SPN Big Bang: In the Darkness (With You) - Part II
See masterpost for summary and further information.
They do hunt the wendigo, and it goes well. It goes awesomely. Dean’s always hated hunting wendigos because they are tough sons of bitches: crafty, quick, strong, and equipped with a little too much human intelligence for his liking. It also doesn’t help that they have centuries of experience in hunting and while you try to trap them, they will try to trap you right back if they know you’re coming. In other words, hunting wendigos is fucking dangerous and not something he’d ever have thought he’d enjoy.
‘Enjoy’, of course, is too strong a word. The hunt still made him nervous and tense and a wendigo would not have been his first choice of a sparring partner when getting back in business, but it wasn’t like it could kill them, and that helped a lot. Also, starting with an easy salt-and-burn was out of the question for obvious reasons, and wendigos have the added advantage of being entirely unimpressed by salt, iron, or any other stuff ghosts, on principle, can’t handle.
This time, for maybe the first time ever when facing one of these monsters, the hunters had a definite advantage. For one, though they can be solid enough if they want to be, they apparently don’t smell - lso they didn’t have to wait for the right wind but could go right in. Actually, all they had to do was wait until the wendigo was in his cave, corner it, and finish the job.
Naturally, Sam had to hurt himself doing so, which is quite an accomplishment considering he’s dead and all, but maybe also a consequence of that. They didn’t go in as carefully as they would have while alive. Both of them had flare guns, but when they were about to fire, the wendigo jumped forward in a show of fear Dean wasn’t used to from these things. It managed to knock the gun out of his hands and lunged for Sammy, and Sammy should just have flickered out of existence or maybe just become a little less material, but then he wouldn’t have been able to hold the flare gun and shoot and so the monster’s claws went straight through him.
And not through him the way Dean’s arm used to the first time they played ghosts (but strangely doesn’t anymore), but straight through him the way sharp claws run through flesh and muscle. Sam yelled in pain and Dean yelled in fear for Sam and the wendigo screeched because it was busting into flames the same moment Sam’s blood splattered across the wall of the cave.
Okay, so that was the part that hadn’t been fun at all.
Sam had kind of swayed on his feet afterwards and then sank to his knees in a way much too similar to Cold Oak (and if it’s not redundant to worry about that now, Dean doesn’t know what is) and Dean had run over to him, held him, his hands all over his brother’s body. But there had been no wound, even as Sam winced. All the blood was already gone. “I guess my body simply remembered that it doesn’t exist anymore,” was the explanation Sam later came up with, when they made their way back to the car.
Afterwards they went for burgers and even Sam ate something without bitching. They tried to report back to Bobby from the first public phone they found but the reception was terrible, only white noise instead of voices. So they gave up and made their way back, taking their time. Bobby wouldn’t worry. And Dean and Sam had all the time in the world.
+|+|+
“I’m sorry,” Tessa said, for the first time with something like regret. “There’s nothing I can do for you.”
Dean was still watching Sam, held back by the reaper behind him and looking so helpless. “What are you talking about? We’re both dead, right? And we’re soul mates or some such bullshit. We’re meant to be together!”
“You were,” Tessa confirms. “But that only means you get to share a Heaven if you both end up in Heaven. You and Sam are headed in different directions, Dean. You can’t stay together. You won’t be together ever again.”
There’s understanding in Sam’s eyes now, and naked fear. “No!” Dean shouts, throwing himself forward only to be held back with seemingly no effort at all. “He did his time in Hell! He didn’t even deserve to go there in the first place. He never meant to start the apocalypse, and don’t you dare tell me something about good intentions paving the road to Hell! Even so, does his sacrifice count for nothing?” Tessa shook her head, opened her mouth, but Dean interrupted her. “Don’t tell me he damned himself with something he did when he was soulless! How can you damn a soul with something that happened when it wasn’t even present?”
“Calm down, Dean,” Tessa snapped with a glare that softened only seconds later into a look of vague sadness and sympathy. “It’s not Sam who’s going to Hell. It’s you.”
+|+|+
They need two days to get back to South Dakota, because while the hunt was in Michigan, it was up in the utmost north corner of Michigan. Actually, Dean’s half-convinced that they crossed the border to Canada at least twice on their way to the wendigo’s cave. And there are only back roads in the area, curvy and steep. No chance to drive very fast. So they take their time, make a few stops. They are both in good spirits and Sam’s laugh sounds so wonderful Dean wants to kiss him. His smile is so bright it nearly blinds Dean to the dark circles under his eyes.
Dean is so used to seeing them. He only needs to close his eyes to see Sammy’s face, pale and gaunt, his eyes red-rimmed and focused on something Dean can’t see. Never on him. Never closing in sleep. Sam went so long without finding any kind of rest in his final months that Dean is convinced Cas kept him alive with his new God-powers. The human body isn’t meant to survive sleep deprivation of that magnitude.
He’s starting to look like that again, and at some point Dean can no longer ignore that. It confuses him, though. They don’t need sleep anymore. Sam shouldn’t be tired.
But Sam’s also in a good mood, as if the hunt changed something, and Dean doesn’t want to worry. He just wants to enjoy this. They take detours on the way back, to enjoy the scenery. They hit a bar filled with cigarette smoke and a barkeeper who keeps cursing as he hits the small television under the ceiling that refuses to show more than wildly flickering images. Dean hustles pool just for the heck of it, and the guys he plays against kind of despise him despite his charming attitude, so they are extra willing to hand him his ass. They are also extra pissed when they lose but surprisingly enough don’t make a scene but just fuck off. Sam watches from the table, nursing a beer but hardly drinking any of it. After the game, Dean sits with him, kicking him under the table. “You drink like a pussy,” he scolds. “You’re making me look bad just by being associated with you.”
“Dude.” Sam shakes his head when Dean grabs his bottle and empties it to prove a point. “You can’t even get drunk anymore.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Seriously. You don’t have a body.”
“But the beer doesn’t know that. And it’s not exactly dripping through me, is it?” He looks down just to make sure, since that would be embarrassing.
“My point. I mean, what happens to the stuff we consume? Technically, it can’t be staying inside us. We don’t digest anymore, and yet we’re not swelling the more we eat or drink. Also, it’s material and we’re not, technically speaking. And we shouldn’t be able to take it with us when we do the ghost thing and flicker out of existence.”
Sam’s habit of overthinking everything can be so annoying. Especially since it has got Dean thinking as well, and he’s thinking of undigested food and beer splashing to the ground when they give up being material. Kind of disgusting, really.
“We vaporize everything inside us with our awesome ghost-powers!” he decides. “It gets inside us and ceases to exist.”
Sam gives him a look. It’s his patented ‘I May Be Younger Than You But I Have Been Your Mental Superior Since I Was Three’ look.
“Think about it!” Dean is starting to like the thought. “We could end all risk of atomic wars by eating the missiles.”
“There’s it’s more likely that all our food magically gets transported somewhere else.”
“Like?”
“Like our corpses, for instance.”
Dean winces. That’s not a thought he appreciates. “I’m pretty sure Cas vaporized those.”
“You sure? Maybe he keeps them around. I’ve been thinking, anyway. With his powers he could bring us back to life anytime he wants.”
There goes Dean’s good mood. “Why would he do that?”
“Why does Cas do anything right now?” Sam persists. “Maybe at some point he’ll get bored and feel like it. Maybe he thinks we haven’t suffered enough yet.”
Yeah, seriously, why is Sam doing that? “If he had wanted to, he would have done it already.”
Dean tries to distract himself - and his brother - by turning his attention to the pretty girl behind the counter of the bar and throwing her an obviously flirty smile. She smiles back, but it lack’s conviction. Then she looks somewhere else, but Dean keeps catching her glancing over to them every few seconds. She doesn’t look interested, though. She looks unsure and confused.
It’s okay, though. He wasn’t going to get serious here - after all, he’s dead, and that would have been seriously awkward if she ever found out. That thought is followed by another one of self-preservation. What if she didn’t take the pill and the condom broke? Was it possible to get impregnated by ghost-sperm? Would she then give birth to a half-alive, half-immaterial baby? Would her womb become haunted? How do you exorcise a haunted womb?
“Dean.” Sam kicks him under the table to get his attention. “You have a seriously creepy expression on your face right now.”
“I’ve been thinking about haunted wombs.”
Sam screws up his face in a disgusted grimace. “I don’t even want to know.”
“Neither do I,” Dean decides. “Let’s get out of here. I made good money tonight. We can get a room and have a boys’ night with bad pizza and bad movies and beer, all without having to worry about Bobby waking up.”
“Sounds good to me,” Sam agrees, proving that they are related after all. As they leave, Dean slaps his brother’s back and proclaims, “And I will show you that ghosts can get drunk after all!”
+|+|+
They leave some of Dean’s hard-earned notes at the table when they go, if only because they don’t want to attract attention and because Sam won’t let Dean flicker into ghost-land and finally test his theory of whether or not they can actually walk through solid walls. Not here, he says - they’re going to spend the night in the area, after all, and the last thing they need is a local hunter coming after their asses.
So they pay, and they get a room in the only motel in town, a slightly run-down but surprisingly comfortable two-storey building. Their room is on the second floor, right beside the vacancy sign. Fortunately, the lower half of the glowing letters, the part right in front of their window, is broken so the light isn’t too annoying. Dean suspects that they’ve been broken on purpose by someone trying to sleep in here.
Then he remembers that sleep isn’t what they are here for. It’s odd, how they still gravitate towards these places even though they don’t need them anymore.
Sadly, the TV is a piece of shit. So is the reception in the entire area. Dean tries to call Bobby again from the phone at the lobby, but there are only weird noises on the line. He says something anyway, hoping maybe Bobby might hear him, and has the guy at the front desk order them their pizza since he keeps insisting that the phone works perfectly fine. Amazingly enough, pizza arrives fifteen minutes later, and for lack of any bad movie to watch, Dean and Sam let a fight for the last slice of pizza escalate until they are jumping around on their wonderfully bouncy beds and throw pillows at each other.
If there’s anyone next door, they probably think they are having sex in here. The realization makes Dean jump in a sex-rhythm, and as soon as Sam realizes what he’s doing he jumps over to Dean’s bad and tries to smother him with a pillow.
They wrestle on the bed, bouncing even more in their fight for dominance, and wow, that doesn’t really help, does it? There are yelled insults and Sam evilly abusing the knowledge he has of Dean’s weak spots by ticking him in the right places to make his limbs turn to jelly as he gasps for air (it’s just this one spot right beneath his ribs that has to be touched just like that), yet somehow they end up with Dean lying on top of Sam, pinning him to the mattress. Their laughter dies down and in its wake they are looking into each other’s faces, redundant breathing brushing redundant skin until Dean quietly says, “Go to sleep, little brother. I’ll make sure you won’t fade away.”
It proves how exhausted Sam really is when he just accepts the words. He doesn’t say anything back, he doesn’t nod or shake his head or anything. He just holds Dean’s gaze for another few seconds and then he lets his eyes drift shut, Dean still pinning his wrists beside his head, his weight covering his brother like a blanket.
After all this time, Sam still trusts him this much. Unconditionally. Sometimes, Dean feels suffocated by how much he loves this boy.
+|+|+
Sam doesn’t fade away. It’s much, much worse.
+|+|+
The nightmares start after barely an hour. Dean watches from the other bed as Sam starts to twitch and shift. He waits for him to start flickering, to lose his hold on this world, but that doesn’t happen. Instead, Sam suddenly arches and screams, and his fingers claw at the covers he’s lying on.
Dean’s over with him in seconds. He shakes Sam to no avail, takes his wrists to hold his hands still and that’s when he notices the blood. Sam’s nails are gone. Broken off or torn out, still sticking in the covers of the bed. On three fingers the skin is missing down to the bone and Dean doesn’t understand, doesn’t get what is happening.
Sam screams in terror and pain and blood spreads red under his shirt. Dean doesn’t understand but he knows that he has to wake his brother, has to make this stop. He yells and shakes Sam hard, harder, feels bones break like twigs under his hand and Sam’s screams become gurgling sounds and coughs as he begins to suffocate on the blood in this throat. But the shaking helps, the shaking has the desired effect, because Sam opens his eyes and Dean finds only empty and bloody sockets under his lids.
(Someone next door is banging against the wall, yelling for them to shut up.)
“Shh, Sammy,” Dean whispers, pulling his sobbing, chocking brother close. “Oh God, oh Sammy, shh. You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.” He presses him against his chest, holds him so close that he doesn’t have to see (only feel the blood soaking through his clothes) and rocks back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
+|+|+
Eventually, Sam falls still. Eventually, Dean stops rocking and Sam pushes away from him with his bloody but unharmed hands, lifts his head so Dean can see the blood on his chin that is no longer followed by new blood. He blinks and looks at his brother through tired eyes.
They’re ghosts. Their physical manifestation is based only on their self-image and belief. Sam dreamt of being taken apart. It makes sense. This was a stupid idea. It makes so much fucking sense.
They don’t try the sleeping thing again.
+|+|+
The next morning, they leave at dawn, both of them eager to get back to Bobby’s place and the sense of security it offers. As they leave the room Sam lingers in the doorway, looking back as if searching for something. He shakes himself and turns away before Dean can ask, closing the door with an audible click and determination.
They don’t speak a single word all the way back to Sioux Falls.
+|+|+
“No.”
Sam’s voice reached Dean as if from a far distance. He looked over at his brother and felt relief because no matter what, Sam was not going to Hell. That was what mattered. The only thing that should matter - more than the fear that washed over Dean at the prospect of going back, and more than the soul-deep terror that came with the knowledge that he wasn’t going to see his brother again.
He wasn’t going to see his brother again. The reapers would take them in different directions and they would never be together again. Never.
Never.
Going to Hell didn’t matter.
“Why?” he heard himself asking. “How does that even make sense? I’ve been to Hell. I know what kind of deeds get you there. And somehow I don’t see how I fit the bill.”
“The rules have changed,” Tessa told him, and the way she said it made clear she wasn’t happy about it. “Heaven is under new management now, and the new management has decided that you can’t get into it.”
“Cas can’t do that!” Dean protested, though he had seen often enough in the final chapter of his life that there were a hell lot of things he had thought that Cas couldn’t do that he could, and did. “There have to be rules to prevent this kind of thing.”
“There are, yes. Under normal circumstance Castiel could not have denied you access to Paradise. But these aren’t normal circumstances. You committed fratricide and suicide, Dean. You gave him an excuse.”
“But he did that to help me!” Sam protested. He was fighting against his reaper now and the guy was looking impatient and this was supposed to be the last time Dean ever saw him: being pulled away from him against his will.
“It doesn’t matter,” Tessa said, a lot more gently than when she was talking to Dean. “Castiel is ruling Heaven and he can bend the rules to his liking. You two are special cases because he wants you punished. He will not give you any more than he absolutely has to.”
“But that’s not-” Sam was interrupted by the reaper’s hand on his arm. He turned to stare at the guy and then at Dean with a look of understanding and horror on his face. And Dean knew what that meant, even before Tessa touched his own shoulder and said, “We have to go now.”
“Wait!” Dean didn’t move, but he felt compelled to. Tessa didn’t even touch him anymore and yet she was pulling him along as she walked away. “Don’t we get a choice? We can always stay here!”
“Not you, Dean. You got yourself an express ticket to Hell, and I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.”
“Then don’t deliver me!”
“I can’t do that. You know that as well as I do.”
Yes, Dean did. But he didn’t care. Sam’s reaper was walking away in the opposite direction and Sam threw his brother a look of such desperation that Dean knew he couldn’t leave him. It was simply out of the question.
He didn’t think. He just knew that he had to reach Sammy, had to be with him. Taking a step in the wrong direction, the one he was not supposed to go was hard, so hard, but he did it, and Sam did the same, came a step closer. It was as if a strong wind was trying to blow them away, but Dean fought, and in the end it stood no chance against his love for his brother. No force in the world did, not even something as inevitable as death.
It got harder with every step and at some point the male reaper said, “You can’t do this!” and Tessa said, “You don’t know what you’re doing. Stop this!” but Dean reached out with arms that felt like lead and his fingers brushed Sam’s, then grabbed them, and then they pulled each other close and held on as the storm blew around them.
Heaven and Hell had tried to separate them before but Dean would not let his brother be taken from him. The storm passed and when they looked up they were alone, standing on an empty street somewhere on earth and had nothing but each other.
It was a long time before they broke their embrace.
+|+|+
Bobby’s not there when they reach the salvage yard, and somehow, that feels like another blow. He’s probably just gone to the shop, or took up another hunt, but for some reason the brothers feel abandoned and lost in the empty house, unsure what to do.
They are dead and things aren’t going to get better. Usually, people think that the deceased have left all the bad stuff behind them. It’s a pretty illusion Sam always hated having to destroy.
At least Bobby didn’t redo the ghost-protection, so they know they are still welcome. “He could have called,” Dean growls as he flops down on the couch and Sam refrains from pointing out to him why that would have been out of the question even if they still had cells.
He doesn’t say anything himself. The house feels dead without Bobby in it. After a minute, he can’t bear being inside anymore and finds himself in the backyard, needing the sensation of the air on his skin. There are birds singing in the trees; just one or two, but enough to tell him that this is the world of the living. They are still here.
Sam’s palms press against the hood of an old Volvo and he braces himself against the car, taking deep breaths. He feels like screaming, like running.
A hand runs down his spine and he freezes.
It’s not Dean’s hand; this is not the way Dean touches him. The hand is joined by another, resting on his hips, then both moving forward to close around his middle. Sam can’t breathe. The weight of a too-cold body presses against his back and just when he hears the intake of breath right beside his ear that comes before words being spoken, he squirms out of the grip, turns around and finds himself looking at nothing.
Desperately, he tries to calm his wildly beating heart. He knows this wasn’t real. (But he knew that as well, when he was seeing things in Castiel’s prison, and that didn’t do anything to help him until in the end he forgot.)
This was supposed to be over.
“You need to come with me, Sam.”
Sam flinches at the sound of a woman’s voice, but this time, there really is someone standing between the car wrecks, slowly coming closer. It’s Tessa, the reaper. Instinctively, Sam takes a step back and is stopped by the car.
She seems to be real, but that isn’t helping in this case.
“How can I even see you?” he wonders. “This is the material world.”
“Yes, but you aren’t any more alive than I am. Less, in fact, because I was never, in your sense of the term, alive in the first place.” She stops, seeing that Sam’s not reacting too well to her presence. “This is no place for you, Sam. You can’t stay.”
“I guess that goes for any ghost. We’re not leaving. Not as long as Dean is going to Hell.”
“This isn’t about Dean,” Tessa tells him. “This is just about you. Because if you don’t come with me, to Heaven, where you belong, you are going to Hell, Sam. And there is nothing anyone could do about it. It’s not a choice.”
Even as he shakes his head, Sam knows that she is right. He can feel it, can feel himself slipping. He’s hanging on to this world and his brother with all he has but Hell is bleeding through the memories that are part of his soul and sooner or later he’ll lose his grip and he’ll fall…
“Is that true?” That’s Dean, and damn, he’s not supposed to hear this, he’s not supposed to know. Sam knows what will come now, because his brother is a stupid, selfless asshole.
First, Dean comes closer, his wide-eyed stare fixed on Sam. Not on Tessa. He knows where to look for answers, already suspects Sam of not being honest with him. But Sam’s shaking his head, searching for words, and it’s Tessa who says, “I’m sorry, Dean. You can’t keep him.”
“I’m talking to my brother!” Dean snaps. “Sam, is that true? Is it that bad?”
But Sam’s looking at Tessa. “I’m not leaving him.”
“You will, Sam. You can’t stay for long, so it’s Heaven or Hell, but you’re leaving your brother behind ether way. Don’t you understand?” She turns to Dean. “If Sam doesn’t accompany me to Heaven, he will end up in Hell, tortured for eternity. This is his only chance.”
This time, Sam is speaking directly to Dean. “I’m not leaving you.”
“The fuck you are!” Dean’s yelling now, as Sam knew he would. “I won’t let you go to Hell, Sammy! Not for me. Not because of me! I should never have kept you here in the first place.”
“That was my decision as well and I stand by it!” Sam snaps back. “How long do you think you can stay here without me, huh? Do you think I’m gonna let you go to Hell any more than you me?”
“Yes, I am! I’m the one Hell-bound, so it’s my decision. Tessa, you take him.”
“I can’t,” the reaper helpfully provides and Sam almost breathes a sigh of relief. “He’ll have to come willingly.”
“And I won’t.” Sam crosses his arms before his chest, leans back against the car.
“Don’t be an ass! You’re not helping me with this. Do you think I get to stay here any longer with you in Hell than with you in Heaven? I’m gonna end up there anyway. The only difference is that in one case, I’ll have the comforting knowledge of you being safe and happy and in the other case, I’ll get extra torture from knowing that you’re down there as well and it’s my fault.”
“Don’t be a fucking martyr about it. This isn’t your fault, it’s me being selfish. How happy do you think I would be in Heaven knowing you’re burning in Hell? I might not be able to save you from going down, but at least we’re going together.” Sam turns back to the waiting reaper. “Thank you for the warning. I’m staying.”
She sighs, nods, and disappears. The next moment, Dean’s fist collides with Sam’s cheek.
“How can you be so unbelievably stupid?” he growls with tears in his eyes before turning away to stalk back to the house. He doesn’t make it halfway there before he turns back, comes over to Sam and pulls him into an embrace that knocks the air right out of is brother. “I hate you so fucking much,” he whispers.
+|+|+
When Bobby comes back that evening, he notices that something happened right away, knowing them far too well not to pick up the signs - the biggest of which is Dean sitting on the couch with Sam held securely in his arms.
“What’s wrong? You look like someone’s dancing a flamenco on your graves.” Which is a silly thing to say since they don’t have graves. Or maybe they do, and Cas is dancing a flamenco on them right now. Dean tries not to imagine that.
Sam doesn’t move or give any indication of having noticed their old friend’s return, so Dean sighs and tells Bobby about Tessa’s visit and her less-than-optimistic prognosis. When he’s done, Bobby rubs thumb and index finger of his hand over his eyes and goes to get beers for all of them.
Dean and Sam finally separate to accept them, and Dean can tell Bobby appreciates that. Their sudden physical closeness must be worrying him; they’re not usually the cuddly types unless one of them has recently died.
Which kind of excuses them for the rest of forever.
“So, Sam’s soul is threatening to fall into Hell,” Bobby sums up. “Okay. I get that. But why would you have to go there if Sam’s not here anymore, Dean? Sam could get to safety and you’d just stay here. You might not be able to see each other again, but would that really be worse than going to Hell?”
So maybe he doesn’t know them so well after all. Still, Dean would make the sacrifice if it meant that Sam got away, but that’s not how it works. He and Sam, they never talked about it, but they both feel it: there’s a bond between them that anchors them, helps them hang on to this world because they hang on to each other. Dean feels the loss whenever Sam flickers a level deeper without him or even if he’s more than a dozen yards away. Without Sam by his side, it get’s harder to ignore the fact that he’s not meant to be part of this world anymore, and he has no illusions about his ability to stay once Sam is gone and out of reach for good.
“That’s not how it works,” Sam says tiredly. “We need each other. Might have something to do with the soul mates thing.”
This gets them raised eyebrows. “Soul mates?”
“It’s a long story. What it comes down to is that we’re not really supposed to separate.”
“Well, if that ain’t touching. But the point remains that right now you’re both bound for Hell together. Am I the only one who thinks we need to do something about that?”
“No. But as it happens, I am the only one who can do something about it.”
Dean turns to Sam, feeling a sudden rush of hope because that sounds like a plan. The emotion dies when he sees the awkward little smile on his brother’s face. “I could simply not give in,” Sam tells him. “I can fight this. Getting a hand on it already. And as long as I do, no one’s going anywhere.”
Dean stares at him, then shares a look with Bobby. This is hardly the best plan ever. But then, they’d depended on Sam’s willpower before, because there was nothing else that could have helped them, and it ended up saving the world. Maybe this time it can save them for a change.
If Dean manages to ignore the way Sam flinches sometimes, shies away from food or turns to look at things that aren’t there, he might even make himself believe that.
NEXT
They do hunt the wendigo, and it goes well. It goes awesomely. Dean’s always hated hunting wendigos because they are tough sons of bitches: crafty, quick, strong, and equipped with a little too much human intelligence for his liking. It also doesn’t help that they have centuries of experience in hunting and while you try to trap them, they will try to trap you right back if they know you’re coming. In other words, hunting wendigos is fucking dangerous and not something he’d ever have thought he’d enjoy.
‘Enjoy’, of course, is too strong a word. The hunt still made him nervous and tense and a wendigo would not have been his first choice of a sparring partner when getting back in business, but it wasn’t like it could kill them, and that helped a lot. Also, starting with an easy salt-and-burn was out of the question for obvious reasons, and wendigos have the added advantage of being entirely unimpressed by salt, iron, or any other stuff ghosts, on principle, can’t handle.
This time, for maybe the first time ever when facing one of these monsters, the hunters had a definite advantage. For one, though they can be solid enough if they want to be, they apparently don’t smell - lso they didn’t have to wait for the right wind but could go right in. Actually, all they had to do was wait until the wendigo was in his cave, corner it, and finish the job.
Naturally, Sam had to hurt himself doing so, which is quite an accomplishment considering he’s dead and all, but maybe also a consequence of that. They didn’t go in as carefully as they would have while alive. Both of them had flare guns, but when they were about to fire, the wendigo jumped forward in a show of fear Dean wasn’t used to from these things. It managed to knock the gun out of his hands and lunged for Sammy, and Sammy should just have flickered out of existence or maybe just become a little less material, but then he wouldn’t have been able to hold the flare gun and shoot and so the monster’s claws went straight through him.
And not through him the way Dean’s arm used to the first time they played ghosts (but strangely doesn’t anymore), but straight through him the way sharp claws run through flesh and muscle. Sam yelled in pain and Dean yelled in fear for Sam and the wendigo screeched because it was busting into flames the same moment Sam’s blood splattered across the wall of the cave.
Okay, so that was the part that hadn’t been fun at all.
Sam had kind of swayed on his feet afterwards and then sank to his knees in a way much too similar to Cold Oak (and if it’s not redundant to worry about that now, Dean doesn’t know what is) and Dean had run over to him, held him, his hands all over his brother’s body. But there had been no wound, even as Sam winced. All the blood was already gone. “I guess my body simply remembered that it doesn’t exist anymore,” was the explanation Sam later came up with, when they made their way back to the car.
Afterwards they went for burgers and even Sam ate something without bitching. They tried to report back to Bobby from the first public phone they found but the reception was terrible, only white noise instead of voices. So they gave up and made their way back, taking their time. Bobby wouldn’t worry. And Dean and Sam had all the time in the world.
+|+|+
“I’m sorry,” Tessa said, for the first time with something like regret. “There’s nothing I can do for you.”
Dean was still watching Sam, held back by the reaper behind him and looking so helpless. “What are you talking about? We’re both dead, right? And we’re soul mates or some such bullshit. We’re meant to be together!”
“You were,” Tessa confirms. “But that only means you get to share a Heaven if you both end up in Heaven. You and Sam are headed in different directions, Dean. You can’t stay together. You won’t be together ever again.”
There’s understanding in Sam’s eyes now, and naked fear. “No!” Dean shouts, throwing himself forward only to be held back with seemingly no effort at all. “He did his time in Hell! He didn’t even deserve to go there in the first place. He never meant to start the apocalypse, and don’t you dare tell me something about good intentions paving the road to Hell! Even so, does his sacrifice count for nothing?” Tessa shook her head, opened her mouth, but Dean interrupted her. “Don’t tell me he damned himself with something he did when he was soulless! How can you damn a soul with something that happened when it wasn’t even present?”
“Calm down, Dean,” Tessa snapped with a glare that softened only seconds later into a look of vague sadness and sympathy. “It’s not Sam who’s going to Hell. It’s you.”
+|+|+
They need two days to get back to South Dakota, because while the hunt was in Michigan, it was up in the utmost north corner of Michigan. Actually, Dean’s half-convinced that they crossed the border to Canada at least twice on their way to the wendigo’s cave. And there are only back roads in the area, curvy and steep. No chance to drive very fast. So they take their time, make a few stops. They are both in good spirits and Sam’s laugh sounds so wonderful Dean wants to kiss him. His smile is so bright it nearly blinds Dean to the dark circles under his eyes.
Dean is so used to seeing them. He only needs to close his eyes to see Sammy’s face, pale and gaunt, his eyes red-rimmed and focused on something Dean can’t see. Never on him. Never closing in sleep. Sam went so long without finding any kind of rest in his final months that Dean is convinced Cas kept him alive with his new God-powers. The human body isn’t meant to survive sleep deprivation of that magnitude.
He’s starting to look like that again, and at some point Dean can no longer ignore that. It confuses him, though. They don’t need sleep anymore. Sam shouldn’t be tired.
But Sam’s also in a good mood, as if the hunt changed something, and Dean doesn’t want to worry. He just wants to enjoy this. They take detours on the way back, to enjoy the scenery. They hit a bar filled with cigarette smoke and a barkeeper who keeps cursing as he hits the small television under the ceiling that refuses to show more than wildly flickering images. Dean hustles pool just for the heck of it, and the guys he plays against kind of despise him despite his charming attitude, so they are extra willing to hand him his ass. They are also extra pissed when they lose but surprisingly enough don’t make a scene but just fuck off. Sam watches from the table, nursing a beer but hardly drinking any of it. After the game, Dean sits with him, kicking him under the table. “You drink like a pussy,” he scolds. “You’re making me look bad just by being associated with you.”
“Dude.” Sam shakes his head when Dean grabs his bottle and empties it to prove a point. “You can’t even get drunk anymore.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Seriously. You don’t have a body.”
“But the beer doesn’t know that. And it’s not exactly dripping through me, is it?” He looks down just to make sure, since that would be embarrassing.
“My point. I mean, what happens to the stuff we consume? Technically, it can’t be staying inside us. We don’t digest anymore, and yet we’re not swelling the more we eat or drink. Also, it’s material and we’re not, technically speaking. And we shouldn’t be able to take it with us when we do the ghost thing and flicker out of existence.”
Sam’s habit of overthinking everything can be so annoying. Especially since it has got Dean thinking as well, and he’s thinking of undigested food and beer splashing to the ground when they give up being material. Kind of disgusting, really.
“We vaporize everything inside us with our awesome ghost-powers!” he decides. “It gets inside us and ceases to exist.”
Sam gives him a look. It’s his patented ‘I May Be Younger Than You But I Have Been Your Mental Superior Since I Was Three’ look.
“Think about it!” Dean is starting to like the thought. “We could end all risk of atomic wars by eating the missiles.”
“There’s it’s more likely that all our food magically gets transported somewhere else.”
“Like?”
“Like our corpses, for instance.”
Dean winces. That’s not a thought he appreciates. “I’m pretty sure Cas vaporized those.”
“You sure? Maybe he keeps them around. I’ve been thinking, anyway. With his powers he could bring us back to life anytime he wants.”
There goes Dean’s good mood. “Why would he do that?”
“Why does Cas do anything right now?” Sam persists. “Maybe at some point he’ll get bored and feel like it. Maybe he thinks we haven’t suffered enough yet.”
Yeah, seriously, why is Sam doing that? “If he had wanted to, he would have done it already.”
Dean tries to distract himself - and his brother - by turning his attention to the pretty girl behind the counter of the bar and throwing her an obviously flirty smile. She smiles back, but it lack’s conviction. Then she looks somewhere else, but Dean keeps catching her glancing over to them every few seconds. She doesn’t look interested, though. She looks unsure and confused.
It’s okay, though. He wasn’t going to get serious here - after all, he’s dead, and that would have been seriously awkward if she ever found out. That thought is followed by another one of self-preservation. What if she didn’t take the pill and the condom broke? Was it possible to get impregnated by ghost-sperm? Would she then give birth to a half-alive, half-immaterial baby? Would her womb become haunted? How do you exorcise a haunted womb?
“Dean.” Sam kicks him under the table to get his attention. “You have a seriously creepy expression on your face right now.”
“I’ve been thinking about haunted wombs.”
Sam screws up his face in a disgusted grimace. “I don’t even want to know.”
“Neither do I,” Dean decides. “Let’s get out of here. I made good money tonight. We can get a room and have a boys’ night with bad pizza and bad movies and beer, all without having to worry about Bobby waking up.”
“Sounds good to me,” Sam agrees, proving that they are related after all. As they leave, Dean slaps his brother’s back and proclaims, “And I will show you that ghosts can get drunk after all!”
+|+|+
They leave some of Dean’s hard-earned notes at the table when they go, if only because they don’t want to attract attention and because Sam won’t let Dean flicker into ghost-land and finally test his theory of whether or not they can actually walk through solid walls. Not here, he says - they’re going to spend the night in the area, after all, and the last thing they need is a local hunter coming after their asses.
So they pay, and they get a room in the only motel in town, a slightly run-down but surprisingly comfortable two-storey building. Their room is on the second floor, right beside the vacancy sign. Fortunately, the lower half of the glowing letters, the part right in front of their window, is broken so the light isn’t too annoying. Dean suspects that they’ve been broken on purpose by someone trying to sleep in here.
Then he remembers that sleep isn’t what they are here for. It’s odd, how they still gravitate towards these places even though they don’t need them anymore.
Sadly, the TV is a piece of shit. So is the reception in the entire area. Dean tries to call Bobby again from the phone at the lobby, but there are only weird noises on the line. He says something anyway, hoping maybe Bobby might hear him, and has the guy at the front desk order them their pizza since he keeps insisting that the phone works perfectly fine. Amazingly enough, pizza arrives fifteen minutes later, and for lack of any bad movie to watch, Dean and Sam let a fight for the last slice of pizza escalate until they are jumping around on their wonderfully bouncy beds and throw pillows at each other.
If there’s anyone next door, they probably think they are having sex in here. The realization makes Dean jump in a sex-rhythm, and as soon as Sam realizes what he’s doing he jumps over to Dean’s bad and tries to smother him with a pillow.
They wrestle on the bed, bouncing even more in their fight for dominance, and wow, that doesn’t really help, does it? There are yelled insults and Sam evilly abusing the knowledge he has of Dean’s weak spots by ticking him in the right places to make his limbs turn to jelly as he gasps for air (it’s just this one spot right beneath his ribs that has to be touched just like that), yet somehow they end up with Dean lying on top of Sam, pinning him to the mattress. Their laughter dies down and in its wake they are looking into each other’s faces, redundant breathing brushing redundant skin until Dean quietly says, “Go to sleep, little brother. I’ll make sure you won’t fade away.”
It proves how exhausted Sam really is when he just accepts the words. He doesn’t say anything back, he doesn’t nod or shake his head or anything. He just holds Dean’s gaze for another few seconds and then he lets his eyes drift shut, Dean still pinning his wrists beside his head, his weight covering his brother like a blanket.
After all this time, Sam still trusts him this much. Unconditionally. Sometimes, Dean feels suffocated by how much he loves this boy.
+|+|+
Sam doesn’t fade away. It’s much, much worse.
+|+|+
The nightmares start after barely an hour. Dean watches from the other bed as Sam starts to twitch and shift. He waits for him to start flickering, to lose his hold on this world, but that doesn’t happen. Instead, Sam suddenly arches and screams, and his fingers claw at the covers he’s lying on.
Dean’s over with him in seconds. He shakes Sam to no avail, takes his wrists to hold his hands still and that’s when he notices the blood. Sam’s nails are gone. Broken off or torn out, still sticking in the covers of the bed. On three fingers the skin is missing down to the bone and Dean doesn’t understand, doesn’t get what is happening.
Sam screams in terror and pain and blood spreads red under his shirt. Dean doesn’t understand but he knows that he has to wake his brother, has to make this stop. He yells and shakes Sam hard, harder, feels bones break like twigs under his hand and Sam’s screams become gurgling sounds and coughs as he begins to suffocate on the blood in this throat. But the shaking helps, the shaking has the desired effect, because Sam opens his eyes and Dean finds only empty and bloody sockets under his lids.
(Someone next door is banging against the wall, yelling for them to shut up.)
“Shh, Sammy,” Dean whispers, pulling his sobbing, chocking brother close. “Oh God, oh Sammy, shh. You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.” He presses him against his chest, holds him so close that he doesn’t have to see (only feel the blood soaking through his clothes) and rocks back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
+|+|+
Eventually, Sam falls still. Eventually, Dean stops rocking and Sam pushes away from him with his bloody but unharmed hands, lifts his head so Dean can see the blood on his chin that is no longer followed by new blood. He blinks and looks at his brother through tired eyes.
They’re ghosts. Their physical manifestation is based only on their self-image and belief. Sam dreamt of being taken apart. It makes sense. This was a stupid idea. It makes so much fucking sense.
They don’t try the sleeping thing again.
+|+|+
The next morning, they leave at dawn, both of them eager to get back to Bobby’s place and the sense of security it offers. As they leave the room Sam lingers in the doorway, looking back as if searching for something. He shakes himself and turns away before Dean can ask, closing the door with an audible click and determination.
They don’t speak a single word all the way back to Sioux Falls.
+|+|+
“No.”
Sam’s voice reached Dean as if from a far distance. He looked over at his brother and felt relief because no matter what, Sam was not going to Hell. That was what mattered. The only thing that should matter - more than the fear that washed over Dean at the prospect of going back, and more than the soul-deep terror that came with the knowledge that he wasn’t going to see his brother again.
He wasn’t going to see his brother again. The reapers would take them in different directions and they would never be together again. Never.
Never.
Going to Hell didn’t matter.
“Why?” he heard himself asking. “How does that even make sense? I’ve been to Hell. I know what kind of deeds get you there. And somehow I don’t see how I fit the bill.”
“The rules have changed,” Tessa told him, and the way she said it made clear she wasn’t happy about it. “Heaven is under new management now, and the new management has decided that you can’t get into it.”
“Cas can’t do that!” Dean protested, though he had seen often enough in the final chapter of his life that there were a hell lot of things he had thought that Cas couldn’t do that he could, and did. “There have to be rules to prevent this kind of thing.”
“There are, yes. Under normal circumstance Castiel could not have denied you access to Paradise. But these aren’t normal circumstances. You committed fratricide and suicide, Dean. You gave him an excuse.”
“But he did that to help me!” Sam protested. He was fighting against his reaper now and the guy was looking impatient and this was supposed to be the last time Dean ever saw him: being pulled away from him against his will.
“It doesn’t matter,” Tessa said, a lot more gently than when she was talking to Dean. “Castiel is ruling Heaven and he can bend the rules to his liking. You two are special cases because he wants you punished. He will not give you any more than he absolutely has to.”
“But that’s not-” Sam was interrupted by the reaper’s hand on his arm. He turned to stare at the guy and then at Dean with a look of understanding and horror on his face. And Dean knew what that meant, even before Tessa touched his own shoulder and said, “We have to go now.”
“Wait!” Dean didn’t move, but he felt compelled to. Tessa didn’t even touch him anymore and yet she was pulling him along as she walked away. “Don’t we get a choice? We can always stay here!”
“Not you, Dean. You got yourself an express ticket to Hell, and I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.”
“Then don’t deliver me!”
“I can’t do that. You know that as well as I do.”
Yes, Dean did. But he didn’t care. Sam’s reaper was walking away in the opposite direction and Sam threw his brother a look of such desperation that Dean knew he couldn’t leave him. It was simply out of the question.
He didn’t think. He just knew that he had to reach Sammy, had to be with him. Taking a step in the wrong direction, the one he was not supposed to go was hard, so hard, but he did it, and Sam did the same, came a step closer. It was as if a strong wind was trying to blow them away, but Dean fought, and in the end it stood no chance against his love for his brother. No force in the world did, not even something as inevitable as death.
It got harder with every step and at some point the male reaper said, “You can’t do this!” and Tessa said, “You don’t know what you’re doing. Stop this!” but Dean reached out with arms that felt like lead and his fingers brushed Sam’s, then grabbed them, and then they pulled each other close and held on as the storm blew around them.
Heaven and Hell had tried to separate them before but Dean would not let his brother be taken from him. The storm passed and when they looked up they were alone, standing on an empty street somewhere on earth and had nothing but each other.
It was a long time before they broke their embrace.
+|+|+
Bobby’s not there when they reach the salvage yard, and somehow, that feels like another blow. He’s probably just gone to the shop, or took up another hunt, but for some reason the brothers feel abandoned and lost in the empty house, unsure what to do.
They are dead and things aren’t going to get better. Usually, people think that the deceased have left all the bad stuff behind them. It’s a pretty illusion Sam always hated having to destroy.
At least Bobby didn’t redo the ghost-protection, so they know they are still welcome. “He could have called,” Dean growls as he flops down on the couch and Sam refrains from pointing out to him why that would have been out of the question even if they still had cells.
He doesn’t say anything himself. The house feels dead without Bobby in it. After a minute, he can’t bear being inside anymore and finds himself in the backyard, needing the sensation of the air on his skin. There are birds singing in the trees; just one or two, but enough to tell him that this is the world of the living. They are still here.
Sam’s palms press against the hood of an old Volvo and he braces himself against the car, taking deep breaths. He feels like screaming, like running.
A hand runs down his spine and he freezes.
It’s not Dean’s hand; this is not the way Dean touches him. The hand is joined by another, resting on his hips, then both moving forward to close around his middle. Sam can’t breathe. The weight of a too-cold body presses against his back and just when he hears the intake of breath right beside his ear that comes before words being spoken, he squirms out of the grip, turns around and finds himself looking at nothing.
Desperately, he tries to calm his wildly beating heart. He knows this wasn’t real. (But he knew that as well, when he was seeing things in Castiel’s prison, and that didn’t do anything to help him until in the end he forgot.)
This was supposed to be over.
“You need to come with me, Sam.”
Sam flinches at the sound of a woman’s voice, but this time, there really is someone standing between the car wrecks, slowly coming closer. It’s Tessa, the reaper. Instinctively, Sam takes a step back and is stopped by the car.
She seems to be real, but that isn’t helping in this case.
“How can I even see you?” he wonders. “This is the material world.”
“Yes, but you aren’t any more alive than I am. Less, in fact, because I was never, in your sense of the term, alive in the first place.” She stops, seeing that Sam’s not reacting too well to her presence. “This is no place for you, Sam. You can’t stay.”
“I guess that goes for any ghost. We’re not leaving. Not as long as Dean is going to Hell.”
“This isn’t about Dean,” Tessa tells him. “This is just about you. Because if you don’t come with me, to Heaven, where you belong, you are going to Hell, Sam. And there is nothing anyone could do about it. It’s not a choice.”
Even as he shakes his head, Sam knows that she is right. He can feel it, can feel himself slipping. He’s hanging on to this world and his brother with all he has but Hell is bleeding through the memories that are part of his soul and sooner or later he’ll lose his grip and he’ll fall…
“Is that true?” That’s Dean, and damn, he’s not supposed to hear this, he’s not supposed to know. Sam knows what will come now, because his brother is a stupid, selfless asshole.
First, Dean comes closer, his wide-eyed stare fixed on Sam. Not on Tessa. He knows where to look for answers, already suspects Sam of not being honest with him. But Sam’s shaking his head, searching for words, and it’s Tessa who says, “I’m sorry, Dean. You can’t keep him.”
“I’m talking to my brother!” Dean snaps. “Sam, is that true? Is it that bad?”
But Sam’s looking at Tessa. “I’m not leaving him.”
“You will, Sam. You can’t stay for long, so it’s Heaven or Hell, but you’re leaving your brother behind ether way. Don’t you understand?” She turns to Dean. “If Sam doesn’t accompany me to Heaven, he will end up in Hell, tortured for eternity. This is his only chance.”
This time, Sam is speaking directly to Dean. “I’m not leaving you.”
“The fuck you are!” Dean’s yelling now, as Sam knew he would. “I won’t let you go to Hell, Sammy! Not for me. Not because of me! I should never have kept you here in the first place.”
“That was my decision as well and I stand by it!” Sam snaps back. “How long do you think you can stay here without me, huh? Do you think I’m gonna let you go to Hell any more than you me?”
“Yes, I am! I’m the one Hell-bound, so it’s my decision. Tessa, you take him.”
“I can’t,” the reaper helpfully provides and Sam almost breathes a sigh of relief. “He’ll have to come willingly.”
“And I won’t.” Sam crosses his arms before his chest, leans back against the car.
“Don’t be an ass! You’re not helping me with this. Do you think I get to stay here any longer with you in Hell than with you in Heaven? I’m gonna end up there anyway. The only difference is that in one case, I’ll have the comforting knowledge of you being safe and happy and in the other case, I’ll get extra torture from knowing that you’re down there as well and it’s my fault.”
“Don’t be a fucking martyr about it. This isn’t your fault, it’s me being selfish. How happy do you think I would be in Heaven knowing you’re burning in Hell? I might not be able to save you from going down, but at least we’re going together.” Sam turns back to the waiting reaper. “Thank you for the warning. I’m staying.”
She sighs, nods, and disappears. The next moment, Dean’s fist collides with Sam’s cheek.
“How can you be so unbelievably stupid?” he growls with tears in his eyes before turning away to stalk back to the house. He doesn’t make it halfway there before he turns back, comes over to Sam and pulls him into an embrace that knocks the air right out of is brother. “I hate you so fucking much,” he whispers.
+|+|+
When Bobby comes back that evening, he notices that something happened right away, knowing them far too well not to pick up the signs - the biggest of which is Dean sitting on the couch with Sam held securely in his arms.
“What’s wrong? You look like someone’s dancing a flamenco on your graves.” Which is a silly thing to say since they don’t have graves. Or maybe they do, and Cas is dancing a flamenco on them right now. Dean tries not to imagine that.
Sam doesn’t move or give any indication of having noticed their old friend’s return, so Dean sighs and tells Bobby about Tessa’s visit and her less-than-optimistic prognosis. When he’s done, Bobby rubs thumb and index finger of his hand over his eyes and goes to get beers for all of them.
Dean and Sam finally separate to accept them, and Dean can tell Bobby appreciates that. Their sudden physical closeness must be worrying him; they’re not usually the cuddly types unless one of them has recently died.
Which kind of excuses them for the rest of forever.
“So, Sam’s soul is threatening to fall into Hell,” Bobby sums up. “Okay. I get that. But why would you have to go there if Sam’s not here anymore, Dean? Sam could get to safety and you’d just stay here. You might not be able to see each other again, but would that really be worse than going to Hell?”
So maybe he doesn’t know them so well after all. Still, Dean would make the sacrifice if it meant that Sam got away, but that’s not how it works. He and Sam, they never talked about it, but they both feel it: there’s a bond between them that anchors them, helps them hang on to this world because they hang on to each other. Dean feels the loss whenever Sam flickers a level deeper without him or even if he’s more than a dozen yards away. Without Sam by his side, it get’s harder to ignore the fact that he’s not meant to be part of this world anymore, and he has no illusions about his ability to stay once Sam is gone and out of reach for good.
“That’s not how it works,” Sam says tiredly. “We need each other. Might have something to do with the soul mates thing.”
This gets them raised eyebrows. “Soul mates?”
“It’s a long story. What it comes down to is that we’re not really supposed to separate.”
“Well, if that ain’t touching. But the point remains that right now you’re both bound for Hell together. Am I the only one who thinks we need to do something about that?”
“No. But as it happens, I am the only one who can do something about it.”
Dean turns to Sam, feeling a sudden rush of hope because that sounds like a plan. The emotion dies when he sees the awkward little smile on his brother’s face. “I could simply not give in,” Sam tells him. “I can fight this. Getting a hand on it already. And as long as I do, no one’s going anywhere.”
Dean stares at him, then shares a look with Bobby. This is hardly the best plan ever. But then, they’d depended on Sam’s willpower before, because there was nothing else that could have helped them, and it ended up saving the world. Maybe this time it can save them for a change.
If Dean manages to ignore the way Sam flinches sometimes, shies away from food or turns to look at things that aren’t there, he might even make himself believe that.
NEXT