Fic: Say I've got nothing to fear (Supernatural, gen)
Say I've got nothing to fear
Spoilers: Everything through AHBL 2
Words: 5,070
Summary: Two weeks after the demon's killed they take a case in North Dakota, and Sam tries to come to terms with the clock ticking over Dean's head.
Author's note: Huge, squishy thanks to luzdeestrellas for the very helpful beta. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Song and cut tag from Santana's Put Your Lights On.
Sam’s not sure what he expected--purple skies, boiling oceans, raining frogs--but the sun rises over the eastern edge of Bobby’s yard just the same as before. The news doesn’t worry about more than the stock market and local school levies, and the only frog Sam sees is hidden in the high grass at the edge of Bobby’s lot.
Dean has 351 days left. The thought makes Sam nauseous, and he leans his forehead down against the kitchen table, tries to breathe through his nose.
“Hey,” Dean says as the back door slams shut behind him. “Sammy? You ok?”
Sam pulls himself back up, manages something that feels like a smile. “Yeah, just tired,” he says, and it’s not even all a lie.
Dean watches him for another minute before he wipes the oil on his hands onto his already stained t-shirt and grabs a folded up newspaper off the counter. He tosses it onto the table. “Couple of kids disappeared up in North Dakota.”
Sam picks it up and skims through the article Dean’s circled about two teenagers never coming back from a camping trip. Dean is watching him expectantly when he looks up again.
“Bobby’s got that cabin right up near there. What d’ya say, Sammy? Feel like a little camping?”
He’s grinning wide and bright, the same way he has every time he’s suggested anything over the past two weeks-what d’you think, Sam, Grand Canyon? or we should head down to Florida, rent out one of those shacks right on the beach. Sam wants to say no on principle, the same way he has every other time, making sure Dean’s not crossing things off some ridiculous list, that he has a few reasons to want to stick around.
But he doesn’t think he can handle another day of Bobby and Ellen’s concerned looks, like they’re just waiting for him to break, admit there might not be a way to save Dean.
“Yeah, ok,” he says, and Dean looks shocked for half a second before he recovers.
“Awesome,” he says, bouncing a little on his heels.
Bobby and Ellen get back an hour later with four thick steaks to cook out on Bobby’s grill, and Dean decides they can leave in the morning. Sam spends the rest of the day helping Bobby dig through stacks of books. They’ve spent the last two weeks picking through them, but neither of them has any idea what to look for, and they’ve spent most of the time separating books into piles of useless and maybe not useless.
Bobby gives him a couple books to take with him, promises to keep looking. Sam feels twitchy, like his own skin is too small for his body. Two weeks feels like no time at all and too much wasted, and he can feel the gut-wrenching panic on the edges of his consciousness, a low, constant buzz he tries not to get too close to.
***
Sam spends two hours staring at the ceiling, watching the moonlight through the curtains and listening to Dean breathe, before he gives up on sleep entirely and pulls out one of the books Bobby lent him. It’s a couple hours later before Dean jerks awake, pale and shaking.
“Hey,” Sam says, before the panic can set in. Dean’s eyes are wide and glassy when he looks over, and Sam wants to reach out, curl against him like he did that first night, until Dean’s hands stopped shaking and he didn’t hold onto Sam like he expected him to be ripped away any second.
“Sammy,” he says, voice rough with sleep and terror.
“Yeah.” Sam shifts forward on his bed, presses his knees against Dean’s when he sits up. Dean blinks blearily at him a few times, and Sam can see the exact moment he wakes up a bit more by the way his expression closes up, shoulders suddenly tense. “You ok?” he asks, even though he knows he won’t get a real answer.
Dean breathes a couple times, deep and still a little uneven. “Yeah,” he says, rubs a hand over his face, and when he looks up again, the tight line of his mouth eases a little. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Sam stays quiet, doesn’t push because Dean won’t answer even if he does. They haven’t talked about what happened in Wyoming, or what happened before that, since the first night at Bobby’s, when Dean was still watching him, wide-eyed and disbelieving, and Sam was trying to wrap his mind around everything.
“What time is it?”
“Almost four,” he says, and Dean frowns, scrubs at his eyes. Sam knows neither of them will get any more sleep tonight. “You wanna hit the road?”
Dean shrugs, mumbles incoherently as he stumbles out of bed and grabs a pair of clean boxers from his bag. The shower kicks on a few minutes later, old pipes creaking in the walls. Sam lies back on the bed, lets his eyes slide closed for a minute.
Neither of them has slept well since the demon was killed. Dean’s up before dawn every morning, creeping out to work on one of Bobby’s cars, always careful not to make noise, like Sam can’t see the dark circles under his eyes. Sam stays up half the night, running through the list of possibilities that never gets any longer: exorcism, make another deal, control the demon.
He doesn’t think the first one will work, not after the last time, and Dean would never forgive him if he went with the second. He’s not sure he can even do the last one, but he keeps it on the list, unwilling to go on without some kind of plan to fall back on, not afraid of it for the first time since Dean told him Dad’s secret. He thinks maybe Dean could save him if he had to, the only light that’s ever kept the darkness away.
“Sammy,” Dean says and brushes his fingers down the side of Sam’s neck. It’s not until Sam opens his eyes and sees Dean leaning over him that he realizes he'd dozed off. It reminds Sam of when they were kids, when Dad would leave in the middle of the night and drive through till morning. He would always pack the car before he woke them, and they would stumble, still half-asleep, into the back seat, Dean usually carrying Sam when he refused to move.
“C’mon, dude,” Dean says when Sam blinks up at him, “you’re too big to carry.”
Sam grins and scrubs a hand over his face. “Getting weak in your old age, Dean?” he asks as he follows his brother out into the hall, and gets an elbow to the chest.
The town they stop for breakfast in is the same one the missing kids are from and the last place on the map before Bobby’s cabin, still a couple hours away. Sam grabs a newspaper from the rack by the cash register, hoping to find more information on the case, and Dean hunches over the table, scribbling on his napkin. Sam glances over, expecting to see some kind of ridiculously lewd drawing. He’s a little surprised to see a long list of writing. “Dude,” he says, incredulous, when he deciphers eggs and bacon as the first two words, “is that a grocery list?”
Dean scowls at him, slaps a hand over the napkin. “Yeah, so?”
Sam bites the insides of his cheeks hard enough to draw blood so he can hold back the grin.
Dean catches it anyway and bristles. “We have to eat, Sam.”
The image of Dean wandering around some huge chain grocery store, pushing a cart and carrying a list, springs into his mind so fast Sam can’t stop the snort of amusement.
“Shut up,” Dean snaps and hunches over a little more, keeping his hand curled protectively above the napkin.
Sam reaches across the table, tries to snag the pen out of Dean’s hand, and gets a swift kick to the shin.
“Get away from my list, bitch.”
“I want Lucky Charms,” Sam says and Dean rolls his eyes, stuffing the list in his pocket.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have mocked then, huh, Sparky?” He smirks and steals Sam’s toast.
“And graham crackers.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean grumbles under his breath, “it’s there, Jesus.”
They head to the grocery store on the other side of town after breakfast, one of the regional chains and only a block away from the county library. The paper didn’t mention anything about the missing kids, and Sam’s pretty sure the library won’t have much either, but he doesn’t really like the thought of heading into the woods without some kind of idea what they’re dealing with.
“Where’re you going?” Dean asks when he starts walking toward the street.
“Library,” Sam says, and Dean frowns.
“We can go there after.”
Sam shrugs and adjusts his laptop case on his shoulder. “It won’t take long.”
He gets only an exaggerated eye roll, before Dean starts after him. It takes Sam a minute to figure out what he’s doing. It’s been less than three weeks since he went into the diner and ended up in South Dakota, and they haven’t left Bobby’s since they killed the demon. Dean’s never dealt very well with Sam disappearing, even when he doesn’t end up dead.
“Dean,” Sam says, “I can go to the library on my own.”
Dean raises an eyebrow at him. “No shit, Sherlock,” he mutters and keeps walking.
Sam stays put, waits until Dean notices and turns around, looking annoyed.
“I just have to look up a couple things. It won’t take more than twenty minutes.” Dean scowls down at the ground, shifts uncomfortably. Sam tries to quell his own sudden apprehension about the whole thing, thinking about ticking clocks and demons out looking to make a name for themselves. “I’ll meet you right back here.”
“Twenty minutes.” Sam nods, and Dean squints at him like he’s looking for some kind of sign that Sam’s going to go off and get himself kidnapped and killed. “I mean it, Sam.”
“Twenty minutes,” he promises.
It only takes him fifteen minutes of talking with one of the librarians to get the information he needs, and he spends the last five minutes copying pages out of a book on Faustian bargain mythology.
Dean’s still in the store when he gets back, standing in the dairy section staring at the selection of eggs. “Dude, check this out,” he says, holding up two separate crates of eggs. “There’s like twenty different kinds.”
Sam pretends not to notice the way Dean’s whole posture relaxes the second Sam’s standing next to him. “Find anything?”
“Not really.” Sam glances around, waits until a mom with two little kids passes by before he says, “A girl died in the same area about three years ago.”
Dean is still staring at the eggs, opening up different containers and poking at some of them. “How?”
“Don’t know. She was with two friends, but they never talked to anyone about it.” Sam’s favorite thing about states like North Dakota is that even the largest towns are small enough that the librarians generally know most of what’s going on. “One of them killed herself last year, and the other’s in a mental institution a few towns over.”
Dean raises his eyebrows at that, opens up another carton of eggs and picks through them. “Maybe she saw something,” he says, and finally grabs one of the cartons without bothering to inspect it.
“Maybe. She can’t have visitors, though; not even her parents can get in.”
Dean frowns at that, and Sam follows him toward the check-out. “There’s also a local legend that Big Foot is in the hills,” he says just to see Dean’s reaction. Every state they’ve ever been to has its own Big Foot legend.
Dean snorts and rolls his eyes. “Awesome. Maybe we’ll see Santa Claus, too.”
The cabin is almost exactly the way Sam remembers it from the few times they stayed there as kids, when hunts brought them through the area or Dad was beat up enough to need more than a couple days of rest. There’s still the ratty couch in the middle of the main room, and in the bedroom, the large king size bed with the floral sheets that always drove Dean crazy, and which Bobby always refused to comment on.
The area that the two missing boys were supposed to be camping in is only about a mile away from Bobby’s cabin. They throw their things in the bedroom and unpack the majority of the food before they trek out toward the campsite, Dean waving around the EMF reader. Sam’s not convinced it isn’t just a case of two kids getting lost in the woods, and even if it’s not, the number of possibilities and the area they would have to cover makes the whole thing seem a little impossible. But it’s been a long time since he’s seen Dean so happy and relaxed.
“Hey,” Dean says about twenty minutes in, and Sam turns to find him hunched over, squinting down at the ground. “I think I found something.” He straightens up a second later, grinning and already laughing under his breath. “Oh wait, that’s your footprint.”
Sam’s pretty sure his brother will never get tired of the Sasquatch jokes. “Ha ha,” he mutters dryly, turning away again. There’s a noise to his left, and a squirrel runs out from under a rotted log a second later. “You know, Dean-” he cuts himself off when he hears the noise again, a quiet snuffling like someone is crying. The floor of the forest is fairly clear, though, and he can’t see any signs that people have been through the area for months.
“Sam?”
“I thought-” he starts, shakes his head. “Do you hear that?” he asks, and Dean falls quiet; only Sam can’t hear it anymore, either. When he turns back toward his brother Dean is looking at him, both eyebrows raised. “Never mind.”
***
Dean is watching him, not even bothering to be stealthy about it, shuffling footsteps and throat clearing. Sam sighs, presses a finger to the end of the sentence he just finished reading and looks up finally. “What?”
“You’ve gotta stop this, Sam.”
Sam stares at him for a minute, not really sure what he’s done this time, but Dean is watching him with that same broken, pleading look he had that night by the Impala. Don’t you get mad at me.
“Dean.”
“You’re not gonna find anything,” he says matter-of-factly, and Sam has to look away, throat too tight to swallow properly.
His fingernail is white where it’s pressed against the page and he feels a sudden, irrational surge of anger at his brother. “I will. I’m going to save you.”
“Yeah, well,” Dean mutters, leans back against the wall casually, “maybe I don’t want you to.”
Sam feels like the world is tilting beneath his feet as he stares at Dean. “What?” he tries to say, but he can’t get any breath behind it.
Dean is lying next to him when he opens his eyes, face buried in his pillow, and Sam blinks up at the ceiling, eyes burning. The reality of the dream is still humming under his skin, strong and terrifying. He wants to wake Dean up and make him promise-something, anything. That he doesn’t want to die, that he thinks Sam can save him. The idea that Dean doesn’t want him to or doesn’t think he can isn’t something Sam ever considered before, and the possibility of it is suddenly the worst thing he can imagine.
He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to keep his breathing even until his heart rate slows down again. He tries not to wake Dean, but it’s been years since they’ve had to share a bed, and when he shifts Dean’s awake a second later.
“Sam?” he grunts, squinting at him in the dark.
Sam sighs, rubs a hand over his face. “I’m okay.”
“Nightmare?”
“No,” he lies, even though he wants to turn and curl up against Dean like he hasn’t since he was nine. Dean stares at him like he’s waiting for Sam to 'fess up, and Sam closes his eyes, hopes Dean will take the hint. The bed dips, and Dean’s arm lands on Sam’s stomach a second later.
“I gotcha, Sammy,” he mutters into his pillow, already half asleep again. Sam tries to swallow past the hot lump in his throat.
They head out again the next morning, scouring the woods for any sign of supernatural activity. Sam feels stripped bare, the dream constantly running through his head, and Dean’s on edge all morning, circles still dark and obvious under his eyes. They end up spending most of the time in silence in order to avoid sniping at one another.
“Would you quit it?” Dean finally snaps as they’re heading back toward the cabin for lunch. “You’ve been staring at me all day, man, what’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” Sam says, forcing his eyes away. “Sorry.”
“Hey,” Dean says, cocky grin in place, “I know-” he cuts off abruptly, eyes suddenly wide.
Sam thinks irrationally of Evan Hudson and hellhounds before he can stop himself. It’s barely been three weeks, he knows, but he can’t stop the flood of panic when Dean starts glancing around like he hears something. “Dean?” He’s not sure he manages to keep the fear out of his voice, but Dean doesn’t seem to notice.
Dean glances around again, shoulders tense. “I-” he stops himself again and shakes his head; Sam tries to stay calm. “Nothing. I thought I heard something.”
Sam feigns feeling ill when they get back and spends the rest of the day researching.
***
“Sam,” Dean says, and Sam jerks awake, hunched over one of Bobby’s books. Dean is leaning against the edge of the table, watching him carefully. “You have to stop doing this.”
Sam’s stomach rolls and he shoves himself back from the table. “Stop,” he says, but Dean follows him across the room.
“It’s ok, Sammy,” he says, and he looks so sincere Sam wants to punch him in the mouth. “I don’t need to be saved.”
Sam can’t breathe. He reaches out to grab Dean, or punch him; he’s not really sure, but he only gets air. Dean is across the room again, saying something about being tired that Sam can only half hear and he can’t breathe.
He blinks and there’s a hand on the back of his neck, his cheek mashed against the notes he’d been taking. He jerks upright.
“Woah. Easy, tiger,” Dean says, amused. “Come on, Sammy, bed.”
Sam stares at him for a second. He can’t tell if he’s dreaming or not; it all feels the same. “Dean,” he says, panic thick in the back of his throat, and Dean raises his eyebrows, pulls him to his feet. Sam grabs onto him before he can disappear again.
Dean frowns, forehead creased in concern as he stares up at Sam, and Sam doesn’t know what to say, how to make Dean understand that he doesn’t know how to do this without him.
“Sam,” Dean says like he’s been trying to get Sam’s attention.
He forces himself to loosen his grip on Dean’s arms, and steps back. “I-” he starts, but he doesn’t really want to explain. “Sorry.” There’s sunlight streaming into the kitchen, and Dean looks like he just rolled out of bed. “What time is it?”
“Quarter to seven.”
Dean looks like he’s going to ask about what just happened. Sam cuts him off with a quick, “I’m fine,” before he can. Dean still looks a little skeptical.
“Sure y’are,” he says, and then sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Gonna shower. Go to bed, Sammy.”
Sam stands in the middle of the kitchen for a minute, thoughts still slow with sleep and fear, and then he goes outside to call Bobby.
“Sam, I want to find something as much as you do,” Bobby says. His voice is tinged with exasperation, because they've been going in circles for the past ten minutes, and Sam presses his lips together, squints off into the horizon. “You know I do. But we need to be realistic-”
“No, there’s a way,” Sam says, because he can’t listen to the possibility, can’t imagine ever considering it. He hears Dean’s voice in his head, the casually disregarding tone, and presses on, “There has to be a way, Bobby. It’ll just take a little digging.” The back screen door slams and Sam’s pretty sure he can hear Dean calling for him.
Bobby sighs over the phone. “Listen-”and he sounds like he did when Sam was fifteen and Bobby was trying to make him see sense about whatever he and his dad had recently fought about..
“Sammy,” Dean yells, and there’s that note of terror in his voice that always makes Sam’s blood run cold.
“I have to go,” he says quickly and hangs up, just as Dean comes barreling around the corner. “What’s wrong?”
“Are you ok?” Dean asks over him, gripping Sam’s arms the second he’s close enough, like he thinks Sam will collapse if Dean doesn’t hold him up. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” he says, but Dean isn’t paying attention, eyes raking over Sam the way they always do when Dean thinks he’s been hurt. “Dean,” he says sharp enough to bring his brother’s attention back to him, “you were calling for me.”
Dean blinks, loosens his grip on Sam’s arms. “Yeah, I heard-” he stops, still looking spooked, but he lets Sam go and steps back. “You didn’t yell?”
“No, I didn’t even-” he starts, but Dean’s not listening again.
“Dammit,” he mutters, and turns to go back inside. “I know what we’re hunting.”
Sam stares at his retreating back for a second, trying to catch up. “What?” he asks, jogging after him. “Wendigo? Because I didn’t hear anybody yelling-”
“No,” Dean says as the door clangs shut behind them. He grabs the journal off the counter and turns to face Sam. “It’s called a far darrig, they’re like leprechauns.”
Sam’s pretty sure he’s hearing Dean wrong. He blinks and Dean stares back at him, waiting. “Leprechauns,” Sam says, putting as much disbelief into the word as he can.
Dean rolls his eyes and starts flipping through the journal. “Not leprechauns. They’re similar to leprechauns, only there’s no gold and they feed off people’s fear.” Sam really wants to make a Lucky Charms joke; it’s right on the tip of his tongue when Dean looks up and scowls. “Don’t.”
“So how do we find it?” He tries to keep a straight face, but he knows Dean can hear the unbridled amusement in his tone. “Follow the rainbow?”
“It’s not a leprechaun, jackass,” he says between gritted teeth, and Sam grins. Dean thumps him on the back of the head as he walks by, and starts digging through the weapons bag on the kitchen table. “They’re a bitch to find. I hunted one with Dad once. They’re invisible half the time, make you hear things, cause nightmares--” he trails off as he pulls a Glock out of the bag, sights down it.
Sam thinks of the crying he heard in the woods, Dean’s blank stare in his dream, and frowns. “Nightmares.”
Dean glances over at him. “Yeah,” he says, and his eyes narrow. “Why? You been having nightmares?” Sam thinks about lying again, stays quiet instead and Dean puts the gun down, turns his full attention to Sam. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“It’s not like it’s unusual,” he says, sighing when Dean’s scowl hardens. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Sam-” he starts, but Sam stands up, grabs the gun Dean put aside.
“So how do we kill it?”
Dean watches him silently, still scowling, and then snatches the Glock out of Sam’s hands. “Iron rounds should do the trick,” he says, handing Sam one of the other guns. “First we have to find it.”
***
Sam thinks Dean neglected to mention just how much of a bitch it is to track a far darrig. They’ve been wandering through the woods for two hours, and Sam’s still not really sure what they’re supposed to be looking for. He's still half expecting a cartoon character to jump out at them from behind a tree.
There’s a flash of red off to the right and Sam turns, finally gets a good look at what they’re hunting. It’s nothing like a cartoon. The thing looks like a shriveled old man, yellowed skin wrinkled and drooping, dressed in a red coat, so long it brushes the ground, and a matching red bowler hat. Sam can see Dean taking aim out of the corner of his eye, but the thing disappears between one blink and the next. Sam’s not completely sure he even saw anything until it appears a few seconds later, twenty feet away from where it was previously, grinning at them with crooked, decaying teeth. It wiggles its fingers at them in a wave and then it’s gone again.
“What the-“
“It’s playing with us.” Dean cuts him off, voice low. “It won’t go far.” He jerks his chin to the right and starts inching off to the left.
Sam can hear the same soft sniffling from before, and he heads toward it as quietly as he can. He’s on the ground a second later, and he doesn’t even have time to look and see what tripped him before the far darrig is in his face.
“It’s true,” it says, breath rancid, grinning wide, and Sam jerks back on instinct. “You’ll never find anything. He knows you won’t.”
His fear is the whole point, and Sam knows he shouldn’t listen, but panic makes his chest tight anyway. His gun is only a foot away behind the far darrig where it landed when he fell, but Sam’s not sure he could reach for it even if the thing wasn’t leaning in close enough for its hat to brush Sam’s forehead.
It leans back and cackles, the sound odd and hollow. “He’ll burn down there, and there’s nothing you can do.”
The shot is deafening, and there’s not even a moment of realization before the creature drops to the ground, grotesque grin still twisted on its face.
Dean lowers his arm slowly, watching Sam with an unreadable expression. “Sammy?”
“M’okay,” he says, even though the fear is still heavy and suffocating on his chest. He pushes himself up, leans back against the closest tree with his eyes squeezed shut, but he can’t stop himself from shaking. He feels the panic he’s tried to keep at bay the last three weeks crushing down on him, and he can’t push is away this time.
“Hey,” Dean says, suddenly right there. He wraps a hand around the back of Sam’s neck, strokes a thumb along his jaw. “Sam,” he says sharply, and Sam forces his eyes open, a Pavlovian response ingrained into him from a lifetime of hunts and nightmares. “Deep breaths, okay?”
He tries to take a breath but his chest is still too tight. His throat’s too small and all he can think about is the clock over Dean’s head ticking away as fast as his heartbeat.
“Come on, Sam.” Dean grips the sides of his face, forces Sam to meet his gaze. “Only pussies have panic attacks.”
He lets out a huff of surprised laughter and manages another shaky inhale. “You’re an asshole,” he says, and Dean grins wide.
“Damn straight.” He leans back and lets his hands drop away when Sam starts to keep his breathing even. Dean watches him quietly, looking slightly uncomfortable, and Sam wonders just how much Dean heard of what the far darrig said. “Sam,” he starts when Sam moves to stand up.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says and pushes away from the tree. He doesn’t have to turn around to know Dean is frowning at him. “What about the missing kids?”
Dean sighs and then stands as well. “Well, if it was the far darrig keeping them, they should be around here. We can call Forest Services once we deal with this,” he says, poking the corpse with the toe of his boot.
They drag the body into the clearest area they can find to burn it, and Dean stands next to Sam, shoulder pressed against his, watching the flames. It’s only mid-afternoon, but the heavy tree cover makes it look darker, and Sam watches the way the flames light Dean’s face. The last few days are hazy with fear, and now that the far darrig is dead, Sam doesn’t find himself feeling much better.
Dean glances over at him, catches his gaze, and Sam’s chest aches. He promises himself all over again that he’s going to save his brother. If he has to open the gates of hell again and march down there and kill the demon himself, he will.
“Look, Sam,” Dean says as the fire starts to die out. He glances at Sam out of the corner of his eye and then stares determinedly at the trees in the distance, “about what the, uh-”
“Forget it,” Sam mutters and looks away. Real or not, he’s listened to Dean tell him to give up the search enough in the past forty-eight hours.
“Sammy,” he tries again, and nudges Sam in the shoulder when he doesn’t respond. “Come on, man. You’re like a freaking encyclopedia. If anyone’s going to find something,” he shrugs, and lets the sentence hang.
Sam looks up and meets Dean’s gaze. “I will find something,” he tells him, determined .
Dean gives him a fond, crooked smile before he turns away with a slight nod. “That’s m’boy,” he murmurs under his breath, and the words settle warm and bright in Sam’s chest, make it a little easier to breathe.
“Come on, dorkwad.” Dean tosses the empty box of matches at his head, and grins when Sam shoves him away. “You know,” he says as Sam follows him back toward the cabin, “just once I’d like to go camping and not end up having to shoot something.”
“Next year,” Sam promises, and Dean doesn’t argue.
Spoilers: Everything through AHBL 2
Words: 5,070
Summary: Two weeks after the demon's killed they take a case in North Dakota, and Sam tries to come to terms with the clock ticking over Dean's head.
Author's note: Huge, squishy thanks to luzdeestrellas for the very helpful beta. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Song and cut tag from Santana's Put Your Lights On.
Sam’s not sure what he expected--purple skies, boiling oceans, raining frogs--but the sun rises over the eastern edge of Bobby’s yard just the same as before. The news doesn’t worry about more than the stock market and local school levies, and the only frog Sam sees is hidden in the high grass at the edge of Bobby’s lot.
Dean has 351 days left. The thought makes Sam nauseous, and he leans his forehead down against the kitchen table, tries to breathe through his nose.
“Hey,” Dean says as the back door slams shut behind him. “Sammy? You ok?”
Sam pulls himself back up, manages something that feels like a smile. “Yeah, just tired,” he says, and it’s not even all a lie.
Dean watches him for another minute before he wipes the oil on his hands onto his already stained t-shirt and grabs a folded up newspaper off the counter. He tosses it onto the table. “Couple of kids disappeared up in North Dakota.”
Sam picks it up and skims through the article Dean’s circled about two teenagers never coming back from a camping trip. Dean is watching him expectantly when he looks up again.
“Bobby’s got that cabin right up near there. What d’ya say, Sammy? Feel like a little camping?”
He’s grinning wide and bright, the same way he has every time he’s suggested anything over the past two weeks-what d’you think, Sam, Grand Canyon? or we should head down to Florida, rent out one of those shacks right on the beach. Sam wants to say no on principle, the same way he has every other time, making sure Dean’s not crossing things off some ridiculous list, that he has a few reasons to want to stick around.
But he doesn’t think he can handle another day of Bobby and Ellen’s concerned looks, like they’re just waiting for him to break, admit there might not be a way to save Dean.
“Yeah, ok,” he says, and Dean looks shocked for half a second before he recovers.
“Awesome,” he says, bouncing a little on his heels.
Bobby and Ellen get back an hour later with four thick steaks to cook out on Bobby’s grill, and Dean decides they can leave in the morning. Sam spends the rest of the day helping Bobby dig through stacks of books. They’ve spent the last two weeks picking through them, but neither of them has any idea what to look for, and they’ve spent most of the time separating books into piles of useless and maybe not useless.
Bobby gives him a couple books to take with him, promises to keep looking. Sam feels twitchy, like his own skin is too small for his body. Two weeks feels like no time at all and too much wasted, and he can feel the gut-wrenching panic on the edges of his consciousness, a low, constant buzz he tries not to get too close to.
***
Sam spends two hours staring at the ceiling, watching the moonlight through the curtains and listening to Dean breathe, before he gives up on sleep entirely and pulls out one of the books Bobby lent him. It’s a couple hours later before Dean jerks awake, pale and shaking.
“Hey,” Sam says, before the panic can set in. Dean’s eyes are wide and glassy when he looks over, and Sam wants to reach out, curl against him like he did that first night, until Dean’s hands stopped shaking and he didn’t hold onto Sam like he expected him to be ripped away any second.
“Sammy,” he says, voice rough with sleep and terror.
“Yeah.” Sam shifts forward on his bed, presses his knees against Dean’s when he sits up. Dean blinks blearily at him a few times, and Sam can see the exact moment he wakes up a bit more by the way his expression closes up, shoulders suddenly tense. “You ok?” he asks, even though he knows he won’t get a real answer.
Dean breathes a couple times, deep and still a little uneven. “Yeah,” he says, rubs a hand over his face, and when he looks up again, the tight line of his mouth eases a little. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Sam stays quiet, doesn’t push because Dean won’t answer even if he does. They haven’t talked about what happened in Wyoming, or what happened before that, since the first night at Bobby’s, when Dean was still watching him, wide-eyed and disbelieving, and Sam was trying to wrap his mind around everything.
“What time is it?”
“Almost four,” he says, and Dean frowns, scrubs at his eyes. Sam knows neither of them will get any more sleep tonight. “You wanna hit the road?”
Dean shrugs, mumbles incoherently as he stumbles out of bed and grabs a pair of clean boxers from his bag. The shower kicks on a few minutes later, old pipes creaking in the walls. Sam lies back on the bed, lets his eyes slide closed for a minute.
Neither of them has slept well since the demon was killed. Dean’s up before dawn every morning, creeping out to work on one of Bobby’s cars, always careful not to make noise, like Sam can’t see the dark circles under his eyes. Sam stays up half the night, running through the list of possibilities that never gets any longer: exorcism, make another deal, control the demon.
He doesn’t think the first one will work, not after the last time, and Dean would never forgive him if he went with the second. He’s not sure he can even do the last one, but he keeps it on the list, unwilling to go on without some kind of plan to fall back on, not afraid of it for the first time since Dean told him Dad’s secret. He thinks maybe Dean could save him if he had to, the only light that’s ever kept the darkness away.
“Sammy,” Dean says and brushes his fingers down the side of Sam’s neck. It’s not until Sam opens his eyes and sees Dean leaning over him that he realizes he'd dozed off. It reminds Sam of when they were kids, when Dad would leave in the middle of the night and drive through till morning. He would always pack the car before he woke them, and they would stumble, still half-asleep, into the back seat, Dean usually carrying Sam when he refused to move.
“C’mon, dude,” Dean says when Sam blinks up at him, “you’re too big to carry.”
Sam grins and scrubs a hand over his face. “Getting weak in your old age, Dean?” he asks as he follows his brother out into the hall, and gets an elbow to the chest.
The town they stop for breakfast in is the same one the missing kids are from and the last place on the map before Bobby’s cabin, still a couple hours away. Sam grabs a newspaper from the rack by the cash register, hoping to find more information on the case, and Dean hunches over the table, scribbling on his napkin. Sam glances over, expecting to see some kind of ridiculously lewd drawing. He’s a little surprised to see a long list of writing. “Dude,” he says, incredulous, when he deciphers eggs and bacon as the first two words, “is that a grocery list?”
Dean scowls at him, slaps a hand over the napkin. “Yeah, so?”
Sam bites the insides of his cheeks hard enough to draw blood so he can hold back the grin.
Dean catches it anyway and bristles. “We have to eat, Sam.”
The image of Dean wandering around some huge chain grocery store, pushing a cart and carrying a list, springs into his mind so fast Sam can’t stop the snort of amusement.
“Shut up,” Dean snaps and hunches over a little more, keeping his hand curled protectively above the napkin.
Sam reaches across the table, tries to snag the pen out of Dean’s hand, and gets a swift kick to the shin.
“Get away from my list, bitch.”
“I want Lucky Charms,” Sam says and Dean rolls his eyes, stuffing the list in his pocket.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have mocked then, huh, Sparky?” He smirks and steals Sam’s toast.
“And graham crackers.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean grumbles under his breath, “it’s there, Jesus.”
They head to the grocery store on the other side of town after breakfast, one of the regional chains and only a block away from the county library. The paper didn’t mention anything about the missing kids, and Sam’s pretty sure the library won’t have much either, but he doesn’t really like the thought of heading into the woods without some kind of idea what they’re dealing with.
“Where’re you going?” Dean asks when he starts walking toward the street.
“Library,” Sam says, and Dean frowns.
“We can go there after.”
Sam shrugs and adjusts his laptop case on his shoulder. “It won’t take long.”
He gets only an exaggerated eye roll, before Dean starts after him. It takes Sam a minute to figure out what he’s doing. It’s been less than three weeks since he went into the diner and ended up in South Dakota, and they haven’t left Bobby’s since they killed the demon. Dean’s never dealt very well with Sam disappearing, even when he doesn’t end up dead.
“Dean,” Sam says, “I can go to the library on my own.”
Dean raises an eyebrow at him. “No shit, Sherlock,” he mutters and keeps walking.
Sam stays put, waits until Dean notices and turns around, looking annoyed.
“I just have to look up a couple things. It won’t take more than twenty minutes.” Dean scowls down at the ground, shifts uncomfortably. Sam tries to quell his own sudden apprehension about the whole thing, thinking about ticking clocks and demons out looking to make a name for themselves. “I’ll meet you right back here.”
“Twenty minutes.” Sam nods, and Dean squints at him like he’s looking for some kind of sign that Sam’s going to go off and get himself kidnapped and killed. “I mean it, Sam.”
“Twenty minutes,” he promises.
It only takes him fifteen minutes of talking with one of the librarians to get the information he needs, and he spends the last five minutes copying pages out of a book on Faustian bargain mythology.
Dean’s still in the store when he gets back, standing in the dairy section staring at the selection of eggs. “Dude, check this out,” he says, holding up two separate crates of eggs. “There’s like twenty different kinds.”
Sam pretends not to notice the way Dean’s whole posture relaxes the second Sam’s standing next to him. “Find anything?”
“Not really.” Sam glances around, waits until a mom with two little kids passes by before he says, “A girl died in the same area about three years ago.”
Dean is still staring at the eggs, opening up different containers and poking at some of them. “How?”
“Don’t know. She was with two friends, but they never talked to anyone about it.” Sam’s favorite thing about states like North Dakota is that even the largest towns are small enough that the librarians generally know most of what’s going on. “One of them killed herself last year, and the other’s in a mental institution a few towns over.”
Dean raises his eyebrows at that, opens up another carton of eggs and picks through them. “Maybe she saw something,” he says, and finally grabs one of the cartons without bothering to inspect it.
“Maybe. She can’t have visitors, though; not even her parents can get in.”
Dean frowns at that, and Sam follows him toward the check-out. “There’s also a local legend that Big Foot is in the hills,” he says just to see Dean’s reaction. Every state they’ve ever been to has its own Big Foot legend.
Dean snorts and rolls his eyes. “Awesome. Maybe we’ll see Santa Claus, too.”
The cabin is almost exactly the way Sam remembers it from the few times they stayed there as kids, when hunts brought them through the area or Dad was beat up enough to need more than a couple days of rest. There’s still the ratty couch in the middle of the main room, and in the bedroom, the large king size bed with the floral sheets that always drove Dean crazy, and which Bobby always refused to comment on.
The area that the two missing boys were supposed to be camping in is only about a mile away from Bobby’s cabin. They throw their things in the bedroom and unpack the majority of the food before they trek out toward the campsite, Dean waving around the EMF reader. Sam’s not convinced it isn’t just a case of two kids getting lost in the woods, and even if it’s not, the number of possibilities and the area they would have to cover makes the whole thing seem a little impossible. But it’s been a long time since he’s seen Dean so happy and relaxed.
“Hey,” Dean says about twenty minutes in, and Sam turns to find him hunched over, squinting down at the ground. “I think I found something.” He straightens up a second later, grinning and already laughing under his breath. “Oh wait, that’s your footprint.”
Sam’s pretty sure his brother will never get tired of the Sasquatch jokes. “Ha ha,” he mutters dryly, turning away again. There’s a noise to his left, and a squirrel runs out from under a rotted log a second later. “You know, Dean-” he cuts himself off when he hears the noise again, a quiet snuffling like someone is crying. The floor of the forest is fairly clear, though, and he can’t see any signs that people have been through the area for months.
“Sam?”
“I thought-” he starts, shakes his head. “Do you hear that?” he asks, and Dean falls quiet; only Sam can’t hear it anymore, either. When he turns back toward his brother Dean is looking at him, both eyebrows raised. “Never mind.”
***
Dean is watching him, not even bothering to be stealthy about it, shuffling footsteps and throat clearing. Sam sighs, presses a finger to the end of the sentence he just finished reading and looks up finally. “What?”
“You’ve gotta stop this, Sam.”
Sam stares at him for a minute, not really sure what he’s done this time, but Dean is watching him with that same broken, pleading look he had that night by the Impala. Don’t you get mad at me.
“Dean.”
“You’re not gonna find anything,” he says matter-of-factly, and Sam has to look away, throat too tight to swallow properly.
His fingernail is white where it’s pressed against the page and he feels a sudden, irrational surge of anger at his brother. “I will. I’m going to save you.”
“Yeah, well,” Dean mutters, leans back against the wall casually, “maybe I don’t want you to.”
Sam feels like the world is tilting beneath his feet as he stares at Dean. “What?” he tries to say, but he can’t get any breath behind it.
Dean is lying next to him when he opens his eyes, face buried in his pillow, and Sam blinks up at the ceiling, eyes burning. The reality of the dream is still humming under his skin, strong and terrifying. He wants to wake Dean up and make him promise-something, anything. That he doesn’t want to die, that he thinks Sam can save him. The idea that Dean doesn’t want him to or doesn’t think he can isn’t something Sam ever considered before, and the possibility of it is suddenly the worst thing he can imagine.
He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to keep his breathing even until his heart rate slows down again. He tries not to wake Dean, but it’s been years since they’ve had to share a bed, and when he shifts Dean’s awake a second later.
“Sam?” he grunts, squinting at him in the dark.
Sam sighs, rubs a hand over his face. “I’m okay.”
“Nightmare?”
“No,” he lies, even though he wants to turn and curl up against Dean like he hasn’t since he was nine. Dean stares at him like he’s waiting for Sam to 'fess up, and Sam closes his eyes, hopes Dean will take the hint. The bed dips, and Dean’s arm lands on Sam’s stomach a second later.
“I gotcha, Sammy,” he mutters into his pillow, already half asleep again. Sam tries to swallow past the hot lump in his throat.
They head out again the next morning, scouring the woods for any sign of supernatural activity. Sam feels stripped bare, the dream constantly running through his head, and Dean’s on edge all morning, circles still dark and obvious under his eyes. They end up spending most of the time in silence in order to avoid sniping at one another.
“Would you quit it?” Dean finally snaps as they’re heading back toward the cabin for lunch. “You’ve been staring at me all day, man, what’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” Sam says, forcing his eyes away. “Sorry.”
“Hey,” Dean says, cocky grin in place, “I know-” he cuts off abruptly, eyes suddenly wide.
Sam thinks irrationally of Evan Hudson and hellhounds before he can stop himself. It’s barely been three weeks, he knows, but he can’t stop the flood of panic when Dean starts glancing around like he hears something. “Dean?” He’s not sure he manages to keep the fear out of his voice, but Dean doesn’t seem to notice.
Dean glances around again, shoulders tense. “I-” he stops himself again and shakes his head; Sam tries to stay calm. “Nothing. I thought I heard something.”
Sam feigns feeling ill when they get back and spends the rest of the day researching.
***
“Sam,” Dean says, and Sam jerks awake, hunched over one of Bobby’s books. Dean is leaning against the edge of the table, watching him carefully. “You have to stop doing this.”
Sam’s stomach rolls and he shoves himself back from the table. “Stop,” he says, but Dean follows him across the room.
“It’s ok, Sammy,” he says, and he looks so sincere Sam wants to punch him in the mouth. “I don’t need to be saved.”
Sam can’t breathe. He reaches out to grab Dean, or punch him; he’s not really sure, but he only gets air. Dean is across the room again, saying something about being tired that Sam can only half hear and he can’t breathe.
He blinks and there’s a hand on the back of his neck, his cheek mashed against the notes he’d been taking. He jerks upright.
“Woah. Easy, tiger,” Dean says, amused. “Come on, Sammy, bed.”
Sam stares at him for a second. He can’t tell if he’s dreaming or not; it all feels the same. “Dean,” he says, panic thick in the back of his throat, and Dean raises his eyebrows, pulls him to his feet. Sam grabs onto him before he can disappear again.
Dean frowns, forehead creased in concern as he stares up at Sam, and Sam doesn’t know what to say, how to make Dean understand that he doesn’t know how to do this without him.
“Sam,” Dean says like he’s been trying to get Sam’s attention.
He forces himself to loosen his grip on Dean’s arms, and steps back. “I-” he starts, but he doesn’t really want to explain. “Sorry.” There’s sunlight streaming into the kitchen, and Dean looks like he just rolled out of bed. “What time is it?”
“Quarter to seven.”
Dean looks like he’s going to ask about what just happened. Sam cuts him off with a quick, “I’m fine,” before he can. Dean still looks a little skeptical.
“Sure y’are,” he says, and then sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Gonna shower. Go to bed, Sammy.”
Sam stands in the middle of the kitchen for a minute, thoughts still slow with sleep and fear, and then he goes outside to call Bobby.
“Sam, I want to find something as much as you do,” Bobby says. His voice is tinged with exasperation, because they've been going in circles for the past ten minutes, and Sam presses his lips together, squints off into the horizon. “You know I do. But we need to be realistic-”
“No, there’s a way,” Sam says, because he can’t listen to the possibility, can’t imagine ever considering it. He hears Dean’s voice in his head, the casually disregarding tone, and presses on, “There has to be a way, Bobby. It’ll just take a little digging.” The back screen door slams and Sam’s pretty sure he can hear Dean calling for him.
Bobby sighs over the phone. “Listen-”and he sounds like he did when Sam was fifteen and Bobby was trying to make him see sense about whatever he and his dad had recently fought about..
“Sammy,” Dean yells, and there’s that note of terror in his voice that always makes Sam’s blood run cold.
“I have to go,” he says quickly and hangs up, just as Dean comes barreling around the corner. “What’s wrong?”
“Are you ok?” Dean asks over him, gripping Sam’s arms the second he’s close enough, like he thinks Sam will collapse if Dean doesn’t hold him up. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” he says, but Dean isn’t paying attention, eyes raking over Sam the way they always do when Dean thinks he’s been hurt. “Dean,” he says sharp enough to bring his brother’s attention back to him, “you were calling for me.”
Dean blinks, loosens his grip on Sam’s arms. “Yeah, I heard-” he stops, still looking spooked, but he lets Sam go and steps back. “You didn’t yell?”
“No, I didn’t even-” he starts, but Dean’s not listening again.
“Dammit,” he mutters, and turns to go back inside. “I know what we’re hunting.”
Sam stares at his retreating back for a second, trying to catch up. “What?” he asks, jogging after him. “Wendigo? Because I didn’t hear anybody yelling-”
“No,” Dean says as the door clangs shut behind them. He grabs the journal off the counter and turns to face Sam. “It’s called a far darrig, they’re like leprechauns.”
Sam’s pretty sure he’s hearing Dean wrong. He blinks and Dean stares back at him, waiting. “Leprechauns,” Sam says, putting as much disbelief into the word as he can.
Dean rolls his eyes and starts flipping through the journal. “Not leprechauns. They’re similar to leprechauns, only there’s no gold and they feed off people’s fear.” Sam really wants to make a Lucky Charms joke; it’s right on the tip of his tongue when Dean looks up and scowls. “Don’t.”
“So how do we find it?” He tries to keep a straight face, but he knows Dean can hear the unbridled amusement in his tone. “Follow the rainbow?”
“It’s not a leprechaun, jackass,” he says between gritted teeth, and Sam grins. Dean thumps him on the back of the head as he walks by, and starts digging through the weapons bag on the kitchen table. “They’re a bitch to find. I hunted one with Dad once. They’re invisible half the time, make you hear things, cause nightmares--” he trails off as he pulls a Glock out of the bag, sights down it.
Sam thinks of the crying he heard in the woods, Dean’s blank stare in his dream, and frowns. “Nightmares.”
Dean glances over at him. “Yeah,” he says, and his eyes narrow. “Why? You been having nightmares?” Sam thinks about lying again, stays quiet instead and Dean puts the gun down, turns his full attention to Sam. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“It’s not like it’s unusual,” he says, sighing when Dean’s scowl hardens. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Sam-” he starts, but Sam stands up, grabs the gun Dean put aside.
“So how do we kill it?”
Dean watches him silently, still scowling, and then snatches the Glock out of Sam’s hands. “Iron rounds should do the trick,” he says, handing Sam one of the other guns. “First we have to find it.”
***
Sam thinks Dean neglected to mention just how much of a bitch it is to track a far darrig. They’ve been wandering through the woods for two hours, and Sam’s still not really sure what they’re supposed to be looking for. He's still half expecting a cartoon character to jump out at them from behind a tree.
There’s a flash of red off to the right and Sam turns, finally gets a good look at what they’re hunting. It’s nothing like a cartoon. The thing looks like a shriveled old man, yellowed skin wrinkled and drooping, dressed in a red coat, so long it brushes the ground, and a matching red bowler hat. Sam can see Dean taking aim out of the corner of his eye, but the thing disappears between one blink and the next. Sam’s not completely sure he even saw anything until it appears a few seconds later, twenty feet away from where it was previously, grinning at them with crooked, decaying teeth. It wiggles its fingers at them in a wave and then it’s gone again.
“What the-“
“It’s playing with us.” Dean cuts him off, voice low. “It won’t go far.” He jerks his chin to the right and starts inching off to the left.
Sam can hear the same soft sniffling from before, and he heads toward it as quietly as he can. He’s on the ground a second later, and he doesn’t even have time to look and see what tripped him before the far darrig is in his face.
“It’s true,” it says, breath rancid, grinning wide, and Sam jerks back on instinct. “You’ll never find anything. He knows you won’t.”
His fear is the whole point, and Sam knows he shouldn’t listen, but panic makes his chest tight anyway. His gun is only a foot away behind the far darrig where it landed when he fell, but Sam’s not sure he could reach for it even if the thing wasn’t leaning in close enough for its hat to brush Sam’s forehead.
It leans back and cackles, the sound odd and hollow. “He’ll burn down there, and there’s nothing you can do.”
The shot is deafening, and there’s not even a moment of realization before the creature drops to the ground, grotesque grin still twisted on its face.
Dean lowers his arm slowly, watching Sam with an unreadable expression. “Sammy?”
“M’okay,” he says, even though the fear is still heavy and suffocating on his chest. He pushes himself up, leans back against the closest tree with his eyes squeezed shut, but he can’t stop himself from shaking. He feels the panic he’s tried to keep at bay the last three weeks crushing down on him, and he can’t push is away this time.
“Hey,” Dean says, suddenly right there. He wraps a hand around the back of Sam’s neck, strokes a thumb along his jaw. “Sam,” he says sharply, and Sam forces his eyes open, a Pavlovian response ingrained into him from a lifetime of hunts and nightmares. “Deep breaths, okay?”
He tries to take a breath but his chest is still too tight. His throat’s too small and all he can think about is the clock over Dean’s head ticking away as fast as his heartbeat.
“Come on, Sam.” Dean grips the sides of his face, forces Sam to meet his gaze. “Only pussies have panic attacks.”
He lets out a huff of surprised laughter and manages another shaky inhale. “You’re an asshole,” he says, and Dean grins wide.
“Damn straight.” He leans back and lets his hands drop away when Sam starts to keep his breathing even. Dean watches him quietly, looking slightly uncomfortable, and Sam wonders just how much Dean heard of what the far darrig said. “Sam,” he starts when Sam moves to stand up.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says and pushes away from the tree. He doesn’t have to turn around to know Dean is frowning at him. “What about the missing kids?”
Dean sighs and then stands as well. “Well, if it was the far darrig keeping them, they should be around here. We can call Forest Services once we deal with this,” he says, poking the corpse with the toe of his boot.
They drag the body into the clearest area they can find to burn it, and Dean stands next to Sam, shoulder pressed against his, watching the flames. It’s only mid-afternoon, but the heavy tree cover makes it look darker, and Sam watches the way the flames light Dean’s face. The last few days are hazy with fear, and now that the far darrig is dead, Sam doesn’t find himself feeling much better.
Dean glances over at him, catches his gaze, and Sam’s chest aches. He promises himself all over again that he’s going to save his brother. If he has to open the gates of hell again and march down there and kill the demon himself, he will.
“Look, Sam,” Dean says as the fire starts to die out. He glances at Sam out of the corner of his eye and then stares determinedly at the trees in the distance, “about what the, uh-”
“Forget it,” Sam mutters and looks away. Real or not, he’s listened to Dean tell him to give up the search enough in the past forty-eight hours.
“Sammy,” he tries again, and nudges Sam in the shoulder when he doesn’t respond. “Come on, man. You’re like a freaking encyclopedia. If anyone’s going to find something,” he shrugs, and lets the sentence hang.
Sam looks up and meets Dean’s gaze. “I will find something,” he tells him, determined .
Dean gives him a fond, crooked smile before he turns away with a slight nod. “That’s m’boy,” he murmurs under his breath, and the words settle warm and bright in Sam’s chest, make it a little easier to breathe.
“Come on, dorkwad.” Dean tosses the empty box of matches at his head, and grins when Sam shoves him away. “You know,” he says as Sam follows him back toward the cabin, “just once I’d like to go camping and not end up having to shoot something.”
“Next year,” Sam promises, and Dean doesn’t argue.