Through the Looking Glass
Fic Title: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
Artist: mangacat201
Author: tifaching
Fandom/Genre: SPN
Pairing(s): Sam/Dean
Rating: T
Word Count: 5000
Warnings: None
Summary: A concussed Dean gets some unexpected visitors at the bunker.
A/N: I loved the art mangacat201 submitted to this year's spn_reversebang. The mirror theme lent itself to many possibilities, though it took me a while to find one that fit. Many thanks to my very patient artist who put up with not seeing a completed draft of this fic until now.
Art Link(s): LJ | AO3
There’s a certain peace to shaving with a straight razor. Dean slowly, smoothly slides the blade down his cheeks, around his lips and over his chin, cutting cleanly through coarse stubble covered by a thick layer of foam. His hand is remarkably steady considering the impressive array of bottles littering the floor back in his bedroom. It’s a testament to the resilient liver of the functional alcoholic. Red rimmed, bloodshot eyes that there’s no hiding trace the razor’s path, never once flicking upwards to meet their own reflection in the dimly lit shower room mirror. A slight tilt of his chin brings a sparkling flash of pain behind his forehead but a few deep breaths knocks it down to a muted throb and the razor paused just shy of his jugular makes a deliberate dig into delicate flesh before continuing its journey. It’s a habit, a tradition, a leftover from a time when Dean and any blade he happened to be wielding had a bone deep awareness of how to take a body apart and he watches with dull satisfaction as the thin trickle of blood turns the small bit of remaining shaving cream pink. A patter of footsteps sounds from the outside corridor and Dean hurriedly finishes up, grabbing his shower damp towel to wipe the razor, then his face as Sam pads into the room.
“Dude, I got next.” Sam runs a hand over the dark hair beginning to curl around his chin. “Next time we decide to live out of the Impala for a week, let’s rethink the decision and not.”
“Camping sucks,” Dean says, knotting the towel around his waist and turning away from the mirror with a repressed sigh of relief. “But a hunt in the middle of nowhere is a hunt in the middle of nowhere. Now, take your shower before your stink drifts this way and I need another one.”
Sam snorts, but his raised eyebrow and the twist of his lips signal agreement. “Yeah, you got a point there.” His clothes land on top of Dean’s on a chair in the corner and Dean shivers as Sam groans at the hot water cascading over muscles at least as sore as Dean’s own. Just because they sleep like logs on the Impala’s bench seats doesn’t mean a comfortable waking. Hiking, tree climbing and tussling with a small tribe of tree spirits hadn’t helped either. As much as Dean hates to admit it, neither of them are spring chickens any more.
Dean leans against the sink, back resolutely to the mirror, staring at the strong curves of Sam’s back as he lathers up with his ultra foamy body wash. Dean would mock him mercilessly but his brother just smells so damn good after using it. The razor’s heavy in his hand and it isn’t close to being dull, but Sam’s thicket of whiskers could give it a challenge. The blade strop hangs on a hook next to the mirror and Dean reaches back to snag it without looking. His elbow brushes the mirror and the surface is warm, like soft breath against his skin and the strop clatters to the floor through suddenly nerveless fingers. Sam whirls to face him at the sound, carding soaked hair out of his face and squinting through a mask of shampoo.
“What?”
“Slipped,” Dean says, bending to pick it up.
“Huh,” Sam replies and Dean can feel his brother’s eyes on him. “Well, don’t drop the razor, okay? I’m too tired to sew your toes back on tonight.” Dean shows Sam his middle finger, moves so his back is against solid wall, and begins to hone his blade.
Sam takes his time, flexing and bending to get every nook and cranny and Dean humors himself that it’s for his benefit, though he knows that Sam likes nothing better than luxuriating under a hot shower. Well, maybe there are a few things he likes better, Dean allows, but Dean’s not washing his back tonight and finally having a shower with actual hot water is a tough act to follow. Finally, the taps squeal closed and Dean reminds himself again to fix them. Sam shakes his head, droplets flying through the light like tiny missles before spattering gently on the floor and catches the towel Dean tosses his way without looking.
“Show off.”
Sam peeks out from where he’s rubbing his hair dry with the towel and grins. “You taught me how to know when things were heading my way.”
“Dad taught you.”
“Yeah, but you made me practice. Plus, you do it every time.” Sam’s voice drops to an approximation of Dean’s growl. “Head’s up, Sam!”
“Didn’t say it, this time,” Dean grumbles.
“Yeah, the first thousand times were enough,” Sam laughs as he runs the towel down his torso. Dean swallows and resists the urge to run the his thumb along the razor to see if it’s sharp enough, though he knows it could cut through paper, a throat or a femur without catching once. Sam’s whiskers will be cake.
“Hey,” Dean calls, holding the razor out as Sam heads for the chair holding their clothes. “After all this, don’t you want to shave?”
Sam dumps the clothes onto the floor and crinkles his lips at Dean. “Your turn to do laundry.”
Dean sighs but shrugs. The clothes were pretty ripe. “Shave, Sam?”
The chair legs scrape across the floor with a noise that puts Dean’s nerves on edge until Sam parks it beneath one of the light fixtures halfway between the shower and the sink and then plants his rump in it. Dean just looks at him and Sam gazes back with a pleading puppy dog look that he’s way too fucking old to pull off. Sam raises a hand that’s bruised black under the lights and grimaces as he slowly waggles swollen fingers. Dean’s across the floor in a flash.
“What the hell happened?”
“Kind’a punched a tree swinging at a wood sprite.”
“Shit.” Dean picks up Sam’s hand and gently probes it for fractures. Sam winces but stays silent. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were wiped from the drive,” Sam says with a shrug. “If I’d told you, you would’ve insisted on going for food instead of staying here and taking a nap.” His eyes sharpen. “You’re bleeding. Did you cut yourself?”
“Just a scratch,” Dean says, leaning away as Sam reaches up to touch. He hisses as Sam connects anyway and contemplates smear of blood on his finger before wiping it on his towel. “Naps are for geezers, I was just resting my eyes.”
“Yeah, well you needed the rest.” Sam tilts his chin back and drapes his towel across his chest. “And now that you’re all rested, you can give your poor, incapacitated brother a shave.” He looks at Dean’s throat again and shakes his head. “If you’re up for it, that it.”
“It’s a scratch, Sam.” Dean grits his teeth and substitutes his annoyance with Sam’s silence about his injury with guilt over drinking a six and a half of beer while his brother was driving and shopping in pain. He shoves down a bit of hypocrisy as well because he might just have a knot on his head from his own collision with a tree that Sam doesn’t need to know about. “Okay,” he says, pivoting to grab the shaving cream and razor from the sink. The mirror is cloudy, fogged with steam and distorting whatever reflection lurks behind it. Dean side eyes it but hauls in his supplies and heads back to settle in behind Sam.
“Tilt,” he says, cupping Sam’s chin and tipping it toward him. He feels himself relaxing again as he sprays foam into his hand and slathers it across Sam’s grizzled cheeks. Sam sighs and settles further down into the chair.
“Need hot towels like in the barber shop.”
“What we need is a damn electric razor.”
Sam snorts without moving. “As if you’d ever shave with anything but Dad’s old razor.”
Dean nods without thinking, steadily sliding the razor along Sam’s neck and up his cheeks. His brother doesn’t ask for this often, though that’s changed in the last few weeks. Dean wonders if Sam hates looking in the mirror as much as he does. He sends his gaze to the only reflection he can stand, at least when he and Sam aren’t at each other’s throats. But Sam’s eyelids are contentedly closed, lashes dark against sun browned skin. Dean’s heart gives a little skip of disappointment as he carefully traces Sam’s lips and finishes up along his chin.
“Don’t touch the sideburns,” Sam murmurs and Dean laughs as he gives the razor one last wipe on Sam’s towel.
“Don’t worry, man, I won’t mess up your hippy ‘do.”
Sam grins as he levers himself to his feet and heads to the sink to rinse his face. “You love my ‘do.”
Dean eyes Sam’s ass as he leans to wipe off the mirror biting back a warning to not touch the glass. But if it’s not cold and hard and mirror like, Sam gives no sign and he glances back to catch the direction of Dean’s gaze.
“You know, you could lose the towel too so I could enjoy the view. Or, you could come over here and I could take it off for you.”
Dean moves so fast he gets a head rush and he sways a little as Sam puts a steadying hand on his shoulder. Maybe his beer is starting to catch up to him.
“Dean? Hey.” Sam tilts Dean’s head up and stares into his eyes. Dean’s getting what he wanted, but sighs when Sam’s gaze narrows in suspicion. “You got more going on than a little shaving nick?”
Dean tries to shift away as Sam’s hand cards through his still damp hair. His hand moves to his towel, because that might be a decent distraction but as it drops to the floor, Sam connects with the knot on the back of his skull and pain explodes through Dean’s entire body. He pitches forward into Sam’s arms, darkening vision staring straight into the mirror. There are too many. Three of him. Maybe four. Multiple Sams. All staring at them. None fainting into the other’s arms.
“Sam,” he whispers. “Sammy.” He tries to raise a leaden arm to point but he knows Sam’s eyes are only on him and the mirror fades to gray and then a black layer of frost as he collapses against his brother.
*
The room’s dim when he wakes the next morning. Sam’s room from what he can see from his warm cocoon under Sam’s blankets and Sam’s arm. He shifts a little, stilling with a soft grunt as pain shoots through his head. They haven’t been home in a while, but Sam’s sheets smell clean and vaguely like Sam. He wonders if Sam brought him straight here or stopped by his own room because it’s closer. He doesn’t have to wonder long.
“You awake?” Dean’s back is curled against Sam’s chest and Sam’s voice whispers soft against his neck.
“Yeah.”
“You okay?’
Considering his head is currently split in two by a meat cleaver, the answer would be no. But. “I’m fine, Sam.”
“Sure you are.” Sam’s still whispering, but the kid can pack a lot into a whisper. “You drove us six hours after getting your head slammed into a tree. When we got back here, you drank a shitload of beer and a half bottle of Jack instead of napping…”
“Not supposed to sleep with a concussion Sam.”
Behind him Sam takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. When he goes on it’s the quietest fury Dean’s ever heard. “Not supposed to drink with one either. And I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be using sharp objects around your neck. Or mine either.”
“Yeah,” Dean agrees, but he had been fine. Mostly. “Sorry.”
Sam huffs a laugh, breath tickling Dean’s shoulder. “Maybe one day you’ll get the hang of actually sounding sorry when you apologize.”
Dean starts to shrug, freezing at the jolt of pain. He can’t stifle the hiss that whistles through his teeth and his head threatens to explode when Sam shifts behind him.
“I’m going to get you some aspirin and an ice pack,” Sam says, rolling off the bed as carefully as he can. It’s not possible for someone the size of a small Sasquatch to be careful enough though and Dean whimpers into his pillow. “You think you could eat something?”
“Nooooo,” Dean groans and he can feel Sam nodding behind him.
“Okay. I’ll be right back.”
“Hey,” Dean says before Sam reaches the door. There’s something trying to break through the agony barrier in his brain but he can’t quite reach it. “Did you…did you see anything last night?”
“You dropped your towel just as you passed out, Dean.” Sam’s voice is wry but he stops and leans on the doorframe. “So you got all the good visuals. Just sayin’.”
“No.” Dean squeezes his eyes shut and digs into his memory. “No. The mirror. They were in the mirror.”
Sam’s voice sharpens. “Who was?”
“Us.” Dean’s voice is weak, he’s starting to fade again. “It was us, Sammy.”
“Well, yeah, Dean, we were right there. Mirrors normally show what’s right in front of them.”
“No,” Dean says again, but Sam’s already out the door and Dean blacks out before he’s halfway down the hall.
*
The next day passes in a haze of dimly lit agony. Brief bouts of consciousness disappear in a flash of light, a sudden noise or the negligible pressure of a freshly laid cool cloth across his eyes. Sam doesn’t come back to bed but Dean knows he’s close by. The soft but regular sound of pages turning is a dead giveaway. When he’s parched, Sam brings him water to sip through a straw in tiny amounts that won’t come hurtling back up. Dean hates the nausea that comes with a concussion almost more than the pain. Time crawls as day passes again into night, but the throbbing in his head slowly begins to recede and exhaustion trumps pain as he falls into actual sleep.
The dreams come almost immediately but there’s nothing strange about that. He’s had vivid nightmares from the night his mother died on and they’ve only intensified right along with the horrors of his life. Usually a good numbing with vats of alcohol tamps things down but that hasn’t been an option tonight. Still, this one’s off to a kind of benign start so maybe it’ll be one of the good ones. He’s still in Sam’s bed for one thing. Still in Sam’s room. And Sam himself is sitting beside him, back propped up against the cinderblock wall. If Sam didn’t look like he was about twelve, Dean might have woken and not be asleep at all. After one befuddled moment, Dean realizes Sam’s not twelve. His head is too far up the wall and his legs stretch too far down the bed for that. This Sam is older, but still not any version of his brother that Dean’s seen in a very long time.
“Sam,” he whispers muzzily.
“Right here,” comes a soft reply from outside Dean’s dream. Dream Sam’s lips don’t move, he just stares at Dean silently. Goosebumps pucker Dean’s skin and violent shivers wrack his body in spite of blankets piled high enough to guarantee a sweat bath under other circumstances.
“Sam,” he manages again, not sure if his shuddering gasp will be audible in the waking world but the bed dips behind him and Sam’s arms reaching out stir him awake.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Sam maneuvers himself under the blankets and Dean rolls back into his brother’s warmth. Cold as he is, Sam’s heat feels like banked coals against his bare skin. “Damn, Dean, you’re freezing.”
“You’re not cold?” Dean asks though he realizes it’s a stupid question. Sam’s about as opposite from cold as you can get as he proves by wrapping Dean’s legs in his own and enveloping his frigid toes in blessed warmth.
“Not a bit. Why?” Sam’s voice sharpens on the question. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I guess. Just a dream.” Sam shifts behind him but doesn’t speak. They’ve both learned not to ask. But there’s no law against volunteering. “You were here. But not you you. You like you were about a decade ago.”
“What did I do?” Sam’s voice is tight.
“Nothing. Just sat there and stared at me.”
“Sounds like me back then.” Sam snorts softly. “Trust me, man, it wasn’t because I wanted to do nothing.”
Dean shivers again and Sam’s arms wrap around him more tightly. Dream Sam definitely wanted to do something. Dean drifts back to sleep wondering exactly what that something might be.
*
When Dean’s eyelids ungum themselves the next morning, he’s alone. He’s warm though and his head hardly aches at all, so overall, it’s a win. Groaning softly, he slowly levers himself up until he’s sitting at the edge of the mattress. A slow, languid stretch works out the kinks and also gives him a good whiff of his pits.
“Ugh,” he mutters, turning his head away in disgust. There’s a t-shirt and pair of sweats at the foot of the bed and Dean snags them, a quick sniff showing them to be passably clean. Standing gives him a brief head rush and the faint memory of pain, but a hand on the wall until it passes keeps him steady. If this were his room, his towel would be hanging on the back of a chair, but Sam’s is probably in a drawer somewhere.
“Sammy?” he yells, cocking his head until he hears his brother’s reply from down the hall.
“You up?”
“Yeah,” Dean calls. “You making breakfast?”
“Dude, it’s five o’clock.”
“So? Bacon and eggs, bitch. And where’s a towel?”
“Third drawer down.” Sam’s voice is getting closer.
Dean makes his way around the bed, stiff from being horizontal for so long. He twists his back before bending to pull open the drawer and grabs a fluffy white towel from the stack Sam’s been hiding from him. When he slowly uncurls his way upright again, Sam’s snuck into the room on ninja feet, reflection staring at Dean from the mirror.
“Dude, stop bogarting the towels,” Dean says, holding the item in question up.
“You never wash them,” Sam replies and Dean jerks his head toward the doorway, where, big as life, Sam is standing somewhere not at all matching up to his reflection.
“Crap.” Dean whirls but there’s no pseudo-Sam behind him. He holds up a hand, halting Sam as he starts to enter the room. Sam’s got weapons hidden all over the place, just as Dean has In his room but Dean’s got no clue what kind of bullets he’d need. Still, any port in a storm. “Gun?” Sam starts to answer but before he gets two words out, Dean’s grabbed from behind and yanked backwards hard. Instinctively, he curls in to avoid breaking his neck when he hits the wall. He’s not going to be able to avoid the mirror but it won’t be the first time he’s slammed head first into one. Sam’s coming, Dean knows but there’s no time, it’s too quick and the ice cold grip of fingers digging into his biceps is unbreakable. He scrunches his eyes closed and prepares for concussion round two but it’s like the wall disappears and he’s dropped heavily on his ass onto a frigid floor.
“Son of a bitch,” he mutters, spinning to face whatever dragged him here and skittering backwards until his shoulders press against the wall. He lifts his hands but one’s clutching the towel and the other’s got a firm grip on the sweats and t-shirt. Neither is likely to save him here. Where ever the fuck here is. “Where am I?”
“Where does it look like?”
Dean’s eyes dart around the room. It looks like a narrowed down portion of Sam’s room but Sam’s room is where he just got dragged out of, so that’s not it. Plus it was warm in Sam’s room and this place is freezing. He really doesn’t want to, but he fixes the figure leaning against the opposite wall with a glare, careful to stare at its face and not the blood drenched shirt and jacket below it. “It looks like a slice of Sam’s room was transported into a freezer. Am I close?”
“Kind’a,” the figure shrugs. “We’re on the other side of the mirror. Sorry it’s so cold, but, you know, can’t really help it. Might help if you put on some clothes.”
Dean snarls, but pulls the sweatpants up his goosebumped legs and throws the t-shirt over his head so quickly that his line of sight is obscured only for a moment. He wraps the towel around his feet and glares at the creature across the room. From the tip of its mop topped head, down the bloodied shirt and jeans to the solid work boots covering oversized feet it’s a perfect facsimile of Sam. The Sam that got shot hunting a pack of werewolves. The Sam he’d mistakenly left for dead in a filthy backwoods cabin. The Sam that had come back to save his stupid ass. “What the hell are you?”
“Maybe I’m the ghost of Christmas past,” not-Sam says, spreading blood caked hands and shifting enough that Dean can see the gory bullet wound through the hole in its shirt.
“Yeah, and maybe I’m the Queen of fucking Sheba,” Dean growls. “What are you?”
“Well, maybe I’m just Sam.” The figure shrugs and eyes Dean wearily. “A piece of Sam. One you see in your nightmares. One he sees in his nightmares. Part of what you really see whenever you can look yourself in the face in a mirror.”
“Oh, fuck that,” Dean says, levering himself to his feet. He risks a quick look over his shoulder when he reaches the height of the mirror on Sam’s wall. His brother’s out there, laptop open, shotgun at his side. Sam looks up and catches Dean’s eye, following that with a what the hell spreading of his hands. Dean just shrugs and reaches out a hand to probe the glass, making sure he can’t just dive right back through to the other side. Because that would just be too fucking easy, his side feels as solid as concrete. He watches as Sam’s gaze drifts past him to the apparition across the reflection. Catalogues Sam’s flinch and watches his brother’s face draw down in pain. Considers that this thing’s insights are one hundred percent correct. He gives Sam a wink and turns back to his dead doppelganger. “So, are we just here to psychoanalyze my dreams? Work a little Sigmund Freud on me? Sorry, dude, I’m not that easy. You don’t know me. You don’t know Sam.”
“I am Sam,” it says again. “And I know you. Maybe better than he does. The two of you, man, Freud could spend his whole career on you stonewalling each other. But us? We’re a little more…”
“Transparent,” chimes in a new voice off to Dean’s left. Dean whirls to see the spitting image of himself, except dressed so he’s not fucking freezing in black and red. The newcomer gives Dean a grin and raises an eyebrow. “Transparent, get it?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dean mutters. “You’ve got a fake me too?”
“He doesn’t get it,” says not Dean, with an exaggerated sigh in his not brother’s direction. In a flash it’s in front of Dean and before he can move, it grips his head between its hands. Suddenly Dean’s not in the weird reflection of Sam’s room but on the floor of a hospital drug lock up, choking on his own vomit after downing a double handful of barbiturates washed down with a few slugs of peroxide. His undignified death, Billie, his revival pass in an instant. He wants to pull away, run, but there’s nowhere to go and he’s frozen until the hands fall away from his head and he sags back against the wall.
“Jesus,” he murmurs, rubbing his temples. “What the hell. Are you…you can’t be…spirits?”
“Yahtzee,” his double says, rolling its eyes at not Sam. “Give the man a prize.”
“Look,” Dean says, rubbing his forehead, because Jesus Christ. He’s already accepted the fact that he’s through the fucking looking glass with annoying supernatural beings, because this is his damn life, but spirits? No way. “That’s a great story you’re telling but there’s one problem with it. Sam and me? We’re not dead.”
The apparitions looks at each other, back at Dean and start to laugh. “Dude,” not Sam says. “You, yourself, hold an unbreakable world record in being dead. Thank God reality reset every time the Trickster killed you or we’d never have rounded everyone up. It’s already like herding cats. Me, I’ve got a good few deaths under my belt, but you are the champ, champ.”
Dean’s head is beginning to throb. “Everyone?” He’s barely gotten the word out when he’s frozen to his core. Nightmare visions pound the backs of his eyes. His father, possessed, eyes yellow, hurting him mentally and physically. Draining his life. His baby, shattered. Sam and his father and a hospital and a reaper. It’s there and gone in a flash and Dean gasps and drops to his knees as another specter joins the party. This one’s slighter, younger, also barefoot and wearing hospital scrub pants and a white t-shirt. The Sam from his dream appears beside him and Dean knows there’s an unimaginable stab wound in this Sam’s back that he in no way ever wants to deal with again.
“See?” cabin Sam asks softly as a Dean with his chest shredded by hell hounds shimmers into view, followed by another pair of spirits, their bodies riddled with buckshot.
Dean doesn’t see. He really, really doesn’t. “How did this happen? And what the hell are you all doing here? This place is warded so nothing supernatural gets in.”
“Well,” overdose Dean says, twisting his lips, “last question first because it’s the easiest. We got in because we’re you. We’re all you. As for how? Who the hell knows. Sam, here, thinks that every time we died, pieces of our souls got stuck in whatever mirrors happened to be nearby. Remember Bloody Mary? Kind of like that. And maybe it’s just because we’re Winchesters with the world’s worst luck ever. So, we were all out there alone and, being Winchesters, we could feel each other out there in the cold. And, being Winchesters, the powers that be were never going to let us pass on. Probably because our actual damn bodies were still alive.”
“Still alive,” murmurs Cold Oak Sam and shivers run up Dean’s spine.
“So, see Dean.” Cabin Sam says. “We know you. We know what horrors each and every version of you here sees when they look inside themselves. Mirrors don’t lie. They can’t.”
Every instinct wails against it, but Dean turns his back on the spirits and leans his forehead on the mirror, needing to see his Sam. His brother’s right there, staring at the ever growing group in the reflection with the same confusion Dean feels. He presses one palm against the glass and Sam meets it on the other side. Dean takes a deep breath and then lets it out, turning to lean against the glass, more secure just knowing Sam is at his back even if it’s currently just an illusion.
“So, what’s the end game?” he says, jaw tight. “What do you all want?”
“We want to come home.” It’s deadpan and achingly desperate in unison from the pair of spirits who bought it at the wrong end of a pair of shotguns.
“Home?” Dean stares around the room. “Look, I know you might want to move on, but Sammy and I aren’t kicking off just so you can get into heaven. Or where ever. No.”
“Still not up to speed,” overdose Dean says, shaking his head. “Must be the head injury. You. You and Sam are our homes. We’re tired and we’ve come a long, long way. We want to come home.”
Dean just stares at them. “You. All of you. Want to come back inside me?” He thinks of just the two spirits that touched him and the feelings he’d been flooded with.
“It’s where we belong.” It’s quiet but assertive from a version of himself Dean can’t quite place. If this him died violently it sure doesn’t show. The other Dean twists his lip. “Hi, I’m the you that got purposely flatlined to meet with Death to get Sam’s soul back.”
“Good to see you again,” Dean snarks, but his heart really isn’t in it. He looks around frantically, gripped with a sudden fear. “Metatron…”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” overdose Dean says. “The Mark locked everything down tight. No souls went for a stroll that day.” He glances up at cabin Sam standing beside him. “Same thing with Sam and Lucifer. He was alive when he went into the gateway. Nothing stayed behind.”
“We’re just about a few moments in time,” cabin Sam says softly. “And everything we are is already inside you. Once we’re back where we belong everything will even out. Everything will meld together.”
Dean rubs his chest over his protection tattoo. Under any other circumstances it would be an excellent excuse to say no. But he’s terrified that it won’t work this time. These spirits are him. They are Sam. And really, they could have popped back into him at any time without the courtesy of asking.
“I can’t speak for Sam,” he says slowly.
“Yes,” says cabin Sam. “We’ve got some issues with anything taking over our bodies.” Dean looks away as the spirit continues. “I think there are a lot of reasons to avoid looking too deeply at yourself sometimes. But if you do it, maybe he’ll see that it won’t harm him. That we won’t harm him.”
Dean turns back to face the mirror, to meet the eyes that tell him who he is, just in case he loses sight of it as the spirits re-integrate. Sam’s got his worried face on, but he presses his palm to Dean’s again and gives him a little nod like his gigantic brain has already figured out what’s happening. “Okay,” Dean says. “Just…one at a time, all right? And if Sam says yes, you come out to him. He doesn’t come in here.”
He locks his jaw and keeps his eyes on Sam’s as long buried terror and agony and despair cascade through him. But the spirits were right. It’s all right there anyway. Dean takes each memory in turn and shoves it into the proper slot, burying it alongside all the non-fatal traumas he’s been repressing for decades. The flood of sensation slows to a trickle and then stops, leaving him cold and swaying on his feet. He’s about to pitch forward into the mirror, adding a new knot to the front of his head when strong hands guide him from behind and he falls through into his Sam’s arms.
“Dean. Hey. You okay?”
Sam’s warm and Dean’s freezing so he leans against his brother, absorbing as much heat as he can. “Mmmmmm,” he murmurs into Sam’s chest. “M’okay.”
“Damn, you’re cold,” Sam says, dragging Dean toward the bed. “Gotta get you warmed up.”
Dean’s suddenly exhausted, and bed sounds like the best idea ever, but he sets his feet enough to stop Sam in his tracks. “In the mirror, Sammy. They were us.”
“Yeah, I saw.”
A yawn threatens to split Dean’s jaw in two but he can’t let go yet. “They needed to come home.” He meets his brother’s gaze steadily. “It’s not exactly Disneyland letting them in, but it’s okay. They’re okay.”
Sam just nods and manhandles Dean the rest of the way to the bed. Dean flops down and wraps himself in layers of blankets, forcing his eyelids to stay open and trained on his brother. Sam stands staring at the mirror for what feels like hours before he finally gives a curt nod. Dean reaches up to wrap Sam’s fingers in his own and he holds on tight until Sam’s spirits are back where they belong too. He manages to stay awake long enough to feel Sam climb into bed behind him before falling asleep with Sam’s breath in his hair.
*
When Dean next wakes he feels better than he has in months. Sam’s still snoring and Dean leaves him to his rest as he heads for a long overdue shower. Dean snags a new towel from Sam’s drawer with a suspicious glance at the mirror before heading out the door.
The water’s hot and the soap feels fantastic rinsing the grime from his hair and body. After, he strops the razor, slow and steady until the blade sings then lathers his beard for the shearing. It’s hard, and he’s out of practice, but he forces himself to meet his own gaze in the mirror. Everything’s still there. All the guilt and shame and pain, maybe a little bit more, but it’s not so impossible today to face it. He finishes without a nick, without spilling a single drop of his own blood and it feels like a tiny victory. He rinses the razor and hangs it back on its hook on the wall, then heads out to the kitchen to make bacon and eggs for his brother.