SD Minibang: God Save the Human Cannon Ball (Part III b)
December 13, 2012
The moment Sam's blood sizzled into the parchment and disappeared, Claire started looking for Castiel. She pictured throwing the gates open and shouting for him, as if her voice would help him to find his way out of Purgatory.
Sam said he had no idea how they'd know if the spell worked unless his brother and Cas just happened to show up with them in Jody's basement, so she decided she'd help by making her whereabouts obvious. An angel always knew where its vessel was.
And she'd be lying if she said part of her didn't want to feel that again-that burning wild brilliance filling her skin. Sam was getting his brother back and Claire... well, she was getting the closest thing she had to family. Castiel could never be her father, but he was kind of like a long-lost older brother. He would always love her in that odd way angels did-and he would always be a little clueless.
The fact that her real father had chosen to die for her and for Castiel made them both Jimmy's children. In a way. Castiel had learned much of what he knew about love and sacrifice from her father, and that made her proud.
Maybe ten minutes after Sam had worked the spell and was starting to look a little desperate, Claire called out again in her mind, imagined cupping her hands around her mouth and shouting.
And this time, she got an answer.
"Cover your eyes," she gasped aloud, and both Sam and Jody jumped. "He says to cover your eyes."
We're coming, boomed inside her skull a hundred times louder than when Castiel was trapped in purgatory.
It's about time, she replied.
~
Sam didn't quite cover his eyes, couldn't bear to miss a single second of what was about to happen. It'd taken him four months to work the spell Cas had given him; he wasn't about to turn away from the result.
So he saw Castiel blaze back into Claire, lighting her up from the inside, and, yeah, he suffered a slightly panicked moment of temporary blindness, but when he blinked again his brother was there, just across from him, like he'd never left.
Dean looked a little worse for wear-his clothes worn and dark with dirt, jaw covered in a thick beard, and his face visibly more gaunt underneath. But he was solid as always on his feet and glaring to cover up how surprised he was.
Dean was also looking everywhere but at Sam, eyes darting around the basement, landing only briefly on Jody, then the workbench with the parchment and the bowl of Sam's now-congealed blood. He might have cast a sidelong look at Sam, but Sam still had a few lens flares in his eyes so he couldn't be sure. When Dean turned to Cas and put his hand on Claire's shoulder, Sam felt it in his chest, like he'd been pierced somewhere and all his air was leaking out.
Dean wouldn't even look at him
"Did you ask first?" Dean demanded with that easy scolding tone of an older sibling.
Sam met Jody's eyes over Claire's head and she looked between him and his brother, confused. Sam chewed the inside of his lip and shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from grabbing for Dean.
"Of course I asked," Castiel answered in Claire's voice. It was deeper, smoother, not the voice of an 18-year-old girl, even though it was. Cas cleared his throat. "She's started smoking since I was last here."
"She's been through a lot," Jody snapped. "And you better not hurt her or I'll figure out a way to exorcise an angel, I swear to-whoever's still running this planet."
Castiel smiled in a way that Claire never had. It was small and private and turned inward, and Sam felt like it was actually for Claire. "I wouldn't hurt her. She said 'yes' so that I could say goodbye to you. My old vessel-did not make the trip back. And I'm returning to Heaven as soon as I...."
Sam watched Dean scrub his hand over his mouth-a gesture that was so familiar Sam had found himself doing it in his brother's absence. "Yeah, okay," Dean began, "don't make this any longer than it needs to be." Then he put his hand on the back of Claire's neck and kissed the crown of her head, patted her shoulder and said, "See ya, Cas."
Sam's throat seemed to be stuck around some immovable force so that when Claire stepped up to him and stuck out her hand, he could only take it and mutely nod.
"Thank you, Sam," Cas said. "Thank you for saving your brother so that I could hitch a ride."
Helpless to stop it, Sam's eyes lifted quickly to his brother and found him looking at the floor, rubbing the back of his neck. Somehow managing to clear his throat, Sam nodded. "Yeah. Thank you for telling me how."
Claire nodded, a very crisp, very Castiel-like nod. Maybe Purgatory had been good for settling the crazy Cas had taken with him. He seemed a lot less scattered than a few months ago.
With one more glance at Dean, Cas warned, "Cover your eyes."
And this time, Sam did, feeling light and heat flare against his skin before vanishing.
When it had gone, Sam lowered his hand to see Claire's knees wobble, but before she could fall, Jody caught her and held her up. "You all right, sweetheart?" she asked and Claire nodded.
Opening her eyes, they were dazed and calm, quiet. She smiled that same private smile. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. He was just-he was telling me about my father's Heaven." Her smile widened. "I invited him back for Christmas." Finally, she looked first at Dean, then Sam. "You smell like shit," she said to Dean, wrinkling her nose. "Really-like animal shit."
Lifting his sleeve, Dean took a tentative sniff. "Yeah, well, do monsters poop in the woods?" At Claire's blank look, Dean offered a tired grin. "The answer's 'yes.' They do, actually. And smearing it on me kept them off my scent, so." He puffed up his chest a little. "This stench? Is the mark of a great hunter."
Sam had the feeling that the shit-crusted coat was in fact the only thing holding his brother together.
Claire nodded, obviously humoring him, and Jody cleared her throat. "You do still want to shower, though, right? Oh, mighty hunter?"
Dean's eyes cut to his for the first time and something inside Sam loosened. He reached for Dean just as his brother sagged, an exhausted "God, yes," slipping out of him as he let Sam lead the way upstairs.
~
Dean wouldn't let him sit on the closed toilet lid while he shaved and showered, so Sam waited out in the living room with Jody's blowup mattress and some infomercial for knives on the TV. They'd still hardly said a word to each other and, as the minutes ticked by and Dean didn't come out, Sam considered busting in anyway, if for no other reason than to make sure he hadn’t somehow disappeared again.
But finally he heard the door open down the hall and felt the cloud of steam as it rolled out with his brother. When Dean stepped into the living room, clean-shaven and dressed in the t-shirt and sweats Sam had handed him, Sam stood up from the couch but got no further. He could only really stare as his brother shuffled toward him, still baffled by the fact of Dean after so many months of absence.
Over the t-shirt, Dean had on one of Sam's unzipped hoodies, and the sleeves were long enough that they almost covered his hands, hiding most of his torso in shapeless bulk. It wasn't even chilly in Jody's house.
Looking out of place and decidedly uncomfortable, Dean lowered himself to the air mattress, knees popping, exhaling a grunt.
"You, uh, you need anything?" Sam asked.
"Nah, I'm good. Thanks."
"You feelin' all right?"
"Yeah, Sammy."
"You wanna.... Are you ever gonna talk to me again, or is-is this what we're doing from here on out? I gotta say, I'd really rather not. I don't-I can't do the secretive bury-your-problems-behind-a-good-game-face thing because I haven't had one of those in a while. And I really don't wanna have to dredge one up to make this work, so-"
"It's okay, Sam," Dean rumbled, holding a hand out to stop him talking. "Sorry, there's just-there's something I need to tell you about that spell you worked and I don't want you to flip out, so I'm. I'm just tryin' to get my head straight is all."
Dropping down onto the couch, Sam almost brained Dean with his knee. "Shit, did it not work right? Did I do part of it wrong? Jesus, why didn't you say something when you got back?" Sam looked him over with a panicky feeling in his gut. Nothing seemed wrong but the sweatshirt was so baggy he couldn't really tell.
Dean huffed a laugh and rubbed his hand over his mouth again. "No, it's-I'm all here, if that's what you're worried about. Nothin' left behind except Cas' old vessel-and there was no saving that." He shivered at some unpleasant memory and looked up at Sam. "But that spell, it-well, it left a mark."
With a sick sense of dread, Sam watched his brother pull up the sleeve of his left arm to reveal lines of writing tattooed right into his skin. Leaning across the couch, Sam turned on the lamp to get a better look. The ink was the color of rust, of dried blood. "Oh my God," he said, taking hold of Dean's wrist and turning it so he could see the words on the pale underside of his forearm.
They were the very words he'd written in his own blood. Sam flushed so hot he couldn't even look at his brother. "Dean-I'm sorry, I didn't know. I didn't know you'd see that."
"How could you?" Dean said, voice soothing and low. "Wasn't like I could talk to you. And it worked, what you did, so you got no reason to be sorry. These saved my life, Sam."
Nodding, he dazedly ran his fingers over the words. The letters were raised a bit but still smooth to the touch, an exact copy of his handwriting. "This was the first one. I wrote it in this same spot on myself. Did it hurt?" Finally he glanced up, meeting Dean's eyes. They were dark in the dim light, dark and hard to read.
He shrugged. "I'm not even sure I know what constitutes pain anymore, but it burned like a tattoo, only more."
"Cas said to do the rest on parchment, so did they not-do this?"
Dean hesitated. "The parchment was neater, but...."
"There's more," Sam said, heart sinking.
"Yeah, there's more."
"Can I, uh. Can I see 'em?"
Nodding without hesitation, Dean shrugged out of Sam's hoodie. "Didn't know how I was gonna keep'em hidden so I thought it'd be better if I just...."
"Yeah."
There were no more visible tattoos on Dean's arms, but when he grabbed the collar of his t-shirt and pulled it over his head, Sam inhaled sharply at the writing that crawled up Dean's stomach. Squinting, Sam's hand hovered over Dean's ribs. His eye caught on the word 'hunger' and he read a few lines about the time Dean stole a car and stole dinner for Sam even though he went hungry.
Eyes lifting to Dean's chest, he found writing over Dean's heart, circling neatly around the anti-possession charm. He traced the words that described Dean's secret collection of their mother's cassette tapes, and the night he'd given up a memory of his own short childhood to make Sam happy.
"So when these showed up, what happened?" he asked, keeping his voice low. When he smudged his thumb over a few of the words, Dean leaned into him a little, like he'd been starved for touch these last six months. And really, it'd been years since Sam had been this close to him. Hell, betrayal, distrust, and insanity had kept them at least at arm's distance. That all seemed stupid, now, after half a year of absence.
Dean ran a hand over the writing on his belly. "Well, uh, it burned like a bitch, but then, when Dick Roman, minus the man-suit, called me up for some payback, his teeth went right through me. None of the Leviathan could hurt me. That was the first one, this one," he said, wrapping his hand around his wrist.
"And the Leviathan fear being eaten themselves. It's the only thing they fear. So what I wrote about you, about you not being afraid-it protected you."
Dean nodded. "Then the next was for the hungry ones-the vamps, Wendigo. That one was clutch. 90% of Purgatory is hungry for Long Pig, FYI." He put his hand back across his stomach. "When this showed up, I got... it was like I'd turned into a spirit myself."
"Like you were partway out, back to this world."
"Yeah. Cas wasn't so lucky, though. Tried to keep 'em off me until you came through with the blood mojo. His vessel, uh, didn't hold up after awhile, so he eventually left it, started walkin' around in his real skin, which, you should know, isn't actually skin."
Sam nodded, still captivated by the writing scrawled all over his brother's skin. He counted three of the four offerings he'd written, but couldn't see a fourth. "Hey, shouldn't there be one more-for the restless spirits, the ones who fear death?"
"Yeah, that's, uh-" Shifting on the mattress, he half-turned to show Sam.
At the sight of Dean's back, Sam sucked in a quiet breath and knelt down with him on the mattress. Dean bounced awkwardly as Sam's knees displaced a bunch of air, but then they settled and Sam got a good look.
Dean's back was covered-from the base of his skull all the way down to the top of his ass. And the scarring was fresh, inflamed and angry. It looked clean but painful and Sam hissed in sympathy.
"Musta been one hell of a story," Dean said. "Burned like crazy goin' on-felt like I was just paper burnin' up, hot and quick. Then Cas grabbed on and I was here."
Sam gently touched his brother's shoulder, flinched back when Dean tensed. "Would some ice help? Or a wet paper towel or something?"
"Yeah, Sammy, the wet paper towel-thanks," he said as Sam managed to lever himself up from the mattress. In the kitchen, Sam tore off half the roll, enough to cover Dean's back several times over, and ran it under cold water.
"You want a beer?" he called quietly.
"Uh-no, better not. Not tonight."
Sam nodded, relieved despite his fondness for sharing a celebratory drink with his brother. Before Dean had disappeared, none of the drinking he'd been doing had been celebratory.
Returning to the living room, he knelt down and spread the paper towels down his brother's back. Dean sighed and sagged forward, putting his elbows on his knees. "Goddamn, that feels good."
"I'll go to CVS tomorrow and get some antibiotic cream-I don't think the first aid kit's gonna cover this."
"Yeah, dude, what'd you put back there, anyway? It felt like a freakin' novel."
Flushing again, Sam shrugged. "If I'd known, I wouldn't have-"
"Hey, that wasn't a shot at you or what you did for me. I can't see back there, so what'd you write? Better be somethin' good."
"Dean, it all had to be good-more than good. You spent your whole life looking after me; I had to make it count." He hesitated. "Plus, I didn't really have anything else to do while I waited for the next new moon. Remembering when we were kids, remembering what we went through together.... It felt good to think about what you'd done for me, felt good to finally do something for you for a change."
"So basically, I have Samantha Winchester's diary tattooed on my back. Awesome." Dean's words had absolutely no heat to them; he was barely even teasing.
"No, you have the kickass account of when you almost got beaten to death by Malakai Barnes, and I nearly had a heart attack trying to get to you."
He could hear Dean's grin. "Damn, that is a good one. And that Janet chick was sexy as hell, remember?"
Sam snorted and the silence that followed was heavy, thick with whatever Dean was about to say.
Finally, he took a breath, though he didn't turn around to look Sam in the eye. "So, uh, what do these say? I didn't-I didn't get the chance really to read any of 'em besides the one on my arm."
"Really? You had two months for the middle ones."
"Yeah, well they were upside down, and it's not easy to read upside down in the dark and it was always fucking dark in Purgatory. And, I tried not to make a habit of being shirtless there, either."
"What about Cas? He could have read 'em to you," Sam pushed, feeling a little punchy.
"I didn't-think it was any of his business what they said. Thought they were for me, for you and me."
Sam sagged forward, rested his forehead against the back of Dean's neck, just above where the words started. "Would you want me to read some to you?" he asked.
Dean leaned into him and they both exhaled. "Yeah, Sammy. I would."
Final note: If you haven't already, head on over to petite_madame's art post for extra goodies not included here!