It's the Blueprint of Your Life [NC17] Sam/Dean - part two

[queenklu]

When they were teenagers, squatting in a house was a luxury. They sprawled all over the building, Dean in one room, Sam in the other, Dad in whichever flat surface was closest to the door. Dean liked it best when there was just one wall between him and Sammy, so he could pound on it when Sam’s dumb music was too loud, tap out codes if he got bored, call out Sam’s name just to see if he was there. But they still had space, and it was awesome, breathing room just like any other normal person demanded as their right.

Then-well, Dean can’t exactly pinpoint when, but if he had to he’d say Stanford happened, and something in his fucked up brain decided ‘space’ is really just room to keep secrets. When he got Sam back, ‘space’ was the distance he had to cover from his bed to where Sam’s nightmares were eating him alive. And after Sam died, ‘space’ turned into a fictional concept.

They share a bed most times they squat, nowadays. If there’s a clear area they might drag a twin mattress in from another bedroom, but if it’s too much effort then fuck it. They’re brothers, the same flesh and blood. It’s like sharing a bed with yourself. Or a version of yourself that octopuses everywhere and lets off heat like a furnace, so most mornings Dean wakes up with his t-shirt tangled under his arms and Sam’s elbow in his face.

It’s fine. This way he knows Sam isn’t getting himself kidnapped. If he wakes up those mornings feeling like he’s never slept sounder in his entire life, it’s just-what’s it called-muscle memory. Or whatever. From when he was little, and Sam’s crib was the best place to be to keep Sammy safe.

The first night in this house Sam had kept his limbs to himself in a tight knot as close to the edge of the bed as he could get without falling off; Dean wakes up this morning overheated-which is normal-with Sam’s arm wrapped over his chest-which…is less normal but still understandable-clutching Dean’s amulet. Which is not.

Dean grunts and twists, and realizes a split second later that Sam’s face is buried in the nape of his hair. Sam sneezes, jolting himself upright and awake all in one go, hand clenching around the amulet and hauling Dean up with him. Dean winds up nose to nose with his bleary-eyed baby brother, sniffing his rank morning breath and wondering how long it’ll be before Sam notices that his hair looks like it’s been licked by a herd of cattle.

Sam clues into what’s happened the same moment Dean says, “Dude,” and Sam relaxes even though he doesn’t let go. He sways a little, almost knocking their foreheads together, shuddering out a sigh that sounds like, “Thank God.”

Dean shakes his head, gives Sam a not-too-hard push so he tumbles back into bed, falling on one elbow as Sam's grip drags him down. “S’okay, Sammy, go back to sleep,” he says, prying Sam off his amulet one finger at a time.

“Sorry,” Sam mutters, half-muffled in the pillow. “Thought I was wearing it.”

“Over my dead body,” Dean grumbles, tugging free at last. Sam snores, already out cold, settled on his stomach in the warm spot Dean left by shifting around.

It seems like a pretty normal thing to run a hand from the top of Sam’s disastrous hair down his back-until he’s doing it. Dean snatches his hand back and retreats downstairs to make coffee. And toast. If they have bread.

Sam stumbles downstairs an hour later, blinking owlishly at Dean with his hair still in that cowlick. It’s beautiful, and Dean finds himself grinning without particularly meaning to. Sam scowls.

“Shut up.”

“Didn’t say a word, Alfalfa,” Dean smirks, but slides his recently reheated cup of coffee Sam’s way. Sam doesn’t even glance twice at the Mickey Mouse handle before he starts guzzling, and Dean pats himself on the back for letting Sam sleep in. Sam gives him an uncertain smile and Dean looks back to his research, feeling weird and caught out.

There’s a knock at the door.

Sam jumps hard enough he almost spills coffee all over himself, and Dean is on his feet in an instant, gun in his hand as he makes his way across the squeaky floorboards. When he sees who’s on the other side, he almost wishes he could use the gun.

“Dear god,” Bela draws as she steps through the door Dean unwillingly unlocks for her. “Are you actually squatting?”

“You’re early,” Sam blurts. He should really try to flatten his hair; he looks all of six years old caught with a cup of hot cocoa, up past his bedtime.

Bela’s thin-plucked eyebrow arches. “I’m dreadfully sorry, I didn’t realize we were on a schedule.” She holds up a folder, previously tucked under one arm. “It took me less time that I thought it would to find the ship, thanks to your little tip-off. Meet Joshua Brighton,” she says, placing a glossy print-out of a sepia-toned photo on the kitchen table. Dean is all too happy to tune her out when she starts telling them stuff they already know about his hacked-off hand, because the picture she has is definitely the customer they met last night.

“Where the hell are we going to find a Hand of Glory?” he asks when she finishes, back to their original problem.

“It’s at the Sea Pines Museum,” Bela says, oh-so-very smug, “as a macabre bit of maritime history.”

Dean levels a deadpan look at his brother instead of fist-pumping like he wants to. “And you thought this case wouldn’t have any burglary.”

“There is a much easier way to obtain the hand,” Bela pipes up before Sam can do more than open his mouth. “But I’ll need your help.”

“Name it,” Dean dares. Sam just sighs and sinks a little lower on his chair, Mickey Mouse cup held to his chest.

~*~

The night is going pretty well even if Dean says so himself; Sam as dear old Gert’s date is still freaking hysterical, the Hand of Glory is a piece of cake to steal, and Bela thinks Dean looks good enough in his tux to propose angry sex with him, which Dean is going to count as a win and never ever tell anyone about. Ever. Sex with Bela-even tame, benign, cheerful sex-would still be like sleeping with a giant British scorpion. No thank you.

Sam stumbles into him, and Dean rights his brother before Sam can crush the dead mummified hand tucked into Dean’s tux jacket. “Whoa, dude-“

“I forgot,” Sam hisses loudly, grabbing tight to Dean’s shoulders and inching between Dean and the wall, “how handsy she is.”

He is-wow, really drunk. Maybe not case-with-the-creepy-dolls drunk, but a long, long way from sober. “Sam,” Dean snaps, more than a little stunned, “we’re on a case.”

“My ass. Hurts. Dean,” Sam bites out, all puppy-dog eyes afterwards.

Gert appears with a last trip across the dance floor which he’s sure she thinks is some fancy footwork. Bela catches her with an, “Oh, Gertie darling,” but not in time to keep Gert from fluttering her hands over Dean’s chest trying to get to Sam.

“He wants me,” Gert explains to Bela, or possibly to Dean’s left earlobe.

Dean presses back on instinct, trapping Sam between his back and the wall, ignoring Sam’s small ooff of discomfort puffed out against Dean’s nape.

“I’m going to get Gert into a cold shower,” Bela offers with an indulgent smile, prying her free.

“Uh, yeah, thanks,” Dean says, unsure of what else to say. Bela’s smile deepens into her usual smirk, and then she and Gert disappear out the door, Gert leaning heavily on Bela’s arm as she twists around to wave goodbye.

Sam straightens up as soon as they’re gone-Dean feels him shift all along his back before he takes a quick sidestep out of the way-like one of those meerkats on the Discovery Channel, watching Bela leave.

“Dude,” Dean says because he has to say something, “you stink like sex.”

“That still doesn’t make sense,” Sam says, distracted and startlingly more sober than he’d sounded before. “Unless sex smells like cold cream and old people to you.”

Dean’s got nothing. “…Shut up. And you-“ He punches Sam on the arm, hard enough to make Sam look at him. “You with the drinking, what the hell?”

“I’m not that drunk. Not, uh, really.” Sam looks guilty, but yeah, Dean can see the awareness there that authentically-drunk-off-his-ass-Sam just doesn’t have. He’s stripping out of his tie right there, though, still in a ballroom full of people, tugging at Dean’s sleeve with his free hand as they head out the door. Dean gets a more-than-startled glance from the security guard he and Bela duped earlier this evening, but the moron can think what he likes about Dean’s sex life. “Not a whole lot anyway. I’ll be sober by the time we have to do anything.”

“Right. About that,” Dean drawls, appreciating the cold night air on the faintly sweaty skin that comes from wearing about a billion layers of pricey rental tux. “We’re meeting Bela in the cemetery in half an hour. You’re going to be sober by then?”

“Uh,” Sam says, “Sure.”

Dean gives him a look, but Sam has been handing out so many free passes since Dean’s deal that he doesn’t have a high horse to stand on. He sighs, rubs his forehead as he ducks into the Impala. “Man, you’re lucky I don’t actually need you for a salt-and-burn.”

Sam-when Dean glances over-looks like Dean just called him useless. There isn’t another way to describe it. Hurt and small and thinking his brother would be right to kick him to the curb; Dean recognizes that last part in his own reflection almost every day.

“Ah, Sam, I didn’t mean it like that,” Dean promises, tugging Sam all the way into the car and across the passenger’s seat to fit in a one-armed hug. Sam is drunk enough to be completely pliant, not nudging into Dean’s space so much as slotting together like a bullet in a chamber. Sam’s head lolls back against Dean’s arm, collar of his tux flying up like he fell out of a disco. The sideburns are not a deterrent for this comparison.

Sam sighs, limbs everywhere in an unselfconscious sprawl. If he ever acted this way in public he’d have to start beating admirers off with a stick; Dean feels a little swell of something-he’s going to go with pride-that he’s the one who gets to see Sam like this.

“Sorry,” Sam mumbles, eyes closed, eyebrows scrunching up and releasing. “I got bored. I didn’t mean to. Open bar. Handsy.”

Dean wishes he could help himself, but really. “Well sometimes, Sammy, when a man and a woman love each other very much-she palms his ass a little.”

Sam bites down on a groan and pushes away from Dean, or more like tips himself in the other direction. His hand is still on Dean’s arm, his knee is still shoved against Dean’s leg, but most of his body is in the passenger’s seat. “Was gonna wait until the hotel, but fuck you,” he bitches, eyes still shut, “Check your pocket, Dean.”

“What?”

“The hand,” Sam says more clearly, dragging one eye open to watch him. “Let me see it.”

And yeah, okay, Dean’s pretty proud of the way he totally Mission Impossibled this fucker, so he tugs the handkerchief-covered parcel from his jacket pocket thinking about all the things he’s going to do with it-rest it on Sam’s shoulder, maybe wiggle it at Sam’s hair-and…then…it…

It’s a book. It’s a book on sea shanties of 16th century England.

“Huh,” Sam says, “That’s interesting.”

“It’s not the hand, Sam!” Dean shouts, shoving it under Sam’s nose.

Sam smiles up at him from where his head is propped up by the door. “You’re really good at this,” he says, nose wrinkling in delight. “Hey Dean, it’s also not a watermelon.”

“You’re brain damaged.” But most of Dean’s anger has already seeped into the footwell. He starts yanking at the buttons cutting off his oxygen supply, struggling out of the jacket so he can fling it at Sam’s head. “You of all people should be pissed off that you got groped by Mrs. Haversham for nothing.”

“AHA!” Sam sits up so fast Dean’s vision is spinning, but he just shakes his finger and then looks kind of sad and confused, so Dean grabs his face and pushes him back down.

“Sleep it off, Sasquatch,” he mutters, and pretends not to notice Sam shoving Dean’s suit jacket under his head for padding against the door. Sam’s smile is gone like someone wiped it off his face, and he shifts around, trying to get comfortable, before settling as Dean starts the car. His ass probably does hurt; Dean saw the length of Gert’s nails.

Dean is going to kill Bela.

~*~

Sam drinks two glasses of water and scarfs down all the leftover pizza from lunch, looking more and more guilty and restless even though Dean has no idea why.

“Dude, just go to bed,” Dean tells him the second time Sam gets back from the bathroom. “We’ll follow up leads on Bela in the morning or we’ll figure out some other way to kill this ghost.”

“Yeah. No. I know. I mean.” Sam actually attempts to look casual, which is half laughable and half just weirding Dean out. If Gert slipped Sam something extra in his drink Dean is going to set all of her crochet work on fire, see if he won’t. “I think I’ve got a spell figured out,” Sam says, pushing Dad’s journal across the table towards Dean.

“For what?” Dean skims the page, then goes back and reads it again. “Sam, this is for summoning a spirit.”

“Yeah,” Sam nods, slow, like he’s making himself calm down. He still won’t make eye-contact. “I’ve got a spirit in mind.”

Dean waits, but Sam isn’t forthcoming. Definitely a sign that Sam is sobering up. “Who?”

“The Warren brothers,” Sam starts, and Dean almost opens his mouth to say You’ve got to be kidding before Sam continues, “Gert’s niece…They were targeted because they’ve killed someone in their family.”

Dean blinks. “What?”

“Gert’s niece killed a cousin in a car accident, the Warren brothers probably offed their dad.” Sam looks rueful for some reason, but before Dean can grill him about it he moves on. “So I did some digging, and-the Captain who hung our sailor boy was his brother.”

Dean sits back in his chair, carefully, feeling it creak. “Of course he was,” he mutters, and there’s a knock at the door.

Okay, it’s more like a pounding, and Bela’s panicked voice shouting, “Hello? Could you open up?”

Dean looks at Sam, knows the disbelief is stamped out in bold font across his face, but Sam is already out of his chair and heading for the door. He gets it halfway open before Dean plants himself at Sam’s side, barring her way.

“Just let me explain,” Bela says, pale beneath her makeup but not showing fear. “I sold it.”

Dean takes a very deep breath and counts to ten, because if he doesn’t he might just hit her. “Of course you did,” he grits out. “Why am I even surprised? Oh, maybe I thought you might have issues with letting people die for some cold hard cash.”

“That was quite foolish of you,” Bela agrees, and Dean realizes with an odd sort of twitch that any trace of her usual smirk is gone. “Could you let me in, please?”

Sam moves before Dean does, and Bela marches inside like she’s trying very hard not to run. “I need your help,” she says, sitting herself down at their table and crossing her legs, waiting for them to sit down. “Isn’t that what you do, help people?”

“Haven’t we helped you enough?” Dean demands. “We already stole the hand for you. In your cutthroat business world doesn’t that mean we get part of the take?”

Bela’s eyes are ice cold. “I’ll pay you, if you like.”

“No,” Sam says, forceful, and yeah, he’s right, they can’t be bought. “Bela, why don’t you tell us what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

She stares at him, and Dean does too, something off in Sam’s tone. “Is that a joke?” she asks. “I saw the ship.”

Dean’s grip on the back of his chair goes knuckle-white for a second. “Wow…” He’d like to string together a list of words to call her but he doesn’t want to waste the effort.  “Just when I thought my opinion of you couldn’t get any lower…”

He lets Sam explain about the Cain and Abel situation, feeling tired in a way that’s only getting worse the closer Hell gets. “Who was it, Bela?” he asks when he sees the shock register on her face. “Who’d you kill?”

If looks could kill, Dean would be salt-and-burned. “None of your business.”

“You’re right,” Sam says, sitting down at the table next to her. Dean pulls a face, and Sam sends him a quick Just go with it. “But do you understand that that’s why this spirit wants you dead? It thinks you earned it.”

“I think you earned it,” Dean chimes in, and is rewarded with a look from both of them, though the expressions are very different. Sam looks like he’s on Dean’s side, at least, but also like he has miles more patience for Bela than Dean could ever dredge up.

“Never mind,” Bela says, tone so clipped it might leave marks. “I’ll just do what I’ve always done. I’ll deal with it myself.”

She stands up and turns to leave, and Dean sees Sam grip the table like he has to stop himself from stopping her, and that’s what does it. Sam is losing people left and right and Dean can’t help being one of them, but he sure as hell can try to keep the body count low.

“We might have a way,” he says, head down between his shoulders. He doesn’t have to look to hear her heels stop.

~*~

“Do you really think this is going to work?” Bela asks, shivering under her jacket. If she wore normal clothes instead of flimsy designer things this would not be a problem. Dean isn’t cold. Not to the point of shivering, anyway. He is not a wuss.

Dean glances Bela’s way and shrugs, adjusting his grip on his weapon. “Almost definitely not.”

Sam is setting up the ritual, hands steady as he lights the five candles surrounding the pentagram and mixes the potion. Bela is so lucky they still had some lamb’s blood in the cooler, and that’s all Dean has to say on the subject as the wind picks up like a switch flipped, ink-black clouds blocking out the moon in record time. The rain comes down like a faucet twisted, thick and frigid before Sam can even get his jacket zipped.

“Sammy, you better start reading,” Dean says, but Sam is already hunching over the journal, trying to shield it with his shoulders.

“Aziel, Ca-“ Sam shakes his head, hair soaked and dripping, clinging to his eyes before he tries again. “Aziel, Castiel, Lameniel, Raboc, Erly et Belam ego vos coniuro per deum verum…”

The candles sputter and gust out, wind tearing at them so frantically it’s blowing the rain up Dean’s nose; he gets his arm up, squinting against the water on his lashes for any sign of the spirit, barking at Bela to stay close. He turns Bela’s way, and her eyes go wide at something over his shoulder.

“Behind you!”

Dean’s gun arm snaps up fast, but not otherworld-fast. The spirit slams Dean with the Force, which always feels like getting punched by the fist of God, and Dean’s back slams against a tombstone hard enough to shove the air out of his lungs. He thinks his gun goes off, but his vision is grey when he gets his eyes open and he isn’t sure, looks to Sam before anything else and blinks away the rain. There might be someone-but there’s definitely someone with his hand on Bela, and she’s on her knees choking up salt water.

Dean runs for them first, the spirit neatly shimmering out of sight and back again, further away so he can watch her drown. Bela clutches Dean’s wrist, nails digging into his skin and he can’t blame her, he really can’t. No one deserves to die like this. He shouts for Sammy to read faster, voice hoarse and barely audible over the storm.

The Latin-cuts off, ends. Dean can’t tell for a single, terrifying second whether Sam stopped on purpose or was stopped. But then the clouds part, like someone’s ripping them away as the rain fizzles to nothing. Dean will admit he’s shivering now, but Bela is still drowning and her grip is getting weaker.

The moonlight spills over the graveyard like a spotlight, and there’s their Captain, so completely the center of Joshua Brighton’s focus that Bela gurgles in a breath.

“You,” the spirit hisses, teeth bared, furious in a way that leaks everywhere, seizing up Dean’s chest with betrayal. “…Hanged me.”

“I’m sorry,” the Captain whispers. His hands are open, reaching for his brother. Dean wants him to give an excuse, wants to know how this man lived with himself, or if he didn’t. Dean would rather hang himself in Sam’s place. Has.

Dean isn’t surprised when Joshua lunges at his brother, but he flinches with bone-deep cold when they clash, spiritual bodies crashing into each other like a wave smashed against a rock and shattering into a spray of sea foam that dissolves into thin air.

The cold-most of it, anyway-fades to a normal chill brought on by the fact that it is night and they are soaking wet. Dean knows gut-deep that the spirits have burned themselves up, if the sharp ozone smell in the air wasn’t enough to go on. He looks to Sam, Bela shaking under his arm and against him and probably on the brink of passing out, but Sam isn’t looking their way. He’s looking at the guy in the trench coat watching them work with unblinking blue eyes.

Dean blinks in his place, but the guy looks solid. “Who the hell are you?”

“Dean-“ Sam starts, hand outstretched in something like a soccer mom save if it weren’t for the solid fifteen feet between them.

The guy doesn’t seem interested in Dean, focused on staring holes into Sam. He doesn’t look scared, not like a civilian who stumbled on something unexplainable. He looks…not all there. The way crazy people look when they’ve got a knife to someone’s throat and they don’t understand what you’re worried about.

“You’re out of your time,” he tells Sam in a deep, ominous monotone.

Sam’s mouth is tense; he shakes his head, rain water flying off his hair. “No.”

Dean starts to stand but Bela coughs hard and shudders like she might fall apart, and okay, maybe standing is out but he levels a gun at the guy instead. “Sam,” Dean says, loud and warning, “you know this tax accountant?”

“Cas,” Sam croaks out, “Castiel.”

The guy cocks his head like a cocker spaniel.

“Castiel?” An uneasy feeling clenches its fists in Dean’s chest. “Didn’t that word just crop up in the incantation?”

“I don’t know why he’s here.” Sam is breathing quicker, strained, and he won’t look at Dean more than a second, just to make sure he’s still there. His hands are clenching and unclenching, Dad’s journal forgotten at his feet. “He didn’t-“

There’s a sound like heavy flapping wings, and the guy-Castiel-is suddenly a whole hell of a lot closer to Sam than he had been. Dean scrambles into a crouch without thinking about it, and Bela collapses in a faint. Real one this time, nothing like the stunt she’d pulled at the museum.

“Bela?” he shouts, even though he knows he won’t get an answer, “Bela?” She doesn’t even twitch. Dean gets her onto her back to keep her airway clear and checks her pulse-quick but getting slower, evening out. She looks small like this, vulnerable like a half-drowned cat, and Dean shrugs out of his sodden jacket and puts it over her in case it does anything to keep her warm, one eye on Sammy and the stranger the whole time.

“Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?”

“I do not understand,” Castiel says, same careful drone as before. Dean might as well be chopped liver. “We are in the present.”

Sam looks terrified. “I don’t know,” he grits out. “But don’t you dare try to take him away from me, Cas. It won’t end well for you.”

Dean’s on his feet fast enough to get a head-rush, hair on the back of his neck standing straight up at his brother’s tone. “Sammy-“

“Dean, stay there,” Sam orders, warns. Dean stays, but he makes no promises about being quiet.

Castiel’s eyebrows keep pulling tighter and tighter together, and he still hasn’t blinked, like he’s staring right down deep into Sam’s soul. “What have you done,” he says, “to Sam Winchester?”

Dean feels a little like his body is two steps to his left, and his insides are here, suspended, stuck in the moment before the lack of their fleshy containers sends them toppling to the dirt. Nothing makes sense, and then-with a snap like breaking bone-it does.

“No, Dean, no,” Sam-is it Sam?-says, desperate and god, he does all the right things, all the right facial expressions, the right tone. Dean feels frozen, the gun suddenly very heavy in his hand. “No, I’m not-I am Sam, I’m Sam, I-“

“No,” Castiel says with such finality that Dean flinches. He doesn’t know for sure if Sam does too, but he might. “No, you are the Sam Winchester of a Dean who doesn’t yet exist. Who may never exist.”

“That’s not-“ Sam yells, hands outstretched and it’s Sam, Dean knows it is. But.

“Explain,” he barks over his brother, or, whatever he is. Sam goes quiet, but he looks like he wants to be sick.

Castiel  finally turns to look at Dean-or at Dean’s shoulder. “This Sam,” he starts, and Dean has no idea how he sounds like he’s reading the dustiest textbook of all time but saying things that are vitally important. “This Sam is from the future. He was not brought here by an angel, I would feel it.” He squints at Sam again, accusing. “I would know.” His gaze slips back to Dean, to his eyes this time. “I can feel no magic tied to this, of angel, man, or monster’s making. This is not…” He pauses for such a long time Dean starts feeling lightheaded from holding his breath. “…impermanent.”

Sam bends at that, something like relief making his knees sag for a moment before he can get a grip on himself, and Dean-Dean feels like he’s going to heave.

“Where is my Sam?” Dean spits, his gun thudding hard against his empty chest when he takes an involuntary step forward. “If this isn’t him, where is mine?”

Castiel blinks once. “Destroyed.”

Dean doesn’t understand what the feeling threatening to kick his legs out from under him is until he looks at Sam and-it’s grief. Wild, panicky, denial-stage grief, about ten seconds away from knocking Dean on his ass.

“I’m sorry, Cas,” he hears Sam say through the rush of blood in his ears, Sam’s voice shaky but determined and Dean’s vision goes a little grey. “But you need to leave.”

“Whatever you’ve done has permanently altered the entire course of the world,” Castiel says, urgent for the first time. “I cannot-“

Dean hears Castiel cut himself off, and then he hears Sam’s quiet, “Now, Cas, or I’ll make you leave,” and there’s nothing but the sound of heavy flapping wings.

Then Sam’s hand is on Dean’s arm and Dean is surprised he’s still standing, but more surprised to look down and see Sam’s forearm, bare and bloody. He clutches it automatically, fingers searching for the cut to put pressure on it. “It’s not mine, it’s not mine,” Sam promises until Dean can figure out what he’s saying, “It’s the last of the lamb’s blood, a sigil for banishing angels.” Whatever the hell that means.

Dean tries to push him off but Sam is having none of it, holding Dean close in a brief, crushing hug that Dean tells himself he doesn’t want any part of. He doesn’t know what the fuck is going on and he might have a concussion from when that ghost drop kicked him into a tombstone. That would explain-a lot, actually.

He hears Sam grunt and when he looks, Bela is in Sam’s arms, her eyes half-open and unfocused but at least partially aware. Dean feels like he’s looking at them through a thick wall of glass. Sam’s whole face is crumpled and pleading, but Dean can’t feel it.

“Please, Dean,” he says, “I’ll tell you everything I know. But we’ve got to get Bela out of here.”

Dean nods because he knows that’s true, and when Sam steals his keys he climbs into the backseat with Bela, leaving the passenger’s seat bare.

~*~

Dean carries her inside because he doesn’t want to look at Sam, and Bela doesn’t even protest that she can walk which tells him how out of it she is. Her eyes are still open, though, less foggy, tracking things as they move by. Sam holds the door open, but whatever look Dean has on his face keeps him in the living room when Dean carries her up to the second empty bedroom upstairs.

“Hope you don’t mind a twin-sized bed,” he says, voice raspy on the half-assed humor as he sets her down and she sits up. “I’ll go find you some clothes.”

“Don’t bother.” Her voice is worse, hands down, sandpapered with salt water. She starts peeling off her jacket and shirt, and Dean turns around to give her privacy. “The bed has plenty of blankets. Once I’m dry I’ll be considerably warmer.”

“Yeah, well. Nothing better to do,” he says, and leaves to get clothes for her anyway. He grabs a pair of fairly clean sweats she’ll have to roll up and one of Sam’s shirts she could wear as a dress, but it’s flannel and it’s warm, so.

Bela’s bundled up in bed when he gets back, her face to the wall, and Dean figures that’s a pretty clear sign that she doesn’t want to talk, but oh well. “How’re you feeling?” He’s procrastinating, but it’s a legitimate question.

Bela sighs and rolls over, covers dragged up to her chin in a way that doesn’t quite seem like her. Or maybe this is normal, Dean doesn’t know, but he never thought Bela would be shy in bed even if she was just sleeping in it. This isn’t shyness, though; he can see in the set of her jaw that this is armor.

“I would kill for paracetamol,” she decides after a moment.

“Is that something like ibuprofen?” he asks, nodding to the bottle balanced on the bundle of clothes. In his other hand he has a glass of water, but he isn’t sure how soon she’s going to want to drink it so close to coughing it up.

“Very nearly,” she says, a hint of her former smirk creeping in as she sits up, careful to keep the blankets covering her chest. But her back is exposed, and Dean looks before he can help himself.

Bela tenses, but she doesn’t stop what she’s doing, sipping at the water. Dean doesn’t know what to do, aware he shouldn’t be staring but stuck on the sight of jagged, haphazard scars underneath her shoulder blades, down to the small of her back, curling around her ribs. Dean knows scars, knows these are old, knows because they’ve stretched to fit her as she grew up.

“I don’t want your pity,” she says. She hasn’t looked at Dean once.

Dean shrugs. “I don’t have any pity to give. If those scars are the reason this ghost came after you, then rock the fuck on.”

He sees the corner of her mouth creep up, and figures it’s time to let her be. “You’re still a thieving, lying bitch, though,” he adds at the door, and she turns to look at him, smirk firmly in place.

“I am aware.”

~*~

Sam is sitting on the couch with that yellow pad of paper, writing so furiously that he doesn’t notice Dean coming down the stairs. Dean isn’t sure he would have made it to the bottom if Sam was looking, so maybe it’s worth the way Dean’s skin feels like it’s peeling off.

“Going someplace?” he asks, and Sam’s head snaps up. “Gonna leave me a note when you left?”

“What? No, it’s-“ Sam stands and shows him the pages; Dean sees boxes and arrows and things scribbled out. “It’s a timeline.”

Dean takes a deep breath and makes himself walk closer. “A timeline… Right. Because you’re from the future.”

“Yes…sort of,” Sam says, cringing. Dean keeps looking for the places that he’s not Sam and it’s making his stomach hurt that he can’t see any. “Do you want to sit down?”

Dean sits in the overstuffed high-backed chair, with his gun in his lap and his flask of holy water open and in his free hand. Sam nods to it.

“I’ll drink some if you want me to. Silver knife, whatever you want.”

The thought of Sam cutting himself-even a theoretically-from-the-future-Sam-makes Dean want to punch himself in the face, so, no. But he screws the top back on the flask and tosses it; Sam catches one-handed, and chugs a big gulp down like, well, like it’s water. He lets some spill over his lips, too, so Dean can see that he’s not faking before he scrubs it away with the back of his hand.

“We should get the tattoos,” Sam blurts like he can’t help himself. “We won’t have to worry about things like this.”

“Sam-“ Dean starts, and shuts himself up, teeth grinding too tight.

“I know, I’m sorry.” Sam spins the top back on the flask and returns it to Dean, not throwing it, well into Dean’s space where Dean’s hand is tightening on the handle of his gun. Sam looks sad, but worse-Sam doesn’t look surprised.

He sits down on the couch on the end closest to Dean, elbows on his knees and his hands shaking like he isn’t aware of it. “I’ve lived,” he says, “chronologically…to the year 2009.”

“Jesus, Sam.” Screw sitting, Dean needs to pace, needs room before this mindfucking cuts off his air. “Do you realize how crazy that sounds?”

“Well, yeah, actually, because right now it’s 2007.” Sam digs out his cellphone and holds it out like Dean needs proof.

“Thank you, Dick Clark, I know what year it is.” Dean makes himself sit back down. “Saying for a moment that I believe you, and that you’re not suffering from a mental breakdown and I’m not suffering from a giant concussion-how did this happen? And if you say anything about a DeLorean or nuclear fission I will deck you, swear to God.”

Sam takes an unsteady breath and lets it out even shakier, right knee twitching as his knuckles turn white. “I did it.”

Dean sags in the chair, tired beyond the telling of it. “Oh come on, Sam-“

“It was me, Dean,” Sam shouts, and falls back on Dean’s name, broken and scared. “It was me. You don’t know how bad it got. But it got-bad.” Sam’s voice is all but gone by the end of it, wetness building up against his eyelids no matter how hard he blinks it back. “It got so bad, Dean, you can’t actually imagine.”

He’s making Dean’s chest ache with the bone-deep big brother instinct to deflect, get Sam thinking about anything else, but- “2009…” he says, “I’d been dead for a year, then?”

“No,” Sam says, and it’s like a slap across the face, though Sam doesn’t mean it to be. Dean sits up so straight he’s almost standing in the chair, freaked right the fuck out.

“What?”

“Dean,” Sam gets out, and then his head hangs low between his shoulders, hunched like he’s waiting to be hit. “I didn’t save you. I didn’t know how. I tried so hard… You went to Hell-” He drags a hand through his hair. “-and I went off every deep end I could find. I started drinking demon blood because Ruby said it would make me stronger-”

“Demon blood,” Dean says before the rest of it can kick in. “Why the hell would you-“

“It’s sort of a supernatural steroid,” Sam says, fumbling a little. “It-“

“Wait, Ruby?” Dean spits, so livid so sudden he can’t even see straight. “The demon bitch who told you she knew a way to save- I’ll kill her.”

“No you won’t,” Sam says with a finality that says he knows. “I will. But not before she kills you.”

Dean stares. For the first time he can’t see his baby brother in this person, the cold, dead fury burning in his eyes as he stares unfocused at the carpet, remembering. Then Sam looks up, and Dean watches him break free of that memory like it’s a physical thing that has a hold on him.

“My tenses are screwed up,” Sam says, trying to force a chuckle and just sounding wrecked instead. “That’s what did happen, not what will happen. This future changes, I know it can, I know it will.”

“Sammy,” Dean tries, but Sam looks at him, pleading to let him finish. Dean shuts up.

“You went to Hell. Four months later Castiel-the angel in the trench coat?” Dean nods to show he remembers, even though angel is still a bit debatable as far as he’s concerned. “Castiel pulled you out. But four months in Hell is not-Time runs different in the mound, do you remember that book when we were kids? You were in Hell a long time. You were in Hell a lifetime. I tried everything. I tried to deal, I tried to open the devil’s gate and climb inside to get you out. And when I couldn’t-it was either self-destruct, revenge, or both. I went after Lilith.”

Dean’s stomach is rolling with every word out of Sam’s mouth. He has spent…a lot of his time not thinking about what this deal does to Sam, apparently did to this Sam, and now it’s being laid out for him, piece by ugly piece. How Dean’s-Dean’s pure selfishness did this to his brother, not any nobler thoughts of a world with Sam in it. Dean couldn’t live without Sam and this is what he did to keep him.

But he never thought Sam wouldn’t move on.

“Even when you got back-you were broken, Dean. They’d fucked you over so bad it took everything you had to keep it together. And I still couldn’t help you.” Sam is crying now, not heaving with it, tears just overflowing down his face. He drags in a breath and paws them away. “Meanwhile Lilith was busy breaking the seals holding Lucifer in Hell. I know, I know, Lucifer and Lilith and angels and freaking-so much biblical shit spills out of the woodwork after you go to Hell, Dean, I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told me. Apocalypse. The. Fucking. Apocalypse.”

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer apocalypse?” Dean asks, an automatic attempt to lighten the mood.

Sam huffs, not really amused. “Worse. Probably. This one looked like it was going to stick. I mean, I don’t know how someone could come back from unleashing Lucifer on the world.”

There’s something about how he says it, a cringe in his tone, that makes it all click in Dean’s head. “Oh…” He sits back, hand against his mouth. “You told me this. Lilith was the last seal.”

“I didn’t know it would free Lucifer, Dean, I swear to God I didn’t,” Sam says, desperate and sincere. “Everything was…the worst. The worst you can imagine, and multiply it a couple times ‘cause it was worse than that.”

Sam’s hands are clenched together, white to the bone, and Dean can’t move. “You tried to stop me. It was too late. Ruby was waiting when you broke the door open, shot you-“ Sam touches his own stomach just under the ribs, where Dean knows the most vulnerable fleshy bits are. “You’d dropped the knife. I picked it up and killed her, but. You were bleeding out and it was like-like when the Hellhounds got you, all over again. And I couldn’t.”

He bites his lip so hard that Dean worries dimly that he’ll bite right through it, through the roaring panic that is always Sam in tears, the absolute certainty that he has failed his brother. It’s paralyzing.

“I-I don’t know how it happened,” Sam gets out, eyes glittering and trained on the floor like he can see something Dean can’t. “I should have been drained. I was drained, Dean, it took every last drop of power I had to kill Lilith. But I was screaming, the gate’s splitting open and this white light shining everywhere and I can’t stop looking at you, you’re bleeding out and I’m losing you, I’m losing you again, and…and you said, ‘I’m sorry.’ Dean,” Sam pushes through his teeth, “I got you killed, I set Lucifer free, I repeatedly lied to you for a solid year and you said ‘I’m sorry.’”

Something in Dean crumbles into nothing, all the little doubts built up against a wall of shock. Because that sounds exactly right. Because he knows when people are lying to him and this isn’t it. Because this is Sam, no future or present about him, just Sam.

“God, Sam, this is my fault.” He says it to his hands, can’t make himself say that he’s sorry for the deal. He still doesn’t think he can regret Sam being alive, even-He shouldn’t have to, he was never meant to deal with the aftermath, he doesn’t know how.

“Are you kidding?” Sam asks, so shocked it makes Dean’s head snap up to see his brother’s face twisted in disbelief. “Jesus, I forgot you were like this. Dean,” he says, almost a yell, “I don’t want an apology from you! I just want you to fight. I want you to fight to live. Can you promise me that?”

Dean’s mouth opens, but only a little. He can’t think of a single thing to say.

Sam seems to get it, hangs his head and shakes it. “Please, just…try.”

There’s a bad taste growing at the back of Dean’s mouth, as all the cogs turn and things fall into place. “Sam.” He has to make himself speak. The gun feels like it’s bruising his skin where it touches him. “I would give anything not to ask this, but. Why didn’t you try to save Peter Warren’s brother?” Sam’s eyes lift, find Dean’s too fast; Dean has to look away. “I mean, come on, man, you had us go out drinking.”

It makes his skin crawl, makes him shy away from everything that could mean-that maybe this Sam just doesn’t care. Dean clenches his hands together, knuckles pushed white against each other. “I know he was a dick who murdered his father, and I know you knew that too. But we don’t pick and choose who we save, Sam, it is always going to be humans over monst-“

“I couldn’t remember!” Sam yells over him, like the words have been building in him for days. Helpless, panicked fear darts across his expression in an instant, and Sam gives his head a violent shake to chase it back. “I tried, I couldn’t- It’s been two years and I couldn’t fucking remember his name. I read every word in the local phone book trying to jog my memory, I tried Googling the pieces I did remember, I- And then you started solving the case too fast.” He presses the palms of his hands against his closed eyes, which Dean thinks is probably a good idea; Dean has no idea what’s showing in his own expression but he has a good idea he doesn’t want Sam to see it.

After a couple, half-steady breaths Sam lets his hands drop. “I needed Bela on our side, and I knew we could save her. And I just. I just wanted to spend time with you, you know?”

Sam looks at him, and Dean really doesn’t. He doesn’t know what happened two years from now to put that look on Sam’s face but he never wants to see it again.

“I’m sorry,” Sam chokes out, “After you went to Hell… You don’t know how bad I fucked everything up.”

“It looks like you also fixed it, Doc Brown,” Dean points out after a long, horrible moment. He reaches out to cuff Sam upside the head, mostly just to touch his brother again, giving into the ache making him wonder if Sam isn’t real. But Sam leans into Dean’s hand and doesn’t even look like embarrassment crosses his mind, just relief, so much of it that the back of Dean’s mouth stings. He can’t focus on it right now.

“Or this is all an elaborate angel mindfuck. Or I’ll screw it up worse than before.”

“Sam.” Dean looks at him steadily, all of his big brother instincts kicked up into overdrive. “You said yourself it couldn’t have gotten worse. Were you exaggerating?”

Sam looks faintly sick, eyes down, mouth in a flat, dead serious line. He shakes his head.

“Then we’ll fix it,” Dean says. He swallows, careful that Sam won’t see. “Okay? We’ll get it right this time. Thanks to you we’ve got a do-over.”

Sam’s smile is weak but it’s a smile, god damn it, and Dean will count it as a win.

~*~

Bela knocks on their door in the morning, or to be accurate, she knocks after she opens the door.

“Well, well,” Dean hears before his eyes come online, and then there’s Bela swimming into focus, watching them from the doorway. “Isn’t this cozy?”

“Shut up very much,” Dean grumbles, feeling Sam stir and then jerk upright.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Sam promises in that awkward fidgety way that no one ever believes, ever, especially when he’s telling the truth. Dean sighs heavily and claws his way out of bed, tugging his t-shirt down and well aware that Bela is shamelessly enjoying the show.

“I’m sure,” Bela demurs, smugly. “Dean, do you remember when I said we should have angry sex? You can bring your brother along if you like.”

Sam splutters a little bit. Dean rolls his eyes to cover up the sharp jolt of something else he’s not awake enough to deal with. “Did you want something, Bela? Maybe you came to thank us for saving your life?” He lets the sarcasm fly and shakes out his jeans, zipping up as soon as they’re on.

“Actually,” Bela says, holding up-wow, two huge wads of cash. “In a manner of speaking, yes. It’s ten thousand dollars; that should cover it.”

She tosses one to Sam and one to Dean, who stares at it for the two seconds it takes Sam to come around the bed and snatch it from his grasp. “Hey!”

“We can’t take this, Bela,” Sam says, trying to press it back into her hands.

“Whoa, hey, yes we can,” Dean disagrees.

She fixes Sam with a look, not anything close to warm or even friendly, but somehow less hostile than she would have been yesterday. “I don’t pretend to subscribe to your soap opera,” she says, flatly. “But I also can’t pretend I wasn’t conscious for some of what happened last night. So. Sam Winchester from the future.” A muscle ticks in her jaw, a very brief and subtle tell. “You know about my deal?”

Dean tries very hard not to choke on his own tongue, but when Sam drops a hesitant nod Dean gives it up as a lost cause and starts coughing. “Jesus-what?”

Neither one of them bothers to look his way. “Yes, I know.” Sam is sorry, and that’s enough to make Bela’s eyes widen just that fraction more. “And I think you know how it’s going to go,” Sam adds, voice gentle.

“I’ve always known,” she says, sharp before she reigns herself back in. “I’ve had ten years to come to terms with it.” Unlike some people, she doesn’t say, but her eyebrows dart up as if daring them to make something of it, her mouth in a thin line.

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Sam says, and Bela takes a startled, alarmed step back, fingers closing around the cash on auto-pilot. Sam lets her take it, and doesn’t crowd into her space. “Bela, I think I’ve got a way to save you and Dean.”

It’s quiet in the house. They picked it because it’s in the middle of nowhere, but Dean would kill for a truck rumbling by right about now. Birds, hell, a bear busting through the downstairs window would be a welcome distraction from how none of them are breathing, waiting for Bela’s answer.

“How?” she demands finally, dangerously suspicious.

“The Colt,” Sam says simply, hand moving to show where Dean’s duffle is at the foot of the bed. “It kills anything it hits. Vampires, demons…and I’m willing to bet it works on Hellhounds.”

“Willing to bet,” Bela says.

“Yeah.” Sam’s tone dips into reproach. “We’d know for sure, but last time I dealt with Hellhounds you and Dean got ripped to shreds because you’d stolen and sold the Colt to the highest bidder. Do you see a reoccurring pattern, here? Stealing and selling the one thing that could save your life?”

“Sam, Sam,” Dean warns, coming up alongside his brother to calm him down, show him that Dean is still very much alive. Sam makes an effort to relax, but he doesn’t lose any tension until Dean moves into his peripheral vision and stays there.

Bela’s expression is heavily guarded, and she folds her arms to add another barrier. “What would you need me to do in exchange for your help?”

Sam takes a deep breath and settles a fraction more when Dean’s shoulder brushes his. “Not a whole lot. In a few months we’re going to need your help getting our hands on some African dream root. We need you to not steal the Colt. And when your deal comes due, we need you to come to us. Bobby has a panic room in his basement-“

“He does?” Dean interrupts, surprised and impressed.

Sam glances his way so fast Dean almost misses it. “Yeah. It’s a nice place.” There’s something dark in Sam’s tone he shakes off before Dean can open his mouth to ask about it. “We’ll hole up there with the Colt, you, me, Dean, and Bobby. The Colt’s our best bet for killing them, but I think they get hurt, same as anything else, so normal guns should work for the rest of us. They also have a physical presence, so I was thinking we could try dropping flour on them, or whatever, some sort of powder-”

“What the hell, Sam, we’re not breading them,” Dean cuts into Sam’s rambling.

“If we don’t,” Sam says, “Bela’s going to be the only one who can see them.”

Dean and Bela’s eyebrows make a leap for their hairlines. “Oh, am I?” Bela says.

“When your deal comes close to being due you’ll start hallucinating a little. You’ll be able to see demons for what they really are, too. But if the rest of us want to see the Hellhounds I think the flour will work, we just need to get enough of an outline to shoot at. The panic room has one door, they have to come in one at a time, which gives us the advantage. And then we just-keep shooting until they run out of Hellhounds. Or until Lilith shows up.”

Dean had never even heard of Lilith-except as Fraser’s ex-wife on TV reruns-before two days ago, but there’s something in the way Sam says her name that sets his nerves on edge every single time. “You think she’ll show? For Bela?”

Sam looks grim. “I think…if she doesn’t hold Bela’s contract, whoever does will come running to her when they see we’re involved.”

Bela takes a breath that’s meant to steady, and Dean finally notices that yeah, Sam’s flannel shirt on her comes down to her thighs. “Basically,” she says, “my deal is going to be a test run for you saving your brother.”

Dean can feel Sam tense, but he doubts Bela’s aware of it. “Yes.”

“But it sounds like a good shake better than you gave yourself,” Dean points out, annoyed on Sam’s behalf.

She considers him, eyelashes low. “And what’s to say Sam is telling the truth about the future? Maybe I stole the Colt and saved myself.”

“Bela-“

Dean plants himself between them, staring Bela down. She doesn’t budge. “Don’t make me threaten you,” he says, easily enough. “I haven’t had coffee yet, and I don’t like threatening people before breakfast. I don’t think you’ve had coffee yet either, otherwise you wouldn’t be acting so dumb about this.”

“Wouldn’t I?” She holds her ground, he’ll give her that. But Dean knows her damage, now, and while that’s not something he’s going to exploit, it gives him that edge he needs to figure out where her head is at. They aren’t so very different.

“No,” he says. “Bela, I know your instincts are telling you to look out for number one, because the only person you’ve ever been able to count on is yourself. And trust me, I get that. If I didn’t have Sam-if I’d never had a little brother to put first-I’d probably be the exact same way. But you’ve got to trust other people sometime, Bela. And you trusted us to save your life last night. All we’re asking is that you do that one more time.”

Not a single part of Bela is smiling, but she’s not as hardened as before, shifting her weight before she bites out, “Fine.”

Dean closes his eyes for a second; he’s not entirely sure how that worked. Or why.

“But you should take the money anyway,” Bela presses, a shake in her voice Dean pretends he can’t pick up on. “Consider it a down-payment on your services. And if your little plan works out…well.”

Dean looks to Sam, who doesn’t look sure, but Dean is not about to refuse when she’s vulnerable like this. “So,” he says to cover up the fact that he is absolutely not accepting the cash out of pity, “Ponying up ten grand is easier for you than a simple ‘thank you?’” She narrows her eyes at him but the smirk is creeping back, solid enough that he can duck his head and tag on, “You’re so damaged.”

“Takes one to know one,” Bela says, voice heavier than she probably means it to be. Dean has no delusions that she is anything but right on this count.

“Bela,” Sam says, bringing her up short in the doorway. Her things are there, Dean realizes; she’s not sticking around for coffee. Bela turns just enough that she can see Sam over her shoulder, so she can watch Sam chew at his next words. “Coming up pretty soon… There’s a hunter, name of Gordon Walker.”

She nods, carefully. “I’ve heard of him.”

“He’s going to ask you where to find us,” Sam says. “I need you to tell him where we are.”

Dean wants to speak up, but Sam is sending very subtle signals to keep quiet.

“Well. That’s a fairly tall order, but I’ll see what I can do.” Bela smiles, as close to her usual self as Dean has seen since the gala last night. She picks up her clothes still wet from the rain, says, “Goodbye lads,” and leaves without looking back. Dean appreciates her style.

“Isn’t Gordon Walker in prison?” he asks, rounding on Sam and waiting, with quite a lot of patience considering the circumstances.

Sam shakes his head. “I’ll fill you in. Shit,” he mutters, realizing for the first time that he’s spent the whole time talking to Bela in a V-neck tee and boxer briefs. Dean isn’t going to pretend that’s not the best part of his morning so far.

“Ten grand,” Dean says while Sam finds himself some pants. “You know what we should do-“

“We’re not going to Atlantic City, Dean,” Sam cuts him off, shaking a stray sock from his pant leg. “You lose everything at craps in the first two hours and none of the girls are interested in sleeping with someone with bad luck.”

Dean looks at Sam. Then at the money. “…Such a fucking buzzkill, Sammy.”