The Sticking Point, 2/?
Title: The Sticking Point, 2/?
Author: sowell
Genre: Angst, action, slash
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean, secondary Dean/Cas, and Meg/Cas if you squint
Rating: NC-17, eventually
Word count: This part 3,315
Warnings: Language, Wincest, see spoiler warnings
Spoilers: Assumes knowledge of all aired episodes. Very general S8 spoilers:
[here there be spoilers]
Dean gets himself out of Purgatory and Sam has gotten out of the hunting game
Disclaimer: Sooooo not mine
Summary: Dean comes back from Purgatory, but there are consequences attached to his return. Sam and Dean try to reconnect to keep each other safe.
A/N: 1) Unbeta’d - all mistakes are my own. 2) Watson, AR is a real place, but I’ve never been there and thus all details are one hundred percent made up. 3) Beware some nonsensical appropriation of biblical mythology. 4) Comments and concrit are always welcome.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Wednesday
Dean was awake when Sam stumbled out of his bedroom the next morning. The sun pushed broken light through the living room blinds, and the kitchen smelled like his Columbian roast.
“No caffeine in Purgatory,” Dean said, toasting him with chipped mug.
Sam drifted past him silently, not trusting his voice until he had some coffee in him. He’d held himself very still when he first woke up, because he no longer trusted his brain to tell him what was real. Then he’d heard Dean moving around in the kitchen, and the prickly mixture of relief and uneasiness he felt was almost as bad as the thought of Dean vanishing again.
Everything was wrong - Dean’s distant eyes, the taught way he held his body, the things he wasn’t saying. Sam ached with Dean’s loss on an almost constant basis, but he never dreamed of their reunion being like this.
Dean’s coffee was dark and bitter, and Sam dosed it with a liberal amount of milk and sweetener before he finally turned to face his brother. Dean was leaning one hip against the counter, staring out the little kitchen window at the street beyond. His mug was clasped in one long-fingered hand, forgotten.
“So…anything in particular you want to do?” Sam asked over the rim of his coffee cup. It was such a trite thing to say, but he couldn’t stand the heavy silence. “Anything you missed while you were gone?”
His words seemed to shake Dean out of his trance, and Dean cocked an eyebrow, considering.
“Pizza. And I wouldn’t mind getting laid.”
Sam snorted, tossing back the rest of his coffee. “Shocker,” he deadpanned, then headed for the bathroom.
*****
He left his brother a menu for the pizza delivery place, a key in case he wanted to go out, and some cash. He refused to divulge the password to his laptop, no matter how much Dean needled him.
Sam took the bus into the city for class every day. He’d stored the Impala in the safest garage he could find, and he hadn’t seen any point in buying another car. He’d logged enough miles with Dean - he was more than happy to let someone else do the driving at this point.
His usual transfer station was seven stops and twelve minutes from his apartment. Sam disembarked after the first one instead and pulled out his cell phone.
The first thing he did was email his professors and let them know he wouldn’t be in class for a few days. He manufactured a family emergency, and it was a lot closer to the truth than some of the bullshit he and Dean had come up with over the years. He was supposed to meet Becca for lunch, a date which he cancelled with a texted apology and a promise to call later.
Finally, he left a voicemail for his manager at the bar. The place didn’t open until four, but Bill would arrive a few hours in advance, and he’d want to know why Sam hadn’t shown up for his shift. Sam put in a verbal request for a week’s leave, and he didn’t have to try very hard to fake the apology in his voice.
He walked the ten minutes back to his apartment, and he waited.
It was two hours before Dean strolled out of the door. Sam assumed he’d spent at least one of them trying to crack the laptop before he gave up. Dean casually covered a block’s length before he paused in front of a sleek black Mustang, frankly admiring. He hunched over the driver’s side window for a long moment, and Sam realized he was picking the lock. With Sam’s lockpick. Which he had to have unearthed from the chest in Sam’s closet.
The door opened smoothly, and then Dean was ducking inside, disappearing beneath the driver’s side dashboard. Shit.
Sam didn’t have time for equal subtlety. It took Dean about three seconds to get the engine running, and then he was pulling away in the rumbling machine, leaving Sam behind. Sam waited just until he was sure he was out of Dean’s rearview before he kicked in the driver side window of a Honda Civic.
*****Dean’s first stop was a small public library twenty miles outside the city, and Sam watched from behind a shelf of bound journals as Dean researched…something…on one of the dusty public-use PCs. Dean switched cars in the library parking lot - something less flashy this time - and Sam followed suit.
Dean drove south. He stopped for gas at a dusty little station just inside the Pueblo city limits, and he came out carrying a box of powered donuts and a liter of coke. Sam could remember him in the Impala, lips dotted with powdered sugar, fingers ever-so-careful not to smear the upholstery.
The sun was high and bright by the time Sam trailed him up the stone steps of the Pueblo community college. The desert heat scorched him, and he felt his hair turning up damply at the back of his neck.
Dean pushed his way through a group of students exiting the building’s first-floor lecture hall. Without the cover of a suit and tie, he looked about as dangerous and out-of-place as he could be. He stopped and knocked on one of the offices, then disappeared into the room. The bronze nameplate said Dr. P. Head, and Sam did a quick search on his phone. Paul Head, professor of religious studies, specializing in ancient religions and religious artifacts. Sam slid into a nearby classroom that had a view of the hallway, made embarrassed faces at the professor as though he were a late-arriving student, and then picked a chair to sit and wait.
Dean emerged half an hour later, legs eating up the hallway in jerky frustration, and Sam ignored the whispers of the other students as he sprang out of his seat to follow his brother.
Halfway across the parking lot, Dean stopped. “I’ve been in Purgatory for eighteen months,” he said without turning around. “You think I don’t know when I’m being tailed?”
Shit.
Sam shoved his hands in his pockets as Dean turned around, shooting him a look that was half exasperation and half amusement.
“What are you doing here, Dean?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“Answer the question.”
Clusters of students started pouring down over the steps. Dean hitched his head to indicate that they should move, and Sam followed him, crowding his shoulder. Dean was making quick work of a third car, and Sam wasn’t sure what it said about his own state of mind that he slid into the passenger seat like no time had passed, just picked up and resumed their illegal activities without a second thought.
“Dean,” he prompted forcefully.
“Easy tiger,” Dean said. “I’m just doing a little research. There may have been one tiny condition to my jailbreak.”
Sam’s heart stuttered and stopped, then kicked up beating again. He’d been expecting it, he realized. Dean had been acting strange because Dean hadn’t really come home - not yet. He didn’t know what Dean had traded, but it was sure to be dangerous and life-changing and maybe apocalyptic in some way they hadn’t even imagined yet. His stomach churned sickly, and his head hurt.
Out loud, he heard the despair in his own voice when he said, “What did you do?”
*****“It’s a stone,” Dean said. “I guess the Leviathans borrowed it permanently when they rode Cas here. Has some mojo attached to it that keeps the beasties in Purgatory in line. Dick stashed it somewhere in case he ever needed it for leverage but,” Dean shrugged. “We squashed that plan.”
“And you have to find it,” Sam said tiredly. It wasn’t a question.
“The watchman I told you about - they call him the Nephilim - he wants it back. Bad enough to make a deal.”
“And of course, you took it,” Sam said.
“There weren’t a whole of options in there,” Dean said, eyes moody and jaw tight. Sam dropped his gaze as guilt slammed into him. Dean never would have made a deal if Sam had been doing his job in the first place.
“Sorry.” Sam shook his head. “What about the professor?”
“Total bust,” Dean admitted. “Thought I was a whack job.”
“You went in there totally blind,” Sam said, exasperated. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Dean pushed himself away from the counter, quick and frustrated. “Honestly?” he said, eyebrows lowered. “Because you didn’t seem too keen on jumping back into the life, Sammy. You’ve got your whole little normal thing going for you. I was trying to protect that.”
Sam looked away, working his jaw. This was familiar territory, even if he hated it. “You think lying to me is protecting me? How old are we, Dean?”
Dean didn’t answer. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and Sam could see the stubble on his cheeks, matching the shadows under his eyes. He was so pale, snowy-pale, and the dark specks looked like flecks of blood. There was still something he wasn’t saying, Sam realized, and the frustration of it threatened to claw out of him.
“How long do you have?” Sam kept his voice very even, because he already knew the answer was not long enough.
Dean’s dark eyes met his. “A month.”
Fuck. Sam put his head in his hands. A month. Four weeks - three, Dean had already wasted one - to look for some object that they’d never seen, that some powerful evil was almost certainly hiding from them, and they had no Bobby, no Castiel, not a single person to help them.
“And if you don’t find it?” Sam asked.
Dean’s mouth tipped up. “Then I go back. Deal broken.”
Shit, Sam felt tired. Dean’s appearance, Dean’s deceit, Dean’s ticking clock.
“Cheer up, Sammy,” Dean said. “If I don’t find it, nothing will change. I survived the last eighteen months in Purgatory, I can survive again. You’ll still have your chance at normal.”
Sam punched him across the face.
Dean’s back hit the edge of the counter, and he grabbed on with both hands, his cheek blooming an angry red. He looked at Sam, stunned. “What the hell was that for?” he yelled.
Sam wanted to throttle him. “For being a self-centered dick,” he bit out. His hand hurt; he might have cracked something. He hadn’t thrown a punch in over a year. He was breathing hard, emotion and exertion pushing him forward like twin engines.
“Did you even think for one second what it would do to me, showing up here, pretending everything’s fine, then disappearing a month later, no explanation? How many times do you expect me to grieve for you, Dean?”
Dean was shaking his head. “I’m self-centered?” he said. “I’ve been fighting like hell to get back here. To you. Have you forgotten what happened last time I disappeared?”
Sam hadn’t forgotten, and the memory of that grief, the associated bite of blood on his tongue, hit him like a gut punch.
Dean was eyeing him, lips pulled into something like a snarl. “You want to do this? We’ll do it. But we should move it outside.” His eyes flashed. “I wouldn’t want to smash your flat screen.”
Slowly, in increments, Sam forced himself to relax. No. Fuck, no, he didn’t want to do this. He was already regretting that rash punch, but he couldn’t stay still and quiet. He’d always hated Dean’s stoicism, and no amount of death could change that.
He put his hands on Dean’s shoulders, and Dean jerked, watching him warily. “I don’t want to fight with you,” he said. “Dean, I just. I need you to be all right.” He felt the solid muscle and bone of Dean under him. Not even a tremor, and goddamnit. Dean had never learned to be scared for himself. He always left Sam to do that for him.
Sam took a breath. “You…you have to tell me the truth. You have to stop hiding shit from me or we’re never going to find this thing.”
A pause, tight as a bowstring. “We?” Dean asked, raising an eyebrow. Like there was another choice.
“Yeah,” Sam said, and he let his arms drop. “Because you suck at research and you’re gonna get arrested if you keep stealing cars.” Sam swallowed. “And I won’t bury you again.”
Suddenly Dean was looking at him in a way that had Sam thinking of fireworks and reunion hugs and childhood relics, long tossed away. Of Dean, two steps in front of him, broad-shouldered and sure. Dean turned his back, and Sam knew it was because he didn’t want to give away any more than he already had.
“Technically,” he said, muffled, “there was no body, so you never actually b- ”
“I meant it metaphorically, Dean.”
“Always with the big words, Sammy.”
Dean glanced over his shoulder, and the mood was broken. Sam chose relief over whatever other strange ache was making its way through his stomach.
“First thing tomorrow,” Dean said, “we go get my wheels. Your taste in cars sucks.”
*****They ate fast food burgers for dinner at the only table in Sam’s apartment. Sam was too big for the flimsy matching chairs, and Dean wondered how he’d spent months in the place without breaking one. His cheek felt swollen and puffy, and he figured he’d have a bruise there tomorrow. It felt kind of nice. Familiar.
When they were done, Sam puttered around in his little kitchen while Dean sipped at a beer. The place already looked pristine to Dean, but Sam took his time rinsing out their coffee cups from the morning, wiping down the cracked, yellowing counter top, throwing away the greasy paper towel Dean had left lying there.
“I always knew you’d make a good housewife,” Dean said, because silence made him itchy. Sam didn’t answer, but his shoulder blades heaved a sigh of exasperation. Dean’s head was hurting fiercely, and only unconsciousness would take care of it. He’d be fine until Sam went to sleep. If Sam went to sleep.
Sam turned when he was done, out of things to do with his hands. He leaned against the counter and looked at Dean uncertainly.
“Dean,” he started, uncomfortably. “I have a girlfriend.”
“Did I ask?”
And then just because Sam had started it, Dean backed him against the sink, reaching around to set his empty bottle down with a metallic ring. Sam had always been like a damn furnace, and Dean indulged himself for a moment, feeling Sam’s warmth brush against him in brief licks.
Sam kept his long fingers locked on the edge of the counter, and his eyes flicked up, over Dean’s head.
“Becca, right?” he said, and Sam looked at him, dazed.
“What?”
“Your girlfriend.”
“How did you - ”
“Stalker, remember?” Dean said. “She’s very hot. Very classy.”
Sam turned his head away, and Dean could see the birthmark on his neck, the scar on his chin from when six-year-old Dean pushed him too hard and sent him flying onto pavement.
One of Sam’s hands came off the counter to cup Dean at the waist, and Dean was pretty sure Sam didn’t even realize he was doing it, the absent way his thumb was rubbing circles. He felt the slow burn of it up his legs, and it made him hard in his jeans. Dangerous territory. Dean’s head was pounding, and Sam was warm and solid, but it wasn’t going to happen. He took a step back, and he heard Sam let out a breath.
“So glad you approve,” Sam muttered after a minute. He was sulking, and Dean smiled.
“Sleep tight,” Dean said.
*****Dean used to be able to sleep for twelve hours straight, if he had Dad or Sam watching his back. In Purgatory, he learned to sleep in two hour spurts, strung together over the course of a nighttime. There was no day in Purgatory; the sky was endlessly black and threatening, the better for all the monsters to circle each other like pack animals.
Castiel didn’t sleep, which came in handy for Dean. But they inevitably had to move after a few hours, running from some new threat. In Purgatory, Dean got a taste of what it was like to be hunted, not hunter. He’d spent his whole life seeking out evil to kill, but Purgatory was evil’s turf; Dean had to choose between hiding and dying. It was in his nature to be loud and cocksure, more reckless than smart. It was only Cas that had kept him alive for the first few weeks, forcibly shushing him, dragging him from one shelter to the next, convincing him with icy blue eyes that if he wanted to survive long enough to get back to Sam, he’d stop and think before attacking the next creature he laid eyes on.
Dean listened to Sam tossing and turning again and had to fight the urge to go to him. He was pretty sure he had a few techniques that would put his brother right to sleep, but Sam had drawn a line. It was normal, Dean thought. It was the way they’d done it their whole lives. They’d been on the road for years, but Sam was a girlfriend kind of guy. It made sense that he’d fit one into his new life.
Dean checked the clock. He could probably fit in four hours of sleep if he was lucky. He closed his eyes.
*****“A vampire and a werewolf walk into a bar,” Dean says. “They order a few drinks and two humans for dinner. When the waiter brings their food out, the werewolf gets right to eating his guy, going straight for the heart, but the vampire lets his meal go. The werewolf asks his buddy what’s wrong, and the vampire says ‘He was a lawyer. Professional courtesy between bloodsuckers.’”
Dean looks at him expectantly, and Castiel frowns. “I don’t understand. How did he know his human was a lawyer?”
“It’s a joke, Cas,” Dean says. “You’re supposed to laugh, not ask questions.”
“We’re in a very dire situation. I don’t think it’s an appropriate time for levity.”
Dean sighs. “Nevermind.”
It’s a memory, and Castiel prods at it, trying to figure out why it keeps turning over in his mind. Dean has gone back to his own world, but Castiel doesn’t remember him being any funnier there. Sam and Bobby never really laughed at Dean’s jokes either, so Castiel thinks the fault is probably with Dean.
He waits on a rock that has sheltered him and Dean several times over the last few months. Eventually something will come, and he’ll have to move. There are things here that are stronger than him, creatures long disappeared from God’s world that he needs to be wary of.
He thinks Dean has probably found Sam by now, and that they’re looking for the stone. They won’t find it in time. Castiel tried to warn him, but Dean generally doesn’t listen. He wants to pray, but lately God seems further than ever. Or maybe God’s been there all along, and it’s just Castiel he’s stopped listening to. He can’t come to his Father with a clean heart anymore, can’t even offer up the excuse of pure intentions. He has hurt as many people as the worst kind of demon, and if Purgatory is a kind of penance, then Castiel has to accept it.
He thinks of Dean instead, and the things he knows about Dean that he shouldn’t: the cadence of his breath, the precise way his eyes look when he’s missing Sam. Castiel has existed for over two thousand years. Eighteen months should feel very short, but it doesn’t.
He hears the branches to his right rustling, and he moves on.
Chapter 3
Author: sowell
Genre: Angst, action, slash
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean, secondary Dean/Cas, and Meg/Cas if you squint
Rating: NC-17, eventually
Word count: This part 3,315
Warnings: Language, Wincest, see spoiler warnings
Spoilers: Assumes knowledge of all aired episodes. Very general S8 spoilers:
[here there be spoilers]
Dean gets himself out of Purgatory and Sam has gotten out of the hunting game
Disclaimer: Sooooo not mine
Summary: Dean comes back from Purgatory, but there are consequences attached to his return. Sam and Dean try to reconnect to keep each other safe.
A/N: 1) Unbeta’d - all mistakes are my own. 2) Watson, AR is a real place, but I’ve never been there and thus all details are one hundred percent made up. 3) Beware some nonsensical appropriation of biblical mythology. 4) Comments and concrit are always welcome.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Wednesday
Dean was awake when Sam stumbled out of his bedroom the next morning. The sun pushed broken light through the living room blinds, and the kitchen smelled like his Columbian roast.
“No caffeine in Purgatory,” Dean said, toasting him with chipped mug.
Sam drifted past him silently, not trusting his voice until he had some coffee in him. He’d held himself very still when he first woke up, because he no longer trusted his brain to tell him what was real. Then he’d heard Dean moving around in the kitchen, and the prickly mixture of relief and uneasiness he felt was almost as bad as the thought of Dean vanishing again.
Everything was wrong - Dean’s distant eyes, the taught way he held his body, the things he wasn’t saying. Sam ached with Dean’s loss on an almost constant basis, but he never dreamed of their reunion being like this.
Dean’s coffee was dark and bitter, and Sam dosed it with a liberal amount of milk and sweetener before he finally turned to face his brother. Dean was leaning one hip against the counter, staring out the little kitchen window at the street beyond. His mug was clasped in one long-fingered hand, forgotten.
“So…anything in particular you want to do?” Sam asked over the rim of his coffee cup. It was such a trite thing to say, but he couldn’t stand the heavy silence. “Anything you missed while you were gone?”
His words seemed to shake Dean out of his trance, and Dean cocked an eyebrow, considering.
“Pizza. And I wouldn’t mind getting laid.”
Sam snorted, tossing back the rest of his coffee. “Shocker,” he deadpanned, then headed for the bathroom.
*****
He left his brother a menu for the pizza delivery place, a key in case he wanted to go out, and some cash. He refused to divulge the password to his laptop, no matter how much Dean needled him.
Sam took the bus into the city for class every day. He’d stored the Impala in the safest garage he could find, and he hadn’t seen any point in buying another car. He’d logged enough miles with Dean - he was more than happy to let someone else do the driving at this point.
His usual transfer station was seven stops and twelve minutes from his apartment. Sam disembarked after the first one instead and pulled out his cell phone.
The first thing he did was email his professors and let them know he wouldn’t be in class for a few days. He manufactured a family emergency, and it was a lot closer to the truth than some of the bullshit he and Dean had come up with over the years. He was supposed to meet Becca for lunch, a date which he cancelled with a texted apology and a promise to call later.
Finally, he left a voicemail for his manager at the bar. The place didn’t open until four, but Bill would arrive a few hours in advance, and he’d want to know why Sam hadn’t shown up for his shift. Sam put in a verbal request for a week’s leave, and he didn’t have to try very hard to fake the apology in his voice.
He walked the ten minutes back to his apartment, and he waited.
It was two hours before Dean strolled out of the door. Sam assumed he’d spent at least one of them trying to crack the laptop before he gave up. Dean casually covered a block’s length before he paused in front of a sleek black Mustang, frankly admiring. He hunched over the driver’s side window for a long moment, and Sam realized he was picking the lock. With Sam’s lockpick. Which he had to have unearthed from the chest in Sam’s closet.
The door opened smoothly, and then Dean was ducking inside, disappearing beneath the driver’s side dashboard. Shit.
Sam didn’t have time for equal subtlety. It took Dean about three seconds to get the engine running, and then he was pulling away in the rumbling machine, leaving Sam behind. Sam waited just until he was sure he was out of Dean’s rearview before he kicked in the driver side window of a Honda Civic.
*****Dean’s first stop was a small public library twenty miles outside the city, and Sam watched from behind a shelf of bound journals as Dean researched…something…on one of the dusty public-use PCs. Dean switched cars in the library parking lot - something less flashy this time - and Sam followed suit.
Dean drove south. He stopped for gas at a dusty little station just inside the Pueblo city limits, and he came out carrying a box of powered donuts and a liter of coke. Sam could remember him in the Impala, lips dotted with powdered sugar, fingers ever-so-careful not to smear the upholstery.
The sun was high and bright by the time Sam trailed him up the stone steps of the Pueblo community college. The desert heat scorched him, and he felt his hair turning up damply at the back of his neck.
Dean pushed his way through a group of students exiting the building’s first-floor lecture hall. Without the cover of a suit and tie, he looked about as dangerous and out-of-place as he could be. He stopped and knocked on one of the offices, then disappeared into the room. The bronze nameplate said Dr. P. Head, and Sam did a quick search on his phone. Paul Head, professor of religious studies, specializing in ancient religions and religious artifacts. Sam slid into a nearby classroom that had a view of the hallway, made embarrassed faces at the professor as though he were a late-arriving student, and then picked a chair to sit and wait.
Dean emerged half an hour later, legs eating up the hallway in jerky frustration, and Sam ignored the whispers of the other students as he sprang out of his seat to follow his brother.
Halfway across the parking lot, Dean stopped. “I’ve been in Purgatory for eighteen months,” he said without turning around. “You think I don’t know when I’m being tailed?”
Shit.
Sam shoved his hands in his pockets as Dean turned around, shooting him a look that was half exasperation and half amusement.
“What are you doing here, Dean?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“Answer the question.”
Clusters of students started pouring down over the steps. Dean hitched his head to indicate that they should move, and Sam followed him, crowding his shoulder. Dean was making quick work of a third car, and Sam wasn’t sure what it said about his own state of mind that he slid into the passenger seat like no time had passed, just picked up and resumed their illegal activities without a second thought.
“Dean,” he prompted forcefully.
“Easy tiger,” Dean said. “I’m just doing a little research. There may have been one tiny condition to my jailbreak.”
Sam’s heart stuttered and stopped, then kicked up beating again. He’d been expecting it, he realized. Dean had been acting strange because Dean hadn’t really come home - not yet. He didn’t know what Dean had traded, but it was sure to be dangerous and life-changing and maybe apocalyptic in some way they hadn’t even imagined yet. His stomach churned sickly, and his head hurt.
Out loud, he heard the despair in his own voice when he said, “What did you do?”
*****“It’s a stone,” Dean said. “I guess the Leviathans borrowed it permanently when they rode Cas here. Has some mojo attached to it that keeps the beasties in Purgatory in line. Dick stashed it somewhere in case he ever needed it for leverage but,” Dean shrugged. “We squashed that plan.”
“And you have to find it,” Sam said tiredly. It wasn’t a question.
“The watchman I told you about - they call him the Nephilim - he wants it back. Bad enough to make a deal.”
“And of course, you took it,” Sam said.
“There weren’t a whole of options in there,” Dean said, eyes moody and jaw tight. Sam dropped his gaze as guilt slammed into him. Dean never would have made a deal if Sam had been doing his job in the first place.
“Sorry.” Sam shook his head. “What about the professor?”
“Total bust,” Dean admitted. “Thought I was a whack job.”
“You went in there totally blind,” Sam said, exasperated. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Dean pushed himself away from the counter, quick and frustrated. “Honestly?” he said, eyebrows lowered. “Because you didn’t seem too keen on jumping back into the life, Sammy. You’ve got your whole little normal thing going for you. I was trying to protect that.”
Sam looked away, working his jaw. This was familiar territory, even if he hated it. “You think lying to me is protecting me? How old are we, Dean?”
Dean didn’t answer. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and Sam could see the stubble on his cheeks, matching the shadows under his eyes. He was so pale, snowy-pale, and the dark specks looked like flecks of blood. There was still something he wasn’t saying, Sam realized, and the frustration of it threatened to claw out of him.
“How long do you have?” Sam kept his voice very even, because he already knew the answer was not long enough.
Dean’s dark eyes met his. “A month.”
Fuck. Sam put his head in his hands. A month. Four weeks - three, Dean had already wasted one - to look for some object that they’d never seen, that some powerful evil was almost certainly hiding from them, and they had no Bobby, no Castiel, not a single person to help them.
“And if you don’t find it?” Sam asked.
Dean’s mouth tipped up. “Then I go back. Deal broken.”
Shit, Sam felt tired. Dean’s appearance, Dean’s deceit, Dean’s ticking clock.
“Cheer up, Sammy,” Dean said. “If I don’t find it, nothing will change. I survived the last eighteen months in Purgatory, I can survive again. You’ll still have your chance at normal.”
Sam punched him across the face.
Dean’s back hit the edge of the counter, and he grabbed on with both hands, his cheek blooming an angry red. He looked at Sam, stunned. “What the hell was that for?” he yelled.
Sam wanted to throttle him. “For being a self-centered dick,” he bit out. His hand hurt; he might have cracked something. He hadn’t thrown a punch in over a year. He was breathing hard, emotion and exertion pushing him forward like twin engines.
“Did you even think for one second what it would do to me, showing up here, pretending everything’s fine, then disappearing a month later, no explanation? How many times do you expect me to grieve for you, Dean?”
Dean was shaking his head. “I’m self-centered?” he said. “I’ve been fighting like hell to get back here. To you. Have you forgotten what happened last time I disappeared?”
Sam hadn’t forgotten, and the memory of that grief, the associated bite of blood on his tongue, hit him like a gut punch.
Dean was eyeing him, lips pulled into something like a snarl. “You want to do this? We’ll do it. But we should move it outside.” His eyes flashed. “I wouldn’t want to smash your flat screen.”
Slowly, in increments, Sam forced himself to relax. No. Fuck, no, he didn’t want to do this. He was already regretting that rash punch, but he couldn’t stay still and quiet. He’d always hated Dean’s stoicism, and no amount of death could change that.
He put his hands on Dean’s shoulders, and Dean jerked, watching him warily. “I don’t want to fight with you,” he said. “Dean, I just. I need you to be all right.” He felt the solid muscle and bone of Dean under him. Not even a tremor, and goddamnit. Dean had never learned to be scared for himself. He always left Sam to do that for him.
Sam took a breath. “You…you have to tell me the truth. You have to stop hiding shit from me or we’re never going to find this thing.”
A pause, tight as a bowstring. “We?” Dean asked, raising an eyebrow. Like there was another choice.
“Yeah,” Sam said, and he let his arms drop. “Because you suck at research and you’re gonna get arrested if you keep stealing cars.” Sam swallowed. “And I won’t bury you again.”
Suddenly Dean was looking at him in a way that had Sam thinking of fireworks and reunion hugs and childhood relics, long tossed away. Of Dean, two steps in front of him, broad-shouldered and sure. Dean turned his back, and Sam knew it was because he didn’t want to give away any more than he already had.
“Technically,” he said, muffled, “there was no body, so you never actually b- ”
“I meant it metaphorically, Dean.”
“Always with the big words, Sammy.”
Dean glanced over his shoulder, and the mood was broken. Sam chose relief over whatever other strange ache was making its way through his stomach.
“First thing tomorrow,” Dean said, “we go get my wheels. Your taste in cars sucks.”
*****They ate fast food burgers for dinner at the only table in Sam’s apartment. Sam was too big for the flimsy matching chairs, and Dean wondered how he’d spent months in the place without breaking one. His cheek felt swollen and puffy, and he figured he’d have a bruise there tomorrow. It felt kind of nice. Familiar.
When they were done, Sam puttered around in his little kitchen while Dean sipped at a beer. The place already looked pristine to Dean, but Sam took his time rinsing out their coffee cups from the morning, wiping down the cracked, yellowing counter top, throwing away the greasy paper towel Dean had left lying there.
“I always knew you’d make a good housewife,” Dean said, because silence made him itchy. Sam didn’t answer, but his shoulder blades heaved a sigh of exasperation. Dean’s head was hurting fiercely, and only unconsciousness would take care of it. He’d be fine until Sam went to sleep. If Sam went to sleep.
Sam turned when he was done, out of things to do with his hands. He leaned against the counter and looked at Dean uncertainly.
“Dean,” he started, uncomfortably. “I have a girlfriend.”
“Did I ask?”
And then just because Sam had started it, Dean backed him against the sink, reaching around to set his empty bottle down with a metallic ring. Sam had always been like a damn furnace, and Dean indulged himself for a moment, feeling Sam’s warmth brush against him in brief licks.
Sam kept his long fingers locked on the edge of the counter, and his eyes flicked up, over Dean’s head.
“Becca, right?” he said, and Sam looked at him, dazed.
“What?”
“Your girlfriend.”
“How did you - ”
“Stalker, remember?” Dean said. “She’s very hot. Very classy.”
Sam turned his head away, and Dean could see the birthmark on his neck, the scar on his chin from when six-year-old Dean pushed him too hard and sent him flying onto pavement.
One of Sam’s hands came off the counter to cup Dean at the waist, and Dean was pretty sure Sam didn’t even realize he was doing it, the absent way his thumb was rubbing circles. He felt the slow burn of it up his legs, and it made him hard in his jeans. Dangerous territory. Dean’s head was pounding, and Sam was warm and solid, but it wasn’t going to happen. He took a step back, and he heard Sam let out a breath.
“So glad you approve,” Sam muttered after a minute. He was sulking, and Dean smiled.
“Sleep tight,” Dean said.
*****Dean used to be able to sleep for twelve hours straight, if he had Dad or Sam watching his back. In Purgatory, he learned to sleep in two hour spurts, strung together over the course of a nighttime. There was no day in Purgatory; the sky was endlessly black and threatening, the better for all the monsters to circle each other like pack animals.
Castiel didn’t sleep, which came in handy for Dean. But they inevitably had to move after a few hours, running from some new threat. In Purgatory, Dean got a taste of what it was like to be hunted, not hunter. He’d spent his whole life seeking out evil to kill, but Purgatory was evil’s turf; Dean had to choose between hiding and dying. It was in his nature to be loud and cocksure, more reckless than smart. It was only Cas that had kept him alive for the first few weeks, forcibly shushing him, dragging him from one shelter to the next, convincing him with icy blue eyes that if he wanted to survive long enough to get back to Sam, he’d stop and think before attacking the next creature he laid eyes on.
Dean listened to Sam tossing and turning again and had to fight the urge to go to him. He was pretty sure he had a few techniques that would put his brother right to sleep, but Sam had drawn a line. It was normal, Dean thought. It was the way they’d done it their whole lives. They’d been on the road for years, but Sam was a girlfriend kind of guy. It made sense that he’d fit one into his new life.
Dean checked the clock. He could probably fit in four hours of sleep if he was lucky. He closed his eyes.
*****“A vampire and a werewolf walk into a bar,” Dean says. “They order a few drinks and two humans for dinner. When the waiter brings their food out, the werewolf gets right to eating his guy, going straight for the heart, but the vampire lets his meal go. The werewolf asks his buddy what’s wrong, and the vampire says ‘He was a lawyer. Professional courtesy between bloodsuckers.’”
Dean looks at him expectantly, and Castiel frowns. “I don’t understand. How did he know his human was a lawyer?”
“It’s a joke, Cas,” Dean says. “You’re supposed to laugh, not ask questions.”
“We’re in a very dire situation. I don’t think it’s an appropriate time for levity.”
Dean sighs. “Nevermind.”
It’s a memory, and Castiel prods at it, trying to figure out why it keeps turning over in his mind. Dean has gone back to his own world, but Castiel doesn’t remember him being any funnier there. Sam and Bobby never really laughed at Dean’s jokes either, so Castiel thinks the fault is probably with Dean.
He waits on a rock that has sheltered him and Dean several times over the last few months. Eventually something will come, and he’ll have to move. There are things here that are stronger than him, creatures long disappeared from God’s world that he needs to be wary of.
He thinks Dean has probably found Sam by now, and that they’re looking for the stone. They won’t find it in time. Castiel tried to warn him, but Dean generally doesn’t listen. He wants to pray, but lately God seems further than ever. Or maybe God’s been there all along, and it’s just Castiel he’s stopped listening to. He can’t come to his Father with a clean heart anymore, can’t even offer up the excuse of pure intentions. He has hurt as many people as the worst kind of demon, and if Purgatory is a kind of penance, then Castiel has to accept it.
He thinks of Dean instead, and the things he knows about Dean that he shouldn’t: the cadence of his breath, the precise way his eyes look when he’s missing Sam. Castiel has existed for over two thousand years. Eighteen months should feel very short, but it doesn’t.
He hears the branches to his right rustling, and he moves on.
Chapter 3