SPN Fic: It's Very Unseemly, Making Deals with Devils
Title: It’s Very Unseemly, Making Deals with Devils
Fandom: SPN
Author: relli86
Rating: PG, a couple of swear words.
Words: 5,348
Spoilers: Through the Season 2 Finale
Characters/Pairings: Mary, John, Sam, Dean
Summary: Four times the Winchesters made deals with demons, and one time a demon said no.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Supernatural or the Winchesters, no matter how much I may want to.
Author’s Note: Section titles refer to poker terms. I have no knowledge of poker so I found the definitions online. A thousand thank yous to gwendolyngrace for the quick and insightful beta! I appreciate it immensely!
Blind
The children played, running from the long blue slide to the creaky merry-go-round and back again. Some of the mothers had corralled their smaller children - no more than toddlers really - into the sandboxes, sticking plastic yellow shovels or green molds in their chubby hands. More than a few of the babies stuffed sand into their mouths like it was Cheerios.
From her spot on the bench, Mary smiled softly and placed her hand on the slight bump of her belly. She rubbed it once, twice, a third time, like a magic lamp, and held her hand there, as if waiting for the genie to pop out.
She chewed on her bottom lip, the smile leaving her face as her fear returned. She was almost three months along, and as her second trimester crept closer, she couldn’t find a way to quell the doubts in her mind. At night, she’d lie next to John, his strong arms wrapped around her shoulders, holding her close. But no matter how tight he held her, she’d stare up at the ceiling, counting cracks and sheep, and be unable to sleep.
She’d shiver and snuggle closer to him, like he could somehow protect her from something neither of them had control over.
Mary kept her hand on her stomach and absently rubbed it with her thumb, still staring at the babies in the sandbox.
“Do you have a little one here?” a voice asked, and Mary tore her eyes away from the children to look up at the woman standing in front of her.
She was of average height, slim with dark brown hair and even darker eyes. Dressed in jeans and a flowered cardigan, she looked like any other mother at the park.
Mary smiled a bit cautiously and shook her head. “No . . . not yet,” she responded, gesturing to her stomach.
“Oh, you’re expecting!” the woman said so excitedly that Mary was surprised she hadn’t clapped her hands together and done a little dance.
Mary nodded this time, and the woman took it as an invitation to sit down next to her.
“How far along are you?” she asked, crossing her legs and placing her linked hands on top of them.
“Almost three months,” Mary said.
This time, the woman did clap her hands together. “What an exciting time!” she exclaimed. “When I was pregnant with my son,” the woman said, pointing to a dark-haired boy in the sandbox, “the first three months were like nothing I’d ever experienced. The anticipation! Doesn’t it just kill you?”
Mary forced out a nod, rubbed her stomach.
“First one then?” the woman asked.
Mary stilled, and then turned away from the woman, returning her gaze to the sandbox.
“Did I say something wrong?” the woman asked, scooting closer to Mary and invading her personal space. “I always do that. Say the wrong thing, make a fool out of myself, sometimes I just don’t think.”
“No,” Mary said, “it’s fine. It’s just . . . .”
Mary’s voice tapered off, blowing away with the breeze.
“Honey,” the woman said, placing a hand on Mary’s shoulder, “are you okay?”
As she felt the hand on her shoulder, Mary turned back to the woman, ready to ask for some space, but then she found herself staring into the woman’s eyes, unable to look away.
The “I’m fine” died on her lips and tears came to her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping at her face, “hormones are a bitch.”
The woman laughed, but kept her hand where it was, “You sure that’s all it is? Because my friends all say I’m a good listener.”
Mary wanted to brush her off, tell her it was none of her business, in a polite way of course, but there was something in those eyes . . . .
The words started coming out, like a magician pulling an endless ribbon from his sleeve.
“I . . . I was pregnant before, a little over a year ago. My husband and I had only been married for a few months, but we wanted kids so badly, just couldn’t wait. I got pregnant and it was like you said. Baby books and names and cribs and teddy bears, God, I even took up crochet,” Mary said, laughing slightly and wiping away a stray tear, “I’ve never been so excited before and John, my husband, was just bouncing off the walls, bringing me flowers every day and singing horrible rock music to my belly. We were so ready . . . and then, right before my third month, I woke up with cramping. I started bleeding and by the time we got to the hospital, it was too late. I had miscarried.”
“Oh, honey,” the woman said.
“I couldn’t understand it, didn’t know why. It’d only been three months, but it had felt like years. Everything we’d hoped for, planned for, was over. God, the pain was just . . . . ” she trailed off, lost in the memory, “I can never feel that again.”
Mary bowed her head, watched the tears fall onto her faded jeans in some kind of bizarre game of connect-the-dots. She wiped them away again with her hands, then rubbed her stomach again with the right one, once, twice, a third time.
She looked up at the woman, stared into her dark eyes and felt like she was falling into an abyss. “I can’t lose this one,” she said, “I’ll give anything to just hold this one in my arms, have him grow up.”
The woman smiled at Mary’s words, so wide it was almost sinister. “Anything?” she asked.
When Mary nodded, whispered “Yes,” the woman’s eyes flickered yellow.
Chop
John had listened to Robert Johnson’s music for years. Before Mary, the lyrics told only a story; after, they revealed reality.
John steered the Impala towards the side of the dirt road, put it into park, and leaned back against the seat.
He sighed, shaky and tired, and willed the tears back.
The boys were in the backseat, buried under a mass of stolen motel blankets, wisps of light brown hair sticking out at the end. The large lump of entangled limbs rose and fell in time with each other, the only sign of life.
John eased himself out of the car and shut the door quietly behind him. He walked behind the car and opened up the trunk, pulling out the bottle of Jack Daniels he’d bought in the last town they’d passed through. Halfway back to the driver’s side door, he twisted off the lid and slid down the side of the car to lean his back against the tire.
He took a swig, felt it burn on its way down, took another.
In a week’s time, it would be two years since the fire. Two years of darkness and chasing and taking care of little bodies that stared and cried and didn’t understand why he just couldn’t give them their mommy back.
He took another swig and closed his eyes. He thought of golden hair and lavender and all the times Mary should’ve been there but wasn’t.
He thought of two more years of this, of four more, six more, an endless stream of years were she would be gone and he would be all their boys had.
He thought of a life like this, of rundown motels, of guns and knives, of fear and death, and couldn’t let it be.
John tipped the bottle back, drained half of it, and pushed himself up from the ground.
He walked back to the trunk, opened it, and dug around for the items he needed.
The metal box was first, then the bones, ones from a black cat he got in an experience he’d rather not revisit. A small bottle of graveyard dirt joined the bones in the box.
He pulled a picture out of his pocket, one that was wrinkled and worn from too much handling. It was just him and Mary, sitting on an old brown couch in their first apartment. It was a candid shot, probably taken by a friend. Mary was laughing, mouth opened and eyes bright, and he was just looking at her, a smile on his face. He thought of ripping up the picture, erasing the moment forever, but he couldn’t do it.
Instead, he took out one of his recently acquired fake IDs from his wallet and threw it in the box, locking the clasp.
He peered back into the car, just to make sure, but the boys were still sound asleep, oblivious to what he was about to do.
John left the bottle by the car and held the box in his sweat-soaked hands.
He walked to the crossroads, slowly and deliberately. When he reached the center, he knelt down, felt the small pebbles digging into his knees through his jeans.
He hesitated again, aware of the line he was crossing, of the risk he was taking.
But he needed Mary, the boys needed Mary, and they all needed more than this.
So he dug - not too deep, just enough - and stuck the box in, covered it with dirt. Then he waited, heart beating against his chest, sweat gathering in his hairline despite the cold.
A short time later, the specifics of which John couldn’t discern - not with his mind running a countdown to the moment when things would finally be right - a woman appeared before him, seemingly out of thin air.
She had long blonde hair and blue eyes, but her nightgown was black, not white.
“John Winchester,” she cooed, sidling up to him, “you’ve been making quite a name for yourself.”
John grunted, refused to step back from her, “I’m not here to talk about my progress.”
The demon pouted, actually stuck out her bottom lip at John, and said, “Mr. Serious, all-business, I see.” Her face changed then, dropped its innocence. She backed away from John and clasped her hands behind her back. “Let’s talk shop then, John. I don’t have all night.”
“I want to make a deal.”
The demon looked around them, down at their feet, and then back at John. “I thought we were knitting.”
John just stared back, not giving into the demon’s bait.
“Fine,” the demon said, “what can I do for you, John? Lifetime subscription to Guns and Ammo? Free oil changes at Jiffy Lube?”
“I want my wife back,” John said, cutting off the demon. “I want Mary back.”
The demon cocked her head at that, came forward. One hand took the back roads up to John’s face, lingering on his bicep and finally settling on his stubble. The other hand brushed through his sweat-soaked hair, pushing back the mussed hair that fell into eyes.
John stood ramrod straight. No one had touched him like this since Mary, and the thought only stilled him more.
The demon lifted herself up on her toes, trying to reach John. “Johnny,” she scolded, “you know how this works. You have to give a little.”
She wanted more than a little. But so did he.
“Ten years?” he asked. He had to be sure, though he wasn’t certain it mattered. An hour would be longer than the time they had now.
“Ten years,” the demon confirmed, licking her lips and drawing closer to John, digging her way in like a parasite.
John started to lean down, then hesitated, just for a second. Thought of suffering and hell and the boys and Mary. Thought that if he had died that night and Mary had lived, the boys would be better off. Dean would be talking and Sammy would be potty trained and they’d let themselves cry at night because she would be there to comfort them.
He thought of ten more years with her, but, this time, knowing that it’s all they’ll get. It wouldn’t be a surprise; he’d be ready.
John closed his eyes, lowered his lips to the demon’s.
Then her hands left his face, and John’s lips meant air. He opened his eyes, startled and confused. “What?”
The body the demon wore smiled. “Oh, Johnny, I can’t. We demons have a hierarchy, you know, and your soul’s already on lay-a-way.”
Before John could demand that she explain, the demon was gone, leaving a terrified woman and a throbbing, ever-present pain in its wake.
John lied to the woman, gave her the half-empty bottle of Jack as the explanation.
When he returned to the car, Dean’s pale face was pressed against the window, his forehead and the slope of his nose flush against the glass. His too wide eyes encompassed almost half his face and stared at John, following his movements and silently asking for an explanation. The fogged up windows told John that he had been watching for a while, long enough to know that something wasn’t right. John could see small handprints on the glass, as if Dean had tried to push his way out through the window with his open palms, not understanding what his eyes could see happening.
John turned away, took a deep breath, and tried to stop the sobs that signaled the end of the life he wanted and the beginning of the life he had.
Draw
Sam was really sick and tired of taking orders from Dean. It was always, “Sammy, eat your vegetables,” and “Sammy, clean under your armpits,” and “Sammy, hit harder,” and “Sammy, make the salt line thicker.”
For once, he wanted to be the one to give the orders, to decide what was going to happen in his own life. It just wasn’t fair; Dean thought that he was Dad or something and that Sam was supposed to follow him without question.
Well, no way. Because basically? It sucked big-time, and Sam wanted to do what he wanted to do and not what Dean made him do.
So on one day when Dean wasn’t there to pick him up from school at 3:30, Sam decided he wasn’t waiting any longer. Dean had probably gotten detention, which would mean that Sam would have to wait for him for-ev-er. He was ten years old, practically a teenager, and he could walk the few blocks home by himself. Other kids in his grade - some even younger - did it all the time.
At 3:45, when it was clear Dean was going to be late, he let the school monitor know he was walking home so Dean wouldn’t worry that he’d been kidnapped or something, then set off on the familiar route.
He turned left at the corner near the school, heading down Pine St. and mentally checking off each landmark he passed. At the intersection of Wilson and Howard, Sam stopped at the crosswalk. The pedestrian lights no longer worked - Dean said that they’d probably never worked in the first place - so Sam looked both ways four times, just to be sure. If he got hit by a car, Dean would kill him, Dad would kill him, and Sam would wish the car had killed him.
Positive that the road was clear, Sam crossed the street, now on the home stretch. The apartment was only three blocks up - a straight shot - and Sam smirked, thought, Like that was hard.
As he passed a familiar alley, Sam saw the old, homeless man that seemed to live at Box Number 1, Howard Street. Sam and Dean passed him every day on their way to and from school. Dean called him Crazy-Ass Chuck or the Howard Hobo and told Sam to ignore him. But Sam always felt bad for the guy. His face and clothes were dirty, and a long, gray, scraggly beard hung off of his chin. He looked hungry too, sitting on cardboard boxes and wrapped in a holey blanket that looked as gross as the alley floor.
Sam knew that they didn’t have a lot of money. Sometimes Dean wouldn’t take a lunch at all so that there was enough bread for Sam’s peanut butter and fluff sandwich. Sam liked jelly better, but it had to be refrigerated and, if they left before it was gone, abandoned. Longer shelf-life, Dean would tell him when he caught Sam looking at the Concord grape jelly or strawberry jam, but if it was on sale or Dad was sure to be away for a few days, leaving no chance of a quick exit, Dean would give in and let him pick a flavor. Times like that, Sam could hardly remember why he thought Dean was bossy. Then he would say, Hurry it up, Princess, we don’t have all freakin’ day, and Sam wanted to take the jar off the shelf and throw it at his brother’s stupid freckled forehead. On days when Dean didn’t make a lunch, Sam tried to only eat half of his sandwich at lunch, even if stomach was grumbling something fierce, because it reminded him of how hungry Dean must be. He’d give it to Dean on the walk home, and Dean always stuffed the entire thing in his mouth at once and stuck out his tongue, revealing the half-chewed sandwich, the marshmallow and chunky peanut butter caked on the sides of tongue.
“Spare any change, kid?” the man asked, drawing Sam out of his thoughts. Sam instinctually shook his head and had to resist the ingrained response to just keep on walkin’.
But Dean wasn’t here, and despite his claims, he wasn’t always right. Sam was sure of it.
“I . . .I,” Sam stuttered, Dean’s He just wants money for booze running through his mind, “I don’t have any money, sir.”
If possible, poor homeless Howard looked even sadder. He wrapped the blanket tighter around himself and stared up at Sam through overgrow eyebrows like some pound puppy in desperate need of a haircut. “I sure could use some chow,” he said, now cocooned inside his blanket.
Sam didn’t have any food on him; they’d just gotten groceries yesterday. But the man sure did look hungry, if anyone ever did. Kinda like Dean on one-sandwich days.
“I can get some,” Sam said, blurting out the words.
The man’s eyes widened, surprised. “Hmm,” he muttered, “don’t get that one much.”
“I’ll be right back,” Sam said, turning towards the apartment, “just wait.”
The man lifted a gray, hairy eyebrow, silently asking, Where would I go?
Sam was at the apartment in five minutes. Once in the kitchen, he pulled out the bread from the fridge and pulled down the peanut and fluff from the cabinet. He made a sandwich like he’d seen Dean do a million times, lathering on the peanut butter on one slice of white bread and the fluff on the other. Then he placed the fluff piece carefully on top of the peanut butter one, being careful not to squeeze out any filling. He worked quickly, convinced that Dean would walk in any moment and just know what he was doing.
Dean would be pissed - the type of pissed that meant wedgies and Indian burns and endless games of Uncle where Dean just went deaf - if he found out he was giving their food away to the local hobo. But Sam already felt a stomachache coming on for tomorrow, the kind that meant he wouldn’t be hungry for lunch.
Sam eyed a slightly brown banana on the shelf, grabbed it - if it wasn’t eaten soon it’d be brown all over and too soft inside, mushy and inedible - and moved to the door. Remembering how thirsty he usually got after eating peanut butter, Sam headed back to the refrigerator and pulled out a cold Coke. They didn’t get pop much, but the big 24 pack had been on sale yesterday and Dad was supposed to be home in a couple of days. Don’t have to ration out the money too much, Dean had said.
The Coke joined the sandwich and banana in Sam’s arms. He made his way back to the door, the feeling that Dean was going to be home any minute propelling him forward.
Once out the door and down the steps of the apartment building, Sam ran the three blocks to the alley, stopping at each corner to check for cars. In less than five minutes, he was in front of Howard again, his face slightly red and his breath coming in soft pants.
“Here,” Sam said, holding out the food and Coke to the man. Howard’s tired face brightened, and he reached out almost tentatively, like he was afraid Sam was going to take the food away any second.
“It’s okay,” Sam tried to reassure the man, stepping closer to him. “It’s yours.” That seemed to do the trick. Howard’s hand shot out and before Sam realized it, the sandwich, banana, and Coke were gone.
Sam’s adjusted his gaze from Howard’s hand to his face and watched in strange fascination as Howard bit into the sandwich with the same intensity as a black dog.
Before Sam could even enjoy the satisfied feeling that came with helping people, he heard his name being shouted from down the street. He closed his eyes against his impending doom. He knew that voice, and it did not sound happy.
“Sam!” Dean was yelling. “Sammy!”
Sam reluctantly opened his eyes and swiveled his head to see Dean running towards him, crossing the streets and not even stopping to check for cars.
Before Sam could even open his mouth and try to explain - and it wasn’t like he had to, he could make his own decisions - Dean was practically on top of him, his hand grabbing Sam’s upper arm tightly.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Dean snarled, his face flush with anger and worry and his eyes so narrow Sam thought it was a miracle he could still see out of them.
But Dean didn’t get to talk to him like that. He wasn’t some helpless kid; he was just going home . . . and giving food to a hobo, but that was after the fact. Right now, Dean was just pissed Sam hadn’t been waiting for him in front of the school like a good little boy. Well, tough.
“Nothing,” Sam responded, adopting the dismissive and affronted tone of voice he’d heard Dean use over and over again with his teachers.
“Nothing?” Dean repeated, as the red spread to the tips of his freckled ear lobes, which, admittedly, was never a good sign. Sam gulped a little, but kept his ground.
“Nothing,” Sam said, and Dean’s arm tightened painfully at his echo.
Dean’s nose came within inches of Sam’s. His brother’s neck was bent down only slightly - Dean had yet to hit his growth spurt, thank God - and Sam stared back at him as intensely as a ten-year-old could muster.
“Is that what you’re going to tell Dad?” Dean asked harshly, eyes boring into Sam’s.
At the mere prospect of Dad, Sam deflated somewhat. Dad’s wrath was only worth incurring when it was really important or he had nothing to lose. Maybe if he gave in a little now, Dean wouldn’t even tell him. He broke Dean’s gaze, averting his eyes and dropping his head.
“No,” he said, his voice sulking and resigned.
Dean pulled on Sam’s arm slightly, and Sam looked up at him. Dean’s eyebrows were raised in expectation, his face drawn into an expression that asked, Well?
“I was just walking home,” Sam grumbled, “I’m tired of always waiting for you.”
“Goddamnit, Sam,” Dean said, “you can’t walk home by yourself. It’s dangerous.”
That infuriated Sam to no end. He wrested his arm away from Dean and put some space between them. “I’m not a baby! Why can’t you let me do anything on my own?”
“You’re ten years old,” Dean said, like it explained everything.
“So?”
“So, you’re ten years old and I’m not. I’m your older brother, and it’s my job to look out for you. I can’t do that when you run off by yourself!”
“I won’t always be ten!” Sam yelled back, “What are you going to do then?”
“I’m pretty sure you’ll always act like you’re ten, even when you’re ninety.”
Sam glared at his brother, his frustration growing. He watched Dean take in the rest of the scene and waited for explosion number two.
Howard was chugging down the Coke, fluff clearly visible on the sides of his mouth and the banana opened in one hand.
“You gave him our food?” Dean asked incredulously.
“He was hungry.”
“Werewolves are hungry too, but you don’t just stand there and let them eat your heart!”
“That’s one interpretation,” Sam weakly defended.
“Unbelievable,” Dean muttered to himself, keeping his gaze on Howard out of the corner of one eye. The other eye was focused on Sam. “Do you listen to anything I say? Ever?”
Yeah, he did. And that was the problem. Dean never stopped trying to make him listen. But Dean was already pissed enough; Sam didn’t want to add to it.
When he said nothing, Dean sighed in annoyance. “We are leaving,” he said, grabbing Sam’s arm again and heading back towards the apartment. Sam figured he just wanted to yell at him some more where people couldn’t hear. Terrific.
As Dean pulled him along the sidewalk, Sam looked back at Howard and saw the man watching him. “Wait,” Sam said, dragging his feet to stop Dean’s progress. “Just one minute.”
Dean tried to keep moving, but Sam wasn’t going anywhere. He loosened his grip on Sam’s arm, and Sam took it as a form of permission - no matter how reluctant.
Sam broke away and walked back to the man, stopping in front of him. “Sorry about my brother,” Sam said, stealing a glance at Dean, who was waiting impatiently five yards away and itching to grab Sam’s arm again as soon as he was within reach.
Howard looked up at him, a banana peel and empty Coke can adorning his cardboard box. “It’s okay. I sure do appreciate it.”
“That’s the thing,” Sam said, “I won’t be able to do it again. I mean, we don’t have a lot of money or food to spare. I’m just sorry I can’t help you more.”
Howard smiled, revealing missing teeth and silver replacements. “Kid,” he rasped, his voice scratchy but deep, “you’ve done more than most people. Now what can I do for you? Anything, you just name it.”
Sam knew to react with caution to those kinds of words; Dad had drilled it into him and then Dean repeated the lessons, just in case Dad’s endless training didn’t stick. But Sam couldn’t help but think about the question, about what he wanted. No one really ever asked him that. He looked at Dean, older and bossy and never letting him do anything by himself. Thinking that just because he was born first gave him some kind of power over Sam’s life. He couldn’t change that, and he realized, a lot more lately, that being the big brother was harder than Dean made it look, that Dean bore the brunt of Dad’s anger, that Dean was the one that went hungry when the food was running low and Dad was gone.
Still, Sam couldn’t stop himself from wishing that someday he’d be bigger and taller than Dean and that maybe, then, Dean would let him make his own decisions.
He didn’t say it aloud, though. Just looked at Howard and smiled softly. “No thanks, Sir,” he began, but Howard cut him off.
“Don’t worry about it, kid,” he said, winking at Sam through his bushy eyebrows, “Consider it a done deal.”
Fast Play
Before they got the Colt, John had told his boys that he couldn’t - wouldn’t - watch them die.
When the doctor explained the seriousness of Dean’s condition, using if instead of when - if he survived, if he woke up, if they had a miracle up their sleeves - John knew he had to make that if a when, a now.
John figured that if that miracle existed for them, they would have used it up long ago. One thing John had learned since the fire was you’ve got to make your own miracles. And, yeah, you couldn’t really call them miracles, but it was the same result. One just carried a cost, a debt with a collector that couldn’t be shirked.
When the doctor said, “If,” John formulated the list of ingredients in his head, wrote them down and gave the list to Sam. He planned it all out, hoping the deal wouldn’t come down to what he thought it would, but knowing that, in the end, it wouldn’t matter. He’d give it all up because this was Dean and the only other thing that ranked that high on his list was Sam. They were lumped together under Boys, right above Mary, and everything else fell into line based on how they affected the three most important things.
He sat by Dean’s bedside, watching the machine breathe for his son and taking in the tubes down the mouth that usually didn’t shut up and the stillness that John had never attributed to the restless boy he’d raised.
Sitting there, watching Dean die, John saw Mary on the ceiling, saw her face in that last moment before the flames engulfed her. Save me, her face had said, but John hadn’t, couldn’t.
Save me, said Dean in his stillness, in the beeps that signaled life.
And John would because he couldn’t do anything else. He wouldn’t sit here and watch his son die.
Once he’d appeased Sam enough to end the yelling, John made his way to the basement of the hospital, set up for the ritual, said the words, and waited for the moment.
When he told the Demon that he wanted to make a deal, the Yellow-Eyed son-of-a-bitch smiled. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to say those words, Johnny.”
John was pretty sure he’d been waiting at least twenty years, at least since the crossroads demon turned him down.
The Demon wanted him to sweeten the pot, and John asked, With what? just to be sure. He already knew the answer.
Years ago, he asked to give his soul for Mary’s life. Right now, in this basement with his son dying upstairs, he’d offer the same for Dean’s.
It wasn’t a crossroads. They wouldn’t seal this with a kiss. He wouldn’t get ten years, but that didn’t matter.
“It’s time to cash in my chips,” John said. “I know what my soul’s worth.”
The man with the yellow eyes smiled again, deep and toothy, and it was done.
All-In
Dean thought that, maybe, his whole life had been preparing him for this.
There was no choice; one moment he was asking Sam what he was supposed to do, the next he was in the Impala.
He didn’t remember the walk from the cabin to the car. Didn’t remember putting on his coat or taking that final glance of Sam’s body, praying it’d be the last time he’d see it so gray. He didn’t remember any of this, but he knew it’d happened.
He moved without thinking about moving, drove the car that had carried Sam’s cold, gray body to the place that would bring him back.
This was instinct. This was Dean, come meet your baby brother. This was Dean, watch out for Sammy. This was Bitch. Jerk. This was If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to save you.
When Dean looked into red eyes, he didn’t hesitate. He closed his eyes and leapt, put everything he had into that kiss, gave up the last part of himself that was just his.
For his last year, he’d live for himself. After that, he’d die for Sam, over and over again, just like it’d been his whole life.
And it - saving Sam, making the deal, giving up his soul, going to hell - may not have been the last thing Dean ever did, but it was the last thing that mattered.