Supernatural: Perpetual Motion [part 3/3]
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Six people are dead by the time Dean pulls the Impala into park in front of their old house. Sam and Dean check in on Jenny and the kids, make sure the house is as well-protected from vamps as possible, and get all the information they can from her before they look into the case themselves. She doesn’t know much that isn’t readily available in the papers, but she’s done her best at gathering what she thinks will help them and she saves them an hour or two of research, which is never a bad thing. Before they leave, she hands them a list of the deceased-five names that mean nothing and one that definitely does.
“It’s not,” Dean says, before Sam even gets to ask if Dean thinks maybe it is. He follows his brother into the car and double checks the list, just to make sure he’s not hallucinating.
“Dean, it has to be. How many Winchesters can there possibly be in a town this size?”
“If we still had family living here, don’t you think Dad just might have mentioned them? Or, I dunno, introduced us a few times? It’s not like he was swarming with people to watch us, he could have used the help.”
“I mean…this is Dad we’re talking about, right? There could be a million reasons he wouldn’t have told us. Maybe they didn’t believe his story after Mom died, thought he was crazy. Maybe he couldn’t stand coming back here. Or maybe he just pissed them off-he wasn’t exactly great at keeping contacts, you know that as well as I do.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. If they hated him that much, they won’t want to see us.”
“Aren’t you even a little curious?”
“Not really. I’ve had it with that shit, Sam. All we ever bring our family is problems. You saw what happened to Adam and you know the whole miserable saga of our lives started because I met Mom’s parents. Besides, who says we want to know them? You didn’t have to deal with her dad. Guy was a dick.”
“It must skip a generation,” Sam says speculatively, earning a punch in the side.
“That’s you, too, genius.” Sam shrugs and Dean continues, “I mean it, man. This is our family: you and me. There’s no point poking around at strangers just because they share our last name.”
“So, what? You want to skip one of the three witnesses who might possibly have some helpful information? Because only two of these people has a spouse we can question, and you’re trying to dismiss one of them.”
“Give me a day to try to find the nest without staging a family reunion, alright?”
Sam rolls his eyes but agrees.
_______________________________________________________________
In the end, all of Dean’s leads leave a dead end and they have no choice but to walk up to the house of Betty Winchester, recently widowed wife of Earl Winchester.
An old lady opens the door, smiles a dim but sweet smile at them, all the while looking terribly confused.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
“Are you Mrs. Betty Winchester?”
She looks up at Sam and nods.
“We’re here from the sheriff’s department. Just wanted to follow up, ask a few questions about your husband.”
She opens up and welcomes them in. Dean freezes in the doorway and Sam sees him look around with his mouth slightly open for a second or two.
“What’s up? Everything alright?”
“Yeah, I. I think,” Dean bites his lip. “Would you believe me if I told you this place smells familiar?”
“Uh, yeah since she’s probably our-”
“Grandma,” Dean says, whispering for reasons that are beyond Sam entirely. “She’s our grandma. She used to make gingerbread cookies and Grandpa used to sleep in that chair and he never once realized he was watching static instead of television.”
Sam brushes the back of Dean’s hand with his fingertips. “You gonna be okay here? Do you wanna leave?”
Dean shakes his head, then pulls a face. “Shit, Sam, she’s like 90 years old, I’m not exactly scared of her.”
Sam shoves at his brother and turns down the hall, catching up to the old lady-their grandmother-before she’s even realized they hadn’t been following.
“-have much to offer but if you boys are planning to stay I could put some tea on. Or make sandwiches.”
“Oh, no, that’s fine. We were just hoping you could tell us anything you know about-”
“My husband, I know.”
“I’m sorry if this is a sensitive subject, ma’am. I know you already went through it with the police, I promise this is the last time you’ll be asked to relive it.”
“I understand. Besides, it’s nice to have the company.” She frowns. “Haven’t been alone in ages and now…well, anyway, what did you want to know?”
Sam leads the questioning and, for the first time he can remember, Dean sits completely quiet. He looks faraway for most of the conversation and a bit more like a kid than Sam is comfortable with. He’s about to wrap up questioning when Dean seems to remember where he is, but when he finally asks a question, it’s not related to the case at all, not something Sam would ever have expected Dean to ask after two days of railing against visiting this house.
“Are you by any chance related to John Winchester?”
Betty’s face lights up, she turns to look at Dean like he’s the first decent thing she’s seen in decades. “Do you know my John? Have you heard from him?”
Dean bites his lip. “Yeah, I know John.”
“John was my little boy,” she says warmly. Her brow creases and she tilts her head. “Were you one of his army friends? He’s a few years older than you, I think.”
She looks lost enough, so neither Sam nor Dean chooses to correct her miscalculation. “Yeah, we did some fighting with him. Good guy.”
“He is, my John. Where is he? Is he okay?” She doesn’t ask if he’s coming home, Sam thinks she’s still sharp enough to know better.
“He’s great,” Sam answers, hoping it’s true. “He’s with Mary now, they’re very happy.”
Betty’s smile widens. “I always did like that girl. For some reason I thought she’d…” Betty shakes her head, as if to clear it. “But then, I must have just been confusing her with someone else. It’s been a long time since I saw them, you know. He moved, I think. I must have lost their new address. I remember him giving it to me.”
Sam swallows and sends Dean an uneasy look, which he mirrors right back at Sam. She stays quiet for a long time, until Dean stands and announces that they should go in a shaky voice. He hardly gets a chance to push his chair under the table before she takes his hand and squeezes it.
“How…how are the babies?”
Dean’s eyes go wide, sad. Sam steps between them, gives her a reassuring pat on her shoulder. “They’re really good,” he promises. “They’re growing up really happy.”
“I knew it,” she says with conviction. “John was always the best father to them.”
Sam and Dean exchange looks and say nothing. Sam gives her a hug before they leave, which seems to take her by surprise, but she does her best to wrap her frail arms around him in return. Dean mimics the action, holds it for a while longer, and makes that face Dean almost never lets himself make, heartbreaking and vulnerable and adoring. Sam can hardly wait until they’re outside to give him a quick, intimate kiss, which Dean pushes away after a few seconds, feigning annoyance.
Sam hadn’t expected to get much out of Betty in the way of useful information, but in the end she’s all they need to find the nest and shut it down. A few careful questions about where their grandfather’s body was found sends them to a barn about fifteen miles from town. It’s been abandoned for thirty years, but Betty had grown up around it and could still remember how to get there, even though she could no longer remember how old her son was supposed to be or how he’d really walked out of her life. Sam is happy to see that she’s got some semblance of peace left now that everything else has been taken from her.
They take out the vampires before the sun sets and don’t bother stopping for the night. They both feel a little lighter once they leave their hometown in the rearview mirror, right where it’s always been.
_______________________________________________________________
Dean keeps driving until the entire state of Kansas is once again a bad memory, pulls into the first motel they see after passing the “Greetings from Nebraska” sign on the way to Bobby’s.
They’re both exhausted from the hunt, but they hardly send so much as a longing glance in the direction of the beds until they’ve looked into things a little closer. Their suspicions are confirmed though, whatever Raphael’s doing this time around, it must be frustrating the crap out of him, because it’s not exactly effective so far.
Five freak attacks have happened around people Sam and Dean once saved since they’d started using Castiel’s ritual to ward off angel attacks. Three were taken care of by other hunters and reported back to Bobby: more werewolves in San Francisco, ghouls poking around a family that Dean had done a salt and burn for while Sam was in college, and a pagan god even tried to go after Rufus Turner. Another case was taken out by the intended victim-Dean isn’t exactly surprised to hear that girl they’d met all those years back in that asylum was still trigger happy enough to take care of herself. The last case is still open, yet another shifter in Milwaukee, and they decide to head for that one in the morning instead of Bobby’s-which isn’t really much of a detour thanks to Sam’s…whatever he’s got going on now.
Once they’ve gotten that figured out, Dean is ready to hit the sack, but Sam picks up his cell and dials Castiel without even giving Dean a heads up. Sam hardly tells him to get his ass out of Heaven before the angel is standing right next to Dean staring at him in that weird, unblinking way that always unsettles him.
“Uh, hey Cas,” Dean says, attempting to keep up with whatever’s going on.
“Hello, Dean.”
Sam points at the research they have laid out on the table, his face a perfect imitation of a stern mother from some black and white show on Nick at Nite. “Explain this.”
“Raphael is attempting to continue his assault by enlisting supernatural creatures.”
“Right, yeah, we got that part. We got that part now. You know what would have helped us get it a lot sooner? If you’d told us.”
“I apologize; I did not wish to interrupt your fornication.”
Dean snickers. “Uh, thanks, man.”
Sam turns his glare in Dean’s direction. “Is this funny? Are we laughing here? Because I don’t see the humor.”
“That is because you are a tight ass,” Castiel says blandly.
Sam and Dean both turn to look at him.
“What? Is that wrong? Dean is always saying it. I was sure my interpretation of the phrase was correct.”
True to form, Sam huffs. Dean decides to give him a bit of a break, especially since he actually does have a point hidden under all those nostril flares.
“Alright, Cas, we really appreciate you not popping in to let us know you’re watching us fuck, but in the future, this kind of thing is pretty important to us. So, a phone call to let us know? That would be great.”
“Understood.”
“Why aren’t you doing anything about this?” Sam asks, still wound up.
Dean doesn’t get it. Nobody’s died this way, not yet at least, and it’s a huge improvement to what was going on before the ritual-which is mostly thanks to Castiel. Nevertheless, Sam looks more on edge than he has since that first round of deaths started up, riled enough to scare Dean.
“Sammy, calm down, he said he was sorr-”
“This is your problem, too, you know. You’re supposed to keep the angels in line. All of them. You should be stopping him.”
“I understand that you are not truly upset with me, Samuel. You may continue to scream at me if it will help.”
Dean lifts an eyebrow.
“It’s called ‘venting’,” Castiel says helpfully. “The messiah explained it to me just last week.”
“What, are you and Jesus BFFs now or something?”
“I have been spending much of my time with him. I believe I have almost talked him out of Judgment Day.”
“Wait, what? I thought we…I thought Sam took care of that.”
“He ended the Apocalypse, but the messiah still saw the Last Judgment as his sacred duty. I believe he was very bored. I explained that he would be better off staying in Heaven and helping out with the angels. He has not told me for certain that he will not return to Earth, but he tires of labor easily. I do not think we have to worry about it at present.”
“Right, of course. Jesus is a chill dude. I can dig it.”
“Do you guys think we could focus on the situation here for a second?”
“Cas is right, you are a tight ass.”
“You’re one to talk,” Sam shoots back and, even though he manages to bite back on the smirk, Dean can see the effort.
“Not in front of the angel, Sammy.”
“I am not concerned that you are sodomites,” Castiel says.
“Thanks, Cas, that’s very gracious of you,” Sam replies. “My question still stands. Why is he getting away with this? How is he controlling these monsters? Why aren’t you helping us stop him permanently?”
“I have told you before, I cannot find him. I do not know how he is convincing them to do as he asks; I have not exactly had an opportunity to question him. He remains elusive and too powerful to control. I will do what I can once we have found him, but I am not strong enough to stop him alone. Sam, I know that you understand what must be done, your anger is very communicative.”
Sam kicks the back of the chair he’s standing behind.
“We need to talk,” he says, eyes meeting Castiel’s. “Outside.”
Castiel disappears then, but Sam makes a point of following him out on foot. It bothers Dean to know that this is not what the angel had been expecting.
Dean gets that Sam’s trusting him to stay inside, but he’s only human, so he waits all of twenty seconds before sneaking out and finding a place that’s close enough to the door for him to hear what Sam and Castiel are saying without Sam beating him back to the room.
At first they stand in complete silence, Sam is poised for a fight and Castiel even looks a little nervous.
“You will need to talk if you want to have a conversation. I cannot read your mind, Samuel.”
“Don’t call me that. You make it sound like I’m an…”
“You are an angel now.”
“I’m human,” Sam says defensively.
“That is true as well.”
“Look, this Raphael thing you keep hinting at-if I do it, can I go back to normal after?”
“This is not like the blood. It will not leave your system if you use it too much. It will get stronger.”
“No, I know that. I mean…can I…”
“Sam.”
“I can rip it out, right?”
“It is not possible.”
“Why?”
“You are not fully an angel, you said it yourself. The Grace is scattered. There is no way to fall and you know you cannot tear it away.”
“I can’t or you don’t think I should?”
“You would be reborn, like Anna was. Dean would lose you again. You would no longer be his brother.”
“I’m not his brother now,” Sam says hotly. “At least then…he would find me. He would take care of me and I wouldn’t be…”
“You are not Lucifer, Sam. This came from God.”
“Really not as much a comfort for me as it is for you.”
“I am sorry I cannot tell you anything reassuring. I will not help you destroy yourself, not even if you refuse to stop Raphael until I do. Your brother would thank me.”
“Leave him out of this.”
“You are not leaving him out of it, why should I?”
“Because you don’t have to see how scared he is of this. You don’t have to worry that he hates you. I have, every day since I found out about the demon blood, and now it’s even worse.”
“Dean Winchester is not afraid of you. He does not hate you. I do not know very much about humans, but I know that.”
Sam begins to say something, but there’s a flutter of wings and Dean doesn’t have to check to know that Sam is alone now. He makes for the room as quickly as he can without getting caught and is in bed before Sam comes back, which isn’t until a good twenty minutes after Castiel leaves.
Dean’s still awake when Sam does return-he’s not exactly relaxed after what he just heard, especially not without his brother next to him. He hears Sam close the door softly behind him and then feels the bed shift as Sam sits down on his side. Dean can feel the tension oozing off him, but he doesn’t move until Sam does.
Sam reaches out slowly, letting his fingers curve around Dean’s bicep.
“Hey,” Dean says.
“Hey.”
“Everything alright?”
Sam lets out a deep breath and stops to consider how to reply. Dean’s offset by how suspicious he isn’t and feels a hot rush of guilt for listening in.
“I don’t know,” he finally replies. “I don’t think so.”
“What’s wrong, Sammy?”
“I thought maybe…it was stupid,” he shrugs, “I wanted Cas to, you know. I thought maybe I didn’t have to be a monster, but-”
Dean sits up. “You’re not a monster. Don’t you say that, not ever.”
“What am I then?”
Dean leans in closer, brushes the hair on Sam’s neck away so his lips can meet hot flesh as he whispers, “You’re my brother. That’s more important than blood or Grace, okay? Whatever else you are, nothing can change that you’re mine.”
Sam turns and kisses Dean, finally brings his legs up onto the bed as he does it. Dean smiles and pulls away, pushing Sam until he’s resting on his back.
He starts to undo Sam’s jeans then and tugs them down, taking Sam’s boxers with them.
“Aren’t you a little tired for-?” Sam asks, almost playfully, as Dean reaches for his bag and gets out a bottle of lube.
“Quiet!” Dean says. “I’m distracting you.”
Sam smiles and closes his eyes and Dean gets his fingers wet. He works one in slowly, taking his time. There’s no real intention behind this. Dean hasn’t fucked Sam yet, and he doesn’t plan to until Sam brings it up. He goes slow, savoring the feel of his brother opening up for him, of being able to touch Sam like this. He pauses to work another finger in and Sam’s breath catches, Dean presses as far as his fingers will go until he finds Sam’s prostate.
Out of nowhere, Sam covers his eyes with the back of his arm and lets out a laugh. Dean pauses.
“I’ll be honest; you laughing right now is kind of bruising my ego.”
Sam smiles wider, doesn’t move his arm, so Dean only knows he’s shaking his head from the way his body moves. “No, it’s just…you are the best big brother ever.”
Dean chuckles and fucks his fingers into Sam again. “Damn right I am.”
He keeps going for a long time and even though Sam lets out soft, satisfied moans every now and then, Dean can tell he’s not quite focusing on what’s going on. He’s about to up his game, wrap his lips around Sam and make damn sure he takes whatever thoughts are still rattling in his little brother’s brain out through the mouth, but Sam stops him with a hand in his hair.
Dean sits up and pulls his fingers out of Sam, which Sam at least doesn’t seem too happy about.
“Let me guess, you have a headache. It’s that time of the month?”
“Lisa give you those a lot?”
“Fuck off,” Dean says, pushing at Sam’s shoulder with a messy hand.
“Gross.” Sam’s face goes sour and Dean throws his arms up in victory.
Dean pulls up, sitting against the headboard next to his brother. “You suck at being distracted.”
“I’m sorry. I really just can’t tonight.”
“That’s fine, but you shouldn’t let this get to you anyway.”
“Is it getting to you?” he asks, turning to Dean.
Dean shakes his head. “I’ll admit it weirded me out at first. It doesn’t anymore. Sammy, I’m fine with this. It doesn’t bother me.”
“It should, Dean. It’s the devil. Actually, literally the devil. Inside me. And it’s never going to go away now. You’re always going to have to live with that and keep pretending you don’t hate it. You shouldn’t have to do that.”
“Fuck, will you listen to me? I am not pretending anything, Sam. It’s a part of you and I…” Dean swallows hard. “I want you like this.”
“Only because you have to. But if you weren’t stuck with it? With me?”
Dean briefly considers and dismisses the idea of throttling Sam until he gets his message across, and then he thinks of something that’s much more his style than sitting up all night trying to talk it out.
“Use them on me,” he says, voice low and damn near begging.
“What?”
Dean pulls his shirt over his head and leans in to kiss Sam. “You can do whatever you want to me. However you want me. But I want you to use them on me.”
“No. No way.”
Dean smirks and presses his lips back to Sam’s, grabbing up the lube and pushing it into his brother’s hands at the same time. “I can hear how bad you need it, you know.”
“You sure that’s what you want, Dean?”
Dean glares and Sam licks his lips, thinks it over for a few seconds before giving in.
“Take off your pants.”
Dean does as he’s told while Sam pulls off his shirt and looks at Dean with dark eyes. Dean is about to say something about how long he’s taking when he feels his body tugged down into the bed. Just like that, Dean can’t move his hands or feet, they’re weighed down to the mattress as if he’s tied there and he should probably be scared, but most of him is burning just from feeling how strong Sam is. Sam smiles at him from the end of the bed: he isn’t touching Dean at all, but Dean can feel him everywhere.
“You gonna fuck me, Sammy?” Dean asks.
“Close your eyes,” Sam instructs. Dean thinks of not doing it just to make Sam do it for him, but he decides not to risk asking for too much at once. He feels the bed moving as Sam gets ready, but he doesn’t touch Dean for several minutes.
“Dude, this year.”
Dean feels something slip over his dick and can’t help the way his head shoots up and his eyes flicker open again. “Sam?”
Sam’s got Dean covered with a condom and is dripping lube onto his fingers, he looks at Dean-Dean can practically read what he’s thinking.
“You never…I never…shit, Sammy.”
“Mmm,” Sam agrees, slicking Dean up. “Gonna fuck you alright, Dean. Gonna fuck myself on that big cock.”
Dean thrusts up and Sam makes a tsking noise. “None of that now,” he says. Dean feels his hips suddenly pressed into the mattress, like the rest of him. “I’m gonna take care of that for you.”
He can’t move anything but his head anymore, but he can lift it enough to get a good show as Sam positions himself right over him.
“Sam, please.”
Sam hesitates. His voice trembles when he speaks again, despite how in control he’d sounded a few moments earlier. “You sure this is what you want, Dean?”
“This? No. For you to get on with it? That would be great.”
Sam takes a deep breath and Dean watches Sam spread himself as wide as he can before sinking down and impaling himself on Dean’s cock.
They both cry out as soon as Dean’s dick breaches the tight ring of muscles, but Sam keeps moving down until Dean is all the way inside of him and Sam’s practically sitting on his lap.
He takes a few seconds to breath before pulling up and then dropping his hips again. Dean distantly acknowledges that it must be hell on Sam’s muscles to get fucked like this, but Sam doesn’t seem to mind, and Dean doesn’t even give a shit if that has something to do with his Grace anymore-he’s a fan of anything that makes this possible.
Dean should be thrashing under Sam, would be bruising his wrists on the binds if they were real, but Sam holds him down without allowing movement or giving Dean a chance to hurt himself. He fights the hold just so Sam will keep him in place, he feels safer than he ever has, even though he’s completely at Sam’s mercy.
Sam supports himself on both arms until he’s got a steady rhythm going and then he picks one hand up, begins to move it on his chest, touching himself everywhere but where it should count. The limited view Dean has of his brother’s face is blissed out, gorgeous. Oddly enough, considering that Dean’s never fucked Sam, he can’t help feeling like there’s something familiar about it. He watches Sam’s hands roving over tan skin for a little while longer before it hits him why-before he puts it together that the way Sam rolls his body and moves his hands is studied and that, whether Sam’s done this before or not, he learned how to ride a cock watching the girls Dean used to fuck before he ever realized Sam might be paying attention.
He groans, “Sam, you little slut.”
Sam turns into a lopsided kiss and then grinds down on him hard, as if to prove Dean’s point. Dean comes so fast and so hard he hardly realizes it’s happening until Sam’s falling off him and landing on the empty side of the bed.
“Oww,” he says, rubbing at his arm and breathing hard.
“Not finished yet,” Dean says. “Want you.”
Sam smiles and kisses Dean, pushing his tongue deep until Dean opens up to him and returns it, kissing hard. When Sam pulls away, there’s no lack of confidence or hesitance left in his features and he doesn’t ask Dean’s permission before his mouth is forced open and Sam is moving up the bed. He grabs the headboard with one hand and wraps the other one around the back of Dean’s head and begins to push his cock into Dean’s mouth impatiently.
Dean moans around it, still can’t move anything but his head, which is restrained to doing as Sam’s hands tell him. He tries to keep up, suck his brother the way he knows Sam likes it, but mostly it’s all he can do to focus on not letting himself gag. He happily ignores the welling in his eyes, the ache in his jaw, and the spit that slides down his chin.
“Dean, fuck. Dean.”
Sam lets go of his grip on Dean then, grabs the bed with both hands as if he’s hanging on for dear life. His thrusts speed up and Dean doesn’t even bother trying to take control of the situation.
Sam pulls out a moment before losing it. Dean can almost hear his teasing, little brother taunt asking Who’s the slut now? as he spills onto Dean’s face.
Dean’s muscles all relax very suddenly when Sam lets go of him and he drags them all in on instinct once he’s able to break away from the vulnerable, spread out position Sam had him in. Sam gets out of bed and returns with a warm washcloth, cleans Dean off with a cheeky grin.
“You’re so smug,” Dean says, once he’s clean of Sam’s jizz and feeling slightly more dignified.
“I’m so tired,” Sam corrects. He’s still wiping at Dean with the cloth gently, even though Dean’s pretty sure he’s clean by now, and Dean figures there’s no reason he shouldn’t close his eyes and lean into his brother’s tender touches.
When Sam is done, Dean turns over so Sam can wrap an arm around him and draw Dean’s back into his chest. Dean forgets that they have a long day of hard work ahead of them tomorrow, relaxes, and drifts into the kind of sleep Dean didn’t used to believe in.
_______________________________________________________________
Sam wakes with the kind of bubbly overoptimistic outlook that life experience really should have taught him not to trust years ago. Knowing this, he still finds himself incapable of doubting it, or himself, or anything, and he shakes Dean awake immediately to share the feeling.
“Good morning!” he says once Dean’s looking up at him.
“Go away,” Dean replies, blinking sleepily.
“Up, up, up, up, up, up.”
Dean slaps lazily at the air in Sam’s general direction, but doesn’t bother opening his eyes long enough to land a hit.
“I’m serious, Dean.”
Deans sits up then, rubs sleep out of his eyes and yawns, stretching contentedly and generally doing everything possible to look like an overgrown child. Sam’s heart swells in his chest and he must be making one hell of a goofy face because as soon as Dean is cognizant enough to take it in, he aims of those “what the fuck is wrong with you?” looks at him.
“What crawled up your ass and made you a pleasant person?” Dean asks, following it up with his prize smirk.
“Yeah, yeah, congratulations, it was you. I’m sure you’re very proud of yourself.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you,” he says, as if he’s doing Sam a favor by acknowledging his existence. Sam rolls his eyes and somehow manages not to smile.
“So, guess what we’re going to do today.”
“I don’t know, Brain. The same thing we do every day?”
Sam smacks his brother’s chest. “We’re gonna kill an archangel.”
Dean’s eyes widen. “Jesus. How long did I sleep?”
“You didn’t miss anything, don’t worry. We’re still just as clueless as we were last night.”
Dean visibly relaxes, then goes tense again. “Okay,” he says, dragging the word on. “So we’re going to kill an archangel today how again?”
“We just…are,” Sam says, not even realizing how ridiculous it sounds until he sees Dean’s reaction. “I mean, I’m going to…you know how.”
“Yeah, no, you don’t need to go to Stanford to pick up on those context clues, kid. I get how you’re going to do it, but last time I checked he was resisting all our attempts to summon him and we had exactly zero leads on how to find his ass.”
“Right, that is a problem,” Sam admits. “Dude, you better think of some way to corner him. We’re burning daylight.”
Sam ignores the glare Dean levels at him and gets out of bed with a springy step, heading for the bathroom and a quick shower. By the time he gets out, Dean is back in bed hiding under a mountain of covers, but there’s breakfast on the table for Sam. Sam sits down to eat and watches his brother begin fighting with no one over the covers.
“Give ‘em back, it’s cold.”
“I told you it’s time to get up.”
Dean tugs violently as Sam shovels a forkful of eggs into his mouth nonchalantly.
“You can’t do this, man. It’s not cool. You should at least have to try to ruin my morning.”
Sam shrugs, takes a sip of orange juice as Dean begins to lift off the bed, still trying to hold on while the comforter floats to the ceiling.
“With great power,” Dean begins grandly, “comes great respo-”
Dean’s voice cuts off just as his head hits the ceiling and he lets go of the blankets, falling to the bed with an annoyed shout.
“Oops,” Sam says. Dean’s hand lifts from the pile of disrupted sheets and limbs on the bed, flipping him the middle finger.
He finally stumbles out of bed a few minutes later and falls into the seat across from Sam’s with exaggerated fatigue. “I’ll have you know I was thinking very hard before you decided to come along.”
“You didn’t hurt something, did you?”
“I have an idea, you little shit.” Sam feels a piece of his own toast hit him in the face. He looks down at where it landed in his lap, shrugs, and pops it into his mouth.
“What’s your idea?”
“You’re going to think it sounds crazy.”
“I just bumped your head on a ceiling without moving a finger. I think I can keep up.”
“Okay, so Raphael is using the monsters to get to us now, right?”
“Right.”
“Monsters aren’t on angel radio. Most of them don’t sleep, so he can’t be talking to them through dreams. He must be communicating with them directly.”
“Sure, yeah.”
“So, we find some monsters and use them to get in touch with him, gank him, and then I’m thinking lunch.”
“Sounds perfect. You know many monsters who want to do us favors, Dean?”
“There’s bound to be something. Someone. Whatever.”
“Last time I checked, we’re not really on friendly terms with any.”
“What about that vampire chick, the one who didn’t eat people?”
Sam frowns. “Gordon found her before he…”
“Oh.”
“That reaper you were friends with?”
“We are not pushing our luck by inviting reapers to hang out, Sammy.”
“I see your point.”
“You think Crowley might-”
Sam shuts Dean up with a glare.
“Wait, what about those shifters we met in South Dakota?”
“You threatened to shoot them, Dean. I’m pretty sure I pointed a gun at their baby at one point.”
“Details.”
“Details are kind of important.”
“Nah. They’ll help us. We didn’t shoot them, right? And they’ll want us to stop him if they’re as innocent as they said. And if not, well, I’ll be packing, don’t you worry your gigantic head about that.”
“They won’t-”
“You find them. I’ll talk them around. And if they still refuse, I’ll see to it that it’s made up to you and we’ll go back to the drawing board. No harm trying, right?”
“I guess.”
Dean smiles, cups his fingers around Sam’s neck and presses his forehead against Sam’s.
“Find them for me,” he says.
Sam can’t say no to the soft words and softer touch. Dean gives him a command-Sam obeys it like an angel would: unquestioning resolve that makes finding the shifters almost too easy.
_______________________________________________________________
“You could have at least brought my car,” Dean grumbles as they approach an unimposing cottage somewhere in the Midwest.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Was the fact that I got you across the country in five minutes horribly inconvenient for you?”
Dean pointedly ignores Sam’s question as he knocks sharply at the door.
The guy, Tim, Dean thinks his name was, opens up, sees who it is, and swiftly begins to close the door in their face. Sam turns to Dean, making an “I-told-you-so” face so tart it’s endearing. Dean, who has never let his brother’s faces win out before and doesn’t plan to start letting them now, stops the door with the barrel of his gun.
“That’s awfully rude of you,” Dean says, kicking the door open the rest of the way. “We were hoping you’d invite us in for lunch.”
“You have no right being here,” the shifter replies. “We haven’t hurt anyone, just like we said we wouldn’t.”
“Oh, we know. We’re not here to threaten you,” Sam assures in that oversensitive voice that somehow never sounds like an act. “We just want to talk.”
“How did you even find us?” the man asks.
Sam smiles a little too cocky. “We have our methods.”
“‘Would you boys like to come in?’” Dean asks, imitating the shifter’s voice and shoving into the living room. “Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks for offering.”
Tim scowls but doesn’t move to block their path.
“June. You remember our friends, the hunters.”
June has the baby in her arms, cradled too close to her chest.
“Sam and Dean,” Sam says, like they’re at some party making friends or something.
“What do you want from us?” says Tim through gritted teeth.
“We need your help.”
“Why would we want to help you?”
“Because I can fill you up with silver bullets in the time it’ll take you to say no,” Dean answers, reaching for his gun. Sam stops him and gives him a pointed look. Dean sighs.
“Look, we’re not going to hurt you, even if you say no. But you’re not safe and I think you know that.”
Tim doesn’t move but June shifts from one foot to the other uncomfortably-just enough for Dean to be sure they’re barking up the right tree.
“Does-is this about the-?”
“June, don’t.”
“Is it coming after us because we met you? Are you working for it?”
“The angel, you mean?” Sam asks.
“Yes.”
“So you have been contacted by it?”
“We’ve talked it over and the answer is no. So you can…” Tim’s voice wavers. “You can kill us if that’s what you’re here to do. We’re not dying monsters. None of us.”
“You’re early, though,” June says desperately. “He told us we’d have a week to decide. We still have four days.”
“You’re not getting out of this in four days,” Sam says. “Wherever you guys are looking for something powerful enough to throw an archangel off your scent, there’s nothing. The strongest ritual we could find only works on humans and even that wears off after a few years.”
“We still won’t help.”
“We don’t want you to help him. We want you to help us. Kill it.”
The shifters exchange dubious looks. “How do you plan to kill it?”
“You leave that to us, that’s not what we need your help with.”
“Well, what the hell can we do? We don’t know anything. Look, we’re just normal people, alright? She works at a grocery store, I’m an accountant. We have bad genes, sure, but we’re not involved in this.”
“We know. I’m really sorry, but you’re in it anyway and you can help us. Which is the only way to help yourselves. And the baby.”
“We’ll hear you out,” June says, shooting Tim a warning glace when he begins a protest. “What do you want from us?”
“Just some answers. When he got in touch with you, what did he say exactly? Did he offer you something if you helped? Did he tell you where to find him? When did he make contact?”
“Jesus, Sammy, slow down.”
Sam pulls back. “Sorry. I really want to stop this today.”
“He told us that he wanted us to help him, he wouldn’t say with what, but basically he wanted us to kill for him. He didn’t offer us anything, seemed to think that protection and letting us go crazy killing things would be motivation enough.”
“Racist bastard,” June mutters, then bites her lip. “Oh, drats. I cursed in front of the baby.”
Dean manages not to snort, but it’s a near thing.
“Anyway,” Tim continues, “he said that we’d be dead meat if we didn’t help, so I guess nobody ever taught him about polite bribery.”
“This was three days ago,” June adds.
“What we really want to know is how he told you to reach him.”
“He told us to go to a park a few miles out, there’s a rock there where we’ll be able to contact him, apparently. Then he tells us where to go to find him.”
“Do you know if he has a way of telling whether it’s really you or not?”
“Well, he said he’ll be able to sense us because we’re not human.”
Sam turns to Dean and points to his ribs. “And we’re hidden from them, anyway.”
“Yeah, it’ll have to be you guys.”
“It’ll have to be us guys that what?” June asks, her eyes narrowing.
“You’ll go to the park he told you and get us a location, shouldn’t be dangerous at all.”
“Excuse me? I don’t remember agreeing to anything.”
“Look, here are your choices: you can agree to help him and kill people, in which case, we’ll kill you right now. You can say no to him and us and he’ll smite you twelve ways from Sunday. Or, you could just help us and, even if that goes badly and he figures you out, we will make sure your kid is okay. Because if he comes for her, we’ll stop him-that’s a promise.”
“Wait…you want me to leave my baby with a couple of hunters we don’t even know? This conversation is over. Get out.”
Sam stands up, looming like a threat, but with an earnest, pleading look in his eyes. “We didn’t kill you before, right? We took your word and trusted you. I am begging you to return the favor.”
“All you need from us is how to find him?”
“Yes. It won’t take more than an hour.”
June looks to Tim who has that desperate, willing-to-try-anything air in his stance Dean has seen too many times before. “We’re in,” he says with surprising conviction. “If you boys think you can stop him before he comes for us…well, it’s better than anything we’ve come up with, and we’re in.”
Sam and Dean both breathe sighs of relief.
They leave shortly after that, still visibly uncomfortable and sending looks to where the baby is now playing in the corner. Raphael doesn’t know about her-she’s never shifted before and therefore isn’t a full-blown shifter just yet, and they both want to keep it that way, but it’s obvious they aren’t feeling any happier about leaving her than they had when Sam first mentioned it.
The baby cries for what seems like days after they leave until finally Sam manages to convince her to fall asleep. Dean watches him hover over the crib, a warm expression on his face as he brushes a golden hair off the baby’s face. She smiles in her sleep and Dean realizes Sam is responsible for that. For all the good sleep Dean’s been having lately, too.
“Sandcastles?”
Sam looks up at him, clearly confused. “Huh?”
“You’re making her have good dreams. I can tell.”
“Yes,” Sam says, unsure of himself.
“You…you’ve been doing that to me, haven’t you?”
Sam looks away guiltily. “I only meant for it to stop my nightmares, but sometimes I can’t control it while I’m asleep. Same as when it was bad only…you can’t be mad at me, Dean. I was just trying to help at first and now I can’t-”
Dean walks across the room and kisses him hard. “Sam, I know you think I’m gonna wake up tomorrow and not be okay with this, but I’m not, alright? I thought last night was supposed to make a point.”
“It did,” Sam says, pulling his hand out of the cradle. “I know you’re okay with me like this. I’m just…nothing ever stays easy. I want to take advantage of this while it still is.”
Dean shrugs. “You’re just as likely to stop him tomorrow as you are today.”
“I can stop using them sooner, though, if we get it done today. And then we can just be normal.”
“You’re lying to yourself if you think you’re going to stop after this. You think something won’t come up again? I’d rather you use this than let someone die over it. I mean, you shouldn’t go overboard with it and you’re not. But, Sammy, it doesn’t have to stop. I don’t want you normal, I just want my freaky little brother.”
Sam bites at his cheek and Dean gets the maternal urge to tell him to stop it. They stay quiet for a long time before Sam nods, says, “Might as well get it done today if we can, though, right?”
“Yeah, just don’t worry your ass over it too much. That’s my job.”
Sam laughs and turns his attention back to babysitting.
_______________________________________________________________
The shifters get them an address and they decide that it’ll be best to gather their forces and strike Raphael first thing the next day after all. Castiel is called in, Bobby sets out on the drive to hopefully meet them in time for the fight, and Dean insists until Sam takes him back to their motel in Nebraska for the Impala.
Sam spends most of the night practicing on Castiel, though the angel had asked, rather harshly, if Sam was “attempting to pull on his leg” when Sam told him to sit still so he could try and see if he could kill him. Eventually, Dean makes it clear that Sam is not going to face any archangels without testing his powers and being sure they’ll even work first, and Castiel has his own reasons for wanting Raphael put down, so he agrees.
Bobby knocks on their door at 9 a.m. the next day and they head straight for the Impala, except for Castiel who beams out to Raphael’s lair ahead of them to check how dire the situation is.
“He has many guards,” Castiel says, popping into the back seat and scaring the crap out of everyone except for Sam. “Monsters, all kinds of them. We can fight to keep them busy, though. I believe you will be able to pass through them with little effort.”
Sam nods and blinks, and suddenly they’re sitting outside of an abandoned mall in Billings, Montana.
“You guys ready?” Sam asks, as if he’s not the one about to face down one of the strongest creatures in creation.
“Sam, remember that you are not like us completely. You will be stronger if you keep the battle between your powers, but he will crush you if it comes to blows.”
“I know, Cas. I’ll do my best.”
Dean feels a pang of remembered pain from all the times he’s gotten into fistfights with angels, feels his face cracking with the force of Sam’s fist. He reaches out on instinct and grabs Sam’s sleeve.
“This is a bad idea.”
“I can handle it, okay? You just better be ready to give me a whole lot of massages.”
Dean swallows and tries to smile, which is apparently good enough for Sam. Dean doesn’t miss the confused look on Bobby’s face as Sam heads for the entrance, but he figures there are some things Bobby doesn’t want to know and follows his brother inside.
It’s as easy as walking through the door, but that’s the only part that isn’t trouble. Raphael is cocky enough to not worry what gets in-it’s set up so that nothing can get out. A hundred pairs of eyes are on them as soon as they’re standing in the doorway-eyes from all kinds of different faces, but all the same hungry expression. The mall is packed with things that want to kill them, things that have succeeded in killing them in the past, and their entrance wasn’t exactly stealthy. Dean swallows hard and nearly draws back, but Sam steps forward.
“Move aside,” he says to them. To Dean’s surprise, about half of them do. The rest of them and are thrown out of Sam’s path. He walks by the creatures without sparing another glance.
“We’re going to have to fight through all of this if we want to get him back out of here, won’t we?”
“Sure looks like it,” Bobby says.
“And I guess it would be overoptimistic to ask if you could just, I don’t know, smite them?”
Castiel smiles lopsidedly. “Not until you three are out. Unless you would like to experience it firsthand.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
Bobby rolls his eyes. “If you want to follow Sam, you better do it now.”
“I…no…I just…”
Bobby looks unimpressed. He indicates Castiel, “Angel dust over here doesn’t really need much back up.”
Dean hesitates, then shoves the Colt into Bobby’s hands and takes off after his brother.
Sam is still walking straight, not looking back, like he’s about to walk off a goddamn plank and he’s determined to do it with dignity. At the end of the stretch there are three doors, all exactly identical. Sam doesn’t even hesitate before going to the left one, so Dean follows.
Something gets a hold of him as soon as Sam is through the door and Dean pulls a rifle on a zombie or a ghoul-Dean doesn’t get a good look at the thing before he blows its brains out. He runs for the door as soon as he’s away from it, knowing he won’t get so lucky again and that whatever the next thing that grabs him is, a simple gunshot to the head may not take it out.
The door is locked when Dean gets to it. He curses Sam for knowing he would follow, for trying to keep him out of the fight. He looks back. Across the lobby, Bobby is shooting only when necessary, trying to keep the gun loaded. He sticks as close to Castiel’s side as possible and it pays off-Castiel has no problem picking the monsters apart. Dean takes a deep breath and shoots out the lock.
He throws open the door and sees that Sam and Raphael are already fighting. Sam turns towards the noise and his face blanches when he sees Dean. Raphael takes advantage of his distraction and Sam doubles over with a hit Dean can’t see.
“You come get me instead,” Dean says.
Raphael walks towards Sam and grabs him, but looks up at Dean. “Why? Do you have a little circle of holy fire you’re hoping I’ll walk into?” His eyes scan the floor then, but Dean knows he wouldn’t be able to see it, even if there was one.
“You too scared to come find out?”
“I do not have your human pride, Dean. I will not fall for that again.”
“You don’t need to,” Sam says, his voice still strained from whatever Raphael hit him with. The angel turns and lifts his arm to hit Sam, but Sam breaks away from the hold and stumbles back a few steps. As soon as he’s out of Raphael’s grip, the angel makes a furious sound, tries to jump forward and is frozen in place.
“How?” he asks.
Sam stands up, spits blood onto the floor and smiles.
“Lucifer?” he asks, eyes wide and, Dean might be imagining it, but they look a little hurt, too. “They said you were…I thought you were the Winchester boy.”
“And now?” Sam’s mouth quirks in a way that Dean has seen Lucifer do, but never Sam. He feels something dirty wash over him.
“I…” Raphael squints, tilts his head. “I am not sure.”
Dean looks to his brother, the smirk doesn’t change. Dean sees Sam’s fingers tighten, watches him take the slight breath Sam always does when he’s about to throw everything he’s got into a task. It’s just a trick, Sam’s body language screams it loud and clear, and Dean thinks he might be doing it on purpose, just to let Dean know not to worry.
“There’s one way to tell,” Raphael says. His eyes shift to Dean and Dean reads his intention, doesn’t get to warn Sam before he feels as if his skin is being torn away. He cries out and Sam takes a half step forward, crying his name.
“You came closer to fooling me than any human has ever dreamed of. But you will die for it. As will Dean, and that abomination we are supposed to obey now.”
“Let him go,” Sam orders.
“Let me go,” the angel counters.
“You know you’re going to lose. I’m stronger than you. Castiel will get here eventually, you can’t take both of us.”
“Dean will be dead by then,” he says, punctuating his threat with a wave of pain that makes Dean incapable of holding back any longer. He groans, trying to tell Sam not to worry about him, but not really capable of speech through the sensation of being burnt alive.
“Okay, okay, look. You’re free. You can move. You can rip me apart. Let him go.”
Raphael considers for a moment and Dean is overwhelmed with relief as the attack stops. Sam flies back into a wall seconds later.
The angel picks Sam up and hits him hard. “You two have ruined all of creation together. Three of my brothers are dead because of you. I am expected to obey an angel who was once so far below me, I did not know his name. And now you-you are using my brother’s Grace as if it is your own, as if you have any right to it?”
Dean winces as the angel throws his brother again. Sam lifts his head slowly and laughs, almost looks more like Dean than himself. “Because he never tried to do anything like that to me.”
“You seem to be under the impression that you have the same rights as us.” Raphael is standing above Sam, delivers a kick to Sam’s stomach that makes him whimper. “This assumption is, of course, revoltingly incorrect.”
Sam stays curled on his side, trying to resist another blow, but Dean sees him trying to mouth something to him. It looks like ‘shoot him’, which Dean is more than happy to do, even if he knows it won’t help.
Raphael turns to look at him when the bullet hits.
“Let him go,” Dean demands, with absolutely nothing to back up his commanding tone. It doesn’t matter, he decides. If this is going to be a letdown and they’re both going to die in here, Dean is damn well going first.
“You can’t hurt-”
Raphael is the one to fly into the opposite wall then; Dean turns to see Sam’s furiously determined features. The angel makes a face like a caged animal and Dean knows he can’t move, that Sam managed to find too much power for even Raphael to resist.
Dean runs to his side and tries to help him. Sam is sitting up against the wall now, still glaring at the angel, obviously struggling to hang on to the Grace and not focusing on his physical pain in order to do it.
Sam’s lip turns up just a little bit. “I’ve got him, he’s not going anywhere now.” Sam’s voice lifts, so Raphael can hear it. “And he knows it, too.”
Sam’s fingers come up and wrap around Dean’s neck. He pulls him into one of those hungry kisses people in movies always indulge in before they die, and Dean can’t help laughing into it, amused by how dramatic his little brother is. Then Sam pulls away and whispers into Dean’s ear, “Help me get up.”
Dean does, playing it off as if Sam can do it himself. Sam walks forward with a slight limp, until he’s standing right in front of Raphael. The angel is going quietly, but he’s not exactly looking his bravest.
“Please brother,” the archangel says, grasping at the bottom of Sam’s jacket. “I underestimated you.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “And you probably shouldn’t have hurt Dean, either.”
He lays a hand on Raphael’s shoulder then and closes his eyes. Dean looks away when he sees the first hints of burning white light begin to materialize, glowing steadily redder, heating the room up the same way it did when Dean had stabbed Zachariah. There’s a cry that goes on forever, fades out so gradually that Dean misses the moment when Raphael is really dead. The body collapses and, to Dean’s horror, Sam’s follows it to the floor.
Dean catches his brother before he hits the ground and pulls him into his lap. Sam’s unconscious, but he’s alive, and Dean can see the Grace within him already beginning to heal the bruises from Raphael’s attacks.
He stumbles through his jacket for his phone and calls Castiel to tell him to grab Bobby and come get them the hell out. In five minutes, all three of the men are sitting in the Impala, watching as Castiel brings bright red lightening down onto the mall, killing all of the monsters still left inside.
“We’re never gonna hear the end of this,” Bobby says sourly as they lay Sam down in the backseat.
“What do you mean?” Dean asks, trying to quell the need to brush a stray hair out of Sam’s eyes.
“He just took out a quarter of the game on this damn continent. You have any idea how many bored hunters I’m going to have to take shit from?”
Dean laughs, closing the door and getting into the car behind the wheel. It’s the second biggest job they’ve ever done, after killing the devil, and as long as Sam keeps healing at the rate Castiel promised he would, they won’t have suffered so much as a broken limb.
Sam wakes up while they’re still in the car, but he doesn’t have much energy. It isn’t hard to coax him into bed as soon as they have a place to stay. Dean gets in next to him and pulls his brother into his arms, nervous because Sam is so battered and easy to push around that his body almost seems small again. He doesn’t have long to fret over it, they’re both asleep in minutes.
_______________________________________________________________
Sam wakes up at a decent time the next day and finds that he’s in a room he doesn’t remember checking into with his head resting on his brother’s chest. He shakes Dean lightly.
“Hey,” Dean says, not even bothering to put on his usual “don’t wake me up” expression. “How you feeling?”
“Sore,” Sam says. “A little better, but mostly just really fucking sore.”
“That’s good.” Dean buries his face in Sam’s hair for a few seconds and Sam feels his brother’s nose brushing the top of his head. “The getting better part, not the sore thing.”
“Did we really…? I mean, I didn’t dream it, right?”
Dean squeezes the arm that’s around Sam. “Go back to sleep, Sammy. We got time.”
Sam sleeps until noon after that, wakes up long enough to decide he can still afford to sleep more, and rolls over. Dean’s watching television on mute when Sam finally wakes up and doesn’t feel like the living dead.
“This is the sixth time you lift that stupid head of yours and then fall back asleep,” Dean says, fingers stroking absently over the buttons on the remote. “If this is a false alarm, I’m going to take advantage of you while unconscious out of sheer boredom.”
“How respectable of you, Dean.”
Dean powers off the television. “It’s past four, so I figure we’re not getting anything done today.”
“You should have gotten me up for check out.”
“You looked like one of those giant wrinkly turtles every time you poked out of the covers. I was worried you’d bite.”
“Those aren’t turtles, they’re tortoises.”
“Wow, it’s incredible how good you are at missing the point sometimes.”
“But really, we wasted a day. I feel like a slob.”
“Sam, you killed an archangel yesterday. And you needed your rest. Besides, we didn’t really have anything urgent to get around to.”
“Wow,” Sam says, burying his head in Dean’s chest as it sinks in. “We really don’t.”
“We could sleep for the next week,” Dean says.
“We could. We don’t have to leave this town. There’s nothing coming for us. There’s nothing going after people we care about. Hell, there’s hardly anything left to hunt, anyway.”
“Nope, guess not, Sammy. We can go on vacation. Or retire.”
“Never sleep in a cheap motel again.”
“Buy a house.”
“Mmm, yeah, with a white fence,” Sam says dreamily.
“Gay.”
“And a dog?”
“Fuck yeah. A big one.”
“And steady jobs.”
“Yeah, nice and safe,” Dean says softly.
They sit quietly for a few minutes, pondering over their free time, mutually imagining a quiet life together here in the middle of Montana. It would be nice, Sam won’t deny that.
He sits up. “Maybe someday.” He kisses Dean’s neck, making an exaggerated smacking sound. “When we can’t be useful anymore and have absolutely no choice.”
“Thank God,” Dean says with a laugh. “Bobby says there might be a job a few towns over. Tomorrow?”
“We could look into it now; get some research in while it’s still early.”
“Eww, no.”
Sam kisses the center of Dean’s chest and smiles up at him. “Get up, asshole. We’ve got work to do.”
End
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