FIC: Swear By All Flowers (SPN, Sam/Dean) (1/6)
PART ONE: the lights could go at any time
Sam woke to the sound of distant hoof beats.
Blinking up at the trees arching above him, Sam swallowed thickly and rolled to his stomach, getting his legs under him. The fallen leaves beneath his palms were damp and muddy with rain. The hooves came closer, echoed by the harsh panting breaths of horse and rider.
"Hey," Sam called out. "Who's there?"
There was no response. Sam peered through the trees until he could see them approaching, moving from a regular trot to a full gallop. He sucked in a breath and lurched to his feet, stumbling back from the middle of the forest path.
The first rider passed in a flurry of white. His horse was pale as a snap of ice, teeth bared in fierce exertion, driving hard hooves into the thick patches of mud on the path. Neither spared a look for Sam and whipped past where Sam stood, leaving mud streaked across Sam's face.
Sam raised a hand to the spatters on his cheek and touched them cautiously. They were so cold they froze his fingertips, and his hand came away bloody.
The next horseman, dressed all in orange and red, yanked fiercely on his reins and his horse tossed its mane in a flourish of blood-flavored copper. They paused, mid-flight, in front of Sam, and the man stared at him a moment. Sam raised his chin.
"Who are you?" Sam asked. "Where are you going?"
The man only raised an eyebrow, and kicked his horse into motion again.
The third rider, however, made Sam freeze and wonder for the first time if he was dreaming. He must be dreaming. The man's clothing was so black that it seemed to eat the light, and his eyes were a furious yellow, glinting viciously as he stared down at Sam from atop his stallion.
"You," said Sam. "But that's impossible, we killed you - you're gone."
The man just gazed at Sam a moment, his face in shadow, then he cracked a smile. The shine of teeth was distractingly familiar.
Sam caught his breath. It wasn't the demon at all. He had been wrong.
"Dad? "
"Hey, son," his father said gently, his eyes shining gold -- gold, not yellow. His eyes were the gold of spindly sunflowers and pages of old books, the gold of a warm fire.
"Dad," Sam said. "Dad."
But it was just a dream. His dad was dead, and Sam was going to wake up. There was no use saying anything else.
Dad smiled. He looked happy. "It's okay, Sammy. You did good. You did good, son."
Sam opened his mouth, but before he could even start to say anything -- Wait, I love you, I'm sorry - or you son of a bitch, daddy, are you okay, please talk to me, or I'll never forgive you, or did you know the demon's gone? -- John Winchester gave one last smile, cocked his head to the side as if he were tipping an invisible hat, and whispered something to his horse. They bounded away and faded into the shadows like they'd never left them.
The dream shifted, forming itself into Sam's bedroom ceiling. Sam could still hear the horses; their hooves knocked at the ground and sent throbbing waves of sound through Sam's brain as they clattered away.
Wait. Knocked?
Sam jolted awake. His sheets were twisted around his feet, and his room was filled with shaky early-morning light. On the other end of the apartment, someone was pounding out an obnoxious rhythm on the front door.
*
And so, five days before Sam turned twenty-six years old, his brother Dean showed up at his door at the crack of dawn. Dean ignored Sam's bewilderment and tossed the keys to the Impala at his face.
"We need to be in L.A. by tonight," Dean said. "Get your ass moving. You're driving. I hate this fucking traffic."
Sam snatched the keys from their intended trajectory an instant before they hit him in the eye. He took a moment to stare. He figured he was entitled; he hadn't seen his brother in two years.
Dean slid on a pair of dark sunglasses and gave Sam an implacable look. Then, without a word, he stepped off the porch and headed back to the Impala.
Sam blinked, turned back inside the house and headed for his bedroom. He slammed through the door and quickly threw a couple things in a duffel bag. Sam didn't even really know what he was packing, but he'd had enough practice over the years that he could pretty much pack in his sleep. A couple T-shirts, a hoodie, a pair of jeans, an extra pair of sneakers in case the pair he was wearing got soaked in guts or graveyard muck.
It took Sam a couple minutes longer to pack than it usually did because he kept Dean's car keys gripped tight in one hand. The dull bite of metal against his palm was proof that Dean was waiting outside; that Dean wasn't just going to leave without him. It was proof that Dean was there.
Despite his slowness, Sam already had his duffel packed and slung over one shoulder and his feet jammed into some sneakers - no socks, laces untied - when his roommate Mark finally came out of his own bedroom, yawning and bleary-eyed, to see what all the rustling and slamming of dresser drawers was about.
"I'm going to be out of town for a while," Sam blurted. "I don't know when I'll be back."
Mark gave him a blank look. "What?"
"My brother's here," said Sam. "It's - I - hey, look, I gotta go. I'll call you when I know what's up. Or what to do with my stuff."
"What do you mean," said Mark slowly, "Do what with your stuff? Hey, what about the rent? You're coming back, aren't you?"
But Sam was already out the door.
*
Two years ago and change, they'd kicked the demon's ass. While the big dark gash in the earth was still sealing slowly and inexorably over its angry cries, Sam felt almost joyous. He wouldn't have expected any joy to still be left in him, after years of hunting and being hunted by the yellow-eyed thing - but there it was, a sudden bubble of this is it and free now. Sam took a breath that caught into a sudden flicker of hope.
It was dark in the warehouse, almost unnaturally so, with brief sparks of light coming from the ripped electrical cables in the roof - but the demon was finally gone. No more nightmares. No more deaths. Sam almost laughed.
The next flicker of light, however, erased the feeling of joy like it had never existed.
"Dean? Dean!"
Shit, Sam swore to himself. He should have noticed, should have realized Dean wasn't still at his back. Sam moved at a fast limp over to where Dean was sprawled, utterly still and unmoving.
"Dean!" And Sam couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe at all anymore, because Dean wasn't breathing, Dean wasn't even -
He was next to Dean now, the knees of his jeans soaking up blood and worse, his hands checking for a pulse. Dean's skin was rubbery and slick beneath his fingers, eyes rolled back white, and his head lolled to the side when Sam tried to shake him awake. Sam was babbling, Sam couldn't - not this, not now --
"Dean, wake up. Say something, Dean, Dean -"
*
"Say something, man."
Dean grunted in response. "Something."
Sam rolled his eyes and turned the radio down another notch, ignoring Dean's muttered protest.
"What the hell happened to you?" Sam pressed further. "You never called. I couldn't find your new cell phone number. Bobby and Ellen said they didn't know anything. I - Jesus, I thought you might've been eaten by a werewolf or something."
"Nah," said Dean. "The bitch woulda spit me back out, anyway. Speaking of bitches, nice to see you, too."
Sam snorted. "Asshole."
They drove in near silence for a while, the only noise from the tinny rasp of CCR on the radio. You don't need a penny just to hang around. But if you've got a nickel won't you lay your money down. Sam realized he was gritting his teeth and consciously relaxed, loosening his grip on the steering wheel.
Finally, he couldn't take the silence, not after two whole years of it. "So. What's in L.A.?"
Dean might have been giving him the silent treatment, or he may've actually been asleep until Sam spoke. Sam couldn't really tell with the shades covering Dean's eyes.
"Some haunted hotel," Dean yawned. "Got trashed in all that shit that went down there a few years ago. Looked like a bomb went off. Now it's mysteriously regained its interior decorating, along with a hefty population of its residents. Tons of weird noises, a couple mysterious disappearances, the works."
Sam nodded. "Right. Wouldn't happen to be the Hyperion, would it?"
Dean stared at him, or at least, the black lenses of Dean's sunglasses were trained in Sam's direction. "Yeah. The Hyperion. You heard of it?"
Sam shrugged. "Your news is old, man. I went through and cleaned that place out months ago."
Sam half-expected a "You did what?" or maybe even a begrudgingly proud "Attaboy, Sammy," but Dean remained silent.
It had been an easy job, even after all the mysterious disappearances. Two men and a pretty girl, bloodstained and laughing, who greeted Sam as if they had been waiting for him to show up. These days, ghosts were never angry when Sam showed up; they were grateful, maybe, more than anything.
Dean's silence was catching. Sam suddenly felt awkward, his hands clammy on the steering wheel.
"Well," Dean said finally, "You want to turn around, then?"
Sam sent him a quick glance but still couldn't figure out what Dean was thinking. Some asshole honked at them even though they were already going ten miles over the speed limit, and a brief flash of annoyance bent Dean's mouth, but Sam couldn't tell anything else from his face.
"You mean, you really did come all this way to get me just so we could chase a few sad spirits out of an abandoned building?" asked Sam. "And here I thought you were just finding an excuse to say hi."
Dean turned away. "Keep driving, then," he said. "Whatever."
*
They cut across Nevada and Utah like pros, vivisecting the West like they were born to it, and crossed the border into Wyoming with the sun at their backs. It set slowly behind them, throwing crazy streaks of copper and smoke-purple across the sky.
Dean watched the sunset in the passenger-side mirror for a bit, grateful that the light was finally dimming and he could take his shades off.
Once Dean lost interest in the sunset, he turned to watching Sam, whose gaze was scarily intent on the road. Sam was always like that when he drove, had been for years. It was like Sam thought the road might wriggle away somewhere if he didn't keep staring at it. Sam had been driving for hours with only a few short breaks, but the exhaustion was only now starting to wear on his face.
The past two years had been kind to his little brother; Sam was tanned and his hair was cut a little shorter than he usually had it, but he looked healthy. There were some extra lines around Sam's mouth and eyes, just enough to add age, and he looked so much like Dad for a moment that Dean's breath caught, like it wanted to be fooled.
The orange light from the sunset splayed across the back of Sam's neck, the side of his face. Dean looked, letting his eyes trace the interplay of shadow and glow along the line where short hair curled at the nape of Sam's neck. Sam's shoulders were still as broad as ever, his gray t-shirt smudged with dirt and faintly wet in the places where sweat stuck the fabric to his spine.
Dean tore his gaze away and turned back to the window, pursing his lips in thought. His thumb rubbed over the jagged scar on the back of his left hand, tracing its edges over and over again. Habit. A two-year-old habit.
The tendons had been slashed so viciously that the hand still wouldn't close all the way, but it had gotten better; Dean could at least grip the steering wheel and a bottle of beer, if not a pen, but he was right-handed anyway; it was damned inconvenient, but no big loss.
"Hey," Sam said suddenly, then cleared the rasp from his throat. "You up for stopping, soon? Or are we just gonna keep driving? Cause if so, man, we gotta switch."
Dean watched the edges of the sky darken. "Yeah. Yeah, let's stop."
*
Dean couldn't sleep, but then, he didn't sleep much these days. It was four o'clock in the morning in another nameless motel room, and the wallpaper seemed to crawl as Dean stared at it. Hopefully it was an optical illusion, and not cockroaches.
Sam whimpered in his sleep, tossing and turning in the next bed. Dean had to tighten his grip on the sheets so he wouldn't go over there and put his hands on Sam to try to calm him down. Old history. The time for that comfort was past, and it wasn't Dean's job to hold Sam after nightmares anymore.
Sam gave a harsh breath and whipped his arms, banging one of them into the headboard with a thunk that made Dean wince. He thought Sam would have woken himself up with that, but Sam kept panting, made some noise that sounded like stop.
Dean tightened his jaw, about to say screw it and go wake Sam up, when Sam jerked and his breathing changed.
Dean waited a beat. "You okay?" he asked, softly enough not to disturb Sam if he were still asleep.
"I'm fine," said Sam. "Just. Weird dreams."
"Nothing to worry about," Dean reminded him. That was #7 on the list of good things about the demon being gone. (Dean had once gotten to #345 before he ran out of good things.)
"I know," said Sam.
They both laid there in the darkness for a while. Dean figured Sam was going to go back to sleep, but the sound of Sam's restless fidgeting put that notion to rest.
"Dude," said Dean. "What?"
"Dean... Why did you come now?" Sam asked. He turned on his side and stared at Dean. "Don't get me wrong, it's good to see you, but."
Dean shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea." He wanted to add something to that, some sort of joke or insult to lighten things up, get Sam off his back, but his sense of humor felt as dried up as the rest of him.
Sam kept looking at him, and Dean tried to ignore it for as long as he could.
"So, how's school?" Dean said finally. His words hung awkwardly in the air, as if they were fishing lures bobbing on an empty lake.
There was more silence, and then Sam sat up and stared at him. Dean had forgotten how much he really hadn't missed that particular bitchy look. Sam's hair was sticking up funny on one side, and Dean told himself that it was an inappropriate time to laugh.
"What?" Dean said defensively. He really didn't like that look.
"Dean," said Sam. "I graduated over a year ago."
"Oh," said Dean. "Right." Dean hadn't known; he thought going through law school usually took longer than that. But maybe Sam had decided to do something else. "Congratulations?"
"Thanks," Sam said. After a moment of Dean purposefully not asking anything else, because he was liable to screw that up too, Sam added, "I have a great internship. It's a non-profit. Peace and social justice, environmental issues, you know."
"Cool," said Dean, grimacing internally. It seemed like something Sam would be into, but it left Dean cold. He wondered if Sam wore Birkenstocks and burned nag champa incense now, and Dean gave a shudder and burrowed a little further into the blankets at the thought.
"Not really," said Sam. His tone was so hostile that it took Dean aback for a moment.
"What do you want me to say, Sam?" Obviously, Dean had stumbled into one of Sam's hissy fits-in-the-making. Joy. This whole late night heart-to-heart shit was starting to seem like a bad idea.
"Uh, I don't know, what should you say?" Sam snapped. He abruptly rolled out of bed, arms crossed angrily like a housewife.
He crossed to Dean's bed. "Maybe you could say, 'I'm sorry I took off for two years with no explanation'? Maybe, 'I'm sorry I'm being a douche and not explaining why I suddenly came back"? Maybe you could even say why you took off in the first place."
It would have been easy to get pissed at Sam, all of Sam's self-righteous indignation and wounded pride - if Sam hadn't been utterly right, too. Dean had been an asshole. There was no helping that fact.
"Sam," said Dean, having trouble getting words past his dry throat. Sam stood over him, obviously trying to use his height as a fucking intimidation tool, and Dean sat up in bed to even the difference. "You have no fucking idea -"
"No! I don't! And whose fault is that, Dean?"
Dean raised his hand and looked away, warding Sam off. Sam slapped his hand away. "Why are you acting like I'm the one being difficult, here? Poor misunderstood Dean, with his sudden decision to just disappear --"
"You were going back to school. You were getting your life back together -"
"No. No, no, no. Fuck you," said Sam. "I was going back to school. So what? That wasn't going to be my entire life. That wasn't going to mean that I wanted to just - fuck - just fucking lose my whole family, you know?"
Dean inhaled sharply, feeling that one like a punch to the gut. Sam looked actually sorry about what he had said - for about two seconds, then he continued like the ruthless bastard he was.
"You were all I had," said Sam. "And you were just gone. I never wanted that. I didn't want to -" He broke off and turned away, pacing. "Fuck. Just, no."
"I'm sorry," said Dean, and he was. He was so fucking sorry, he had never wanted to hurt Sam. Twenty fucking years of giving Sam everything he wanted, doing anything for Sam... all followed by one decision made out of selfishness, and now here they were. Dean should have known better.
Sam pressed his lips together and looked away, his jaw flexing.
"Sam -"
"Never mind," said Sam. He heaved a sigh and sat down at the table by the window, putting his face in his hands. "Just. Go to sleep."
Dean lay back down, tugged the covers up to his waist, and stared at the ceiling until morning.
*
Sam was cranky and tired the next morning, but when Dean handed him the keys, he took them. Whatever. It was kind of refreshing to drive cross-country again, after two years of bumming rides and taking public transportation. Sam told Dean that, and Dean snorted.
"Public transportation was invented by the Devil, Sam. All those people crammed into one little smelly bus? All you need's some brimstone, and you're all set."
And things were almost how Sam remembered them, for a while; he and Dean were almost normal. The weird silences of the day before were gone, and Dean was cracking jokes that grew increasingly off-color. He even wrested control of the radio away from Sam - (Hey, driver picks the music, shotgun -
Shotgun has the right to turn off fucking Bright Eyes for the sake of his eardrums. Shut your mouth.)
-- and Sam didn't even complain about listening to AC/DC's "Problem Child" on repeat thirty times in a row, because, like the feel of the Impala's keys in his hand, it meant Dean was back.
What I need I like, the tape deck screeched, the song's too-heavy bass making the Impala shudder on the road. What I don't I fight, and I don't like you.
When they stopped for lunch, Dean kept eying their blonde, busty waitress over the top of his sunglasses, and went so far as to stick his leg into the aisle so that she had to brush past him whenever she came through with trays. Instead of cursing him out for almost tripping her, she giggled through her greasy maroon lipstick.
"You keep rolling your eyes like that and they'll stick," said Dean.
"Really?" said Sam. "If that's all it took, you would think it would have happened sometime in the last twenty-five years."
"Ooh, feisty," said Dean, and flipped him off.
Things were so normal between them that Sam was convinced that yesterday had been a fluke. No matter how close they had been, being apart for two years and suddenly reunited was bound to be awkward even between brothers.
But Sam couldn't let their late-night conversation go that easily. He still wanted answers, so Sam brought it up as they were leaving the outskirts of Sidney, Nebraska.
Dean looked at him like he was an idiot. "Come on. I had to leave," Dean said. "You've always wanted to be a college boy..."
Sam rolled his eyes. Maybe Dean was right and they would get stuck like that.
"...Get married, get a job, be a lawyer, normal -"
Dean stopped and glared at Sam, who had repeated the last few words along with him.
"Shit, Dean, it's not like you haven't said it before," said Sam. "But things change."
"Whatever. You wanted a normal life, and I was only going to distract from that. Jesus, Sam, it wasn't going to be a forever kind of thing. I was going to come back."
"It was two years," said Sam. He didn't even know if he could describe it to Dean, or if he wanted to. How he'd been so fucking lonely, how he'd felt like he'd finally fucked up and lost everyone he loved - this time without the demon's help. "Two years without a word. It felt like forever. Why did you leave?"
Dean's jaw worked. "You don't need to know why," he said finally.
And wasn't that just rich. Sam slammed his palm on the steering wheel, ignoring Dean's wince. "Goddamnit, Dean! So you're just like Dad, now, is that it?"
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."
"Oh, you know exactly what I'm talking about, Dean. Just keep Sammy in the dark. Sam doesn't need to know anything. You are, Dean. You're getting just like him."
"Shut the fuck up about Dad," said Dean.
"I'm not talking about Dad!" Sam had to keep his eyes on the road and not punch Dean in the jaw. Keep his eyes on the road, and not punch Dean in the jaw... "I'm talking about you, Dean. Leaving without a fucking word. Hell, at least Dad sent coordinates every so often."
Dean's face hardened. "Well," he said. "Would you think of that. Two years, without a word. Not like I would know how that felt, huh?"
"Oh," Sam breathed. He shook his head at Dean. "No. You don't get to pin this on me. I was eighteen. I needed to get away and I was fucking terrified. That's different."
"I don't see how it is different," said Dean. Sam cast him a surprised look, and Dean added, "Hey, pull over here."
Still trying to figure out what Dean meant by that, Sam pulled over. Dean got out of the Impala, slid his sunglasses on and strode toward the bar at the side of the road, just a couple hundred feet away.
"Where the hell are you going?" Sam called after him, even though it was kind of obvious.
"I'm getting a fucking drink," said Dean. He didn't even pause.
Sam sighed, then twisted the wheel and turned into the bar's parking lot, cutting a sharp swerve in front of Dean and almost knocking him over. Dean cussed him out, but Sam ignored him and parked.
"Fine," Sam said to himself. "Then I'm getting a fucking drink, too."
*
Sam stayed at the bar for about forty minutes, just long enough to see that Dean intended to spend the rest of the night getting completely drunk off his ass and probably fucked, too, if the glances he was sending at the anorexic girl at the next barstool were any indication. Sam drank one beer, slowly, then left without a word. Dean could find his own way to whatever motel Sam could find in this shithole of a town.
And still, Sam couldn't figure it out.
What the hell was Dean scared of?
Sam sat in the Beantree Motel room's cheap upholstered chair, kicked it back onto two legs, and leaned his head against the wall. He watched the lights from passing cars, their shapes thrown through the curtain like little pinpricks against the night.
What was it? Was Dean scared of Sam? It didn't make sense; there had been times that Dean should have been terrified of Sam, and the stubborn jerk still stood by him. No, it was something else. And Sam had no idea what that something else was.
But whatever it was, it still didn't justify what Dean had done - if Dean had been scared, or in danger, they should have handled it together.
Sam briefly entertained thoughts of sleep, but he was too wired. The traffic had dried up hours before and the night outside was deathly still. It chilled Sam's bones to stare out at the open, empty road, but he kept sitting there, waiting for Dean to come back.
In the end, it didn't matter. Sam was going to find out what Dean's problem was, and he could yell at Dean after he knew exactly what he was yelling about. In the meantime, his brother was back in his life, and Sam was going to use the chance to grab on to Dean and not let go.
Sam fell asleep in the chair, still waiting. He dreamed of horses.
*
Dean was back the next morning, disheveled and frowning. Sam didn't say anything to him, just unpacked and repacked their bags as Dean used the shower. When they finally left the dim room, the morning sunlight was shocking and harsh. Dean kept wincing at the brightness, probably suffering from a bad hangover.
"Where are your sunglasses?" Sam motioned at Dean's face. "Might help."
"In the car," Dean said. "Mom."
"Whatever, man. Just trying to help."
Sam stopped for a moment while loading their bags in the trunk, and tried to remember the last time he'd heard Dean call him Sammy.
*
After a few hours driving, Sam's stomach was growling constantly in lingering hope for real nourishment. At one pronounced grumble, Dean raised an eyebrow and offered him a candy bar.
"Jesus, Dean, I don't need any Twix. I need actual food."
Dean looked at him for a second, his lips twitching into an achingly familiar smirk. "Looks like there's a rest stop coming up soon," he said. "We can pick up some trail mix for that sensitive stomach of yours."
"Asshole," Sam muttered, but he took the exit.
The rest stop was completely empty, no truckers or anyone around, but the snack machines were still fully stocked. Sam counted his quarters and got some trail mix and packs of small, crumbly donuts. He considered buying some ice cream bars as a peace offering for Dean, but before he could, Dean interrupted him.
"Sam."
Dean's tone made Sam's skin prickle. He shifted onto the balls of his feet and went through a mental inventory of the weapons at hand, and - shit. All their guns and rocksalt were still in the trunk. Dean probably had a gun tucked in his pants - Dean always had a gun tucked in his pants, the overcompensating bastard - but Sam didn't have anything except trail mix, donuts, and a pocket full of quarters and lint. Well. He'd just have to improvise.
Sam turned around slowly, scanning their surroundings for anything that might have caused Dean's warning. He didn't know what he was expecting, at first, but it wasn't what he saw.
Dean was staring at the corner of the rest stop building, where a small, dark-eyed girl was standing, staring back at him. She was fuzzy and transparent at the corners, like an overexposed photograph.
"Is she -"
"Yeah. Definitely. She's..." Dean trailed off, took a step closer to the girl. "Hey, honey," he said gently. "Are you trying to tell us something?"
The girl flickered, indistinct, then appeared again in a spot five feet behind where she had been standing.
Dean cast a quick look at Sam and took another few steps forward. The girl flickered again, and this time she reappeared further away, near the edge of the woods bordering the edge of the rest area.
Dean peered at her for a moment. "Sam, go get the salt and lighter fluid."
*
It wasn't hard to find the girl's mortal remains, not with the girl's ghost acting as guide. The small, pale bones were hidden underneath a medium-size boulder, deeply compressed into the patch of earth revealed once the rock was rolled aside. Old shreds of skin and fabric were wrapped around the body, arms and legs bent into a mockery of a fossil.
"Jesus," said Sam quietly. "She was crushed to death."
Dean murmured something under his breath and bent to look closer, cocking his head to meet the place where the eyes would have been. The shattered pieces of skull stared back.
Sam pressed his lips together, saying a silent prayer for the girl, and began to tug the tiny bones out of the dirt, laying them out carefully on the flat stone next to the boulder.
"Probably about five years old," said Dean. "Maybe six."
Sam's fingers caught on a scrap of fabric that crumbled easy as mud at his touch. "Native American, you think?"
"Huh," Dean muttered. He'd found a scrap of beaded material and was brushing the mud from its surface. "Yeah, you're right. This definitely looks Indian."
Sam sighed a little at Dean's continued insistence on political incorrectness, but let it pass. It wasn't like the girl would care.
A slight movement caught Sam's eye, and he looked up, finding the girl standing over them. She was more solid-looking, now; Sam could make out her clothing and her sad, blank face. Dean was right, she was young.
"Hey," Sam said gently, and Dean looked up. "She's back."
"Oh," said Dean. "Hi there." He stretched a hand toward her, like he was offering his scent to a wary dog. She gave him a timid, monochromatic smile. "Hey," Dean smiled back at her. "Would you look at that. It's gonna be okay, kid."
There was something odd about Dean's voice, and Sam looked at him sharply, but Dean just turned back to the tiny skeleton, clearing mud and worms away from the edges of her crushed skull with careful fingers.
"Hang on there, sweetheart," Dean said. "We'll have you out of here in a jiff."
*
Dean looked down at the small pile of ashes, all that was left of the little girl's bones. She hadn't been so bad. She had smiled at him.
Dean had a lot more sympathy for ghosts, these days.
"What was that all about?" Sam said. He sounded pissed, again, although his voice was subdued.
"What was what all about?"
"You just followed her. We didn't have any idea if she was hostile or not, and you just followed her. That was fucking careless."
"I knew she wasn't hostile," said Dean. "Not many of them are, these days, haven't you noticed?"
"But there's always a chance!" Sam sighed and glanced back at the girl's ashes. "Anyway, man, I just don't know what's going on with you, lately. And you're not letting me know. You've never just followed ghosts before, Dean, that's not what you do."
"How would you know?" Dean stared at the ashes.
"I just know, Dean, you're my brother." Sam sighed. "But you're - Jesus, nevermind." He paused, continued like he was talking to himself. "It's like you don't even want to be my brother anymore."
Dean felt like someone had dropped a capsule of acid into his stomach. He opened his mouth, trying to figure out something that would appease Sam's curiosity without giving the whole fucking game away, but there was nothing.
"Sam," Dean said, and his voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat. "Hey. Sammy?"
Sam looked up at him quickly, like something in Dean's tone had caught his attention. His mouth went tight and worried. "Yeah?"
"I'm dying," said Dean.
And yeah, maybe that was a little abrupt, but it was the truth. That was all Dean had.
Sam stared at him.
Dean scratched his neck. "Yeah, so. They're giving it about two months." Sam's face was starting to lose color, his lips pressed in a thin line. It really was ironic, Dean thought, that after everything that he and Sam had been through, they had ended up like this. "Kinda funny, huh?"
Sam blinked. "You're dying," he repeated, as if saying it would make the words make sense.
Dean gave him a wry smile. "That's why I came to see you. I didn't want to go out without... I needed to let you know." And that was at least half of the truth, right there. Almost half.
"You're joking." Sam laughed thinly, refusing to believe him, so obviously refusing with everything he had in him. It made Dean's chest hurt. "Dude, that's so not funny."
Dean shook his head. "Sammy..."
Sam turned away from Dean, and he stared down at the girl's ashes instead. "Don't call me Sammy," he said. "You didn't before, don't start now. What is it? Your heart?"
"No," said Dean. "It's. Well."
"What?" Sam paused, laughed a little more, still refusing to look at him. Oh, Sammy. "Don't tell me you've got AIDS."
"I don't have AIDS."
"Syphilis? Cancer?"
"No," said Dean. "Don't be stupid."
Sam nodded jerkily and started walking. Dean spared a last glance for the lonely smudges of ash on the flat stone, and then followed him.
"What is it, then?" Sam's tone was cursory, like he was asking about the weather.
"It's a curse, actually." Dean shrugged. "Or something like it."
"There must be a cure, some kind of counter-spell," said Sam. "What kind of curse is it? Was it something that happened while you were on a hunt?"
"Nah." And, because Dean knew Sam wouldn't rest now until he knew every single detail: "Bobby and me, we investigated the damn thing, and... from the timing of it, most likely guess is it was the demon. Probably thought he'd get one last jolly in before he got sucked back to hell."
"Okay," said Sam. He was starting to look stunned, like the truth of what Dean had said was sinking in. "The demon. Right, that makes sense."
"Don't do that. Don't beat yourself up over it," Dean told him. "There was nothing you could have done."
Dean could tell Sam was already trying to think of solutions - he had his 'concentrating deeply, do not disturb' face on - but it wasn't going to work, and it made Dean's gut ache to watch him do it.
"Bobby and I went over everything - I swear, we looked over everything, every fucking book and script and fucking tablet, and we couldn't find anything. There's nothing that can break it. Damn demon covered all his tracks."
Get it through your skull, Sam. Just - be here. That's all I need from you.
"How do you even know you've looked at everything?" said Sam. He shook his head. "No way. There's gotta be something you missed."
"Sam, I'm dying."
"Like hell you are."
"I am, okay? There's no way you can stop it this time." Dean had already gotten enough second chances, anyway. There was no way he was going to try for fourths or fifths.
It sucked, yeah, and it pissed him the hell off, and he was going to miss Sam like hell - if you even could miss people when you were dead - but he was done. The demon was dead now, or at least gone for good, and Sam was finally safe. Dean couldn't ask for more.
"Listen," Dean said, trying to make Sam understand. "Sure, I wish we could figure something out. I don't like it anymore than you do. But, you gotta see this the way I see it, okay? I've only got a couple months left, and... I don't want to spend them trying to find solutions that don't exist."
Sam tried to laugh again, but it came out in a harsh gasp. "I can't fucking believe this."
"Yeah, and you think I like it any better?" Dean said angrily. "It's not a fucking picnic, okay? I -" He cut himself off, knew he should've just shut his goddamn mouth, but it was too late for that. Way too late.
Sam was silent for a moment, though, so maybe that was it, maybe he'd stop. Dean didn't want to think about what was going to happen to him. He didn't want to think about what he'd be leaving behind.
"It's just that I thought..." Sam spoke quietly, his eyes trained on the sky, on the thin trees around them. "I thought we'd really done it, you know? I thought we'd won."
"We did," said Dean. "The yellow-eyed demon's gone, isn't he?"
Sam's mouth twisted, and he just shook his head and looked at Dean like he was crazy.