Fic: Beasts of Blame (Sam/Dean) 1/1
Title: Beasts of Blame
Author: june
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: pg-13
Length: 8,236
Warnings:[Spoiler (click to open)]Ye Olde Unreliable Narrator Dean Winchester, very brief reference to underage wincest, ambiguous ending.
Disclaimer: Not mine--just for fun. Also, title and lyric are from Dry the River.
Summary: With Sam weakening every day after failing to complete the Trials, Kevin and Dean come up with a plan that might allow him to finish what he started-and this time he won't have to do it alone.
Notes: Finally participating in 8 Days of Wincest, just under the wire! So here's my Season 8/pre-Season 9 catharsis fic--there's talking, there's kissing, even some voicemail and samulet fix-it. My love letter to Sam and Dean. Thanks samdean_otp for hosting this great challenge!
/Just because we’re beasts of blame by nature
Doesn’t mean that you should carry it again/
Sam’s shouts woke Dean from his doze and sent him tumbling out of bed. On the way to Sam’s room he ran into Kevin, bleary-eyed and bitchy.
“He’s been doing this every night, Dean. It’s not getting any better.”
“You think I haven’t noticed? What am I supposed to do?”
Kevin blinked at that, as though waiting for the obvious to dawn on Dean. “Aside from letting him finish what he started?” he snapped when Dean said nothing.
He closed his eyes. “Kevin, don’t start with that-I will shove you through a wall. You got something useful-some way to help him and I’m all ears.”
Slipping into Sam’s room, Dean shut the door behind him without turning on the light. He didn’t need it-Sam glowed like a beacon in his sleep. He thrashed and cried beneath the blankets, hair stuck to his face with sweat.
“All right-it’s all right, Sammy, wake up. Come on, Sam.” Sitting carefully on the edge of the bed, Dean gave his brother’s shoulders a gentle shake. “Come on, you’re okay.”
Sam’s eyes flickered open and they shown with the fire that was slowly burning him up from the inside. “Dean?”
“Yeah, it’s me-I’m here. You’re all right.”
“Dean, I can feel-it’s getting worse. I can feel it getting worse.” He struggled feebly against the blankets tangled around him so Dean helped pull them free. He stripped Sam out of his sweaty t-shirt, too, let the air cool him off for a minute.
Just getting Sam out of the shirt seemed to exhaust him as he fell back. His insides were lit up, the shadow of his ribs standing out like a demon’s protracted death throws. “Jesus,” Dean muttered. It was getting worse.
“It’s not going to get any better,” Sam said, covering as much of his torso as he could with one thin arm. “Not until I finish. You have to let me finish.”
Dean shook his head, a familiar stubborn refusal. “Not gonna happen. Come on, you just gotta-you just gotta breathe, all right? Like we practiced. You just need to relax. Let it go.”
Without thinking, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to Sam’s forehead and another to his cracked lips. Sam made a sound low in his throat and his fingers clutched weakly at Dean’s arm. When he pulled back, he found Sam blinking up at him, searching his face for an explanation-why, after so many years, Dean would do that.
Dean didn’t have an answer, but he didn’t need one as the light beneath Sam’s skin flickered and dimmed, faded until they were left in the dark. Sam’s fingers stroked restlessly up and down Dean’s arm and his breath whistled through his chest.
“We’ll figure this out, Sam. Kevin’s working on a way to-”
“He’s not going to find anything. The only way out is through, Dean. The sooner you accept that, the sooner this’ll all be over. I just-I just want it to be over.”
Swallowing thickly, Dean could only shake his head. “Well, I’m not like you, I guess. I can’t-I can’t just let you go. Not wired that way.”
Sam’s huffed laugh turned into a cough. “Unbelievable,” he managed. “You are unbelievable.”
“What-”
“Get out of my room, Dean.”
Realizing how Sam had interpreted that, Dean rolled his eyes. “Come on, man, don’t be a-”
“Get the fuck out. I’m tired and I want to sleep.”
Dean sat back as Sam curled away from him. His bony shoulders shivered, vibrating the whole bed with the force of it, and Dean tugged the blankets back up around him to keep away the chill. “Yeah, all right. I’ll see you in the morning. Holler if you need anything.” Sam’s head shifted on the pillow in a nod, and Dean didn’t wait for anything else.
He found the hallway empty, Kevin’s bedroom door firmly shut.
Climbing back into his own bed, Dean tossed and turned. In the absolute dark of the bunker, memories resurfaced that he’d thought he buried long ago-memories tucked behind forty years of Hell. They slid from his mind back into muscle, inside his ribs, and down into his gut until it felt like they’d always lived there.
Fumbling together in their shared room, terrified of everything at first-Dad coming home, CPS, separation, Dad not coming home, Dean not coming home, running out of cash, Sam running off-kissing, biting, grabbing, and keeping until the pressure peaked and eased, until they could sleep in a sweaty tangle.
Then reckless and cocky, laughing into each other’s mouths, arms slung around shoulders, hands in back pockets, invincible and high as fucking kites on how good it could feel. Careening toward Sam’s eighteenth birthday, toward Stanford, at a pace that Dean didn’t recognize as deadly until Sam was gone-vanishing in the distance-and Dean was wrecked.
Dean rolled over for the thousandth time and jammed his hands up under his pillow. His hips worked restlessly into the mattress, his dick half hard as he thought about what he and Sam had been.
After Jess, Sam’s sharp edges had hooked into Dean like barbs. And, guiltily, he’d loved every second of it.
After Dad, Dean wasn’t ever letting go, signed away his soul to keep Sam with him, even if only for one more year. He could at least take that to Hell-no one was closer than Sam and him in those twelve months. The most gorgeous terrible mess Dean’d ever made. One they’d never recovered from.
And now Sammy lay alone in his room, filled to bursting with the righteous fury of a God that had long ago abandoned His work-a living weapon waiting to be detonated. Dean could see it all over him-he was ready to die and had been probably since completing the second Trial.
It’d been five years since they’d been together like that (forty-five years, two hundred and forty-five years) and Dean didn’t know how to let Sam go. They’d spent so much time at each other’s throats, so much time apart, so much time tearing strips out of each other-they would never get back what they had, and Dean still. Couldn’t. Let. Go.
Finally shoving a hand inside his shorts, Dean groaned into the mattress at the feel of his rock-hard dick. He was thirty-four years old with a hard-on for the memory of his baby brother, the brother who lay dying in the next room.
Spitting into his palm to slick himself up, Dean rocked his hips up into his hand, remembered the feel of Sam laid out underneath him, full of anger and fear and love, thought about Sam now, brittle and raw and determined. He came with a choked-off sound and exhaled through it, keeping quiet through the aftershocks. He cleaned himself up with a tissue, rolled over, and fell off a cliff into sleep.
*
“So I was thinking,” Kevin started, looking up from his newspaper.
“Yeah?” Dean sipped his coffee and massaged the headache already gathering behind his eyes. Sam hadn’t gotten out of bed except to use the bathroom in three days.
“Sam needs to finish the Trials.”
“Kevin, how many times I gotta tell you-”
“He needs to finish them or he’ll be too sick to move. Or he’ll die.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“He’s a ticking bomb, Dean.”
“Yeah, that part we do know. You said you were thinking-what about?”
“Well. What if his body just thinks it’s completed the trials? What if he goes through the purifying ritual, but it’s not on a demon?”
Dean scratched his head. “It wouldn’t work. If it’s not a demon, it wouldn’t work.”
“See-I don’t know.” Leaning back in his chair, Kevin crossed his arms over his chest. “Have you looked at him? I think he’s got, like, the human equivalent of Grace burning him up. It wants to come out and do what it was meant for. Plus, Sam is one of the most powerful human psychics in recorded history-no telling what he can do with what’s inside him now that it’s been there awhile. Why not try the exorcism on something else not quite as evil as a demon? Might still get some traction without all the tragedy after.”
“So, what, I go find a vamp? Purify a wendigo?”
“I wouldn’t.” Kevin shook his head decisively. “Nothing to purify. They are what they are.”
Dean’s stomach lurched and he quickly sat forward, coffee cup cracking against the table. “A human soul. Purify a human soul-it doesn’t meet the exact terms of the Trial, but it might still trigger whatever needs to happen inside Sam.”
“And since the ritual wouldn’t close the Gates of Hell, it might not kill him.”
Frowning, Dean wiped up a few drops of sloshed coffee with one of the Men of Letters embroidered napkins-because they had those. “That’s an awful big ‘might.’”
“Or, I mean, you could go medieval and cut him open and see if it just bleeds out. That was my second idea.”
“Yeah, that one’s already been crossed off the list,” Dean said with a humorless laugh. Standing up, he rapped his knuckles against the tabletop. “Thanks for the input, Kevin. Good talk.”
*
Dean started sleeping in Sam’s room. The proximity seemed to help with the glowing and even though Dean missed his bed, he slept better with Sam’s labored breathing in his ear, the fever-warm heat of his body at his back, or pressed tight against his front when Sam got chilled.
When Sam was lucid he touched Dean’s face, his jaw, and his neck like Dean was new, like he was Christmas. They kissed a little, when Sam wasn’t self-conscious about his morning breath or the stale sour smell every sick person had after awhile. The thing between them was tentative at best, something Sam didn’t quite trust.
Dean thought about risk and luck and weighed the likelihood that Sam would die if he tried the human purification ritual against the near certainty that he would if they did nothing. If Sam died like this, everything he’d gone through would mean less than nothing. It would mean that Dean had killed his own brother out of selfishness-even worse than saving him for the same reason.
*
On one of his good days, Dean propped Sam up in bed with a mug of chicken noodle soup. He sat next to him with his back against the headboard and crossed his feet at the ankle.
“Kevin has an idea, and I think it’s a good one. Wanted to run it by you.”
“Yeah?” Sam slurped his soup. “Whatcha got?”
“Maybe a way to get all that divine wrath outta you without killing you in the process.”
The mug stalled on its way to Sam’s mouth. “Pretty sure that’s not how it works, Dean. Complete the third Trial and game over-Gates of Hell close forever and I... well, you know.”
Dean shook his head. “Not goin’ down that road. This is like a... a bypass.”
“Okay, proceeding with this metaphor, where are we exiting?”
“The demon part.”
“Kind of an important part.”
“To closing the Gates of Hell, sure. To getting all this glowy mojo outta you-maybe not. So long as you purify a soul, you cross the finish line. Just maybe not the one we originally thought.”
Sam’s throat worked as he took a few large swallows of soup. He licked his lips, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “And what makes you think that would work?”
“Because we’re not meant to have that in us.” Dean reached over to touch Sam’s wrist, light flickering beneath the paper-thin skin. “It wants out.”
They sat in silence for awhile, Dean trying to exude the calm that Sam needed even though his heart thudded with anticipation, with hope.
Finally Sam took a slow careful breath, setting his mug on the nightstand. “All right, say we did this. I don’t think your average monster soul would work. I mean, they-”
“-are what they are. You’re right.”
“Nothing to purify because nothing’s really broken like it is for a demon.”
“That’s why we’ll go with a human soul.” Dean swallowed. “Mine.”
If Sam had the strength, he would have shoved himself out of bed and stretched to his full height to achieve maximum scolding power. As it was he sucked in a breath too quickly and started coughing, shaking his head when Dean spread a reassuring hand on his back.
“Think about it,” Dean said. “I’m the one who stopped you-I should be the one to help you finish the Trials. This way you’re not on your own, and no one else is in the line of fire.”
Drawing his knees up once he had his breathing under control, Sam folded his arms across them. “I dunno, Dean. We don’t know what this could do, what it could change. Maybe not the Gates of Hell, but something else, you know? And...” He ran a hand through his unwashed hair, eyes firmly lowered. “Have you thought about what it would mean for you?”
Dean fisted his hand in the blankets. He knew this would come up-didn’t mean he’d figured out the right thing to say. “The way I figure, I’m the perfect candidate. Got more sins on my head than anyone. Been hangin’ onto ‘em long enough.”
Sam exhaled sharply through his nose. “No, Dean. I meant-have you thought about the fact that I have demon blood in me, and after we do this... so will you?”
“Well, you said before that you thought the Trials were purifying you, too, so-”
“Yeah, and if you’re going by what I said while I was delirious? If that’s what you’re banking on-if you think that I’m-that I’m clean and that it’s safe now? Then-then-” His voice wavered and Dean rolled his eyes.
“Christ, Sam-”
“I will never be good or clean or right, but I was good enough to do these Trials until you stopped me. I was doing it-we were winning, but you still couldn’t-you still couldn’t-”
Dean was never so glad for another coughing fit as he felt the conversation slip into a tailspin.
Sam was supposed to be better. He was supposed to be the one thing Dean got right, the one good thing. He was supposed to be stronger and smarter. He wasn’t supposed to fall apart with Dean gone. He wasn’t supposed to turn into this. The fact that Sam still cared so much and hurt so much made Dean... it made Dean stupid with anger. It made Dean want to shake him or hold him down or just-get down on his knees and beg his forgiveness. Dean was supposed to make him strong but instead Sam was a mess. Dean had made him a mess.
“No, look.” Dean reached around Sam to grab the mug of cooling broth off the nightstand. “Drink some of this for your throat. And look at me, all right? Look at me. We are the only ones who can pull this off-you see that, right? I did-I did this to you, but I can fix it. We can fix it.”
Sam was glowing again, his hands and arms, his throat and sinuses. If Dean lifted his shirt, he’d see it like a heartbeat pounding at Sam’s ribs.
But Sam nodded, curling away from him back down onto the bed. “Okay. Okay, we’ll do it. Can you go for awhile? I need to rest.”
Dean wanted to touch him, wanted to reassure himself with the flare of Sam’s shoulder blade under his hand, but he didn’t feel like getting a weak-ass punch in the face so he didn’t. “Yeah, Sam. We’ll talk when you’re feeling better.”
*
With Kevin’s help Dean salted the windows and doors of the old church and painted devil’s traps where he thought demons might bottleneck and try to get through. The Trials were meant for the denizens of Hell-no telling what they might feel when the ritual got going. Even if Sam wasn’t following the instructions to the letter, Dean had a feeling using his soul for the exorcism would come pretty damn close. Hopefully not too close.
Dean had left Sam curled up in the back seat of the Impala, wrapped in blankets and sleeping while he could.
Inside, Dean laid out his favorite gun, Ruby’s knife, and a syringe. “Think his blood is gonna do anything to me-ritualistic or otherwise?”
Kevin didn’t look up from copying an angel-proofing symbol on the wall-one that might not even work anymore now that they’d fallen out of the sky. “If you weren’t both B+, I’d say it would put you in the hospital, but you are, so. No idea.” When he finished, he blinked smudged eyes at Dean. He still wasn’t sleeping much, trying to get a handle on the Angel Tablet dropped in his lap. “But I’ll have my phone on me if you need me to, I don’t know, call an ambulance or panic.”
“Got it.”
“And Dean... ”
“Yeah.”
“Let him finish what he started this time.”
“Kevin, if something happens to him-”
“He chose it. This is his path.”
Telling himself that shoving Kevin through the wall would make yet another hole to salt, Dean kept himself under control. He walked back out to the car and opened the creaky rear door. Reaching inside he shook his brother awake.
“Let’s go, Sammy,” he said. “It’s game time.”
Sam rubbed his eyes and managed to shove himself toward the open door where Dean hauled him the rest of the way out. He was dressed in multiple layers but that didn’t keep Dean from feeling every one of his ribs as he got an arm around him and they headed toward the church. He waved as Kevin took off in the Buick Dean had fixed up for him from Bobby’s old yard. He wouldn’t go too far, but far enough to be out of harm’s way should anything nasty show up to try to stop them.
Once inside, Sam tugged out of Dean’s grip and staggered toward the battered old confessional. This time, Dean kept his big mouth shut and retreated to the far end of the church, dropping down to wait in one of the pews. He was able to make out the soft murmur of Sam’s voice, low and haggard, and though he wasn’t close enough to overhear anything, Dean hummed some Sabbath under his breath to make sure. The idea that there was anything left for Sam to cleanse himself of was laughable, but this was not one of the rules they were willing to fudge.
Sam came out a minute later, arms hugged tightly around himself as he fought through another round of chills. Dean met him before he could take more than a few steps and guided him over to the nearest pew. “You good?” he asked, keeping his voice low-as if there was anyone around to bear witness to this. Christ, he hoped there wasn’t.
“Yeah, I’m good. Let’s get started.” Sam fumbled for the syringe where it lay on the bench next to him, but before Dean could ask if he needed help, he took a slow deep breath and steadied his grip. Solid as a rock, he stuck the needle in his arm and drew back the plunger. Dean swallowed the sick feeling rising up his throat and scooted closer, pulling open the collar of his shirt to give Sam a clear shot at an artery.
“So, uh,” he started, just before Sam reached for him, “we should make this as much like a cleansing ritual as we can, right? I was thinkin’ we, uh, we take this opportunity to say what we never said-speak now or forever hold your peace, you know?”
Sam lowered his eyes, the syringe full of his blood shaking a little. “Dean, I’ve already been to confession. More than once with you, actually. Not sure I can take eight more hours of it. We don’t play nice when it comes to our sins, remember?”
“Not your sins, Sammy-we’re here for mine, and if we’re gonna convince whatever’s in you to come out it’s gotta feel real. So. One thing we never said to each other for every hour we do this.”
Sam finally looked up and gave Dean a tired nod, standing to get a better angle. “Ready?”
“Yeah-do it.” Sam put a big hand on his shoulder, exhaled to stillness, and stuck the needle in. Dean twitched at the prick but waited until Sam withdrew to breathe.
Giving him a curious look, Sam dropped back onto the bench. “You good?”
Dean nodded before he was actually sure, rubbing his hand over the spot. He realized Sam was still watching him and dropped his hand to his lap. “What.”
“Well?”
“Hey, we’ve got a whole hour until round two-what’s the rush?”
Sam exhaled a laugh and leaned back in the pew. “Sure, Dean. I got my watch set. Wake me up when it’s time for the next injection.” He put his hood up and hunched further down, hands buried in the front pocket of his hoodie.”
“Wait-you can’t go to sleep on me yet!” Dean objected, sitting up straighter. “It’s not like I brought reading material or anything.”
“Then talk,” Sam said pissily, voice muffled by the collar of his sweatshirt. “Or I’m taking a nap.”
“Fine-fine.” Dean rubbed his hand across his mouth then put both on his knees. “Thought I’d-thought I’d start a ways back, you know? When shit started goin’ really wrong.”
“All right.” Sam didn’t look at him, only slouched further down the bench-though Dean thought maybe he sounded curious.
“I, uh, I wish. I wish I hadn’t stopped you taking that shot on Dad.”
Sam jerked in his seat like Dean’d goosed him. “What?”
“Back when we had the Colt. I’ve thought about it-had forty years to think about the pain we could have saved our family. If you’d have just gone with your gut, did what he asked you to do, you’d have saved him. And taken out the thing that killed you. And I wouldn’t have made that deal. None’a this would have happened.”
Sam’s mouth emerged from his hoodie, hanging open in shock. “Dean-there’s no way we can know that for sure,” he rasped. “And you’d never have forgiven me for killing him.”
“I knew-I knew Dad wanted to go out with that yellow-eyed son of a bitch. Finish the mission and leave us for good. But I-well, you know.”
“You wanted him alive, with us. No sin in that.”
“No, I just never learned how to let go.”
Sam hesitated, bloodshot eyes searching Dean’s face for a moment before he swallowed and looked away. “No sin in that,” he repeated, voice low.
*
At the prick of the needle an hour later, Dean shivered. When Sam was done, Dean massaged the back of his neck and stood up, needing to get his blood flowing again. The sun had set, leaving the church dark except for their camp lantern on the floor at Sam’s feet. Pacing a slow circle around the perimeter, Dean checked the salt lines and devil’s traps, though there’d been no sign of anyone since Kevin drove away.
As he walked he spoke. “Shoulda driven you straight back to Cali after Dad died. Shoulda seen right then what hunting was gonna do to us. You were all I had left, and to keep you in the life after what happened to him was selfish. I should have gone with you and gotten us out right then.”
Sam stretched an arm across the back of the pew and picked at a piece of splintering wood. “Wouldn’t have mattered. Yellow Eyes woulda come for me eventually. I was having visions-I wouldn’t have let you keep me from trying to help those people.”
Dean shook his head, rubbing his thumb over the needle bruise on his throat. “We shouldn’t have been hunting when we were that messed up.”
“Actually....” Sam cleared his throat. “After Dad was gone, I felt so guilty for how I’d left things with him-I wanted to hunt because that’s what he wanted us to do. I was the one who dragged you into it with those first jobs that Ellen gave us. I, uh, I felt like such a shit because part of me was relieved.”
Dean stopped his circuit of the church in front of Sam. “Relieved?”
“Yeah.” Sam looked up at him, face earnest, asking Dean to understand. “Relieved that he was gone. If I couldn’t have normal and I couldn’t have safe, then I wanted to at least have you.”
Huffing a laugh, Dean said the first stupid-ass thing that came into his head. “Glad I made it to your list, Sammy.”
“No, I-I knew I couldn’t pull you out of the life. Or at least, that’s what I thought-I could never get you out. My whole life all I wanted was you and me safe, but if I couldn’t have that, I at least wanted you to myself.” A smile ghosted across his haggard face. “Never did learn to share all that well. Not much of a surprise when you think about it-Dad never let us have anything, and you always gave me everything.”
“Yeah, never the right thing, though.” Dean had held on so hard that year, the thing between them growing more intense every day-as if it hadn’t already been enough to make his head spin and his gut churn with equal parts want and guilt.
Though it was nothing compared to where they’d be just a year later.
*
“That year before I went to Hell-when I dragged you all over the country-what I really wanted was to find someplace quiet, barricade the door and just-breathe the same air as you while I still could. Live in the same space, not let you outta my sight, keep you. Every second I could.”
He sat at the other end of the pew from Sam, elbows on his knees, not looking at his brother. His neck was starting to burn and he couldn’t be sure but he thought he felt a little weird, like all the shit that had built up in him over the years was broken loose and knocking around behind his ribs, bumping into his lungs and his stomach so he couldn’t really breathe and he thought he might puke. That, or this whole confession thing was making him giddy-nothing magical about it. Or he was just plain terrified. Who knew, really?
“We coulda done that, Dean. I wish we’d done that.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why I’m tellin’ you now-biggest regrets, and all. Kind of a kick in the teeth learnin’ we both wanted the same thing and were too chicken shit or too messed up to ask.” He could feel Sam’s eyes on him.
“Yeah.”
*
The first demon showed up just after Sam injected him a fourth time. It skulked around outside, not making any attempt to get past the salt. Waiting.
“That can’t be good,” Dean said, rubbing his neck.
“It means at least we’re not wasting our time. Something’s happening.” Light flickered restlessly at Sam’s wrists and throat and, Dean was sure, all through the rest of him underneath his clothes. But with it, Sam seemed to have more energy, able to sit up straight and even pace a little as the minutes crawled by.
With this latest dose, Dean’s stomach roiled and heaved at what he had to confess. He stood facing the demon, the devil’s trap and a thick line of salt between them, and toyed with the idea of launching himself at it. Killing something would be a good distraction.
But it was too much of a risk-he couldn’t leave Sam in the lurch. And the compulsion to speak his sins was growing stronger with every moment, bubbling up in him until he actually did stagger to a corner and vomit onto the floor, his stomach emptying itself in a steaming mess of fast food, whiskey, and bile.
Instantly, Sam was at his side, large warm hand on his back, concerned voice in his ear. “Dean-hey, Dean. Jesus, are you all right? Where’d that come from? Is it the blood?”
“’M fine,” he mumbled. “Just havin’ some trouble. Don’t wanna talk anymore.”
“It’s okay-you don’t have to. You can stop.”
“Yeah, I do have to. It’s working, Sammy, can’t you feel it?” Dean straightened, leaned tiredly into his brother’s greater height. “Tell me you feel something and it’s not just me losing my mind.” Sam’s shoulders curled toward him as he turned them away from the demon lurking in the doorway.
“I-I don’t k now.” He looked a little panicked. “I think-maybe. I’m feeling a little better, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”
“Think it might be because this is working better than we thought.”
Sam’s hand tightened in the back of Dean’s shirt. “Why? What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s what I didn’t wanna tell you.” Making his way back to their pew, Dean picked up a bottle of water Kevin had left for them. Rinsing his mouth and spitting, Dean had to admit the kid-while at times a bitchy pain in the ass-definitely came in handy.
Sam had followed close behind him and when Dean turned, he was still hovering-his giant, glowing, too-skinny brother. Dean licked his lips, met Sam’s eyes. “I told you I was the only one who could help you finish this.”
“Yeah, Dean.”
“That’s because you will never find a man closer to a demon than me.”
Sam instantly shut down, his expression shuttering like a house before a tornado. He stood perfectly still and didn’t even seem to breathe.
“I came...” Dean rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I came back wrong, Sam. If Cas hadn’t-if he hadn’t pulled me out when he did....”
Sam tucked his chin in a harsh nod and Dean knew-he knew the recriminations running through his brother’s mind, how much he still blamed himself for Dean going to Hell, but he couldn’t stop now that he’d started. And this was all on him, not Sam.
“Anyway, I might not have the eyes and my blood might not taste quite right, but I know... I know that I’m not the brother you knew before I did a tour in the pit. And that’s because of what I did down there. Not because you couldn’t find a way to bust me out.”
Dean took a slow breath. “When I came out, I was so sick inside, Sammy. I found out about you and Ruby, the exorcisms and demon blood, and I got scared you were gonna end up just like me. You gotta understand, I couldn’t imagine anything worse. So I used you to try and get that stain out. Thought if I could set you on the right track, I’d make up for some of what I did in Hell.”
From the doorway, the demon started clapping, it’s mouth stretched in a sardonic grin.
Dean’s jaw clenched and he turned away, looking to Sam for some indication of what he felt. His brother licked his lips and nodded again. “Thank you-” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Thank you for telling me that. But you weren’t-you weren’t wrong about me. I wanted you to do-what you said you would.” Sam looked at him, eyes fever bright. This had become just as much about Sam’s sins as his own. Sam could never leave Dean out to suffer a punishment he thought he should share.
“I wanted you to put me down. I knew I was a monster. I felt like a monster-knew what I deserved. You came back and you were full of this... righteousness that I thought I’d had. But I was wrong. Never more wrong about anything. Nothing I regret more than that.”
Dean barked a humorless laugh. “That wasn’t righteousness-that was naked ugly fear. I was terrified you were in too deep, and I didn’t know how to look out for you anymore. I was scared I’d lost that-the one thing I’d always known how to do.”
“Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you do it, Dean?”
“I tried, Sammy, but you were-you were pretty set on Lilith, and I didn’t know until too late that she was-”
“No, I mean, why didn’t you kill me-like you said you would. After Ruby, after I started the apocalypse-why didn’t you?”
“Why didn’t I kill you?” he echoed. “When did I....” His mind raced and for a terrible moment, he wondered if he’d actually said that, if he’d actually lost himself so completely that something like that could come out of his mouth. He’d hit some lows-been so angry and betrayed that he’d said some seriously stupid shit, but-
“I just assumed you wanted me to clean up the mess I’d made. And I did-I fixed it. I jumped in the pit. And I guess it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because Lucifer would’ve just brought me back, but we didn’t know that then. So I thought, after you killed Ruby-I thought that’s when you’d-”
“That’s when I’d kill you?”
Sam shrugged, waiting expectantly.
“Dude, you’re outta your mind-I would never, ever say that.”
“Well, you did.”
“No, I didn’t. Whattya think all this is for, anyway? I’m trying to save you, Sam, not-”
“Sure, now. But back then, you-”
“Sam! I never said that. I think you’re just remembering wrong.”
“No, I’m not, Dean. You think I wouldn’t remember when my brother tells me he’s done with me, thinks I’m a vampire, and promises to kill me the next time he sees me? You think I wouldn’t remember that word-for-fucking-word?”
Dean couldn’t breathe for a second, and he would swear his heart froze up for the time it took him to recover from that one. “I think that you were in that Cage for a long-ass time, Sam, and good old Luci made you doubt all kinds’a things down there. Believe me, I know how memories get twisted around after a few decades and shit you think you know for certain-”
Sam shook his head. “Dean, I’ve felt like a crazy person for-a lot of my life, and I’ve been a crazy person for part of it, too, so please don’t try to make me feel that again. Please don’t ask me to doubt myself. I know what I heard. You told me, if I walked out that door not to come back and then you-”
“Then I called you to apologize, to tell you that we were brothers, no matter what. Right? You remember that, right?”
Sam’s eyes narrowed and he hesitated before answering. “No, in your voicemail you-”
“Oh, come on!” the demon shouted from the doorway. It’s meatsuit was a wiry guy probably in his twenties with an abrasive voice. Dean turned a murderous glare on it, but it only grinned wider. “You think an angel couldn’t fuck with your voicemail? You think Ruby couldn’t? You were starting the fucking apocalypse, man-Heaven and Hell were aligned making sure you did the deed. You think for one second that either side would let something like a voice-”
“Hey, would you shut up?” Sam snapped, not bothering to look over his shoulder at the demon. His eyes stayed locked on Dean, wide and hopeful.
Dean dragged a hand through his hair. “Jesus, Sammy, you spent the last four years thinking that I wanted to kill you?”
“Four years and two centuries, but who’s counting. If you say you didn’t leave that message then I believe you.” A smile tugged up one corner of his mouth and all this was worth it-just for that.
Dean looked him right in the eye. “I didn’t.”
Hiccuping a laugh, Sam tipped forward and hooked Dean around the back of the neck. He dragged Dean forward into a hard kiss, bit at his lips and licked into his mouth, pressed their heads together after and couldn’t seem to stop grinning.
*
An hour later, two more demons crowded around the door, jostling with the first to get a look inside.
The high from clearing the air with Sam had run out as Dean’s insides burned with his next confession.
“You know, I tried to get my amulet back-called the motel first chance I got to tell ‘em where to look for it. But they never found it. It’s gone for good.” He looked up. “Unless you....”
Sam took in a slow breath and nodded. “Yeah, I picked it up. Couldn’t part with it like that.”
Dean’s heart surged in his chest. “Well-where is it? You still got it, right?”
Meeting his eyes, Sam shook his head. “I was wearing it when I said ‘yes’ to Lucifer. Was hoping it’d help me fight him, but it didn’t. He left it on because he thought it was funny. It went in the pit with the rest of me. It’s gone, Dean-I’m sorry.”
Dean looked away. “You don’t need to apologize, Sammy.”
*
Sam hadn’t stopped pacing in probably twenty minutes. He seemed to thrum with energy now, his skin shiny with sweat and glowing with divine wrath just underneath.
Reclining in one of the pews, Dean felt shaky and brittle, like he might fly apart if Sam even looked at him wrong. He felt raw and kind of ecstatic. He knew his next confession and it didn’t frighten him like the last ones-the worst was over. They could finish this.
Sam tangled his fingers in his hair and tugged. “It doesn’t make sense, Dean. None of this makes sense.”
“What doesn’t?” Dean asked, propping himself up on one elbow.
“How is this working?” Sam gestured at Dean. “I asked Crowley how he felt after I injected him with my blood, but he didn’t always answer. He didn’t have to talk-he didn’t want to. It was like pulling teeth. But you’re-you hate talking. I’m doing this to you, aren’t I.”
Dean shoved himself up to sitting. “What you’ve got in there was supposed to close the Gates of Hell, Sam. Probably isn’t much you couldn’t do, right now. That head of yours has always been a little freaky.”
“Yeah, Dean, that’s what terrifies me. They know something big’s gonna happen.” He pointed to the small crowd of demons milling around outside.
“Hey, I don’t get to say this often, but-don’t worry. All right? We’re close. Next injection in, what, fifteen minutes?”
Sam nodded and dropped down next to him on the bench. “Yeah, and you haven’t.... Do you not want to? Are you trying not to want to?”
“Nah. Just-this one kinda rolls into the next and I didn’t wanna have to wait.”
“Yeah, and?” Sam waited, knee bouncing up and down.
“Probably the first one’a these where I was mad at you for a good reason.” He watched Sam steel himself. “You had no business sendin’ me to Lisa and Ben.”
Sam looked down, shoulders sagging, and nodded.
“They deserved better than a depressed, grieving alcoholic with every demon still topside looking to drag him to Hell.”
“But-” Sam cleared his throat. “You loved them-she was your dream girl.”
“I was a goddamn disaster and they didn’t deserve me turnin’ up on their doorstep. The drinking, the nightmares, the paranoia-all I did was put them in danger and break promises. Should never have asked that of me, Sam.”
“Wanted you to be happy,” he murmured. “And loved. You loved them. I remember-before I got my soul back, I remember thinking that you loved them. Before I jumped in the pit, that was all I’d wanted for you.”
“Yeah, well-”
“After I got my soul back, it was different. I wanted to be with you so bad-I could hardly stand it.”
Dean paused, whatever he’d been about to say flying from his mind. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.” A genuine smile tugged at Sam’s mouth. “I didn’t remember Hell, didn’t remember what I’d done without my soul. Just knew that I was out and you were okay and we were together-wanted to fuck around in the Impala, in Bobby’s spare room, any motel we were in. Wanted you all the fucking time. It was ridiculous.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Lost my nerve. You were so freaked about the Wall and about Lisa and Cas. I couldn’t do it. I was scared it’d been too long, that you would push me away.”
Dean couldn’t argue with that logic. He was a mess after Death put Sam’s soul back and erected the Great Wall. And it’d been so long since they’d trusted each other for physical comfort-he couldn’t honestly say what he would’ve done if Sam had come onto him.
He knew now, though, reaching for Sam and fisting his hand in his flannel shirt. Sam had shed the hoodie awhile back and as Dean pulled him closer, he couldn’t take his eyes off the sheen of sweat at the base of his throat.
They’d said their peace and whatever was happening inside them seemed to be satisfied for the moment. Dean exhaled against Sam’s mouth and tipped his chin forward into a kiss that brought jeers and catcalls from the demons outside. He put his hands in Sam’s hair and said quietly, just for him, “Get that next injection ready. Let’s finish this thing.”
*
8120
The inside of Sam’s arm was mottled with needle marks and bruising, and Dean’s neck felt about the same. He felt tugged along, like Sam was magnetic north or the Pied Piper or his fucking salvation, but he wasn’t afraid. For all he knew, their hearts would explode when Sam put his bloody hand over Dean’s mouth and recited the exorcism that would clean out his soul and release whatever weapon had made its home inside Sam.
In hour seven, Dean couldn’t honestly say he cared-so long as they left together.
The demons had managed to break the salt line but in the push to get through, they were stuck in the traps. They’d get out before long-that many together could work some pretty serious dark mojo. When that happened, Dean wasn’t sure he’d be able to put up much of a fight. He felt like he was barely clinging to his own skin, like the past seven hours had slid a sharp blade just beneath the surface and surgically detached his inside from his outside. He was only just aligned now. One good shove and he’d separate. Into what, he had no friggin’ idea.
They’d moved to the floor, Dean’s legs sprawled open, Sam’s back a solid if bony heat against his. “After your wall came down,” he started, “and we lost Cas and then Bobby....” He drifted in that time for a moment, calling up the smell and taste of a whiskey hangover, the feel of a muddy trench coat and a blood-soaked baseball cap in his hands.
“Yeah, Dean?” Sam prompted.
He sucked in a slow breath.“We-we were all that was left and I didn’t know how to ask anymore.”
“Ask for what?”
Dean nudged Sam’s shoulder with his own. “This. What we used to do-what we were.”
“Why couldn’t you ask?”
Shrugging, Dean reached back and grabbed clumsily at Sam’s arm, catching his sleeve. “Same reason you couldn’t before-too much goin’ on with you. You couldn’t tell whether you were topside or in Hell. Last thing you needed was my sorry ass.”
“Probably woulda helped, actually. Nothin’ more real than you and your sex faces.”
Dean laughed, surprising them both with the sound. It rumbled low in his chest and echoed off the empty walls of the church. Sam’s laugh joined it and the very foundations seemed to resonate with the sound.
Which was weird.
“You feel that?” Sam asked. “That’s not normal, is it?”
“I thought you were doing it.”
“I don’t think I am.”
The ground began to hum and shudder beneath them, dust drifting down through the light cast by the lantern.
“It’s the demons,” Sam said. “They’re working together to break the traps.”
Dean tried to stand up but a wave of vertigo sent him pitching sideways into the front pew. The room spun until Sam helped him to lie down again across the bench. “Sorry, Sammy-don’t think I’m gonna do you much good in a fight.”
Glancing at his watch, Sam shook his head. The glow under his skin shown through his shirt now. “It’s still another half hour before I can do the last injection.”
“Don’t think those traps are gonna hold that long. It’s okay-I think we’re ready, right?”
Sam loomed over him, radiant and terrifying. “I don’t know. What if it doesn’t work?”
The ground lurched beneath them, followed by the crack of splitting beams. With no further hesitation, Sam grabbed the syringe and shoved it into his arm one last time. Dean winced as blood welled up to the surface and then tipped his head back as Sam knelt down next to him. “Ready?” Sam asked.
“Do it.”
He felt the sharp ache of the needle, too rushed to be careful, and the burn of Sam’s blood entering the artery. Tossing the syringe aside, Sam grabbed Ruby’s knife and sliced it across his palm.
They knew the second the traps gave as a wave of malevolent shouting abruptly crushed inside the church. Sam grabbed him by the back of the neck, bloody hand about to close over his mouth, when Dean snatched his wrist away, held it back so the blood dripped onto his chest.
“Dean, what-”
“There’s one more-there has to be eight, right?”
“Dean, there’s no time-”
“Sam, when I got back from Purgatory, you were scared of me. I was angry-I was furious with you- and I scared the shit outta you, and I’m real sorry about that. I was angry at the wrong things and I’m sorry I scared you, Sam.”
Leaning down, Sam pressed a sloppy kiss to his mouth. He tasted like ozone. “It’s okay.” Another quick kiss. “It’s okay.”
Then Dean had a mouth full of blood and a hand covering half his face, cutting off all his air. He expected Sam to shout the words to the heavens, expected his voice to boom over those of the demons scrambling to reach them, but instead Sam leaned close and said them right into Dean’s ear, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus... Hanc animam redintegra... Lustratus... Lustratus”
Dean’s eyes widened and he choked on the liquid in his mouth when the demons swarmed over the pews and the first one reached for Sam.
His brother didn’t look away from him, his eyes like comets until some silent countdown inside him ended and they shrank to pin-pricks of light.
The air went perfectly still-a silent inhale-before exploding out from Sam’s body in a wave of cleansing fire.
The demons were incinerated on the spot, but it didn’t stop there. Sam arched above him, muscles seizing in a rictus of pain or ecstasy-Dean couldn’t tell which-the blaze of light around him so blindingly bright that Dean had to turn his face away.
A force crackled through him like a tide, sweeping everything ahead of it in a devastating flood of raw power. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t move but when Sam finally collapsed on top of him, it didn’t matter. Sam’s hand fell limp from his mouth and Dean blinked dazedly at the ceiling before slipping under.
End.
Author: june
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: pg-13
Length: 8,236
Warnings:[Spoiler (click to open)]Ye Olde Unreliable Narrator Dean Winchester, very brief reference to underage wincest, ambiguous ending.
Disclaimer: Not mine--just for fun. Also, title and lyric are from Dry the River.
Summary: With Sam weakening every day after failing to complete the Trials, Kevin and Dean come up with a plan that might allow him to finish what he started-and this time he won't have to do it alone.
Notes: Finally participating in 8 Days of Wincest, just under the wire! So here's my Season 8/pre-Season 9 catharsis fic--there's talking, there's kissing, even some voicemail and samulet fix-it. My love letter to Sam and Dean. Thanks samdean_otp for hosting this great challenge!
/Just because we’re beasts of blame by nature
Doesn’t mean that you should carry it again/
Sam’s shouts woke Dean from his doze and sent him tumbling out of bed. On the way to Sam’s room he ran into Kevin, bleary-eyed and bitchy.
“He’s been doing this every night, Dean. It’s not getting any better.”
“You think I haven’t noticed? What am I supposed to do?”
Kevin blinked at that, as though waiting for the obvious to dawn on Dean. “Aside from letting him finish what he started?” he snapped when Dean said nothing.
He closed his eyes. “Kevin, don’t start with that-I will shove you through a wall. You got something useful-some way to help him and I’m all ears.”
Slipping into Sam’s room, Dean shut the door behind him without turning on the light. He didn’t need it-Sam glowed like a beacon in his sleep. He thrashed and cried beneath the blankets, hair stuck to his face with sweat.
“All right-it’s all right, Sammy, wake up. Come on, Sam.” Sitting carefully on the edge of the bed, Dean gave his brother’s shoulders a gentle shake. “Come on, you’re okay.”
Sam’s eyes flickered open and they shown with the fire that was slowly burning him up from the inside. “Dean?”
“Yeah, it’s me-I’m here. You’re all right.”
“Dean, I can feel-it’s getting worse. I can feel it getting worse.” He struggled feebly against the blankets tangled around him so Dean helped pull them free. He stripped Sam out of his sweaty t-shirt, too, let the air cool him off for a minute.
Just getting Sam out of the shirt seemed to exhaust him as he fell back. His insides were lit up, the shadow of his ribs standing out like a demon’s protracted death throws. “Jesus,” Dean muttered. It was getting worse.
“It’s not going to get any better,” Sam said, covering as much of his torso as he could with one thin arm. “Not until I finish. You have to let me finish.”
Dean shook his head, a familiar stubborn refusal. “Not gonna happen. Come on, you just gotta-you just gotta breathe, all right? Like we practiced. You just need to relax. Let it go.”
Without thinking, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to Sam’s forehead and another to his cracked lips. Sam made a sound low in his throat and his fingers clutched weakly at Dean’s arm. When he pulled back, he found Sam blinking up at him, searching his face for an explanation-why, after so many years, Dean would do that.
Dean didn’t have an answer, but he didn’t need one as the light beneath Sam’s skin flickered and dimmed, faded until they were left in the dark. Sam’s fingers stroked restlessly up and down Dean’s arm and his breath whistled through his chest.
“We’ll figure this out, Sam. Kevin’s working on a way to-”
“He’s not going to find anything. The only way out is through, Dean. The sooner you accept that, the sooner this’ll all be over. I just-I just want it to be over.”
Swallowing thickly, Dean could only shake his head. “Well, I’m not like you, I guess. I can’t-I can’t just let you go. Not wired that way.”
Sam’s huffed laugh turned into a cough. “Unbelievable,” he managed. “You are unbelievable.”
“What-”
“Get out of my room, Dean.”
Realizing how Sam had interpreted that, Dean rolled his eyes. “Come on, man, don’t be a-”
“Get the fuck out. I’m tired and I want to sleep.”
Dean sat back as Sam curled away from him. His bony shoulders shivered, vibrating the whole bed with the force of it, and Dean tugged the blankets back up around him to keep away the chill. “Yeah, all right. I’ll see you in the morning. Holler if you need anything.” Sam’s head shifted on the pillow in a nod, and Dean didn’t wait for anything else.
He found the hallway empty, Kevin’s bedroom door firmly shut.
Climbing back into his own bed, Dean tossed and turned. In the absolute dark of the bunker, memories resurfaced that he’d thought he buried long ago-memories tucked behind forty years of Hell. They slid from his mind back into muscle, inside his ribs, and down into his gut until it felt like they’d always lived there.
Fumbling together in their shared room, terrified of everything at first-Dad coming home, CPS, separation, Dad not coming home, Dean not coming home, running out of cash, Sam running off-kissing, biting, grabbing, and keeping until the pressure peaked and eased, until they could sleep in a sweaty tangle.
Then reckless and cocky, laughing into each other’s mouths, arms slung around shoulders, hands in back pockets, invincible and high as fucking kites on how good it could feel. Careening toward Sam’s eighteenth birthday, toward Stanford, at a pace that Dean didn’t recognize as deadly until Sam was gone-vanishing in the distance-and Dean was wrecked.
Dean rolled over for the thousandth time and jammed his hands up under his pillow. His hips worked restlessly into the mattress, his dick half hard as he thought about what he and Sam had been.
After Jess, Sam’s sharp edges had hooked into Dean like barbs. And, guiltily, he’d loved every second of it.
After Dad, Dean wasn’t ever letting go, signed away his soul to keep Sam with him, even if only for one more year. He could at least take that to Hell-no one was closer than Sam and him in those twelve months. The most gorgeous terrible mess Dean’d ever made. One they’d never recovered from.
And now Sammy lay alone in his room, filled to bursting with the righteous fury of a God that had long ago abandoned His work-a living weapon waiting to be detonated. Dean could see it all over him-he was ready to die and had been probably since completing the second Trial.
It’d been five years since they’d been together like that (forty-five years, two hundred and forty-five years) and Dean didn’t know how to let Sam go. They’d spent so much time at each other’s throats, so much time apart, so much time tearing strips out of each other-they would never get back what they had, and Dean still. Couldn’t. Let. Go.
Finally shoving a hand inside his shorts, Dean groaned into the mattress at the feel of his rock-hard dick. He was thirty-four years old with a hard-on for the memory of his baby brother, the brother who lay dying in the next room.
Spitting into his palm to slick himself up, Dean rocked his hips up into his hand, remembered the feel of Sam laid out underneath him, full of anger and fear and love, thought about Sam now, brittle and raw and determined. He came with a choked-off sound and exhaled through it, keeping quiet through the aftershocks. He cleaned himself up with a tissue, rolled over, and fell off a cliff into sleep.
*
“So I was thinking,” Kevin started, looking up from his newspaper.
“Yeah?” Dean sipped his coffee and massaged the headache already gathering behind his eyes. Sam hadn’t gotten out of bed except to use the bathroom in three days.
“Sam needs to finish the Trials.”
“Kevin, how many times I gotta tell you-”
“He needs to finish them or he’ll be too sick to move. Or he’ll die.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“He’s a ticking bomb, Dean.”
“Yeah, that part we do know. You said you were thinking-what about?”
“Well. What if his body just thinks it’s completed the trials? What if he goes through the purifying ritual, but it’s not on a demon?”
Dean scratched his head. “It wouldn’t work. If it’s not a demon, it wouldn’t work.”
“See-I don’t know.” Leaning back in his chair, Kevin crossed his arms over his chest. “Have you looked at him? I think he’s got, like, the human equivalent of Grace burning him up. It wants to come out and do what it was meant for. Plus, Sam is one of the most powerful human psychics in recorded history-no telling what he can do with what’s inside him now that it’s been there awhile. Why not try the exorcism on something else not quite as evil as a demon? Might still get some traction without all the tragedy after.”
“So, what, I go find a vamp? Purify a wendigo?”
“I wouldn’t.” Kevin shook his head decisively. “Nothing to purify. They are what they are.”
Dean’s stomach lurched and he quickly sat forward, coffee cup cracking against the table. “A human soul. Purify a human soul-it doesn’t meet the exact terms of the Trial, but it might still trigger whatever needs to happen inside Sam.”
“And since the ritual wouldn’t close the Gates of Hell, it might not kill him.”
Frowning, Dean wiped up a few drops of sloshed coffee with one of the Men of Letters embroidered napkins-because they had those. “That’s an awful big ‘might.’”
“Or, I mean, you could go medieval and cut him open and see if it just bleeds out. That was my second idea.”
“Yeah, that one’s already been crossed off the list,” Dean said with a humorless laugh. Standing up, he rapped his knuckles against the tabletop. “Thanks for the input, Kevin. Good talk.”
*
Dean started sleeping in Sam’s room. The proximity seemed to help with the glowing and even though Dean missed his bed, he slept better with Sam’s labored breathing in his ear, the fever-warm heat of his body at his back, or pressed tight against his front when Sam got chilled.
When Sam was lucid he touched Dean’s face, his jaw, and his neck like Dean was new, like he was Christmas. They kissed a little, when Sam wasn’t self-conscious about his morning breath or the stale sour smell every sick person had after awhile. The thing between them was tentative at best, something Sam didn’t quite trust.
Dean thought about risk and luck and weighed the likelihood that Sam would die if he tried the human purification ritual against the near certainty that he would if they did nothing. If Sam died like this, everything he’d gone through would mean less than nothing. It would mean that Dean had killed his own brother out of selfishness-even worse than saving him for the same reason.
*
On one of his good days, Dean propped Sam up in bed with a mug of chicken noodle soup. He sat next to him with his back against the headboard and crossed his feet at the ankle.
“Kevin has an idea, and I think it’s a good one. Wanted to run it by you.”
“Yeah?” Sam slurped his soup. “Whatcha got?”
“Maybe a way to get all that divine wrath outta you without killing you in the process.”
The mug stalled on its way to Sam’s mouth. “Pretty sure that’s not how it works, Dean. Complete the third Trial and game over-Gates of Hell close forever and I... well, you know.”
Dean shook his head. “Not goin’ down that road. This is like a... a bypass.”
“Okay, proceeding with this metaphor, where are we exiting?”
“The demon part.”
“Kind of an important part.”
“To closing the Gates of Hell, sure. To getting all this glowy mojo outta you-maybe not. So long as you purify a soul, you cross the finish line. Just maybe not the one we originally thought.”
Sam’s throat worked as he took a few large swallows of soup. He licked his lips, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “And what makes you think that would work?”
“Because we’re not meant to have that in us.” Dean reached over to touch Sam’s wrist, light flickering beneath the paper-thin skin. “It wants out.”
They sat in silence for awhile, Dean trying to exude the calm that Sam needed even though his heart thudded with anticipation, with hope.
Finally Sam took a slow careful breath, setting his mug on the nightstand. “All right, say we did this. I don’t think your average monster soul would work. I mean, they-”
“-are what they are. You’re right.”
“Nothing to purify because nothing’s really broken like it is for a demon.”
“That’s why we’ll go with a human soul.” Dean swallowed. “Mine.”
If Sam had the strength, he would have shoved himself out of bed and stretched to his full height to achieve maximum scolding power. As it was he sucked in a breath too quickly and started coughing, shaking his head when Dean spread a reassuring hand on his back.
“Think about it,” Dean said. “I’m the one who stopped you-I should be the one to help you finish the Trials. This way you’re not on your own, and no one else is in the line of fire.”
Drawing his knees up once he had his breathing under control, Sam folded his arms across them. “I dunno, Dean. We don’t know what this could do, what it could change. Maybe not the Gates of Hell, but something else, you know? And...” He ran a hand through his unwashed hair, eyes firmly lowered. “Have you thought about what it would mean for you?”
Dean fisted his hand in the blankets. He knew this would come up-didn’t mean he’d figured out the right thing to say. “The way I figure, I’m the perfect candidate. Got more sins on my head than anyone. Been hangin’ onto ‘em long enough.”
Sam exhaled sharply through his nose. “No, Dean. I meant-have you thought about the fact that I have demon blood in me, and after we do this... so will you?”
“Well, you said before that you thought the Trials were purifying you, too, so-”
“Yeah, and if you’re going by what I said while I was delirious? If that’s what you’re banking on-if you think that I’m-that I’m clean and that it’s safe now? Then-then-” His voice wavered and Dean rolled his eyes.
“Christ, Sam-”
“I will never be good or clean or right, but I was good enough to do these Trials until you stopped me. I was doing it-we were winning, but you still couldn’t-you still couldn’t-”
Dean was never so glad for another coughing fit as he felt the conversation slip into a tailspin.
Sam was supposed to be better. He was supposed to be the one thing Dean got right, the one good thing. He was supposed to be stronger and smarter. He wasn’t supposed to fall apart with Dean gone. He wasn’t supposed to turn into this. The fact that Sam still cared so much and hurt so much made Dean... it made Dean stupid with anger. It made Dean want to shake him or hold him down or just-get down on his knees and beg his forgiveness. Dean was supposed to make him strong but instead Sam was a mess. Dean had made him a mess.
“No, look.” Dean reached around Sam to grab the mug of cooling broth off the nightstand. “Drink some of this for your throat. And look at me, all right? Look at me. We are the only ones who can pull this off-you see that, right? I did-I did this to you, but I can fix it. We can fix it.”
Sam was glowing again, his hands and arms, his throat and sinuses. If Dean lifted his shirt, he’d see it like a heartbeat pounding at Sam’s ribs.
But Sam nodded, curling away from him back down onto the bed. “Okay. Okay, we’ll do it. Can you go for awhile? I need to rest.”
Dean wanted to touch him, wanted to reassure himself with the flare of Sam’s shoulder blade under his hand, but he didn’t feel like getting a weak-ass punch in the face so he didn’t. “Yeah, Sam. We’ll talk when you’re feeling better.”
*
With Kevin’s help Dean salted the windows and doors of the old church and painted devil’s traps where he thought demons might bottleneck and try to get through. The Trials were meant for the denizens of Hell-no telling what they might feel when the ritual got going. Even if Sam wasn’t following the instructions to the letter, Dean had a feeling using his soul for the exorcism would come pretty damn close. Hopefully not too close.
Dean had left Sam curled up in the back seat of the Impala, wrapped in blankets and sleeping while he could.
Inside, Dean laid out his favorite gun, Ruby’s knife, and a syringe. “Think his blood is gonna do anything to me-ritualistic or otherwise?”
Kevin didn’t look up from copying an angel-proofing symbol on the wall-one that might not even work anymore now that they’d fallen out of the sky. “If you weren’t both B+, I’d say it would put you in the hospital, but you are, so. No idea.” When he finished, he blinked smudged eyes at Dean. He still wasn’t sleeping much, trying to get a handle on the Angel Tablet dropped in his lap. “But I’ll have my phone on me if you need me to, I don’t know, call an ambulance or panic.”
“Got it.”
“And Dean... ”
“Yeah.”
“Let him finish what he started this time.”
“Kevin, if something happens to him-”
“He chose it. This is his path.”
Telling himself that shoving Kevin through the wall would make yet another hole to salt, Dean kept himself under control. He walked back out to the car and opened the creaky rear door. Reaching inside he shook his brother awake.
“Let’s go, Sammy,” he said. “It’s game time.”
Sam rubbed his eyes and managed to shove himself toward the open door where Dean hauled him the rest of the way out. He was dressed in multiple layers but that didn’t keep Dean from feeling every one of his ribs as he got an arm around him and they headed toward the church. He waved as Kevin took off in the Buick Dean had fixed up for him from Bobby’s old yard. He wouldn’t go too far, but far enough to be out of harm’s way should anything nasty show up to try to stop them.
Once inside, Sam tugged out of Dean’s grip and staggered toward the battered old confessional. This time, Dean kept his big mouth shut and retreated to the far end of the church, dropping down to wait in one of the pews. He was able to make out the soft murmur of Sam’s voice, low and haggard, and though he wasn’t close enough to overhear anything, Dean hummed some Sabbath under his breath to make sure. The idea that there was anything left for Sam to cleanse himself of was laughable, but this was not one of the rules they were willing to fudge.
Sam came out a minute later, arms hugged tightly around himself as he fought through another round of chills. Dean met him before he could take more than a few steps and guided him over to the nearest pew. “You good?” he asked, keeping his voice low-as if there was anyone around to bear witness to this. Christ, he hoped there wasn’t.
“Yeah, I’m good. Let’s get started.” Sam fumbled for the syringe where it lay on the bench next to him, but before Dean could ask if he needed help, he took a slow deep breath and steadied his grip. Solid as a rock, he stuck the needle in his arm and drew back the plunger. Dean swallowed the sick feeling rising up his throat and scooted closer, pulling open the collar of his shirt to give Sam a clear shot at an artery.
“So, uh,” he started, just before Sam reached for him, “we should make this as much like a cleansing ritual as we can, right? I was thinkin’ we, uh, we take this opportunity to say what we never said-speak now or forever hold your peace, you know?”
Sam lowered his eyes, the syringe full of his blood shaking a little. “Dean, I’ve already been to confession. More than once with you, actually. Not sure I can take eight more hours of it. We don’t play nice when it comes to our sins, remember?”
“Not your sins, Sammy-we’re here for mine, and if we’re gonna convince whatever’s in you to come out it’s gotta feel real. So. One thing we never said to each other for every hour we do this.”
Sam finally looked up and gave Dean a tired nod, standing to get a better angle. “Ready?”
“Yeah-do it.” Sam put a big hand on his shoulder, exhaled to stillness, and stuck the needle in. Dean twitched at the prick but waited until Sam withdrew to breathe.
Giving him a curious look, Sam dropped back onto the bench. “You good?”
Dean nodded before he was actually sure, rubbing his hand over the spot. He realized Sam was still watching him and dropped his hand to his lap. “What.”
“Well?”
“Hey, we’ve got a whole hour until round two-what’s the rush?”
Sam exhaled a laugh and leaned back in the pew. “Sure, Dean. I got my watch set. Wake me up when it’s time for the next injection.” He put his hood up and hunched further down, hands buried in the front pocket of his hoodie.”
“Wait-you can’t go to sleep on me yet!” Dean objected, sitting up straighter. “It’s not like I brought reading material or anything.”
“Then talk,” Sam said pissily, voice muffled by the collar of his sweatshirt. “Or I’m taking a nap.”
“Fine-fine.” Dean rubbed his hand across his mouth then put both on his knees. “Thought I’d-thought I’d start a ways back, you know? When shit started goin’ really wrong.”
“All right.” Sam didn’t look at him, only slouched further down the bench-though Dean thought maybe he sounded curious.
“I, uh, I wish. I wish I hadn’t stopped you taking that shot on Dad.”
Sam jerked in his seat like Dean’d goosed him. “What?”
“Back when we had the Colt. I’ve thought about it-had forty years to think about the pain we could have saved our family. If you’d have just gone with your gut, did what he asked you to do, you’d have saved him. And taken out the thing that killed you. And I wouldn’t have made that deal. None’a this would have happened.”
Sam’s mouth emerged from his hoodie, hanging open in shock. “Dean-there’s no way we can know that for sure,” he rasped. “And you’d never have forgiven me for killing him.”
“I knew-I knew Dad wanted to go out with that yellow-eyed son of a bitch. Finish the mission and leave us for good. But I-well, you know.”
“You wanted him alive, with us. No sin in that.”
“No, I just never learned how to let go.”
Sam hesitated, bloodshot eyes searching Dean’s face for a moment before he swallowed and looked away. “No sin in that,” he repeated, voice low.
*
At the prick of the needle an hour later, Dean shivered. When Sam was done, Dean massaged the back of his neck and stood up, needing to get his blood flowing again. The sun had set, leaving the church dark except for their camp lantern on the floor at Sam’s feet. Pacing a slow circle around the perimeter, Dean checked the salt lines and devil’s traps, though there’d been no sign of anyone since Kevin drove away.
As he walked he spoke. “Shoulda driven you straight back to Cali after Dad died. Shoulda seen right then what hunting was gonna do to us. You were all I had left, and to keep you in the life after what happened to him was selfish. I should have gone with you and gotten us out right then.”
Sam stretched an arm across the back of the pew and picked at a piece of splintering wood. “Wouldn’t have mattered. Yellow Eyes woulda come for me eventually. I was having visions-I wouldn’t have let you keep me from trying to help those people.”
Dean shook his head, rubbing his thumb over the needle bruise on his throat. “We shouldn’t have been hunting when we were that messed up.”
“Actually....” Sam cleared his throat. “After Dad was gone, I felt so guilty for how I’d left things with him-I wanted to hunt because that’s what he wanted us to do. I was the one who dragged you into it with those first jobs that Ellen gave us. I, uh, I felt like such a shit because part of me was relieved.”
Dean stopped his circuit of the church in front of Sam. “Relieved?”
“Yeah.” Sam looked up at him, face earnest, asking Dean to understand. “Relieved that he was gone. If I couldn’t have normal and I couldn’t have safe, then I wanted to at least have you.”
Huffing a laugh, Dean said the first stupid-ass thing that came into his head. “Glad I made it to your list, Sammy.”
“No, I-I knew I couldn’t pull you out of the life. Or at least, that’s what I thought-I could never get you out. My whole life all I wanted was you and me safe, but if I couldn’t have that, I at least wanted you to myself.” A smile ghosted across his haggard face. “Never did learn to share all that well. Not much of a surprise when you think about it-Dad never let us have anything, and you always gave me everything.”
“Yeah, never the right thing, though.” Dean had held on so hard that year, the thing between them growing more intense every day-as if it hadn’t already been enough to make his head spin and his gut churn with equal parts want and guilt.
Though it was nothing compared to where they’d be just a year later.
*
“That year before I went to Hell-when I dragged you all over the country-what I really wanted was to find someplace quiet, barricade the door and just-breathe the same air as you while I still could. Live in the same space, not let you outta my sight, keep you. Every second I could.”
He sat at the other end of the pew from Sam, elbows on his knees, not looking at his brother. His neck was starting to burn and he couldn’t be sure but he thought he felt a little weird, like all the shit that had built up in him over the years was broken loose and knocking around behind his ribs, bumping into his lungs and his stomach so he couldn’t really breathe and he thought he might puke. That, or this whole confession thing was making him giddy-nothing magical about it. Or he was just plain terrified. Who knew, really?
“We coulda done that, Dean. I wish we’d done that.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why I’m tellin’ you now-biggest regrets, and all. Kind of a kick in the teeth learnin’ we both wanted the same thing and were too chicken shit or too messed up to ask.” He could feel Sam’s eyes on him.
“Yeah.”
*
The first demon showed up just after Sam injected him a fourth time. It skulked around outside, not making any attempt to get past the salt. Waiting.
“That can’t be good,” Dean said, rubbing his neck.
“It means at least we’re not wasting our time. Something’s happening.” Light flickered restlessly at Sam’s wrists and throat and, Dean was sure, all through the rest of him underneath his clothes. But with it, Sam seemed to have more energy, able to sit up straight and even pace a little as the minutes crawled by.
With this latest dose, Dean’s stomach roiled and heaved at what he had to confess. He stood facing the demon, the devil’s trap and a thick line of salt between them, and toyed with the idea of launching himself at it. Killing something would be a good distraction.
But it was too much of a risk-he couldn’t leave Sam in the lurch. And the compulsion to speak his sins was growing stronger with every moment, bubbling up in him until he actually did stagger to a corner and vomit onto the floor, his stomach emptying itself in a steaming mess of fast food, whiskey, and bile.
Instantly, Sam was at his side, large warm hand on his back, concerned voice in his ear. “Dean-hey, Dean. Jesus, are you all right? Where’d that come from? Is it the blood?”
“’M fine,” he mumbled. “Just havin’ some trouble. Don’t wanna talk anymore.”
“It’s okay-you don’t have to. You can stop.”
“Yeah, I do have to. It’s working, Sammy, can’t you feel it?” Dean straightened, leaned tiredly into his brother’s greater height. “Tell me you feel something and it’s not just me losing my mind.” Sam’s shoulders curled toward him as he turned them away from the demon lurking in the doorway.
“I-I don’t k now.” He looked a little panicked. “I think-maybe. I’m feeling a little better, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”
“Think it might be because this is working better than we thought.”
Sam’s hand tightened in the back of Dean’s shirt. “Why? What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s what I didn’t wanna tell you.” Making his way back to their pew, Dean picked up a bottle of water Kevin had left for them. Rinsing his mouth and spitting, Dean had to admit the kid-while at times a bitchy pain in the ass-definitely came in handy.
Sam had followed close behind him and when Dean turned, he was still hovering-his giant, glowing, too-skinny brother. Dean licked his lips, met Sam’s eyes. “I told you I was the only one who could help you finish this.”
“Yeah, Dean.”
“That’s because you will never find a man closer to a demon than me.”
Sam instantly shut down, his expression shuttering like a house before a tornado. He stood perfectly still and didn’t even seem to breathe.
“I came...” Dean rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I came back wrong, Sam. If Cas hadn’t-if he hadn’t pulled me out when he did....”
Sam tucked his chin in a harsh nod and Dean knew-he knew the recriminations running through his brother’s mind, how much he still blamed himself for Dean going to Hell, but he couldn’t stop now that he’d started. And this was all on him, not Sam.
“Anyway, I might not have the eyes and my blood might not taste quite right, but I know... I know that I’m not the brother you knew before I did a tour in the pit. And that’s because of what I did down there. Not because you couldn’t find a way to bust me out.”
Dean took a slow breath. “When I came out, I was so sick inside, Sammy. I found out about you and Ruby, the exorcisms and demon blood, and I got scared you were gonna end up just like me. You gotta understand, I couldn’t imagine anything worse. So I used you to try and get that stain out. Thought if I could set you on the right track, I’d make up for some of what I did in Hell.”
From the doorway, the demon started clapping, it’s mouth stretched in a sardonic grin.
Dean’s jaw clenched and he turned away, looking to Sam for some indication of what he felt. His brother licked his lips and nodded again. “Thank you-” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Thank you for telling me that. But you weren’t-you weren’t wrong about me. I wanted you to do-what you said you would.” Sam looked at him, eyes fever bright. This had become just as much about Sam’s sins as his own. Sam could never leave Dean out to suffer a punishment he thought he should share.
“I wanted you to put me down. I knew I was a monster. I felt like a monster-knew what I deserved. You came back and you were full of this... righteousness that I thought I’d had. But I was wrong. Never more wrong about anything. Nothing I regret more than that.”
Dean barked a humorless laugh. “That wasn’t righteousness-that was naked ugly fear. I was terrified you were in too deep, and I didn’t know how to look out for you anymore. I was scared I’d lost that-the one thing I’d always known how to do.”
“Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you do it, Dean?”
“I tried, Sammy, but you were-you were pretty set on Lilith, and I didn’t know until too late that she was-”
“No, I mean, why didn’t you kill me-like you said you would. After Ruby, after I started the apocalypse-why didn’t you?”
“Why didn’t I kill you?” he echoed. “When did I....” His mind raced and for a terrible moment, he wondered if he’d actually said that, if he’d actually lost himself so completely that something like that could come out of his mouth. He’d hit some lows-been so angry and betrayed that he’d said some seriously stupid shit, but-
“I just assumed you wanted me to clean up the mess I’d made. And I did-I fixed it. I jumped in the pit. And I guess it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because Lucifer would’ve just brought me back, but we didn’t know that then. So I thought, after you killed Ruby-I thought that’s when you’d-”
“That’s when I’d kill you?”
Sam shrugged, waiting expectantly.
“Dude, you’re outta your mind-I would never, ever say that.”
“Well, you did.”
“No, I didn’t. Whattya think all this is for, anyway? I’m trying to save you, Sam, not-”
“Sure, now. But back then, you-”
“Sam! I never said that. I think you’re just remembering wrong.”
“No, I’m not, Dean. You think I wouldn’t remember when my brother tells me he’s done with me, thinks I’m a vampire, and promises to kill me the next time he sees me? You think I wouldn’t remember that word-for-fucking-word?”
Dean couldn’t breathe for a second, and he would swear his heart froze up for the time it took him to recover from that one. “I think that you were in that Cage for a long-ass time, Sam, and good old Luci made you doubt all kinds’a things down there. Believe me, I know how memories get twisted around after a few decades and shit you think you know for certain-”
Sam shook his head. “Dean, I’ve felt like a crazy person for-a lot of my life, and I’ve been a crazy person for part of it, too, so please don’t try to make me feel that again. Please don’t ask me to doubt myself. I know what I heard. You told me, if I walked out that door not to come back and then you-”
“Then I called you to apologize, to tell you that we were brothers, no matter what. Right? You remember that, right?”
Sam’s eyes narrowed and he hesitated before answering. “No, in your voicemail you-”
“Oh, come on!” the demon shouted from the doorway. It’s meatsuit was a wiry guy probably in his twenties with an abrasive voice. Dean turned a murderous glare on it, but it only grinned wider. “You think an angel couldn’t fuck with your voicemail? You think Ruby couldn’t? You were starting the fucking apocalypse, man-Heaven and Hell were aligned making sure you did the deed. You think for one second that either side would let something like a voice-”
“Hey, would you shut up?” Sam snapped, not bothering to look over his shoulder at the demon. His eyes stayed locked on Dean, wide and hopeful.
Dean dragged a hand through his hair. “Jesus, Sammy, you spent the last four years thinking that I wanted to kill you?”
“Four years and two centuries, but who’s counting. If you say you didn’t leave that message then I believe you.” A smile tugged up one corner of his mouth and all this was worth it-just for that.
Dean looked him right in the eye. “I didn’t.”
Hiccuping a laugh, Sam tipped forward and hooked Dean around the back of the neck. He dragged Dean forward into a hard kiss, bit at his lips and licked into his mouth, pressed their heads together after and couldn’t seem to stop grinning.
*
An hour later, two more demons crowded around the door, jostling with the first to get a look inside.
The high from clearing the air with Sam had run out as Dean’s insides burned with his next confession.
“You know, I tried to get my amulet back-called the motel first chance I got to tell ‘em where to look for it. But they never found it. It’s gone for good.” He looked up. “Unless you....”
Sam took in a slow breath and nodded. “Yeah, I picked it up. Couldn’t part with it like that.”
Dean’s heart surged in his chest. “Well-where is it? You still got it, right?”
Meeting his eyes, Sam shook his head. “I was wearing it when I said ‘yes’ to Lucifer. Was hoping it’d help me fight him, but it didn’t. He left it on because he thought it was funny. It went in the pit with the rest of me. It’s gone, Dean-I’m sorry.”
Dean looked away. “You don’t need to apologize, Sammy.”
*
Sam hadn’t stopped pacing in probably twenty minutes. He seemed to thrum with energy now, his skin shiny with sweat and glowing with divine wrath just underneath.
Reclining in one of the pews, Dean felt shaky and brittle, like he might fly apart if Sam even looked at him wrong. He felt raw and kind of ecstatic. He knew his next confession and it didn’t frighten him like the last ones-the worst was over. They could finish this.
Sam tangled his fingers in his hair and tugged. “It doesn’t make sense, Dean. None of this makes sense.”
“What doesn’t?” Dean asked, propping himself up on one elbow.
“How is this working?” Sam gestured at Dean. “I asked Crowley how he felt after I injected him with my blood, but he didn’t always answer. He didn’t have to talk-he didn’t want to. It was like pulling teeth. But you’re-you hate talking. I’m doing this to you, aren’t I.”
Dean shoved himself up to sitting. “What you’ve got in there was supposed to close the Gates of Hell, Sam. Probably isn’t much you couldn’t do, right now. That head of yours has always been a little freaky.”
“Yeah, Dean, that’s what terrifies me. They know something big’s gonna happen.” He pointed to the small crowd of demons milling around outside.
“Hey, I don’t get to say this often, but-don’t worry. All right? We’re close. Next injection in, what, fifteen minutes?”
Sam nodded and dropped down next to him on the bench. “Yeah, and you haven’t.... Do you not want to? Are you trying not to want to?”
“Nah. Just-this one kinda rolls into the next and I didn’t wanna have to wait.”
“Yeah, and?” Sam waited, knee bouncing up and down.
“Probably the first one’a these where I was mad at you for a good reason.” He watched Sam steel himself. “You had no business sendin’ me to Lisa and Ben.”
Sam looked down, shoulders sagging, and nodded.
“They deserved better than a depressed, grieving alcoholic with every demon still topside looking to drag him to Hell.”
“But-” Sam cleared his throat. “You loved them-she was your dream girl.”
“I was a goddamn disaster and they didn’t deserve me turnin’ up on their doorstep. The drinking, the nightmares, the paranoia-all I did was put them in danger and break promises. Should never have asked that of me, Sam.”
“Wanted you to be happy,” he murmured. “And loved. You loved them. I remember-before I got my soul back, I remember thinking that you loved them. Before I jumped in the pit, that was all I’d wanted for you.”
“Yeah, well-”
“After I got my soul back, it was different. I wanted to be with you so bad-I could hardly stand it.”
Dean paused, whatever he’d been about to say flying from his mind. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.” A genuine smile tugged at Sam’s mouth. “I didn’t remember Hell, didn’t remember what I’d done without my soul. Just knew that I was out and you were okay and we were together-wanted to fuck around in the Impala, in Bobby’s spare room, any motel we were in. Wanted you all the fucking time. It was ridiculous.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Lost my nerve. You were so freaked about the Wall and about Lisa and Cas. I couldn’t do it. I was scared it’d been too long, that you would push me away.”
Dean couldn’t argue with that logic. He was a mess after Death put Sam’s soul back and erected the Great Wall. And it’d been so long since they’d trusted each other for physical comfort-he couldn’t honestly say what he would’ve done if Sam had come onto him.
He knew now, though, reaching for Sam and fisting his hand in his flannel shirt. Sam had shed the hoodie awhile back and as Dean pulled him closer, he couldn’t take his eyes off the sheen of sweat at the base of his throat.
They’d said their peace and whatever was happening inside them seemed to be satisfied for the moment. Dean exhaled against Sam’s mouth and tipped his chin forward into a kiss that brought jeers and catcalls from the demons outside. He put his hands in Sam’s hair and said quietly, just for him, “Get that next injection ready. Let’s finish this thing.”
*
8120
The inside of Sam’s arm was mottled with needle marks and bruising, and Dean’s neck felt about the same. He felt tugged along, like Sam was magnetic north or the Pied Piper or his fucking salvation, but he wasn’t afraid. For all he knew, their hearts would explode when Sam put his bloody hand over Dean’s mouth and recited the exorcism that would clean out his soul and release whatever weapon had made its home inside Sam.
In hour seven, Dean couldn’t honestly say he cared-so long as they left together.
The demons had managed to break the salt line but in the push to get through, they were stuck in the traps. They’d get out before long-that many together could work some pretty serious dark mojo. When that happened, Dean wasn’t sure he’d be able to put up much of a fight. He felt like he was barely clinging to his own skin, like the past seven hours had slid a sharp blade just beneath the surface and surgically detached his inside from his outside. He was only just aligned now. One good shove and he’d separate. Into what, he had no friggin’ idea.
They’d moved to the floor, Dean’s legs sprawled open, Sam’s back a solid if bony heat against his. “After your wall came down,” he started, “and we lost Cas and then Bobby....” He drifted in that time for a moment, calling up the smell and taste of a whiskey hangover, the feel of a muddy trench coat and a blood-soaked baseball cap in his hands.
“Yeah, Dean?” Sam prompted.
He sucked in a slow breath.“We-we were all that was left and I didn’t know how to ask anymore.”
“Ask for what?”
Dean nudged Sam’s shoulder with his own. “This. What we used to do-what we were.”
“Why couldn’t you ask?”
Shrugging, Dean reached back and grabbed clumsily at Sam’s arm, catching his sleeve. “Same reason you couldn’t before-too much goin’ on with you. You couldn’t tell whether you were topside or in Hell. Last thing you needed was my sorry ass.”
“Probably woulda helped, actually. Nothin’ more real than you and your sex faces.”
Dean laughed, surprising them both with the sound. It rumbled low in his chest and echoed off the empty walls of the church. Sam’s laugh joined it and the very foundations seemed to resonate with the sound.
Which was weird.
“You feel that?” Sam asked. “That’s not normal, is it?”
“I thought you were doing it.”
“I don’t think I am.”
The ground began to hum and shudder beneath them, dust drifting down through the light cast by the lantern.
“It’s the demons,” Sam said. “They’re working together to break the traps.”
Dean tried to stand up but a wave of vertigo sent him pitching sideways into the front pew. The room spun until Sam helped him to lie down again across the bench. “Sorry, Sammy-don’t think I’m gonna do you much good in a fight.”
Glancing at his watch, Sam shook his head. The glow under his skin shown through his shirt now. “It’s still another half hour before I can do the last injection.”
“Don’t think those traps are gonna hold that long. It’s okay-I think we’re ready, right?”
Sam loomed over him, radiant and terrifying. “I don’t know. What if it doesn’t work?”
The ground lurched beneath them, followed by the crack of splitting beams. With no further hesitation, Sam grabbed the syringe and shoved it into his arm one last time. Dean winced as blood welled up to the surface and then tipped his head back as Sam knelt down next to him. “Ready?” Sam asked.
“Do it.”
He felt the sharp ache of the needle, too rushed to be careful, and the burn of Sam’s blood entering the artery. Tossing the syringe aside, Sam grabbed Ruby’s knife and sliced it across his palm.
They knew the second the traps gave as a wave of malevolent shouting abruptly crushed inside the church. Sam grabbed him by the back of the neck, bloody hand about to close over his mouth, when Dean snatched his wrist away, held it back so the blood dripped onto his chest.
“Dean, what-”
“There’s one more-there has to be eight, right?”
“Dean, there’s no time-”
“Sam, when I got back from Purgatory, you were scared of me. I was angry-I was furious with you- and I scared the shit outta you, and I’m real sorry about that. I was angry at the wrong things and I’m sorry I scared you, Sam.”
Leaning down, Sam pressed a sloppy kiss to his mouth. He tasted like ozone. “It’s okay.” Another quick kiss. “It’s okay.”
Then Dean had a mouth full of blood and a hand covering half his face, cutting off all his air. He expected Sam to shout the words to the heavens, expected his voice to boom over those of the demons scrambling to reach them, but instead Sam leaned close and said them right into Dean’s ear, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus... Hanc animam redintegra... Lustratus... Lustratus”
Dean’s eyes widened and he choked on the liquid in his mouth when the demons swarmed over the pews and the first one reached for Sam.
His brother didn’t look away from him, his eyes like comets until some silent countdown inside him ended and they shrank to pin-pricks of light.
The air went perfectly still-a silent inhale-before exploding out from Sam’s body in a wave of cleansing fire.
The demons were incinerated on the spot, but it didn’t stop there. Sam arched above him, muscles seizing in a rictus of pain or ecstasy-Dean couldn’t tell which-the blaze of light around him so blindingly bright that Dean had to turn his face away.
A force crackled through him like a tide, sweeping everything ahead of it in a devastating flood of raw power. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t move but when Sam finally collapsed on top of him, it didn’t matter. Sam’s hand fell limp from his mouth and Dean blinked dazedly at the ceiling before slipping under.
End.