Message in a Bottle
Title: Message in a Bottle
Characters: Dean, Sam
Rating: PG
Word Count or Media: 7846
Genre: Gen
My spn summergen fic for caranfindel
Author's Notes: The prompt is the summary and boy, did I love it. This version of the story has a bit added to the very end that I inadvertanly left out of the one posted on the summergen site.
Summary: Au after the end of season 10. Dean lives on a beach. Well, a beach-like world where Death left him, to bear the Mark of Cain for all eternity. And he killed Sam; he knows he did. He remembers it clearly. But then why does a bottle wash up on his beach every morning, with a note that appears to be from Sam?
Dean wakes with a muffled groan, eyelids slitting open and then immediately squeezing shut against a nausea inducing spear of light. A herd of wildebeests thunder through his skull so he breathes, nostrils flaring as air flows in before fluttering out through pursed lips.
“Sam?” he mutters, flinging one arm across his face to shade his eyes while the other reaches out blindly for his brother. There’s no answer, no solid denim covered mass within reach so he levers himself upward, stumbling sideways in what turns out to be soft, white sand. “Oh, what the…” Jade green waves crash ashore thirty feet ahead and a slow, careful look in either direction shows an empty beach stretching into infinity in both directions. It’s starting to look like his pounding head is less the result of a night of fun and debauchery and more like another God damn spatial temporal relocation. A hundred and eighty degree shuffle reveals sparsely grouped, frond bedecked trees, a few piles of rocks and the sparkle of water in the distance across whatever the fuck this is. There’s no sign of Sam jogging down the beach or bobbing in the waves so Dean heaves a deep sigh and begins the slog to the other side of the island. Sam probably won’t be there either but no stone unturned when it comes to your brother was drilled into his head decades ago and like so many of his father’s admonitions it’s there for the duration.
Zigzagging across the expanse of sand might keep Dean in the half assed shade of the palm trees but it’s hard work under unrelenting sun. He’s blinking sweat out of his eyes and his flannel shirt is knotted around his waist before he’s made it a hundred yards. His mouth feels like it’s full of the sand he’s kicking up beneath his boots. The first pile of rocks he comes to is just a boring pile of stones but the second has a spring bubbling up through the cracks and spilling into a pool in the center. “Oh, thank Christ,” Dean mutters, tossing in a handful of sand and then a leaf that’s drifted down from one of the trees. The sand sinks. The leaf floats. Neither burst into flame or is devoured by a fugly with big nasty teeth that bursts through from the depths so he cautiously scoops some up in a cupped hand and dips his tongue into it. The Mark won’t let him die, but it will let him suffer whatever horrible shit comes down the pike on his way to not being permanently skeletonized and he tries to avoid that whenever possible. When he’s not convulsing after ten minutes he drains handful after handful, with the occasional splash on his face or through his hair. By the time he’s slaked his thirst, his head’s gone from wildebeests thundering to pygmy goats ambling and the sun’s not baking his skull any more. Blowing out a deep breath he takes a few steps back on his journey before stopping with a groan. One way down the island- trees and piles of rock. Same thing the other way. No indication of if the rocks hold water or not. He makes his way back to the first pile of rocks and slowly carts enough of them back to form an arrow pointing at the water source. No way he’s looking at every pile of rock he passes trying to find it again.
The next stretch of beach looks pretty much like the first, except on this side of the island the sand shades from light tan to pink as it fades into the distance. The water is calmer here and an indescribable shade of blue-green he’s never seen outside of pictures. He kicks off his boots, shucks his socks and sticks his toes in the water. It’s warm and clear and he smells like the back end of an alley. There’s no one visible, Sam or otherwise and his spidey sense is completely off line. Sopping wet shirts and filthy jeans land next to his boots and he wades waist deep through the waves before diving in. The water’s like crystal, clear in every direction. Below, plants sway with the motion of the water and small towers of coral are visible along the sandy bottom. Dean keeps watch for anything bigger- eels, barracuda, sharks, but no fish of any size is within eyesight. Kicking to the surface he floats, letting the tide push him out aways, staring at the fluffy white clouds scudding overhead. He’s almost decided to just keep going, letting the water carry him away when he remembers Sam- Sam who might be here. Sam who will come looking if he’s not-and pulls his way back to shore, strong strokes cutting through the waves. His clothes get a dunking next, laid out to air dry on palm fronds set across the sand. The paltry shade of a palm tree is the best he can do to keep his bare skin from being par broiled in the sun so he tucks himself under one to ride out the day until his clothes are dry enough to put back on. With initial recon done and a water source located he’s got nothing to do but think. And think he does, to no avail. There’s no memory of where he was before coming here, who he was with, what he was doing, if Sam was there or not. The ever present knot in his stomach when his brother’s out of contact swells to constrict his heart and crush the air from his lungs. It’s been a while since he’s worked his way out of a panic attack without a strong shoulder to lean on and Sam’s voice talking him through it, but he fixes his eyes on the waves, streaked with pink/orange light under the setting sun and pictures a periscope popping up from beneath the waves. He manages one shallow breath and then another. Sam would totally Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea it to come rescue him from the middle of the ocean. Breathe Dean. Whatever ocean. C’mon, now. In whatever dimension. Atta boy He’s probably busy building his very own Nautilus right this second. There you go. One long breath and then another is followed by a choked off huff. The voice in his head is gone, the Mark low key tingling on his arm. He rolls to his feet to collects his still damp clothes and pulls them on in the last of the fading light. It’s only worth a second of thought to decide against going closer to the water for the night. Things might come to drink that he in no way wants to run into unarmed. Tomorrow he’ll work on some sort of protection from what, if anything, might be sharing this island with him but tonight he’s going to settle back under his tree and get some rest.
*
The world is just as empty when he wakes the next morning with a crick in his neck and the irritating scritch of sand in his socks. A soft breeze rattling through the tree tops meshes soothingly with the lull of the surf. There’s no birdsong and a glance upward shows no sign of coconuts or bananas or whatever the hell is supposed to grow on these trees. He makes his way back to the interior and studies the ground around the pool. Only his own boot prints mar the pristine sand.
“Well, fuck,” he says, scooping up handfuls of water to quench both his thirst and the rumbling in his belly. If there’s no food source on this island, he’s in trouble. The Mark flares hot for a moment and he dunks it in the pool. That’s another problem. Sooner or later-probably sooner- the Mark’s going to need blood. If there’s none to be had it isn’t going to be pretty. But it’s a big island and he’s been taught to never say die. If nothing else, he can fill his stomach with the underwater plants he’d seen while swimming yesterday. Gross, but he’s definitely eaten worse.
The non water leaking pile of rocks does manage to produce a six inch long, narrow piece of potential weaponry and Dean spends the rest of the morning honing it into a pretty decently edged knife. He’s been eyeing the far shore while he whisked his whetstone, watching the dark green of the water and the wrath of the waves, so different from the other side. Maybe the marine life is different on that side too, though he’s not exactly itching to dive in and find out. “No guts, no glory,” he mutters, trudging toward the crashing sea.
He doesn’t wait long on the shore before throwing himself into the roiling surf. It’s always best to just get it over with, he’s found. The waves buffet him immediately and drag him under, swirling him around until he’s not sure which way is up. The visibility is for shit too, only a few feet in any direction. Shadows flow all around him, but he can’t tell if they’re really big fucking fish or reflections of storm clouds gathered ominously overhead. The current drags him until his ears pop and his lungs are about to give up and gulp down a big breath full of drowning. Hand locked around his knife he picks a direction and kicks, struggling not to breathe. His head breaks the surface just as his lungs give up the ghost and he sucks in salt misted air instead of sea water. He goes with the motion of the water, letting the swells lift him until he spots the shore. It’s a struggle to reach it, though, waves pushing him back, sweeping him under. Even when his feet finally touch bottom, the undertow pulls at him. Something smooth and chill brushes the back of his leg and he hurls himself onto the beach, arms trembling from strain hauling his exhausted body clear of the water. Quickly turning over, he crab walks his way toward the trees stopping only when nothing short of a damn sea monster could reach him. The waves still crash against the sand, shadow and light mixing in the depths but nothing moves in a pattern, with a purpose. Still, every instinct he has tells him something is staring at him from under the water. He raises his knife threateningly but there’s no way in hell he’s going back in there now. He bares his teeth in a humorless grin. When the Mark gets needy enough, that’ll be a different story. In all his hunts, he’s never fought a creature from the deep and when the time comes he’s sure he’ll be all in. Grabbing his clothes he backs his way to the trees, air drying as he makes his way across to the calm side of the island. Where he’s going to stay.
*
Beaches are fine and all if you’ve got a volleyball net, some chicks in bikinis and a cooler full of beer but having one all to yourself with just non-alcoholic water to quench your thirst sucks. “Why didn’t you send me back to Purgatory,” he screams to the empty sky and sea and land. “At least there I’d have something to do!” The Mark hums approvingly and he tells it to shut the fuck up and sets out to find something occupy his time. He collects palm fronds and weaves them into a thin matt for sleeping. It’s the most uncomfortable thing he’s ever tossed and turned a night away on and shortly after midnight he abandons it to sleep on the sand. When his stomach feels like it’s about ready to collapse in on itself he takes a quick dip under the water to harvest the plants that will keep him from starving. The double handful he hauls up are just about as noxious as he expected, tough, stringy and extra salty, even after copious rinsing in spring water. But they go down and they stay down and if they’ve got any nutrients in them at all, it’s a damn sight better than nothing. Exploring the never ending stretch of island is an exercise in futility, one bit is just like the next, water in the center of every other pile of rocks, trees with no fruit and lots and lots of sand. As the days pass he burns, peels and, worst of all, turns into one giant freckle.
One morning his wanderings bring him on a plate sized shell washed up on the beach. It’s the most exciting thing that’s happened in days. The shell is empty when he pries it open because of course it is. He’s never been a fan of slimy uncooked seafood, but anything other than underwater rabbit chow would be like a double cheeseburger with extra onions and chili cheese fries. “God fucking damn it,” he says as his stomach gurgles at the thought of real food. Not thinking about things he can’t have is the second of his three supreme commandments. The first being not to give up hope of rescue and the third to use his knife to shave every damn day so when he does get out of here he won’t look like Tom Hanks in Castaway. Sighing, he strips and heads into the water in his daily dive for sustenance. He blows out another long breath when he emerges from the waves with an armful of vegetation and shuffles toward the tree he’s arranged a few flat rocks under so his wet ass isn’t crusted with sand while it dries. This shit is better than starving to death, but not by much. Dean stops halfway up the beach and looks back at the shells sitting just above the water line. A wave licks at their edges. In the next few minutes they’ll disappear back into the ocean. The quick trot that gets him back just as water swirls beneath them is the fastest he’s moved in weeks and he practically whistles as he heads inland to rinse his dinner.
Dean thinks he enjoys this fire more than any he’s ever made because it was so damn hard to get going. Piles of dried palm fronds make a great base but the rocks he clapped together took hours to generate a spark he could nurture into flame. It’s the first fire he’s bothered with since he’s been here because it never gets cold and there was no way to cook anything. He gives a satisfied waggle of the eyebrows to the shell full of simmering water and seaweed set on a heated rock a few inches from the fire. He’s got no illusions that this seaweed stew will be any tastier than eating it raw but is softer and easier to swallow so he calls it a win. He sits up late into the night, staring at the flames and remembering the few times in their childhood he and Sam had the luxury of sitting around bonfires and playing on beaches. The fire burns low and then out and Dean settles on the sand and falls into the best night’s rest he’s had since forever.
*
The first sand castle that goes up is an exact replica of one he and Sam built on an overcrowded beach in South Carolina when Sam was seven. It’s small and rough, just a ridge of sand with a beach pail sized, rounded pseudo turret on either end but it’s perfect in the way of memories. Dean can do better now. Has done. Will do. After all, what the hell else is there to fill his time?
He uses the shells to haul saturated sand from the waterline, to decorate, to dig moats. Each creation is bigger and more elaborate than the next, eventually taking him days to finish. Every morning each is still there, a line stretching into the distance of castles and moats, shark fins and waving whale tails, sarcophagi and undulating dragons.
Today he’s putting the finishing touches on his greatest creation to date. His Baby. The Impala’s bumper rests on the sand, painstakingly carved grill work rising up from it. Hundreds of trips back and forth for wet sand and more water to pack a base beneath the sculpted hood, windshield and roof, have paid off with a pretty damn good replica of a particular sixty-seven Impala. It takes careful work to shape the headlights and door handles. He wipes them out over and over, rebuilding until they are perfect. Until he could reach out and open the door and slide behind the wheel. Until he could pop the trunk and pull out a crossbow or sawed off or machete. He doesn’t have to though. He knows that inside there’s a taco wrapper on the back seat and toy soldiers in the heating vents and initials carved in places their father had beaten their behinds for. He winces as he settles gingerly onto the hood, leans back against the windshield, but like the original, this Impala is made to last. The rest of the afternoon passes and still he sits, staring out over the waves, willing Sam to appear, captaining an outrigger canoe crewed by Amazons. His brother’s on the job. Cas too, he’s sure. Hell, even Crowley might be putting some legwork into the search. He’s going to get out of here. He is.
The sun sinks, then sets and the beauty of the colors reflected atop the waves is the one thing Dean will miss about this place. The moon’s only a sliver against the growing darkness and stars blink in, one after another like they hadn’t existed until just this moment. Settling back with legs crossed at the ankles and fingers laced behind his head he stares up at the heavens. It’s moments like this that he misses his brother the most. Stargazing was one of the few simple, normal things he and Sam had ever been able to share. The empty, Sam sized space beside him burns a chasm of longing into his chest. He needs Sam to be there, beer in hand, pointing out stars and satellites and tracing constellations because everything here is wrong. No dippers. No Orion. No Ursas major or otherwise. Nothing he can recognize at all, though he’s named more than a few for himself in all the sleepless nights he’s spent under these skies. Vampire’s fang sits directly above him now, a jumbled cluster of sparkling points, Cat’s Eye off to its left. Monster Truck won’t be over the horizon for another hour or two. Dean sees patterns, always has. Puts them together in ways that are functional even if they don’t always seem to make sense. He can do that with the stars but not with his situation. If there’s a pattern to his exile here, he’s not seeing it. Letting a heavy sigh blow through his lips, he raises an imaginary beer toward the heavens just as a shooting star bisects the darkness like a long tailed bullet from the star bedecked outline of the constellation he named The Colt. “Holy shit,” he says, a grin splitting his face as he turns to where Sam should be. “Did you see…?” The grin fades as his voice trails off into a rasping cough. He can’t remember the last time he actually spoke out loud. Squeezing his eyes shut against the burn of tears he shifts to face the endless starscape and stares at the back of his eyelids until sleep eventually overtakes him.
The next morning he awakens with the sun already halfway up the sky. Groaning, he carefully shifts himself down the hood of his sand Impala until his boots are flat on the ground. His neck’s a little stiff and his back’s a tad achy but all in all his body feels better than it after any night sleeping on the actual beachy sand. In the physical sense, anyway. In the…other…sense, his chest is so tight it’s hard to breathe. He’s been isolated here for weeks but he’s kept busy, made sure his mind was engaged in more than desperation for rescue. But last night, turning to a Sam that wasn’t there to share the shooting star, brought it all crashing home. He’s not built to be alone. But he’s going to be, forever and ever until the end of the universe if he doesn’t find a way out of here. The Mark hums and he digs tattered fingernails into the scarred flesh, twisting them until he draws blood. He stares at the vivid red welling up from the half moon welts in his skin for a moment then circles around the front of the car, dragging his fingers across the empty expanse of hood where Sam should’ve been. Head bowed, steps heavy enough to drive him down into the earth, he heads inland.
When he hits the beach again, he’s cleanish, shaved, hydrated and in a slightly better frame of mind. Sam’s not here, it’s true, but he’s spent a lot of time building things that aren’t real. He can make himself a sand Sam to sit with, watch stars with and talk to until the true version comes along or whatever put him here decides it’s taken its pound of flesh and zaps him back home.
It’s slow, meticulous work because he’s got to get everything right. Wet sand piled on the Impala’s hood gradually transforms into Sam’s boots and lower legs. Dean slides onto the other side of the hood and props one ankle over the other to get the proper angle. Carefully, he etches bootlaces onto the boots, carves out the hem of Sam’s jeans before working his way up the legs. Trip after trip to resupply leaves him sweaty and parched but he doesn’t stop as he shapes mound after mound of sand, patting it down to shape slightly bent knees. Another trip and then another and another and he’s shaping a broad torso, dots poked in the center for buttonholes of Sam’s flannel. Stinging moisture runs into his eyes, black dots cloud his vision and the Mark is snarling, raging as it always does when Sam is foremost in his thoughts. Slowly, he straightens up and backs away from his work. His forearm burns where the Mark flares and staggers into the water to cool everything off.
The water’s clear and just far enough below body temperature to be refreshing. He swims lazily, dipping beneath the waves to dive toward the bottom, scouring the depth for anything new, different, edible, but there’s nothing. When his lungs are about to burst he kicks back toward the surface, eyes trained on the reflection of the sun spilling across the water. The Mark’s muttering at him, instigating, but there’s nothing to annihilate out here so Dean stuffs it back down in its box like he has so many times before. Backstroking leisurely toward the shore, he feels replenished- after a trip to the watering hole he’ll be ready to finish his work.
Things go quickly after that. Dean’s in a groove. He builds up Sam’s shoulders, shakes his head and shaves some breadth from them, then lets out an aggrieved huff before putting it back on. Sam’s hands rest on his belly, fingers intertwined. When all that’s left is Sam’s head he wishes he had a bucket like when they were kids. Fill it up, mash it down and dump it out. He pats the sand into an oblong that he lays on top of the Impala at an angle that would give Sam a very sore neck if he was a real boy. Using his knife he shapes Sam’s chin, carves out ears and etches a hairline, shaping the sand into a shaggy mess. It’s harder to put together a nose and he wipes it out over and over before he’s remotely satisfied. The Mark’s crept up out of its box and his teeth are clenched to the point of pain so he doesn’t bare them. It’s seething, whispering vile threats and his hand trembles as he traces Sam’s eyes with the tip of his blade. They’re not right, staring blankly up at the darkening sky and Dean smudges them out and re-draws them again and again and again. His frustration mounts as they’re just shy of acceptable and he throws down his knife in disgust. “Jesus Christ,” he yells to the sky. “Wilson was a damn volleyball with a fucking smiley face on it!” The Mark urges him to cut a smiley face into Sam, deep and wide and he’s tired and frustrated and “shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Dean throws out his arms in exasperation and groans as his hand connects with the head he’s spent so much time working on and sending it flying through the air to tumble onto the sand. He follows its trajectory with growing panic, horror rising as it doesn’t disintegrate into a million grains of sand when it hits the ground but lands to face him, imperfect eyes glaring accusingly and he remembers. He remembers.
Dean falls to his knees, eyes glazed with another place, another time, staring down at Sam kneeling in front of him on the filthy cantina floor. Death’s scythe is practically weightless in Dean’s white knuckled grasp and Sam’s speaking words Dean can’t process with eyes full of trust and love. Death’s speaking too, prodding, pushing and Dean can’t do it but he has to. Can’t. Has to. Can’t. He moves his arms, one short motion back and forth and it’s done. There are pictures. Sam wanted him to have them, but they’re lost, soaked in blood and gore and Dean’s gone, blinked out in the next moment to wake alone on a beach. And he forgot. How the hell did he forget? The Mark screams in triumph that Dean’s brother is dead and Dean howls along with it as it burns his soul to ash and plunges him into the abyss.
*
Waves lapping against his face raise him to consciousness days, weeks, months or who the ever loving fuck knows how much later. He cracks one sand encrusted eyelid open to assess the situation and immediately closes it again. He killed his brother. Sam is dead by his hand. There’s no point to peeling himself off the wet ground and going back to pointlessly piling up sand. Exhaustion weighs heavy in his bones and never moving again sounds like the perfect way to spend infinity. He lasts maybe an hour. Two tops.
“Fuck it,” he says, voice muffled by the press of his mouth against the ground. He’s never been good at playing dead, always using every bit of his practically non-existent self restraint to fool whatever monster he was about to put a world of hurt on. It’s boring and he’s never been one to sit still for any longer than he can help it. “Up and at ‘em, soldier.” His father’s voice echoes the words in his mind as he levers himself to his hands and knees. Giving in has never been an option. He aches all over like the Mark led him head on into the barrel of a cement mixer and his hand cramps around a death grip on his knife. Standing up in his waterlogged clothes is out of the question so stagger-crawling into the waves is what he aims for. And he manages it. Just. He’s not on the side of the island where he could just fall into the water and float the sand away so he crouches at the water’s edge and ducks his head into the roaring surf. The water’s cooler today, almost cold, like a mountain lake in May and Dean gasps but stays put, running one hand through his hair until the grit is rinsed away. The chill is revitalizing, so he stays, feeling exhaustion seep away with every ebb and flow of the tide. Imminent inability to stay upright on his shivering limbs finally prompts him to back out of the water, but he lowers his aching head one last time only to almost black out with the force of something hard colliding with the top of it.
“Jesus,” he sputters, inhaling a mouthful of saltwater as he throws himself backwards out of the surf. He can’t see past the dark spots jitterbugging through his vision but he works his knife in a defensive figure eight in case whatever whacked him followed him onto the beach. It’s a matter of moments before he can see but it feels like hours. Nothing sea monster-like followed him onto the beach and there’s no sign of fins in the water further out. The closest swell washes across the sand and Dean shakes his head, rubbing his blurry eyes with the back of his hand to further clear his line of sight. The sun glints off something about a dozen yards to his left and he turns to see a bottle riding the tail end of a wave across the sand. He just stares for a moment, watching in disbelief until the water recedes, pulling its cargo back toward the sea. A mad scramble gets it in his hand before the next wave in can pick it up and carry it away to wherever it came from. It’s a wine bottle, he thinks, clear and stoppered and made waterproof with some sort of wax. It’s empty of liquor, of course, he couldn’t be that lucky but there’s paper inside, yellow lined and rolled up in a tight spiral held with a red rubber band. He has to restrain himself from scooping out the wax with the tip of his knife and dumping the paper out right here, but the waves are still rolling in and he’s soaking wet and there’s no way he’s risking whatever message the bottle contains. Heaving himself to his feet with a groan he squelches up the beach to dry off, humming as he goes.
An hour later he’s settled on his woven mat under his tree, still a little damp in spots but he can’t make himself wait any longer. His heart’s racing, almost skipping beats he’s so worked up. He’s seen nothing inorganic on this island but what came through with him. Why this? Why now? The wax pops out easily as he runs the tip of his blade around the bottle’s mouth and he carefully sets it to the side. Slowly he tips the bottle over, cupping his hand beneath the opening to catch the paper. The bottle goes down next to the wax and he hooks a finger in the rubber band, carefully sliding it off. Breath won’t come as he unrolls the paper, chokes off in a sob as he sees familiar slanted cursive. He can’t read past the first word. “Son of a bitch,” he shouts furiously, crumpling the note in his hand. “Why are you doing this?” He cocks his arm and throws the balled up paper down the beach then spends the next few hours staring out to sea. He can’t leave it there, he finally decides. Even if it’s not from Sam there might be information in it he can use. A clue to where he is, how to get home. Reading it is part of not giving up. The light is fading when he goes to retrieve it and he sits with it clutched to his chest until late into the night when his eyes reluctantly slide closed and he nods off.
*
Dean. I’m coming to get you, man. As soon as I can. Don’t freak out, okay? Sam
Dean reads the note five times before dropping his head onto his palm, fighting the urge to crumple it up again and throw it into the ocean. It’s not from Sam because Sam is dead, but whatever did write it couldn’t have done a better job of forgery. When Sam writes term papers or love letters or even damn case entries in his journal he never uses one word when a hundred will do. But when he’s leaving notes for his big brother? Twenty words or less. Always. It’s maddening. Dean’s notes to Sam are no better, but that’s how he writes everything. Sam’s just being lazy. Was just being lazy. He grabs the bottle and heads off to fill it up, tucking the note into his pocket. At least one of them will turn out to be of some use.
Later he sucks up his courage and walks down to the beach to his sculptures, breathing a sigh of relief when they’re all still there. He didn’t demolish them all in a Mark fueled paroxysm of rage. His steps slow as he approaches the Impala and his sculpture of Sam. Sam understood what he had to do and forgave him. It’s more than Dean will ever do for himself but he has to honor that about his brother. He molds Sam back together, no longer obsessing over minor imperfections. Sam was never perfect but Dean loved him more than was healthy anyway no matter how at odds they sometimes were. And Sam returned that love even when he had every reason not to. Dean slides up onto the hood and settles back, pulling the note out of his pocket and staring out to sea.
“So,” he says, eyes aimed straight ahead. “Something sent me this note supposed to be from you. But that’s just stupid.” He wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “’Cause we both know you’re dead. And even if you weren’t, if you knew right where to send a bottle, you’d have sent a boat. Or,” he adds with unconcealed wistfulness, “a submarine.” He sighs and tracks a dark cloud on the horizon, the first he’s seen since his arrival. Below, something glints bright in the usual sunlight and another bottle washes onto the beach. Dean’s there before it’s completely clear of the wave that carried it in, grabbing it and trotting back to his perch next to Sam.
Dude, I’m not dead I’m just not sure where you are. Yet. But I’m going to get you out.
“No, you’re definitely dead,” Dean says with a catch in his voice. “I killed you myself. Maybe you’re sending me these from heaven, but I kind of doubt those dicks would let you. But you being you, you’d probably find a way. Just like you’d send a damn boat.” He sits back and waits for a moment for another bottle to arrive like the last one did in response. None does. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
He spends the rest of the day and into the night talking to Sam. It’s okay that his brother never answers. Dean always did most of the talking anyway. He knows what Sam would respond to almost anything and fills in his words for him. When night falls, they talk about the stars until Dean falls asleep mid-word. When he wakes there’s another bottle on the sand.
I’m NOT dead. You did NOT kill me. It’s complicated, but I’m getting close. Patience, man, I know it’s hard.
“Patience?” Dean screams to the sky. “Patience? I think I’ve been pretty God damned patient, Sam!” He stops before he begins to hyperventilate. It’s not Sam. Not Sam. Sam’s dead, no matter what this game is about. The dark cloud on the horizon is getting closer. The Mark’s beginning to mutter again. There’s a bad weather on the way.
Notes begin to arrive every morning with various themes of “Cryptic much?” he bitches to his silent companion. “Ready for fucking what?” Lightning begins to flicker through the approaching clouds as they move ever closer to the beach. A breeze picks up, swirling sand through the air. Dean retreats to the scant shelter of the trees as the wind intensifies, and bolts of electricity blast along the beach. The Mark loves the violence of the storm, screaming along with the primal viciousness and Dean can feel himself slipping sideways into it. He’s not sure he wants to fight it because the outcome of whatever hell is about to be unleashed here will probably be a lot more satisfactory for him if he’s berserk during it. He closes his eyes, about to give in when something grips his shoulder, tight.
“Dean?”
Dean clenches his teeth and spins away from whatever’s got a hold of him, swallowing hard when he turns to face his brother. Or at least a living, breathing, pissed off facsimile of Sam. “You’re not real,” he snarls, getting an annoyed, huffy bitchface in return. The lightning strikes are getting closer, but there’s a circle around them they can’t seem to penetrate.
“Damn it, Dean, we don’t have time for this. We have to get you out of here.” Not-Sam digs in his pocket and pulls out a pair of worn photographs. Dean eyes them like he would a poisonous snake. “Look, this is us. And you and mom. I brought them in case you didn’t remember who you were.” He huffs a humorless breath. “Never thought you wouldn’t know who I was.”
“But…”
“No buts, Dean. We’ve got to go. Now.”
“Sammy?” Dean stares into Sam’s face. Into an expression he knows better than his own reflection.
“You believe me?”
Dean nods slowly. “Yes.”
“Then wake up.”
“I’m not…”
“Wake up.”
“Sam?”
“WAKE THE FUCK UP.”
It’s an order and Dean usually tells Sam to go screw himself when he tries to order him around but this time he can’t help himself. His eyes spring open to find himself flat on his back, Sam standing above him, wild eyed and blood spattered, gun in each hand. He watches his brother let out a long sigh of relief before his eyes slide closed again and he falls into the dark.
*
The next time Dean wakes up he’s back in his room in the bunker, his memory foam mattress cradling him in the most welcome feeling he’s had in ages. He groans and tries to sit up, but his wrists are manacled to metal bars running the length of the bed. “Sam,” he yells, struggling to break free, but his bindings hold tight. He doesn’t hear his brother’s approach over the incapacitating drumbeat of his panicked heart, but Sam bursts through the door in seconds. Dean looks up, but his furious words die in his throat. Sam looks exhausted.
“Sammy, let me up, man.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam says, and he looks it, he really does. “But I can’t let you up until I know you know where you are. Who you are.”
“How about you tell me where I was.” Dean stops fighting his restraints and settles back onto the bed. “And how you’re not dead.”
“Why do you think I was dead?”
“Because I killed you, Sam!”
“Why would you do that?”
Dean stares at his brother trying to gauge the honest confusion on his face. It’s Sam, he knows it. Chose to believe it before he woke up from the island. How can he not remember? “Because of the Mark. I couldn’t get rid of it and it was turning me into something I couldn’t be. You know that. Death was supposed to send me somewhere I couldn’t hurt anyone. But…”
“Wait.” Sam shakes his head. “If you were supposed to have died, why would you think I had?”
Now Dean’s the one staring in confusion until he figures it out. “Not death, Sam. Death. Skinny guy, always wears black, junk food junkie? Carries a scythe? It was the only way. But he knew where ever he sent me, you’d try to get me back. Sam, Cas said the Mark would take me over and I’d murder the world. The world. It was a risk I couldn’t take. And you saw what I was capable of. You understood what I had to do.”
Sam’s confused look turns thoughtful. “You thought you had to kill me and I was okay with it. Because of this Mark you keep mentioning.”
“This Mark I keep mentioning? The fucking Mark of Cain? That Mark?” Dean’s losing his mind. Maybe lost it long ago. But Sam’s nodding like things are actually making sense.
“Mark of Cain as in Cain and Abel? First fratricide? Well, that clears a couple of things up.”
“What does it clear up? Please share, Sam. Because I feel like I’m fucking going insane.”
“What’s the last thing you remember? Before killing me, I mean.”
“Going darkside? Beating the shit out of Cas? Massacring the Stynes? Charlie?”
“Charlie? What about Charlie?”
“She’s dead, Sam. She died trying to help you save me.”
“She’s not dead, Dean.” He leans forward to grip Dean’s arm. “She did help me save you, though, with her unparalleled computer-fu.”
Not dead. Thank Christ. He didn’t get Charlie killed too. “Save me from what? Save me from who?”
“Our compatriots from across the pond,” Sam says in an affected accent. Dean would shrink away from the rage in his brother’s face if he could move enough to manage it. “The British Men of Letters didn’t like the way we American hunters go about our business. You and I in particular. So they decided to try and do something about it.”
“Something like what?” Dean’s brain is fuzzing in and out and it must show.
Sam stands up and runs his hand across Dean’s hair. “Maybe we should finish this later. You should get some rest.”
“Something like what.” Dean’s growl must convince Sam he’s good for another minute or two because he settles back down with a sigh.
“Something like grab you and try to convince you to be their conduit to the rest of the hunters in America.” Sam’s smile is a grim slash of teeth. “You, being you, weren’t about to trust a bunch of strangers with stupid accents who tried to strong arm you into something you saw no reason to do.”
Dean can’t process this and he almost wants to take Sam up on his offer to finish this after about a month of sleep. Still, waiting wouldn’t make anything better. “When?”
Sam turns away when he answers, the shadows of the lamp turning the planes of his face to stone. “Right after you took off when we got rid of Gadreel. Near as I can guess.”
“No.” Dean shakes his head weakly. “No, that’s when Crowley and I found Cain and he gave me the Mark…” He trails off as Sam turns to face him again, expression grim.
“Those bastards would have put a mark on you like that if they had the capability. This mark is physical?” Dean jerks his head in response. “Where is it?”
“Right forearm,” Dean whispers, almost afraid to look as Sam rolls up his sleeve. He squeezes his eyes shut in disbelief when he sees what’s revealed. There is a twisted pattern of scars on his arm, but it’s not the familiar raised outline of the Mark of Cain. It’s easily recognized though by someone who’s spent their life in a series of rundown shitholes where addicts congregate by the dozens. “Drugs? Why?”
If Sam’s getting tired of answering that question he doesn’t show it. “Because even though they’re evil sons of bitches, with really cool toys, they’re mostly paper pushers who don’t know how to get their hands dirty. And when evil sons of bitches have a chance to get Dean Winchester under their thumb they’re going to do whatever they have to to get that done. So they shot you up with powerful drugs that made you so open to suggestion that they could turn you into the most dangerous weapon in their arsenal.” Sam gives his brother a wry look. “Which you would have been anyway, even without the drugs.” He shrugs and looks away again. “They came after me too, but I got lucky and got the drop on them first. After that, from what you’re telling me, I think they were just planning on sending you after me. Making you think you killed me was just a test run for the real thing.
What about the island? Dean doesn’t dare ask, but Sam knows.
“I think you sent yourself to the island, Dean. I found you there with dreamroot before I even knew you were with them,” Sam says gently. “But they were watching you too and I couldn’t push too hard. It wasn’t safe for you. Then an old, um, acquaintance I guess you’d call him, looked me up. He had a bone to pick with the Brits and he had info you were with them. And not in any sort of voluntary way. I helped him get his people in and his people helped me get you out alive.”
Dean correctly interprets the look on his brother’s face. “And they won’t be bothering us any more, ever?”
“They won’t be bothering anyone any more, ever.”
Dean’s mind is spinning, dizzy from trying to figure out if any of his blood drenched memories can be trusted. “So I wasn’t…I didn’t…?”
Falsehoods shift behind Sam’s eyes and his mouth is tight with omission as he shakes his head. “No, Dean. You didn’t.”
Panic writhes in Dean’s chest because everything he remembers feels real but nothing is and how can he tell the difference? “Sammy,” he gasps past the knot in his chest. “I can’t tell what’s true, I can’t tell…” and Sam’s there gripping his hand tight.”
“Stone one, Dean. You were that for me. Remember?”
Dean nods wearily, the burn of tears in his eyes. “Didn’t work out too well for you. Cas stepped up on that one.” He tries to make it a joke, but it falls flat.
“Worked out fine. Cas helped, that’s true. He’s been off the radar for a while doing Angel things, but when he gets back we’ll fix you up too if we haven’t already managed it without him. No matter what it takes.” Dean’s ready to go comatose from exhaustion and Sam must see it in his face. “Get some sleep, dude. If you can still string two words together next time you wake up, I’ll undo your restraints, okay?”
Dean shifts in his restraints and gives a non-committal sigh as his brother leaves the room. He stares at the track marks on his arm, vision blurring as they shift and coalesce, morphing into the Mark for a span of seconds before wheeling back into a constellation of pinprick needle tracks. His brain’s too tired to decide where he is, what he is, and he sinks into sleep to the sound of waves and a salt breeze on the air.
Characters: Dean, Sam
Rating: PG
Word Count or Media: 7846
Genre: Gen
My spn summergen fic for caranfindel
Author's Notes: The prompt is the summary and boy, did I love it. This version of the story has a bit added to the very end that I inadvertanly left out of the one posted on the summergen site.
Summary: Au after the end of season 10. Dean lives on a beach. Well, a beach-like world where Death left him, to bear the Mark of Cain for all eternity. And he killed Sam; he knows he did. He remembers it clearly. But then why does a bottle wash up on his beach every morning, with a note that appears to be from Sam?
Dean wakes with a muffled groan, eyelids slitting open and then immediately squeezing shut against a nausea inducing spear of light. A herd of wildebeests thunder through his skull so he breathes, nostrils flaring as air flows in before fluttering out through pursed lips.
“Sam?” he mutters, flinging one arm across his face to shade his eyes while the other reaches out blindly for his brother. There’s no answer, no solid denim covered mass within reach so he levers himself upward, stumbling sideways in what turns out to be soft, white sand. “Oh, what the…” Jade green waves crash ashore thirty feet ahead and a slow, careful look in either direction shows an empty beach stretching into infinity in both directions. It’s starting to look like his pounding head is less the result of a night of fun and debauchery and more like another God damn spatial temporal relocation. A hundred and eighty degree shuffle reveals sparsely grouped, frond bedecked trees, a few piles of rocks and the sparkle of water in the distance across whatever the fuck this is. There’s no sign of Sam jogging down the beach or bobbing in the waves so Dean heaves a deep sigh and begins the slog to the other side of the island. Sam probably won’t be there either but no stone unturned when it comes to your brother was drilled into his head decades ago and like so many of his father’s admonitions it’s there for the duration.
Zigzagging across the expanse of sand might keep Dean in the half assed shade of the palm trees but it’s hard work under unrelenting sun. He’s blinking sweat out of his eyes and his flannel shirt is knotted around his waist before he’s made it a hundred yards. His mouth feels like it’s full of the sand he’s kicking up beneath his boots. The first pile of rocks he comes to is just a boring pile of stones but the second has a spring bubbling up through the cracks and spilling into a pool in the center. “Oh, thank Christ,” Dean mutters, tossing in a handful of sand and then a leaf that’s drifted down from one of the trees. The sand sinks. The leaf floats. Neither burst into flame or is devoured by a fugly with big nasty teeth that bursts through from the depths so he cautiously scoops some up in a cupped hand and dips his tongue into it. The Mark won’t let him die, but it will let him suffer whatever horrible shit comes down the pike on his way to not being permanently skeletonized and he tries to avoid that whenever possible. When he’s not convulsing after ten minutes he drains handful after handful, with the occasional splash on his face or through his hair. By the time he’s slaked his thirst, his head’s gone from wildebeests thundering to pygmy goats ambling and the sun’s not baking his skull any more. Blowing out a deep breath he takes a few steps back on his journey before stopping with a groan. One way down the island- trees and piles of rock. Same thing the other way. No indication of if the rocks hold water or not. He makes his way back to the first pile of rocks and slowly carts enough of them back to form an arrow pointing at the water source. No way he’s looking at every pile of rock he passes trying to find it again.
The next stretch of beach looks pretty much like the first, except on this side of the island the sand shades from light tan to pink as it fades into the distance. The water is calmer here and an indescribable shade of blue-green he’s never seen outside of pictures. He kicks off his boots, shucks his socks and sticks his toes in the water. It’s warm and clear and he smells like the back end of an alley. There’s no one visible, Sam or otherwise and his spidey sense is completely off line. Sopping wet shirts and filthy jeans land next to his boots and he wades waist deep through the waves before diving in. The water’s like crystal, clear in every direction. Below, plants sway with the motion of the water and small towers of coral are visible along the sandy bottom. Dean keeps watch for anything bigger- eels, barracuda, sharks, but no fish of any size is within eyesight. Kicking to the surface he floats, letting the tide push him out aways, staring at the fluffy white clouds scudding overhead. He’s almost decided to just keep going, letting the water carry him away when he remembers Sam- Sam who might be here. Sam who will come looking if he’s not-and pulls his way back to shore, strong strokes cutting through the waves. His clothes get a dunking next, laid out to air dry on palm fronds set across the sand. The paltry shade of a palm tree is the best he can do to keep his bare skin from being par broiled in the sun so he tucks himself under one to ride out the day until his clothes are dry enough to put back on. With initial recon done and a water source located he’s got nothing to do but think. And think he does, to no avail. There’s no memory of where he was before coming here, who he was with, what he was doing, if Sam was there or not. The ever present knot in his stomach when his brother’s out of contact swells to constrict his heart and crush the air from his lungs. It’s been a while since he’s worked his way out of a panic attack without a strong shoulder to lean on and Sam’s voice talking him through it, but he fixes his eyes on the waves, streaked with pink/orange light under the setting sun and pictures a periscope popping up from beneath the waves. He manages one shallow breath and then another. Sam would totally Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea it to come rescue him from the middle of the ocean. Breathe Dean. Whatever ocean. C’mon, now. In whatever dimension. Atta boy He’s probably busy building his very own Nautilus right this second. There you go. One long breath and then another is followed by a choked off huff. The voice in his head is gone, the Mark low key tingling on his arm. He rolls to his feet to collects his still damp clothes and pulls them on in the last of the fading light. It’s only worth a second of thought to decide against going closer to the water for the night. Things might come to drink that he in no way wants to run into unarmed. Tomorrow he’ll work on some sort of protection from what, if anything, might be sharing this island with him but tonight he’s going to settle back under his tree and get some rest.
*
The world is just as empty when he wakes the next morning with a crick in his neck and the irritating scritch of sand in his socks. A soft breeze rattling through the tree tops meshes soothingly with the lull of the surf. There’s no birdsong and a glance upward shows no sign of coconuts or bananas or whatever the hell is supposed to grow on these trees. He makes his way back to the interior and studies the ground around the pool. Only his own boot prints mar the pristine sand.
“Well, fuck,” he says, scooping up handfuls of water to quench both his thirst and the rumbling in his belly. If there’s no food source on this island, he’s in trouble. The Mark flares hot for a moment and he dunks it in the pool. That’s another problem. Sooner or later-probably sooner- the Mark’s going to need blood. If there’s none to be had it isn’t going to be pretty. But it’s a big island and he’s been taught to never say die. If nothing else, he can fill his stomach with the underwater plants he’d seen while swimming yesterday. Gross, but he’s definitely eaten worse.
The non water leaking pile of rocks does manage to produce a six inch long, narrow piece of potential weaponry and Dean spends the rest of the morning honing it into a pretty decently edged knife. He’s been eyeing the far shore while he whisked his whetstone, watching the dark green of the water and the wrath of the waves, so different from the other side. Maybe the marine life is different on that side too, though he’s not exactly itching to dive in and find out. “No guts, no glory,” he mutters, trudging toward the crashing sea.
He doesn’t wait long on the shore before throwing himself into the roiling surf. It’s always best to just get it over with, he’s found. The waves buffet him immediately and drag him under, swirling him around until he’s not sure which way is up. The visibility is for shit too, only a few feet in any direction. Shadows flow all around him, but he can’t tell if they’re really big fucking fish or reflections of storm clouds gathered ominously overhead. The current drags him until his ears pop and his lungs are about to give up and gulp down a big breath full of drowning. Hand locked around his knife he picks a direction and kicks, struggling not to breathe. His head breaks the surface just as his lungs give up the ghost and he sucks in salt misted air instead of sea water. He goes with the motion of the water, letting the swells lift him until he spots the shore. It’s a struggle to reach it, though, waves pushing him back, sweeping him under. Even when his feet finally touch bottom, the undertow pulls at him. Something smooth and chill brushes the back of his leg and he hurls himself onto the beach, arms trembling from strain hauling his exhausted body clear of the water. Quickly turning over, he crab walks his way toward the trees stopping only when nothing short of a damn sea monster could reach him. The waves still crash against the sand, shadow and light mixing in the depths but nothing moves in a pattern, with a purpose. Still, every instinct he has tells him something is staring at him from under the water. He raises his knife threateningly but there’s no way in hell he’s going back in there now. He bares his teeth in a humorless grin. When the Mark gets needy enough, that’ll be a different story. In all his hunts, he’s never fought a creature from the deep and when the time comes he’s sure he’ll be all in. Grabbing his clothes he backs his way to the trees, air drying as he makes his way across to the calm side of the island. Where he’s going to stay.
*
Beaches are fine and all if you’ve got a volleyball net, some chicks in bikinis and a cooler full of beer but having one all to yourself with just non-alcoholic water to quench your thirst sucks. “Why didn’t you send me back to Purgatory,” he screams to the empty sky and sea and land. “At least there I’d have something to do!” The Mark hums approvingly and he tells it to shut the fuck up and sets out to find something occupy his time. He collects palm fronds and weaves them into a thin matt for sleeping. It’s the most uncomfortable thing he’s ever tossed and turned a night away on and shortly after midnight he abandons it to sleep on the sand. When his stomach feels like it’s about ready to collapse in on itself he takes a quick dip under the water to harvest the plants that will keep him from starving. The double handful he hauls up are just about as noxious as he expected, tough, stringy and extra salty, even after copious rinsing in spring water. But they go down and they stay down and if they’ve got any nutrients in them at all, it’s a damn sight better than nothing. Exploring the never ending stretch of island is an exercise in futility, one bit is just like the next, water in the center of every other pile of rocks, trees with no fruit and lots and lots of sand. As the days pass he burns, peels and, worst of all, turns into one giant freckle.
One morning his wanderings bring him on a plate sized shell washed up on the beach. It’s the most exciting thing that’s happened in days. The shell is empty when he pries it open because of course it is. He’s never been a fan of slimy uncooked seafood, but anything other than underwater rabbit chow would be like a double cheeseburger with extra onions and chili cheese fries. “God fucking damn it,” he says as his stomach gurgles at the thought of real food. Not thinking about things he can’t have is the second of his three supreme commandments. The first being not to give up hope of rescue and the third to use his knife to shave every damn day so when he does get out of here he won’t look like Tom Hanks in Castaway. Sighing, he strips and heads into the water in his daily dive for sustenance. He blows out another long breath when he emerges from the waves with an armful of vegetation and shuffles toward the tree he’s arranged a few flat rocks under so his wet ass isn’t crusted with sand while it dries. This shit is better than starving to death, but not by much. Dean stops halfway up the beach and looks back at the shells sitting just above the water line. A wave licks at their edges. In the next few minutes they’ll disappear back into the ocean. The quick trot that gets him back just as water swirls beneath them is the fastest he’s moved in weeks and he practically whistles as he heads inland to rinse his dinner.
Dean thinks he enjoys this fire more than any he’s ever made because it was so damn hard to get going. Piles of dried palm fronds make a great base but the rocks he clapped together took hours to generate a spark he could nurture into flame. It’s the first fire he’s bothered with since he’s been here because it never gets cold and there was no way to cook anything. He gives a satisfied waggle of the eyebrows to the shell full of simmering water and seaweed set on a heated rock a few inches from the fire. He’s got no illusions that this seaweed stew will be any tastier than eating it raw but is softer and easier to swallow so he calls it a win. He sits up late into the night, staring at the flames and remembering the few times in their childhood he and Sam had the luxury of sitting around bonfires and playing on beaches. The fire burns low and then out and Dean settles on the sand and falls into the best night’s rest he’s had since forever.
*
The first sand castle that goes up is an exact replica of one he and Sam built on an overcrowded beach in South Carolina when Sam was seven. It’s small and rough, just a ridge of sand with a beach pail sized, rounded pseudo turret on either end but it’s perfect in the way of memories. Dean can do better now. Has done. Will do. After all, what the hell else is there to fill his time?
He uses the shells to haul saturated sand from the waterline, to decorate, to dig moats. Each creation is bigger and more elaborate than the next, eventually taking him days to finish. Every morning each is still there, a line stretching into the distance of castles and moats, shark fins and waving whale tails, sarcophagi and undulating dragons.
Today he’s putting the finishing touches on his greatest creation to date. His Baby. The Impala’s bumper rests on the sand, painstakingly carved grill work rising up from it. Hundreds of trips back and forth for wet sand and more water to pack a base beneath the sculpted hood, windshield and roof, have paid off with a pretty damn good replica of a particular sixty-seven Impala. It takes careful work to shape the headlights and door handles. He wipes them out over and over, rebuilding until they are perfect. Until he could reach out and open the door and slide behind the wheel. Until he could pop the trunk and pull out a crossbow or sawed off or machete. He doesn’t have to though. He knows that inside there’s a taco wrapper on the back seat and toy soldiers in the heating vents and initials carved in places their father had beaten their behinds for. He winces as he settles gingerly onto the hood, leans back against the windshield, but like the original, this Impala is made to last. The rest of the afternoon passes and still he sits, staring out over the waves, willing Sam to appear, captaining an outrigger canoe crewed by Amazons. His brother’s on the job. Cas too, he’s sure. Hell, even Crowley might be putting some legwork into the search. He’s going to get out of here. He is.
The sun sinks, then sets and the beauty of the colors reflected atop the waves is the one thing Dean will miss about this place. The moon’s only a sliver against the growing darkness and stars blink in, one after another like they hadn’t existed until just this moment. Settling back with legs crossed at the ankles and fingers laced behind his head he stares up at the heavens. It’s moments like this that he misses his brother the most. Stargazing was one of the few simple, normal things he and Sam had ever been able to share. The empty, Sam sized space beside him burns a chasm of longing into his chest. He needs Sam to be there, beer in hand, pointing out stars and satellites and tracing constellations because everything here is wrong. No dippers. No Orion. No Ursas major or otherwise. Nothing he can recognize at all, though he’s named more than a few for himself in all the sleepless nights he’s spent under these skies. Vampire’s fang sits directly above him now, a jumbled cluster of sparkling points, Cat’s Eye off to its left. Monster Truck won’t be over the horizon for another hour or two. Dean sees patterns, always has. Puts them together in ways that are functional even if they don’t always seem to make sense. He can do that with the stars but not with his situation. If there’s a pattern to his exile here, he’s not seeing it. Letting a heavy sigh blow through his lips, he raises an imaginary beer toward the heavens just as a shooting star bisects the darkness like a long tailed bullet from the star bedecked outline of the constellation he named The Colt. “Holy shit,” he says, a grin splitting his face as he turns to where Sam should be. “Did you see…?” The grin fades as his voice trails off into a rasping cough. He can’t remember the last time he actually spoke out loud. Squeezing his eyes shut against the burn of tears he shifts to face the endless starscape and stares at the back of his eyelids until sleep eventually overtakes him.
The next morning he awakens with the sun already halfway up the sky. Groaning, he carefully shifts himself down the hood of his sand Impala until his boots are flat on the ground. His neck’s a little stiff and his back’s a tad achy but all in all his body feels better than it after any night sleeping on the actual beachy sand. In the physical sense, anyway. In the…other…sense, his chest is so tight it’s hard to breathe. He’s been isolated here for weeks but he’s kept busy, made sure his mind was engaged in more than desperation for rescue. But last night, turning to a Sam that wasn’t there to share the shooting star, brought it all crashing home. He’s not built to be alone. But he’s going to be, forever and ever until the end of the universe if he doesn’t find a way out of here. The Mark hums and he digs tattered fingernails into the scarred flesh, twisting them until he draws blood. He stares at the vivid red welling up from the half moon welts in his skin for a moment then circles around the front of the car, dragging his fingers across the empty expanse of hood where Sam should’ve been. Head bowed, steps heavy enough to drive him down into the earth, he heads inland.
When he hits the beach again, he’s cleanish, shaved, hydrated and in a slightly better frame of mind. Sam’s not here, it’s true, but he’s spent a lot of time building things that aren’t real. He can make himself a sand Sam to sit with, watch stars with and talk to until the true version comes along or whatever put him here decides it’s taken its pound of flesh and zaps him back home.
It’s slow, meticulous work because he’s got to get everything right. Wet sand piled on the Impala’s hood gradually transforms into Sam’s boots and lower legs. Dean slides onto the other side of the hood and props one ankle over the other to get the proper angle. Carefully, he etches bootlaces onto the boots, carves out the hem of Sam’s jeans before working his way up the legs. Trip after trip to resupply leaves him sweaty and parched but he doesn’t stop as he shapes mound after mound of sand, patting it down to shape slightly bent knees. Another trip and then another and another and he’s shaping a broad torso, dots poked in the center for buttonholes of Sam’s flannel. Stinging moisture runs into his eyes, black dots cloud his vision and the Mark is snarling, raging as it always does when Sam is foremost in his thoughts. Slowly, he straightens up and backs away from his work. His forearm burns where the Mark flares and staggers into the water to cool everything off.
The water’s clear and just far enough below body temperature to be refreshing. He swims lazily, dipping beneath the waves to dive toward the bottom, scouring the depth for anything new, different, edible, but there’s nothing. When his lungs are about to burst he kicks back toward the surface, eyes trained on the reflection of the sun spilling across the water. The Mark’s muttering at him, instigating, but there’s nothing to annihilate out here so Dean stuffs it back down in its box like he has so many times before. Backstroking leisurely toward the shore, he feels replenished- after a trip to the watering hole he’ll be ready to finish his work.
Things go quickly after that. Dean’s in a groove. He builds up Sam’s shoulders, shakes his head and shaves some breadth from them, then lets out an aggrieved huff before putting it back on. Sam’s hands rest on his belly, fingers intertwined. When all that’s left is Sam’s head he wishes he had a bucket like when they were kids. Fill it up, mash it down and dump it out. He pats the sand into an oblong that he lays on top of the Impala at an angle that would give Sam a very sore neck if he was a real boy. Using his knife he shapes Sam’s chin, carves out ears and etches a hairline, shaping the sand into a shaggy mess. It’s harder to put together a nose and he wipes it out over and over before he’s remotely satisfied. The Mark’s crept up out of its box and his teeth are clenched to the point of pain so he doesn’t bare them. It’s seething, whispering vile threats and his hand trembles as he traces Sam’s eyes with the tip of his blade. They’re not right, staring blankly up at the darkening sky and Dean smudges them out and re-draws them again and again and again. His frustration mounts as they’re just shy of acceptable and he throws down his knife in disgust. “Jesus Christ,” he yells to the sky. “Wilson was a damn volleyball with a fucking smiley face on it!” The Mark urges him to cut a smiley face into Sam, deep and wide and he’s tired and frustrated and “shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Dean throws out his arms in exasperation and groans as his hand connects with the head he’s spent so much time working on and sending it flying through the air to tumble onto the sand. He follows its trajectory with growing panic, horror rising as it doesn’t disintegrate into a million grains of sand when it hits the ground but lands to face him, imperfect eyes glaring accusingly and he remembers. He remembers.
Dean falls to his knees, eyes glazed with another place, another time, staring down at Sam kneeling in front of him on the filthy cantina floor. Death’s scythe is practically weightless in Dean’s white knuckled grasp and Sam’s speaking words Dean can’t process with eyes full of trust and love. Death’s speaking too, prodding, pushing and Dean can’t do it but he has to. Can’t. Has to. Can’t. He moves his arms, one short motion back and forth and it’s done. There are pictures. Sam wanted him to have them, but they’re lost, soaked in blood and gore and Dean’s gone, blinked out in the next moment to wake alone on a beach. And he forgot. How the hell did he forget? The Mark screams in triumph that Dean’s brother is dead and Dean howls along with it as it burns his soul to ash and plunges him into the abyss.
*
Waves lapping against his face raise him to consciousness days, weeks, months or who the ever loving fuck knows how much later. He cracks one sand encrusted eyelid open to assess the situation and immediately closes it again. He killed his brother. Sam is dead by his hand. There’s no point to peeling himself off the wet ground and going back to pointlessly piling up sand. Exhaustion weighs heavy in his bones and never moving again sounds like the perfect way to spend infinity. He lasts maybe an hour. Two tops.
“Fuck it,” he says, voice muffled by the press of his mouth against the ground. He’s never been good at playing dead, always using every bit of his practically non-existent self restraint to fool whatever monster he was about to put a world of hurt on. It’s boring and he’s never been one to sit still for any longer than he can help it. “Up and at ‘em, soldier.” His father’s voice echoes the words in his mind as he levers himself to his hands and knees. Giving in has never been an option. He aches all over like the Mark led him head on into the barrel of a cement mixer and his hand cramps around a death grip on his knife. Standing up in his waterlogged clothes is out of the question so stagger-crawling into the waves is what he aims for. And he manages it. Just. He’s not on the side of the island where he could just fall into the water and float the sand away so he crouches at the water’s edge and ducks his head into the roaring surf. The water’s cooler today, almost cold, like a mountain lake in May and Dean gasps but stays put, running one hand through his hair until the grit is rinsed away. The chill is revitalizing, so he stays, feeling exhaustion seep away with every ebb and flow of the tide. Imminent inability to stay upright on his shivering limbs finally prompts him to back out of the water, but he lowers his aching head one last time only to almost black out with the force of something hard colliding with the top of it.
“Jesus,” he sputters, inhaling a mouthful of saltwater as he throws himself backwards out of the surf. He can’t see past the dark spots jitterbugging through his vision but he works his knife in a defensive figure eight in case whatever whacked him followed him onto the beach. It’s a matter of moments before he can see but it feels like hours. Nothing sea monster-like followed him onto the beach and there’s no sign of fins in the water further out. The closest swell washes across the sand and Dean shakes his head, rubbing his blurry eyes with the back of his hand to further clear his line of sight. The sun glints off something about a dozen yards to his left and he turns to see a bottle riding the tail end of a wave across the sand. He just stares for a moment, watching in disbelief until the water recedes, pulling its cargo back toward the sea. A mad scramble gets it in his hand before the next wave in can pick it up and carry it away to wherever it came from. It’s a wine bottle, he thinks, clear and stoppered and made waterproof with some sort of wax. It’s empty of liquor, of course, he couldn’t be that lucky but there’s paper inside, yellow lined and rolled up in a tight spiral held with a red rubber band. He has to restrain himself from scooping out the wax with the tip of his knife and dumping the paper out right here, but the waves are still rolling in and he’s soaking wet and there’s no way he’s risking whatever message the bottle contains. Heaving himself to his feet with a groan he squelches up the beach to dry off, humming as he goes.
An hour later he’s settled on his woven mat under his tree, still a little damp in spots but he can’t make himself wait any longer. His heart’s racing, almost skipping beats he’s so worked up. He’s seen nothing inorganic on this island but what came through with him. Why this? Why now? The wax pops out easily as he runs the tip of his blade around the bottle’s mouth and he carefully sets it to the side. Slowly he tips the bottle over, cupping his hand beneath the opening to catch the paper. The bottle goes down next to the wax and he hooks a finger in the rubber band, carefully sliding it off. Breath won’t come as he unrolls the paper, chokes off in a sob as he sees familiar slanted cursive. He can’t read past the first word. “Son of a bitch,” he shouts furiously, crumpling the note in his hand. “Why are you doing this?” He cocks his arm and throws the balled up paper down the beach then spends the next few hours staring out to sea. He can’t leave it there, he finally decides. Even if it’s not from Sam there might be information in it he can use. A clue to where he is, how to get home. Reading it is part of not giving up. The light is fading when he goes to retrieve it and he sits with it clutched to his chest until late into the night when his eyes reluctantly slide closed and he nods off.
*
Dean. I’m coming to get you, man. As soon as I can. Don’t freak out, okay? Sam
Dean reads the note five times before dropping his head onto his palm, fighting the urge to crumple it up again and throw it into the ocean. It’s not from Sam because Sam is dead, but whatever did write it couldn’t have done a better job of forgery. When Sam writes term papers or love letters or even damn case entries in his journal he never uses one word when a hundred will do. But when he’s leaving notes for his big brother? Twenty words or less. Always. It’s maddening. Dean’s notes to Sam are no better, but that’s how he writes everything. Sam’s just being lazy. Was just being lazy. He grabs the bottle and heads off to fill it up, tucking the note into his pocket. At least one of them will turn out to be of some use.
Later he sucks up his courage and walks down to the beach to his sculptures, breathing a sigh of relief when they’re all still there. He didn’t demolish them all in a Mark fueled paroxysm of rage. His steps slow as he approaches the Impala and his sculpture of Sam. Sam understood what he had to do and forgave him. It’s more than Dean will ever do for himself but he has to honor that about his brother. He molds Sam back together, no longer obsessing over minor imperfections. Sam was never perfect but Dean loved him more than was healthy anyway no matter how at odds they sometimes were. And Sam returned that love even when he had every reason not to. Dean slides up onto the hood and settles back, pulling the note out of his pocket and staring out to sea.
“So,” he says, eyes aimed straight ahead. “Something sent me this note supposed to be from you. But that’s just stupid.” He wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “’Cause we both know you’re dead. And even if you weren’t, if you knew right where to send a bottle, you’d have sent a boat. Or,” he adds with unconcealed wistfulness, “a submarine.” He sighs and tracks a dark cloud on the horizon, the first he’s seen since his arrival. Below, something glints bright in the usual sunlight and another bottle washes onto the beach. Dean’s there before it’s completely clear of the wave that carried it in, grabbing it and trotting back to his perch next to Sam.
Dude, I’m not dead I’m just not sure where you are. Yet. But I’m going to get you out.
“No, you’re definitely dead,” Dean says with a catch in his voice. “I killed you myself. Maybe you’re sending me these from heaven, but I kind of doubt those dicks would let you. But you being you, you’d probably find a way. Just like you’d send a damn boat.” He sits back and waits for a moment for another bottle to arrive like the last one did in response. None does. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
He spends the rest of the day and into the night talking to Sam. It’s okay that his brother never answers. Dean always did most of the talking anyway. He knows what Sam would respond to almost anything and fills in his words for him. When night falls, they talk about the stars until Dean falls asleep mid-word. When he wakes there’s another bottle on the sand.
I’m NOT dead. You did NOT kill me. It’s complicated, but I’m getting close. Patience, man, I know it’s hard.
“Patience?” Dean screams to the sky. “Patience? I think I’ve been pretty God damned patient, Sam!” He stops before he begins to hyperventilate. It’s not Sam. Not Sam. Sam’s dead, no matter what this game is about. The dark cloud on the horizon is getting closer. The Mark’s beginning to mutter again. There’s a bad weather on the way.
Notes begin to arrive every morning with various themes of “Cryptic much?” he bitches to his silent companion. “Ready for fucking what?” Lightning begins to flicker through the approaching clouds as they move ever closer to the beach. A breeze picks up, swirling sand through the air. Dean retreats to the scant shelter of the trees as the wind intensifies, and bolts of electricity blast along the beach. The Mark loves the violence of the storm, screaming along with the primal viciousness and Dean can feel himself slipping sideways into it. He’s not sure he wants to fight it because the outcome of whatever hell is about to be unleashed here will probably be a lot more satisfactory for him if he’s berserk during it. He closes his eyes, about to give in when something grips his shoulder, tight.
“Dean?”
Dean clenches his teeth and spins away from whatever’s got a hold of him, swallowing hard when he turns to face his brother. Or at least a living, breathing, pissed off facsimile of Sam. “You’re not real,” he snarls, getting an annoyed, huffy bitchface in return. The lightning strikes are getting closer, but there’s a circle around them they can’t seem to penetrate.
“Damn it, Dean, we don’t have time for this. We have to get you out of here.” Not-Sam digs in his pocket and pulls out a pair of worn photographs. Dean eyes them like he would a poisonous snake. “Look, this is us. And you and mom. I brought them in case you didn’t remember who you were.” He huffs a humorless breath. “Never thought you wouldn’t know who I was.”
“But…”
“No buts, Dean. We’ve got to go. Now.”
“Sammy?” Dean stares into Sam’s face. Into an expression he knows better than his own reflection.
“You believe me?”
Dean nods slowly. “Yes.”
“Then wake up.”
“I’m not…”
“Wake up.”
“Sam?”
“WAKE THE FUCK UP.”
It’s an order and Dean usually tells Sam to go screw himself when he tries to order him around but this time he can’t help himself. His eyes spring open to find himself flat on his back, Sam standing above him, wild eyed and blood spattered, gun in each hand. He watches his brother let out a long sigh of relief before his eyes slide closed again and he falls into the dark.
*
The next time Dean wakes up he’s back in his room in the bunker, his memory foam mattress cradling him in the most welcome feeling he’s had in ages. He groans and tries to sit up, but his wrists are manacled to metal bars running the length of the bed. “Sam,” he yells, struggling to break free, but his bindings hold tight. He doesn’t hear his brother’s approach over the incapacitating drumbeat of his panicked heart, but Sam bursts through the door in seconds. Dean looks up, but his furious words die in his throat. Sam looks exhausted.
“Sammy, let me up, man.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam says, and he looks it, he really does. “But I can’t let you up until I know you know where you are. Who you are.”
“How about you tell me where I was.” Dean stops fighting his restraints and settles back onto the bed. “And how you’re not dead.”
“Why do you think I was dead?”
“Because I killed you, Sam!”
“Why would you do that?”
Dean stares at his brother trying to gauge the honest confusion on his face. It’s Sam, he knows it. Chose to believe it before he woke up from the island. How can he not remember? “Because of the Mark. I couldn’t get rid of it and it was turning me into something I couldn’t be. You know that. Death was supposed to send me somewhere I couldn’t hurt anyone. But…”
“Wait.” Sam shakes his head. “If you were supposed to have died, why would you think I had?”
Now Dean’s the one staring in confusion until he figures it out. “Not death, Sam. Death. Skinny guy, always wears black, junk food junkie? Carries a scythe? It was the only way. But he knew where ever he sent me, you’d try to get me back. Sam, Cas said the Mark would take me over and I’d murder the world. The world. It was a risk I couldn’t take. And you saw what I was capable of. You understood what I had to do.”
Sam’s confused look turns thoughtful. “You thought you had to kill me and I was okay with it. Because of this Mark you keep mentioning.”
“This Mark I keep mentioning? The fucking Mark of Cain? That Mark?” Dean’s losing his mind. Maybe lost it long ago. But Sam’s nodding like things are actually making sense.
“Mark of Cain as in Cain and Abel? First fratricide? Well, that clears a couple of things up.”
“What does it clear up? Please share, Sam. Because I feel like I’m fucking going insane.”
“What’s the last thing you remember? Before killing me, I mean.”
“Going darkside? Beating the shit out of Cas? Massacring the Stynes? Charlie?”
“Charlie? What about Charlie?”
“She’s dead, Sam. She died trying to help you save me.”
“She’s not dead, Dean.” He leans forward to grip Dean’s arm. “She did help me save you, though, with her unparalleled computer-fu.”
Not dead. Thank Christ. He didn’t get Charlie killed too. “Save me from what? Save me from who?”
“Our compatriots from across the pond,” Sam says in an affected accent. Dean would shrink away from the rage in his brother’s face if he could move enough to manage it. “The British Men of Letters didn’t like the way we American hunters go about our business. You and I in particular. So they decided to try and do something about it.”
“Something like what?” Dean’s brain is fuzzing in and out and it must show.
Sam stands up and runs his hand across Dean’s hair. “Maybe we should finish this later. You should get some rest.”
“Something like what.” Dean’s growl must convince Sam he’s good for another minute or two because he settles back down with a sigh.
“Something like grab you and try to convince you to be their conduit to the rest of the hunters in America.” Sam’s smile is a grim slash of teeth. “You, being you, weren’t about to trust a bunch of strangers with stupid accents who tried to strong arm you into something you saw no reason to do.”
Dean can’t process this and he almost wants to take Sam up on his offer to finish this after about a month of sleep. Still, waiting wouldn’t make anything better. “When?”
Sam turns away when he answers, the shadows of the lamp turning the planes of his face to stone. “Right after you took off when we got rid of Gadreel. Near as I can guess.”
“No.” Dean shakes his head weakly. “No, that’s when Crowley and I found Cain and he gave me the Mark…” He trails off as Sam turns to face him again, expression grim.
“Those bastards would have put a mark on you like that if they had the capability. This mark is physical?” Dean jerks his head in response. “Where is it?”
“Right forearm,” Dean whispers, almost afraid to look as Sam rolls up his sleeve. He squeezes his eyes shut in disbelief when he sees what’s revealed. There is a twisted pattern of scars on his arm, but it’s not the familiar raised outline of the Mark of Cain. It’s easily recognized though by someone who’s spent their life in a series of rundown shitholes where addicts congregate by the dozens. “Drugs? Why?”
If Sam’s getting tired of answering that question he doesn’t show it. “Because even though they’re evil sons of bitches, with really cool toys, they’re mostly paper pushers who don’t know how to get their hands dirty. And when evil sons of bitches have a chance to get Dean Winchester under their thumb they’re going to do whatever they have to to get that done. So they shot you up with powerful drugs that made you so open to suggestion that they could turn you into the most dangerous weapon in their arsenal.” Sam gives his brother a wry look. “Which you would have been anyway, even without the drugs.” He shrugs and looks away again. “They came after me too, but I got lucky and got the drop on them first. After that, from what you’re telling me, I think they were just planning on sending you after me. Making you think you killed me was just a test run for the real thing.
What about the island? Dean doesn’t dare ask, but Sam knows.
“I think you sent yourself to the island, Dean. I found you there with dreamroot before I even knew you were with them,” Sam says gently. “But they were watching you too and I couldn’t push too hard. It wasn’t safe for you. Then an old, um, acquaintance I guess you’d call him, looked me up. He had a bone to pick with the Brits and he had info you were with them. And not in any sort of voluntary way. I helped him get his people in and his people helped me get you out alive.”
Dean correctly interprets the look on his brother’s face. “And they won’t be bothering us any more, ever?”
“They won’t be bothering anyone any more, ever.”
Dean’s mind is spinning, dizzy from trying to figure out if any of his blood drenched memories can be trusted. “So I wasn’t…I didn’t…?”
Falsehoods shift behind Sam’s eyes and his mouth is tight with omission as he shakes his head. “No, Dean. You didn’t.”
Panic writhes in Dean’s chest because everything he remembers feels real but nothing is and how can he tell the difference? “Sammy,” he gasps past the knot in his chest. “I can’t tell what’s true, I can’t tell…” and Sam’s there gripping his hand tight.”
“Stone one, Dean. You were that for me. Remember?”
Dean nods wearily, the burn of tears in his eyes. “Didn’t work out too well for you. Cas stepped up on that one.” He tries to make it a joke, but it falls flat.
“Worked out fine. Cas helped, that’s true. He’s been off the radar for a while doing Angel things, but when he gets back we’ll fix you up too if we haven’t already managed it without him. No matter what it takes.” Dean’s ready to go comatose from exhaustion and Sam must see it in his face. “Get some sleep, dude. If you can still string two words together next time you wake up, I’ll undo your restraints, okay?”
Dean shifts in his restraints and gives a non-committal sigh as his brother leaves the room. He stares at the track marks on his arm, vision blurring as they shift and coalesce, morphing into the Mark for a span of seconds before wheeling back into a constellation of pinprick needle tracks. His brain’s too tired to decide where he is, what he is, and he sinks into sleep to the sound of waves and a salt breeze on the air.