself slipping with no one to watch over him.
If the bullet gave Sam peace, Dean would leave it alone for now, but be damned if he would ever use it on his only brother. Dean refused to carry the bullet on him at all times like Sam wanted, electing instead to put it in the trunk with all the other weapons. He hoped it would get lost. Dean couldn’t sleep with the bullet in the room. He walked the half block or so to the car in his bare feet, gaining his bearings and numb toes. He thought about tossing the bullet into the field adjacent to the motel but he couldn’t betray Sam like that, no matter how much he wanted to. He buried the damn thing deep under all the other weapons and junk. Closing the lid, he pounded his fist on it, feeling like it would shatter as cold as it was.
Back in the room, Dean raised his leg painfully into the air near the sink and ran some warm water over his foot, causing it to itch. Sam tossed him a towel and he sat down rubbing the rough terry cloth over it, wiggling his toes without feeling them.
“Thanks for not tossing it,” Sam said simply.
“Yeah.” It was all Dean could manage.
Sam seemed to have regained his appetite. He poured himself another large glass of milk and ate two chicken legs that only an hour ago would’ve gagged him. “Y’want anything?” he asked Dean through huge mouthfuls.
“Coffee,” Dean said. Normally Sam would have lectured him about caffeine so late in the night. Tonight, though, he made a face as he changed the coffee filter that looked and smelled as thought it hadn’t been used in a week, washed the glass decanter that was so scaled with lime it looked like etched glass and put on a fresh pot. Dean felt like putting his toes into the steaming brew as it was passed to him.
The four-cup coffee pot was empty as Dean turned off the light. Sam was already asleep. Dean’s bed was cold and as he climbed in, stretching his still cold toes to unfasten the blankets from under the mattress where it was tucked too tight. Somehow he knew that Sam would be at peace for the remainder of the night, despite the coffee. He didn’t know if it was nerves or the fact that he’d been so cold outside, or if it was the coffee that kept him up all hours.
Dean was getting back into bed, bleary-eyed, with spots from the bathroom light still flickering before his retinas in the darkness when he saw a light from outside the window. A small light. A trunk light. Yelling, he flung a blanket over his shoulders and ran outside into the cold, losing the light the moment the night air hit him. He wanted to run towards the car but his legs wouldn’t move. He could see the car again, the light blocked only slightly now that a huge figure was standing hunched over the trunk holding the bullet up, laughing maniacally. Yellow eyes flashed as the bullet was fed into the mechanism of the gun and Dean tried to yell for Sam to run.
“Sammy!” He wanted to shout but his voice would only come out in a terrified whisper and he was rooted to the spot. His legs wouldn’t let him pivot to see back into the room where his brother slept on with no knowledge of what was happening. Why did he have to be such a coward? Why couldn’t he just carry the damn bullet around like Sam had asked?
Dean’s body spun about not of its own accord so that he could now see his brother’s face, for the first time since Jessica’s death, peaceful in sleep, lying on his back. The hammer cocked, the yellow eyes smiled. The flash was blinding.
“NOOOOO!” Dean’s voice broke out at last. Too late.