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

[queenklu]

Gordon comes for them in New York state, picking the lock to their motel at two in the morning with a sandy-haired guy Dean recognizes from Sam’s Very Bad No Good Day. Sam and Dean are waiting for them on the roof, rifles at the ready. Sam takes Gordon out with a single shot to the neck, severing his spinal cord so neatly Gordon likely never knew what hit him. He falls like a puppet with his strings cut and the other guy takes off running.

Sam and Dean talked about this, about how this guy-Kubrick, that’s his name-how Kubrick was killed by Gordon in the timeline, about how leaving him alive might leave them open to attacks in revenge of Gordon’s life, if Kubrick can drum up a posse rabid to take down the anti-Christ. They’d talked, Sam leaning hard on the side of caution and Dean in favor of less murders than absolutely necessary, and Dean had won.

Dean takes one look at this guy, and something shifts. If they hadn’t known this was coming-no matter what Sam and the timeline say-if he and Sam had been in the motel room right now they would be dead, and Kubrick would have had no problem slitting Sam open.

He lines up the shot himself, hands rock-steady.

~*~

The next morning they clear out a growing nest of vampires. Dean feels Sam watching him the whole time, like Dean is a land mine ready to blow at the first sign of pressure. And it really isn’t that Dean minds the attention-maybe he likes it a little too much, but-

“How am I doing?” Dean asks when they’re throwing their gear together to head out.

“What?” Sam asks, eyes darting away.

“Timeline-wise, how am I doing?” Dean asks, knowing somehow that this is the right question to ask. Especially when Sam stops packing-first in surprise, then because he’s thinking his answer through.

“You were-you were getting reckless,” he says eventually. Most of the time Sam looks better now that they have a plan than he did the few days he was hiding the situation from Dean, but now he looks-distant, in a way Dean hasn’t seen in him for a while. “You were taking stupid risks,” Sam continues, bite clipping in on his words as he starts shoving things in his duffle again. “And we’re not talking run-of-the-mill stupid Winchester risks, we’re talking-Fuck, Dean, death wish risks.”

“Huh,” Dean says after a moment. Then he shrugs, lips scrunching up. “I’m not doing any of that.”

“I know,” Sam huffs, hand tangling in his hair. He finally looks at Dean. “I can tell when you’re scared, and you’re not. I don’t know why you aren’t scared, Dean, you should be terrified by now.”

Dean has the start of a theory niggling at the back of his mind, but he doesn’t quite feel like sharing with the class.

Sam drops his hand with a sigh. “I’ve probably just knocked you back into the denial stage,” he mumbles. “Which is…great.”

“I don’t know, man,” Dean says. “Would it make you feel better if I sat around all day writing sad poems about how I’m going to die?”

“What? No,” Sam says, startled into amusement. His bangs slide into his eyes, same exact way they always have since he was old enough to say no to Dad’s buzzcuts. “Nothing rhymes with ‘Shut up, Sam,’ anyway.”

Sam glances at him, and Dean feels weird, left out of his own inside joke. Annoyed at the person he was in an alternate timeline who, yeah, probably wasn’t a joy to be around but got closer to Sam because of it.

The Impala starts rattling just outside of town, so Dean nudges her over to the shoulder and calls an impromptu lunch/tuning/beer break. He has his head buried deep under her hood when he feels Sam behind him, watching, and when Dean checks over his shoulder there’s a strange, wry smile on Sam’s face.

“You know, you, uh,” Sam starts, gesturing with the beer he’s been nursing. “You started teaching me how to take care of the car.”

Dean gives him a look, but Sam doesn’t seem to be lying. “Jesus,” Dean mutters, straightening up. “I must’ve really thought I was kicking the bucket, huh?”

“Yeah, well.” Sam stares out at the road. “You weren’t wrong.”

Dean flips the box wrench in his hands, eyes narrowing. He hates the smile on Sam’s face, all self-deprecation and regret. “But did you remember any of the shit I taught you?” Dean asks, leveling the tool at Sam’s chest. “Talk about denial, I bet you were so far down that river in Egypt-“

“What?”

“-that you just turned your ears off every time I talked about what to do or not do after I died. Am I wrong?”

Sam looks pale and strained for a second, which Dean hadn’t meant to do at all. He’d mostly-okay, partially-been talking about the car.

“I bet you douched her up,” Dean says, slapping on a pout as he turns back to his baby, running a hand over her grill. “Put in some froufrou air-freshener dangly thing from the rearview mirror…padded seat covers…”

“I hooked my iPod up to the stereo,” Sam confesses, and his head falls back with the laugh knocked loose when Dean looks at him.

Dean chews him out with an undercurrent of affection so strong he should probably be embarrassed for them; helps Sam fumble through half-remembered engine maintenance, hip to hip as the occasional car rolls by on the highway and their beat-up old cooler props up Dean’s bag of tools.

~*~

In Ypsilanti, Michigan they dispatch a pair of Pagan Gods, a couple straight out of a fifties sitcom who give Dean the creeps. Sam gets a nasty gash to his arm before stabbing Mrs. Pagan God in the chest with an evergreen stake they’d cut themselves, though Sam keeps looking at the couple’s perfectly decorated Christmas tree like he’s looking for an excuse to tear it down.

“Sammy, hey, let me look at that,” Dean says, knocking Sam’s hands away from the cut so he can see how bad it is.

“Seriously, Dean, this is nothing,” Sam says, still breathless with adrenaline. “Last time I lost a fingernail. Couldn’t type right for a month.”

“Oh boo hoo,” Dean shoots back out of habit, but he’s scowling down at Mrs. Pagan God and wondering how much poor taste would be involved if he kicked a monster that’s already dead. He’d read up on the lore even though Sam said he didn’t have to, because Sam is fucking with the fabric of time and that means things don’t always go according to plan; Dean had wanted to be prepared in case the Pagan Gods started improvising, so he knows about the fingernails and the blood sacrifice and the tooth.

“They didn’t get any teeth last time, did they?” Dean asks, running his tongue over his own molars to assure himself they’re all present and accounted for.

“What?” Sam asks, distracted and then surprised. “Oh, no, they were about to yank out one of yours when someone rang the doorbell.”

Someone rings the doorbell.

Sam stares at Dean.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Dean yanks a reindeer-sprinkled table runner out from under a kewpie doll nativity scene and shoves it at Sam to staunch the bleeding on his arm as they sprint to the back of the house, out the door, and into the seasonably warm December night.

Somewhere in there Sam starts laughing, biting his knuckles to keep quiet when they have to crouch behind a Suburban and wait for the lady in the god-awful Christmas sweater to leave, disappointed, with her fruitcake. Dean figures it’s stress, a lot of it, after days of Sam beating himself up over not being able to remember the addresses of the people who got munched by the Pagan Gods before Sam and Dean could get to them.

“C’mon, Sammy,” he whispers, “Just hold it together a little bit longer.”

“S-s-sorry,” Sam stammers, pressing his face to Dean’s shoulder to muffle the sound, whole frame shaking with suppressed laughter. “I’m trying to s-stop.”

“It’s okay, buddy,” Dean promises, hand in Sam’s hair without thinking about it. And it is okay, it’s okay because Fruitcake Lady is driving off and Sam has been stretching himself too thin-staying up late, pouring over the timeline as he turns that massive brain to every possible outcome wrought by every job that they do.

Sam is mostly calmed down by the time they get back to the motel; he only laughs outright when he looks down at the table runner pressed to his arm. It’s not a deep gash, once Dean gets it cleaned up, but it’s long, and the bandage runs out with a third of the cut left to go.

“Damn it,” Dean snaps, almost runs a hand over his scalp before he remembers Sam’s blood on his fingers. He sighs and stands, goes to the bathroom to wash it off. “I’ll run out to the 7-11 and stock up.”

“Get some beer, too, okay?” Sam says, rolling on his side to fish the TV remote from the bedside drawer and Jesus, the kid is a million miles long. “What?” he says when he catches Dean looking at him, blinks innocently. “It’s Christmas.”

It doesn’t sink in. ‘It’s Christmas’ is just a generic time of year for them, has been since they were kids and Dad stopped calling to even wish them Merry Christmas when he was off on a hunt. Sam was about nine, Dean thinks, the last time they had anything like a Christmas, and the fallout from that-well, it’d kind of put Dean off the holiday season in general. He’d never seen his Dad so angry, or get so quiet afterwards.

Dean has to juggle things when he gets back to get the key in the lock, beer and bandages and iodine, because they were running low. Not enough to warrant a plastic bag, just cumbersome enough to be a pain if you need another hand. He winds up giving the door a kick when the handle turns, misjudges and sends it snapping back to bang against the wall.

“Whoa,” Sam says, turning so fast he spills yellow-white liquid from his cup down over his fingers. “Hey, man, you okay?”

Dean stops in his tracks long enough to catch the door when it tries to swing shut. Sam got Christmas lights from somewhere, and a wreath made out of beer cans. There’s a half-dead tree that looks freshly chopped down propped up in a corner, and it looks like Sam used the table runner to finish up his bandage so he wouldn’t bleed everywhere.

“What is this?” Dean asks even though the answer is pretty obvious. He feels like the rug just got yanked out from under his feet.

“What’s it look like?” Sam’s eyes are bright, happy. “It’s Christmas.”

“Wh…” Dean takes everything in a second time, hoping it’ll make more sense. “…Why?”

“I know we didn’t talk about it,” Sam says, setting his cup down-Christ, Dean thinks it might be eggnog-and stepping closer. “I was waiting for you to bring it up, but-you didn’t, so. I just. Did it anyway?”

“In the other timeline,” Dean translates, piecing things together as he goes, “I asked for a Christmas.”

Sam nods, hesitating, looking for the first time like he might have fucked things up but confused about how.

Dean’s shoulders slump. “Shit, Sam…” A flicker of hurt shock shifts over Sam’s features, and Dean can’t. “I…I didn’t get you anything.”

Dean hears Sam’s relieved huff of air, too busy staring at the six pack and bandages and iodine to see what Sam’s face is doing now. Wondering how far short he’s fallen from his other self this time.

“Dude, don’t worry about it,” Sam says, knuckles bumping Dean’s shoulder, and he sounds sincere. Dean looks up, and Sam looks-nervous and happy, eager to take Dean’s things so he can hand him a cup of eggnog. “Let me know if it needs more kick.”

Dean coughs at the first sip, whiskey burning at the back of his throat. “Fuck, any stronger and it’d be paint thinner.”

“But good, right?” Sam asks, grinning anyway.

“Oh yeah. And you’ve had how many?”

Sam laughs. “Not a drop, officer. Been waiting for you.”

Dean believes him, which means that Sam is just naturally being this happy, and Dean doesn’t know why that makes his insides squirm.

“Come on,” Sam prompts, planting himself on the couch and motioning for Dean to take a seat. “I-we can still do your present. Don’t feel bad, okay, I didn’t…think this through.” Sam swallows hard enough that Dean can see it, but Dean can also see when Sam forcibly shoves away the urge to dwell on that, slapping a smile on instead.

Dean opens the Sunday cartoon packaging on the gift Sam hands over and tries not to think about how long it’s been since they had access to Sunday cartoons, how long Sam has been planning this. Then his eyes about fall out of their sockets. “Sam-“

“I saw you looking at it when we were in that occult shop on our way through Erie,” Sam says, casual like that wasn’t weeks ago. “The design is Enochian, a protection sigil. Cas could probably tell you what it says around the edges.”

“Yeah, I am definitely going to ask an angel of the lord to read my belt buckle.” Sam snorts. Dean turns the heavy silver disk over in his hands, then again, running a thumb over the runes. “Sammy, I don’t even know what to say. Thanks.”

There’s a high flush on Sam’s cheeks; Dean blames the alcohol. “Don’t mention it.”

Dean gives up and sighs, sets the buckle aside so he can lean forward on his knees, closer to his brother. “Sam…” He sees Sam’s feet as he shifts, tensing up, and finally just makes himself look Sam in the eye. “Man, you’ve got to tell me these things.”

Sam doesn’t ask ‘what things’ like Dean is half expecting, just sits there and looks uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” he starts, “I’ll work harder-“

“No. Sam, you work any harder you’re going to kill yourself.” Dean takes a quick breath and slides all the way to the edge of his chair, as close to Sam as he can get without climbing on the couch with him. “But…things like this. I just feel like I’m missing out on a hundred different times we were brothers together, not just-guys who happen to kill monsters out of the same car. I mean. I would’ve got you a present.” Dean sighs and braces himself. “What did I get you last year?”

Sam barks out a startled laugh, sudden enough to make Dean sit up. “Um. Shaving cream and skin mags, actually.”

Dean’s jaw drops a little, no lie. “What?”

“Dean…” Sam shakes his head, fond. “It was all last minute. You wanted Christmas, and I was kicking and screaming about the whole thing for days. You wanted a last Christmas, and. I don’t know.” Sam’s lips press together in some sort of smile. “Turns out I can’t say no to you.”

Dean stares. “You say no to me all the time. Sam, don’t go to college! Sam, don’t go after the crossroads demon! Sam, don’t open the arc of the covenant, your face will melt off!”

Sam chokes back a laugh. “Dean, that’s-Indiana Jones-“

“I know who it is,” Dean snaps. Then, “Shaving cream and skin mags? Really?”

“And I got you motor oil and a candy bar,” Sam says, doing a good impression of someone who doesn’t understand what the problem is. “Dean, seriously, you didn’t know I was throwing Christmas then, either. For all I know you got the skin mags for yourself and pawned them off on me.”

Dean shakes his head because he can’t say that-that’s probably exactly what happened. Even though the thought of giving Sam jerkoff material makes the back of his neck feel too hot. And…well, shit, he just remembered they’re out of shaving cream.

The flush is creeping from his neck up to his face, and Dean takes a burning gulp of eggnog-flavored whiskey to mask it. Sam doesn’t look fooled so much, but hell, the kid is smarter than Dean remembers to give him credit for sometimes.

For example: Sam takes the unspoken hint that Dean is done talking about this and sinks back into the couch with a gracelessness that Dean recognizes as exhaustion more than alcohol. “Want to watch the game?” Sam asks, nodding at the squat box TV shoved against the wall.

There’s a smile tugging at Dean’s mouth at the obvious distraction, but whatever. He shrugs and moves to sit next to Sam, and if Sam looks pleased and surprised behind his eggnog then Dean pretends not to see it.

The TV is older than dirt, picture blue-tinged and streaked with lines, but Dean isn’t interested in the game so much as he’s interested in Sam falling asleep sometime tonight, so he keeps Sam’s eggnog cup filled to the brim and makes sure they’re always touching, even if it’s just a little bit, a subtle way to let Sam’s body know it’s okay to shut down. By halftime-and what game is this, even, that it’s running 2 a.m. on a Thursday?-Sam is slumped against him, cup balanced on his stomach jiggling every time he snickers quietly to himself at whatever commercial is nudging his funny bone on the screen.

Dean is in…not much better shape. He switched to straight whiskey a while ago. Everything is warm and fuzzy and Christmas and Sam, honest-to-god snow sprinkling on the Impala outside. Dean realizes with a sick, tilting sensation that he hasn’t thought about his deal in hours, and before that it was just a faint…notion, not the thudding, frantic knot of panic he’d gotten used to fighting back.

Thinking about the end game, though, sends it all crashing back down. Dean doesn’t know if Sam realizes the only reason he’s not fighting tooth and nail against a plan to save himself is that they’re saving Bela first. And saving people, hunting things… It’s Dean’s whole damn purpose. The one thing he’s remotely good at on earth, the one thing he’s going to keep doing until the Hellhounds start snacking.

He takes a shaky breath and turns his head, hides the exhale in Sam’s stupid, shaggy hair, which is suddenly in his face. He sneezes, messy, feeling overwhelmingly drunk, and Sam jerks away with an aborted grunt and a bleary, “Ugh, Dean, what--?”

“Merry Christmas,” Dean mumbles, and drags himself upright against the spinning of the room. “C’mon, Sam,” he says, pawing at Sam’s arm and knocking the cup free of his fingers in the process. Oh well. It’s empty. “Up. Bed.”

He somehow almost trips over the TV when he shuts it off, narrowly avoids falling on his ass getting out of his boots. He stops when he’s stripped down to his t-shirt and boxers, confused about the landscape, the way-oh. Dean always takes the bed closest to the door. Sam always sleeps on the side closest to Dean. But he’s not. He’s on the left, and. Shoving down the covers for Dean.

“Heater’s broke,” Sam says, looking proud of himself for only slurring a little. “If you don’t wanna, s’cool.”

But the way Dean sees it, he has two years of failed Christmas presents to make up for. And Sam’s bed does look warmer than Dean’s.

He wakes up once in the middle of the night, drooling on Sam’s chest. Sam snorts awake just enough to mutter a few curses and mop his chest with the edge of the blanket before shoving it in Dean’s face to make Dean roll away. Maybe. Except Sam follows him when he moves, huge arm flung over Dean’s side turned dead weight as Sam falls asleep between one breath and the next. Dean follows him under, lured by the smell of family and fake pine scented air fresheners.

In the morning Sam finds the one and only tattoo parlor in Michigan open on Christmas Day.

“Merry Christmas to me,” he grins, and Dean decides he is absofuckinglutely absolved. It hurts like a son of a bitch, every single trucker he has ever met has lied to him about the ‘natural high,’ and he gets smirked at for a solid two hours by an “artist” named “Crow” who thinks it is “super cute” that Dean is getting a matching tattoo with his “Significant O.”

“I am never getting you another damn thing,” Dean swears, cringing as he pulls his t-shirt carefully down over the tape.

“Tell me that again next Christmas,” Sam says, “and you’ve got a deal.”

~*~

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean says on their way to Ohio.

“Yeah?” Sam looks up from the timeline when Dean doesn’t continue right away, flashing an uncertain smile. “What’s up?”

And Dean knows he shouldn’t talk about, knows there’s a very real danger of scaring Sam off if he brings it up. “Uh,” he says instead, “How ‘bout them Yankees?”

The timeline rustles as it’s set down, a million pen-stained yellow pages on Sam’s lap. “Dean,” Sam starts in on him, warning. “Dude, what is it? Come on,” he coaxes when Dean’s mouth stays shut and he’s still smiling. “Tell me.”

“It’s nothing, just-“ Dean pushes out a breath and keeps his eyes on the road. “You’ve been really happy, lately, and-don’t get me wrong, okay, because you happy is… It’s good. Really good.” Better than Dean is going to cop to, to anyone. “But I’m paranoid, alright, and I’ve got this feeling I should be asking you why.”

He makes himself look over to the passenger’s seat. Sam is still but not tense. Blinking. Caught off-guard, Dean guesses.

“…Huh,” Sam says, just loud enough to be heard over Zeppelin II. Dean turns down the volume, even though he knows it’s a bright red flag telling Sam how invested he is in this answer. “Well…” Sam mouth quirks, the way he always does when there’s a glitch in their non-verbal communication. “It’s, uh. Just nice being around you. I guess.”

Dean’s focus snaps to Sam and stays there, fuck the road, it’s a straightaway. “Around me?” he repeats, eyebrows doing their damnedest to convey all sorts of incredulity. “What the hell were you doing not being around me?” Sam shakes his head but Dean can’t figure this out. “Are you telling me you took off after Lilith by yourself? After I was back from Hell? Where the hell was I?”

“Dean-“ Sam’s air slips out as he looks down at his hands. “It’s-complicated.”

“Oh come on,” Dean shoves back, “More complicated than you rewriting the entire goddamn universe? Jesus, Sam!” He hits the steering wheel, not hard because the Impala did nothing to deserve their bitch fights. “Tell me you didn’t go after this demon alone.”

Sam is pinching the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe you’re mad about something that never happened.”

“It happened to you!”

Dean’s shout rings in the car. He makes his fists unclench, watches his knuckles turn from bone-white to something more skin colored.

“I missed out on two years of your life, Sam.” Dean feels vaguely hollow, skin sizzling with anger that has no real target to aim for. You couldn’t pay him to get his eyes off the road, now. “The absolute least you can do is fill in the blanks.”

It takes two miles on the speedometer, but Sam starts talking.

Dean loses a mile of what Sam is saying, but only one, only after Sam let slip the apparent fact that all demons were human once, and Hell just beats the humanity out of them. He can’t think about it, Sam’s voice blurring into white noise before he shakes himself off and tunes back in, and it’s still horrible, but he needs to hear it. Thirty miles later Dean has to pull off on the shoulder so Sam can heave up the remembered taste of demon blood.

Sam twitches away when Dean comes near him but Dean doesn’t give a fuck, sacrifices the last beer left over from Christmas so Sam has something to wash his mouth out with. They both pretend that they don’t notice Dean’s hands are unsteady, but Dean is not about to let Sam think it’s because Dean is afraid of him.

The Yellow Eyed Demon bled into Sam’s mouth. When he was-Jesus fucking Christ, when he was just a baby. It’s the anger making Dean shake, helpless and useless like always.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sam rasps out after he spits and drags a limp hand across his mouth. The air around them smells like asphalt and the puke between Sam’s feet, and Dean isn’t even tempted to move somewhere else.

“Oh, I sincerely doubt that.”

“Yeah?” Sam won’t look up-until he does, and Dean wishes he hadn’t. “Because you always think it’s your fault. Every bad decision I make is somehow because you didn’t-I don’t even know, Dean. I don’t have a single clue what you think you should’ve given me that you haven’t.”

Dean stands his ground, so damn careful not to let Sam see how much it costs him to keep his reaction to a shrug. “Normal?”

“N-Normal?” Sam actually looks surprised by Dean’s answer, which is a surprise in itself. “Dean,” he says, “Normal was never a real option. Not for us. Do you remember the djinn we killed a while back?”

It’s a safe bet that Dean’s concept of ‘a while back’ is a lot less than Sam’s, but he nods. Sam nods with him, trying to make him understand. “You saw what normal did to us. We couldn’t stand each other.”

“Yeah, but.” Dean rubs a hand over his forehead to buy himself some time. “You were happy.”

“Dean, I guarantee you-“ Sam looks like he means to stand but thinks better of it, bracing a hand on the Impala’s door to steady himself, gaze locked somewhere around Dean’s knees. “I promise. If I was happy it was only because I didn’t know what I was missing.”

An eighteen-wheeler blows by before Dean can gather enough brain cells to answer, close enough to send a small shower of gravel up against the Impala. Dean about has a hernia, but whatever expression shows up on his absolutely stoic features is enough to knock Sam into a startled, genuine smile, so.

His tattoo aches, but not in a bad way. Maybe Dean’s natural high is just now kicking in.

~*~

In Tiffin, Ohio they exorcize a woman named Tammi, disband a coven of witches, burn a couple grimoires, and phone in a tip that a woman named Amanda was overheard plotting the murder of one Janet Dutton. That places everything so far in the realm of Normal People Problems that Dean kind of wants to high-five Sam for efficiency, but he’s in the middle of suggesting shots instead when a sexy little blonde walks into the middle of the road, just like Sam said she would.

She kills the Impala’s engine before Dean can decide whether or not to hit the breaks, which makes it…difficult…to exit the car like a calm, rational adult. Dean only manages it because he’s a badass.

“Ruby, I presume?” He whips out his best winning smile. “Sam’s told me all about you.”

She’s looking at the gun in his hands, squinting against the headlights’ glare, wary of Dean like she has every right to be. She’s not looking at Sam’s side of the car at all.

Ruby stands a couple seconds after the Colt’s bullet hits her, straight to the heart like she’s Sammy’s own personal Yellow-Eyed Demon. Lightning flares up under her skin, once, twice, jaw dropped open and eyes wide with betrayed shock. Dean thinks she dies too soon, but maybe he’s just being petty.

Sam sinks back into the car with the Colt clutched in his hands, looking like he’s about to hyperventilate, so Dean walks to Ruby’s crumpled body, giving Sam a minute. He’s heard enough to know this isn’t something he can come close to understanding, but there’s no one inside his head to judge him for feeling proud, for feeling vindictive and purely happy that this time around, Sam chose family.

He drags Ruby to the side of the road, still in plain view for the next car who passes with their lights on, far enough away that she won’t damage anyone’s undercarriage by running her over. She’s light, moves easy; Dean folds her arms in deference to the body Ruby stole, takes the knife from off her belt, and doesn’t look back.

He doesn’t know-doesn’t want to know-how someone who used to be human could turn into a creature that would do what Ruby did to Sam. Just thinking about it makes him feel like he’s swallowed pins, makes his hands shake until he curls them into fists and thinks about nothing at all.

“One super nifty demon-killing frog-sticker, as ordered,” Dean announces as he gets in the car, holding up the knife to prove he’s got it.

Sam is staring at the blood trail smeared across the pavement, too lost in his own thoughts to even look up. “Are you tempted?” Dean asks, and pretends like this is something he knows how to deal with if the answer is yes.

“No.” Sam sounds…disappointed isn’t the right word, but it is a release of something not quite relief. His voice only shakes a little. “No. It’s gone. I think it all burned up.”

“On reentry,” Dean finishes. Sam is looking at his hands, the way they fit around the Colt. “You think it’s gone for good?” he asks, doesn’t let himself worry about how much he’s watching Sam in the dim light from the Impala’s dash or the headlights spilling out onto the road. The engine purrs, ready, but there’s no rush to shift her out of park.

“I don’t know,” Sam says, thumb running over the inscription on the barrel. Non timeha mala. I will fear no evil. “That seems a little too lucky, though, right?”

Dean waits, Doobie Brothers on the radio asking where would they be now without love. “You okay?”

Sam’s mouth twists around a shaky exhale.

“I get it,” Dean offers. “The demon’s blood’s been a part of you since you were a baby. So it’s fine if it feels like a piece missing, I’m not gonna blame you.”

“You’d blame me if you’d lived it,” is Sam grim reply. He shakes his head before Dean can call him on it. “No, it’s-it doesn’t feel like anything’s missing.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” It’s pretty much a dare for Sam to tell him otherwise, but if shit’s going to go down Dean wants to be as ready as he can be.

Sam fumbles the Colt and Ruby’s knife into the glove compartment before answering, and when he does it’s just, “Yeah. I guess.”

Dean figures he knows a sign for done talking about this when he hears one. The Impala rolls forward without a single rattle, swallowing down the asphalt smeared with Ruby’s blood in a heartbeat. There’s a flash of her leather jacket and a pale, limp wrist in the headlights as they pass her body, and then nothing. Just miles of pavement.

“It feels like something should be missing,” Dean thinks he hears Sam mutter at some point, but he can’t tell for sure over the radio.

When the pistons keep on turning and the wheels go round and round, and the steel rails are cold and hard and the mountains they go down…without love, where would you be now?

~*~

They call Sam’s angel buddy in the morning, in a field eight miles out of town. Sam keeps slipping up and calling the guy ‘Cas,’ which annoys the angel and pinches at Dean.

“Why would I help you?” Castiel demands, staring straight at Sam like he can see inside his skull. “You’re an abomination.”

“Hey, now,” Dean warns, lifting the end of the sawed-off he has slung over one shoulder. Sam told him not to bring it, told him it wouldn’t hurt Castiel anyway, but it makes Dean feel better. “One more word like that out of your mouth and I swear to God, feathers are gonna fly.”

He’s hoping the God dig will piss Castiel off enough that Dean can take the brunt of the attention for a bit, because Sam is still struggling to hide the fact that he looks like he’s just been turned into a puppy and drop-kicked by an angel of the Lord.

It works; now those piercing blue eyes are jabbing pins into Dean’s soul. “You cannot harm me, boy.”

“You know,” Dean says, instead of socking the guy like he wants to, “I thought angels were supposed to be guardians. Fluffy wings, halos… Michael Landon. Not dicks.”

“Read the Bible,” Castiel orders, more human in that instant than Dean has seen from him yet. “Angels are warriors of god. I’m-“

“-A soldier,” Sam cuts in, stepping between them with his hands up, placating. “Yeah, I know. And I know it sounds strange but we really are friends. In the future. You pulled my brother out of Hell, Cas.”

Castiel looks vaguely uncomfortable, in the way that clams look vaguely like oysters. “I was,” he stops to clear his throat, “probably working under orders.”

“That doesn’t make me any less grateful,” Sam says, so earnest Dean can’t look at it for long.

“Listen.” Sam takes a short breath and dives in. “I know questioning authority is not something you’re really, uh, prepared to do right now? But don’t trust Zachariah. I don’t know for sure what his endgame was but it sure as hell wasn’t stopping the apocalypse.”

The angel blinks for the first time since he arrived. “Why should I trust what you say?” His tone is less venom, more curiosity, but it doesn’t stop Dean’s hand tightening on the gun.

“Because I’m from the future?” Sam offers, arms outstretched. “Because I have no reason to lie to you. And because I need your help.”

Castiel frowns. “Help with what, exactly?”

“We killed a demon last night,” Dean tells him, wedging himself back into their conversation. “Went by the name of Ruby. Sam thinks her disappearance is going to tip Lilith off to what’s what and we need your help to keep her in the dark.”

“What was Ruby’s connection with Lilith?” Castiel asks, and Dean feels a sharp spike of annoyance that none of these hard-won plot points are fazing this guy in the least.

“Spy,” Sam says, easily enough. If the angel hears the strain in it that Dean does, he doesn’t let on.

“Bitch,” Dean adds, being helpful. It puts him on the receiving end of some rather pointed looks, but oh well.

Castiel turns away, possibly just for the dramatic effect. “I may be able to help you.”

It would be an outright lie to say a huge knot of tension between Dean’s shoulder blades doesn’t give a little. Sam, though, stays so rigid he’s giving Dean sympathy cramps.

“But will you,” Sam says, not quite a question. The shotgun feels too heavy on Dean’s shoulder, chest tight as he waits to breathe for the angel’s answer.

“…Perhaps.”

“What do you want?” Dean asks, patience sapped. “A pony? Angelina Jolie’s phone number? I can ring a little bell if it’ll get you your wings.”

Sam gives him a very pointed, Shut the fuck up glare before he turns back to face Castiel. “I don’t know a whole lot about the angel’s side of it,” he says around the sudden tenseness. “But I can give you a couple names of angels you should watch out for-”

“No,” Castiel says with a finality that makes the hairs on Dean’s arms stand straight up. “You’ve told me too much already. The information you possess is poison to the way things should have been, and I want no part of it.”

For the first time Sam looks angry, but he reigns it back. It’s only there in the careful way he’s not closing his hands into fists, the quietly controlled tone of his voice when he says, “The world can’t need an apocalypse. You can’t think we should let that happen.”

Castiel turns his gaze to the ground, for the first time unsure. Then, like it’s costing him something to admit, “I have not informed my superiors of what happened the night I found you. It could change too much. But you are correct regarding our wishes to avert the apocalypse, which suggests I should do what I can to keep your brother from the fires of Hell. A righteous man,” Cas adds, tilting his head to look at Dean.

Sam stiffens, probably pissy about being ignored. “How about this,” Sam has to pause and swallow something, calming himself down, “If you ever change your mind about knowing things, or if you ever get into trouble-I want you to come to us. See if we can help. We’ll owe you one. ”

Castiel looks a little cagey, still-hell, Dean isn’t sure he likes this idea of partnership so much, either. But Dean gets that Sam has some kind of history with the guy that makes him think Castiel is trustworthy, and Dean will always have Sam’s back.  Whether he likes it or not, this means Dean will spit on Castiel if he’s on fire. Provided he asks for their help.

Finally, finally the angel nods. “We have an agreement.”

“A deal?” Sam presses.

“Yes,” Castiel sighs. “A deal.”

Sam shifts his weight from foot to foot. “Do we, uh, need to shake on it or anything?”

Dean doesn’t realize the gun has shifted from his shoulder to both hands until Sam flinches. It’s irrational, a knee-jerk reaction, but if Castiel thinks he’s getting to first base with Sam he’s got another think coming.

“No,” Cas says, eyes on Dean’s weapon. “Angels keep their word.”

The grass around them shivers in a wind Dean can’t feel, and the angel is gone, like he’d never been there at all.

Sam gives Dean and Dean’s shotgun a glare that says he is not impressed. But he doesn’t look like he’s got a noose wrapped around his neck anymore, so Dean finds it extremely hard to care.

He shrugs, wide-eyed. “What?”

“Don’t even,” Sam warns, and it shocks Dean that he means it, so much that Dean blurts what he’s thinking out loud.

“You would’ve let that angelic douchebag kiss you?”

“To keep you safe?” Sam snaps, lashing out, “I would’ve done a hell of a lot more than that.”

~*~

“Sam!” Dean snaps, forcing his heart rate down to something more reasonable. It isn’t healthy for it to spike every time Sam leaves his sight, really. His brain catches up to what his eyes are telling him and he takes a second just to make sure he’s got it right. “What are you doing?”

Sam turns on his barstool with the air of someone who needs to make sure they won’t fall off it. He’s projecting Why is this strange to you, and doesn’t even see the irony when he says, “Having a drink.”

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Dean points out, and catches a whiff of the drink in Sam’s hand. “Drinking whiskey?”

“I drink whiskey all the time,” Sam protests.

“No you don’t.”

“Christmas,” Sam says proudly, like he’s been saving that.

“Jesus,” Dean mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. But he makes himself calm down, reminds his still-fritzing body that Sam is right here, safe, and did not get kidnapped by crazy, scabby truckers at the gas station out front. He takes a seat at Sam’s elbow, lets Sam have another sip before he braces his elbows on the counter. “I guess, uh… This Ruby’s death is still hitting you kinda hard?”

Sam’s eyes roll. “Dean,” he says, too loud, sharp. “Not everything is always about me.” He frowns, checking the sentence over, but nope, he looks satisfied.

“Ohhkay.” Dean watches Sam glare at his glass for a moment, then tries again, clearing his throat. “Look. You’ve been running yourself pretty ragged with figuring out every damn angle on the timeline. And god knows that I appreciate it, but…if you need to take a break-if we can take a break-“

Sam gets very close, hands on Dean’s shoulder, barely far enough away to maintain eye-contact without either one of them going cross-eyed. Sam’s breath is warm on his face, a weird mix of coffee and Tennessee Rye.

“Not. About. Me,” Sam spells out before Dean can ask What the fuck are you doing? Then he turns back to his drink.

Dean’s breath comes whooshing out, but it’s really just frustration. “Should I be pulling out the maps?” he tries, “Planning a course to-anywhere? Sam, you haven’t even told me where we’re going next.”

“Dude, just. Shh for a second.”

Dean shuts up, but it’s only because he’s a hunter through-and-through and if there’s a creepy crawly making noise that Sam can hear and Dean can’t, well, he’s gonna close his mouth.

Sam’s expression is all wrong for creepy crawly, though, looking at Dean like he doesn’t know what to do with him. “No,” Sam shakes his head. “No, I’m… This one’s gotta happen. Exactly the way it happened before. Something… I don’t know. But you’ll figure it out.”

“I’m so glad you’re not cryptic and shit. That would be annoying.”

Sam’s eyebrow twitches at him, amused just enough that Dean gives up, cutting his losses. “Fine,” he grits out. “Fine. So you’re drinking because…?”

Sam’s huge shoulders lift. “I was drinking before. I was upset, you weren’t-you aren’t-“ The tenses seem to trip him up and he stops, tries again. “I know it’s not just me trying to save you, this time. I know you’re going along with the plan ‘cause it’s a good plan. But you’re still just…letting things happen.”

Dean knows Sam is doing his best to inject his tone with camaraderie and understanding, which almost smarts more than if he was outright blaming Dean. Sam plays with the condensation puddle absently, pressing down into the wet and dragging it away until it breaks.

“I forgot how bad it was,” Sam says, quiet, eyes open wide, like he’s admitting something he’s ashamed of. “I just. I have no fucking clue how you can think so little of yourself. I can’t see this from your point of view at all. It’s a first. It sucks. I hate it.”

Sam’s throat is clenched tight around the words, and…Dean feels like he’s not quite here. One shade off. And yeah, it’s a defense mechanism, he’s not stupid, but he can’t be present in a conversation where he has to tell Sam that blind hero worship doesn’t-

His phone rings, loud enough that Dean almost startles right off the barstool.

Sam has to take a breath before he can smile, but then he makes it look easy. “Answer it,” he says, “It’s about Bobby.”

~*~

Sam sleeps the whole way to Pittsburg, which works just fine for Dean; he can’t think of anything to say, and doesn’t want to work at it. Bobby in a coma-seeing it in person, not just hearing some doctor tell him over the phone-is enough of a shock to knock them back in the swing of case-related chatter easy enough. Except for the fact that Sam won’t give him one single, solitary spoiler.

“Oh come on-“

“No,” Sam snaps the third time Dean presses, drawing up to his full height in a way that might intimidate people who aren’t Dean. “And stop asking. Stop second guessing. Just do what you’d normally fucking do.”

He might be legitimately hungover, which is the major-if not the only-reason Dean doesn’t push harder. Also the smallest possibility that Dean might be acting like an ass, but he’s willing to bet he was mildly pissed at Sam in the timeline, too. Probably.

So he’s mildly pissed when Sam stays behind to “research”-fuck all, because he already knows everything they need to do to solve this case-and he’s mildly pissed when he goes to Doctor Sleeping Beauty’s office to dig around his files, and shockingly his mood hasn’t improved by the time he tracks down Jeremy Frost from some motherfucking African Dream Root sleep trials (and where has Dean heard that plant name before? Hmmm). So when Jeremy “definitely not a stoner” Frost offers Dean a beer, Dean thinks fuck it and fuck Sam and chugs it on down.

Sam gets right into Dean’s space when he gets back to the hospital, in a purely physical, non-verbally aggressive way that make’s Dean’s brain stutter to a stop. “What are you doing?” he asks, careful to keep still as much as possible while Sam leans in closer and-

“Sniffing,” Sam says, and inhales. Dean feels his cheeks heat up, some sort of muscle memory when Dad checked his breath for alcohol and cigarettes before he turned sixteen.

Sam takes one look at Dean’s face and his expression cracks into a grin, wide and unsurprised and exasperated and still 99% proud. Dean has no real clue what to do with that, and Sam wanders off shaking his head before he can figure it out.

Bela comes through with the dream root. She’s looking…tired, Dean thinks, but not worn down. He’s starting to think it’d take more than anything Hell has to dish out to knock Bela’s resolve once she sets her mind to something in her best interests.

He still sits on the Colt the whole time she’s in the hotel room. “No offense,” he swears when she catches him at it.

Bela’s dark-painted lips purse into her usual smirk. “None taken. This is dangerous stuff, and hard to come by,” she adds to Sam. “Consider it a good faith gesture on our deal.”

Sam looks like he wants to argue that they really don’t need bribes to save people, so Dean cuts him off at the pass, says, “Thank you,” and “Goodbye,” and “See you in a few months,” because he at least understands that Bela needs to keep her armor up. He gets a smile for his efforts, which is more than Sam gets. Ha.

Then they’re whipping up Essence of Bobby tea and chugging it down, and suddenly the rain is falling towards the sky.

~*~

Dean wakes up even more on edge than when he went under, which is an achievement. Sam sits up wincing, touching his chest and shoulder like they hurt, and even knowing Bobby is out of his coma isn’t enough to keep Dean’s mood from plummeting.

~*~

“Jesus, fuck, just tell me where he is!” Dean shouts, so loud his throat aches. His eyeballs feel like someone took sandpaper to them, his skull is pounding with caffeine. He hasn’t slept in two. Fucking. Days.

“I can’t,” Sam tells him again, patience stretched so thin over his tone it’s barely there at all. “Dean. I told you. I don’t know where Jeremy is. I never did.”

“Sam, I swear to god-“

“It’s the truth!” Sam snaps, and something in Dean snaps too.

“Alright, that’s it.” There’s a side-road and Dean takes it, coaxing his baby as gently as he remembers how until she’s settled between the dark, leafy trees. He shakes off his seatbelt, kills the engine, knocks his head back against the seat. “I’m done.”

Sam sighs in relief, and Dean’s eyes pop back open. “…That’s what you were waiting for all along?” He means it to come out angrier, but Sam looks so…something Dean can’t even muster the effort. “Fuck you,” he says instead, pointing at Sam in case there’s any doubt of who he means. He shuts his eyes.

And jerks them back open again when Sam rips out a piece of his scalp. “OW!”

“You’re such a baby,” Sam mutters, sprinkling Dean’s hairs in his thermos of extra African Dream Root tea they hadn’t yet choked down, which Dean saw him preparing but thought it was just for-shit, Dean doesn’t know what he thought. He was wrong.

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like? Coming in with you.”

“No, you’re not.”

Sam gives him a look. “You really want to bet on that?”

No, Dean doesn’t want to bet, thanks so much, but-“I don’t want you digging around in my head.”

“I know,” Sam says. “Tough.”

The dream starts as suddenly as before, melting from reality into something distinctly not in the blink of an eye. They fall out of the Impala to the tune of Dream a Little Dream of Me, music faded and studded with skips, like it’s being played on an old school record player in the middle of the forest. Sam doesn’t look surprised, which is not at all shocking. Dean rolls his eyes.

A spotlight hits the forest floor, yellow-white and welcoming, and Dean takes a step toward it without a doubt in his mind that it’s a good-light, thing, whatever. And Sam steps into it, which just solidifies that feeling right there.

There’s a sharp breath behind him, and Dean turns from the light to see Sam, his Sam, staring at a…dream, has to be a dream, something Dean’s brain whipped up. The dream-Sam is moving around what looks like a kitchen, brand new jeans and un-tucked flannel, reading a folded newspaper with one hand and drinking from a blue ceramic mug with the other. This Sam turns and catches sight of Dean over his shoulder, mouth curling instantly into a grin.

“Hey, man, glad you’re home,” the dream-Sam says. His voice sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a tin-can, but it sends a fission of something down Dean’s back, thickening when this Sam ducks his head, embarrassed. “I know it’s pretty corny, but I, uh, made you a pie.” He says it like he can’t actually believe it himself, but he taps the counter with the newspaper and yeah, there is a pie there, all golden crust and steaming. Dean might hear a gurgle of disbelief from his real brother but he doesn’t care, caught up in the way Sam’s spitting image huffs, all warm exasperation. “Hurry up and grab a slice, the game is on.”

Dean is abruptly aware of his Sam watching him watch his brother’s copy, and there’s no faking the confusion in the real Sam’s face. “Huh.” Dean refuses to feel bad about whatever this is-it’s his subconscious, Sam bought a ticket to this roller coaster, and if Dean’s subconscious wants Sam to make him pie, then. Yippee.

The spotlight stutters, Sam’s image with it, and the mirage vanishes like a TV with the power button punched. And even though Dean knows it’s a dream, knows it was never real to start with, it tugs at that instinctive part of him that says Sam, Sam’s gone, snatches at the air in his lungs.

“Where’d you go?” he blurts without thinking, turns, and there’s Sam, the real Sam, looking so stunned it might be funny later.

After he catches Jeremy, who picks that moment to show his scruffy stoner face from behind a tree.

Dean takes off running, Sam close at his heels. But it doesn’t really surprise him when they get split up, somehow.

Then the woods turn into wallpaper, and Dean abruptly has other things to worry about.

~*~

He doesn’t say a word to Sam when they wake up back in the Impala, just forks over the keys and calls to let Bobby know it’s over. Bobby’s gruff but heartfelt thank you is the last thing Dean hears for twelve solid hours of cramped sleep in the backseat. When he drags himself upright, he isn’t sure which of the aches are from the car and which are pure exhaustion, but he’s pretty sure it doesn’t matter.

“I tried to wake you when we got to Bobby’s but you wouldn’t budge,” Sam says, and Dean almost brains himself on the door because he really hadn’t seen Sam there.

“I’m going to get you a bell,” Dean mutters, standing up so he can stretch out his spine with a swallowed groan.

Sam’s hair is messed up, eyebrows knotted together with concern, jeans worn thin with too many washings, though Dean doesn’t know why he’s picking up on Sam’s clothing now. Well, no, not true, he’s paying attention because the Sam in his dream had looked-as weird as it sounds-provided for. No, that’s not-it isn’t quite right, it’s just that Sam had looked…good. Happy. Comfortable.

Dean’s mirror self, on the other hand. Not so much. About as far on the other end of the spectrum as you could get, honestly.

“So,” Dean says, because Sam is still hovering, “that was about as much fun as getting kicked in the jewels.”

Sam looks out over the car lot, shaking away his bangs when they blow against his eyelashes. “I don’t know what you saw,” he says, carefully. “You never told me.”

Dean’s face blood splatters pitch black soulless can’t escape me- Dean blinks it back and looks anywhere else. Yeah, he knows why he didn’t.

Sam doesn’t try to get closer, hands half-turned palm out like Dean might shy away. “I just know it was something you needed to see.”

“I don’t want to go to Hell,” Dean blurts, alarmed at the words the instant they fall out of his mouth. Because saying them out loud suddenly makes all of this real and he can’t, he hasn’t, he isn’t fucking prepared for this-

Sam lets out this great whooshing breath like he aims to blow a house down, hands landing on Dean’s shoulders to settle him like an anchor whether that’s what Sam means to do or not. “Okay. Okay. This is good, I’m so-can I? Sorry-“

His arms come up tight around Dean in a brief, crushing hug. Dean wants to wriggle away-maybe, probably-but it’s over before he can, leaving him with imprints on his bones and less air than he started with.

“Sorry,” Sam says again, face a little flushed. “I wasn’t sure if it was going to, um, be the same.”

“Yeah…” Dean shakes his head to clear it, to focus. “I got the impression you weren’t making me pie the other time?”

“You didn’t dream about me. Last time.” Sam’s tone is a complicated mess of things Dean isn’t going to get into, because it doesn’t matter, Sam can’t be right.

“You’re telling me you were inside my head and didn’t see yourself anywhere?” That just doesn’t seem possible. Sam is in everything Dean does. Dean had come out of this experience surprised that he hadn’t seen more Sams.

Sam shrugs, green carhartt jacket shifting along his shoulders. “You dreamt about Lisa. The subconscious is really changeable, Dean, I wouldn’t-“

“Wait,” Dean cuts in, “Who?”

Sam’s eyes go wide. “Lisa. Lisa and Ben, remember, we-“

“Oh, yeah, yeah okay, I got it, sorry.” Guilt pricks at his skin. But Lisa is…a different life. Dean isn’t dumb enough to think he gets more than one universal redo and he’d…he’d rather go with Sam. Besides, Sam said it himself: normal was never a real option, or whatever. No, Lisa is-was-a pipe dream. She’s better off without him, and Dean is just. He’s better with Sam.

He wishes desperately for a cup of coffee, wonders if Bobby’s started up a pot or what time is it, even? Morning, afternoon? Sam is still giving him a look, though, when Dean glances over next, and Dean figures caffeine is still a long way off.

“I’ve had other things on my mind, in case you haven’t noticed,” he points out, Sam’s expression rubbing him exactly the wrong way.

Sam looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t.

“You said it yourself, dreams are freaking changeable.” Dean grabs his coat and shoves his arms into the sleeves, focusing on that. “Bet if we went in again I’d dream about a purple elephant playing a banjo. Can I get some coffee before I punch you in the face?”

“You should probably take it easy on the coffee, Mr. Java,” Sam suggests, far past serious and into deadpan, letting Dean decide if he wants to run with this argument or brush it off.

Dean appreciates the out, but his nerves are jangling all over the place, and if he’s completely honest-Sam is probably right. He still starts walking for Bobby’s house, and no one needs to know if he’s relieved Sam fits instantly to his side, matching his strides to Dean’s. Limping a little, and it makes Dean feel light-headed and slightly nauseous thinking about the hits Sam had to take from Jeremy to give Dean enough time to have his heart-to-heart with himself, blows Sam knew were coming and going to hurt and actually totally fucking preventable.

“Did we hug this much in the other timeline?” Dean asks when they’re on the porch.

Sam opens the screen door and lets Dean walk through first. “No,” he says, “and look what happened.”