Revenge of the Jedi, Part 2/3 (complete) SPN
Title: Revenge of the Jedi, Part 2/3 (complete)
Author: borgmama1of5
Summary: Dean’s lost the Mark, doesn’t remember what he’s done … yet he’s still haunted.
Wordcount: 11,600 parts 2 & 3, 14,600 total
Genre/pairings: Gen
Rating: R
Spoilers: through 9.16 Mention of Major character death
Beta: sandymg
Disclaimer: Not mine, simply engaging in wish fulfillment.
Direct continuation of Revenge of the Jedi which needs to be read first.
Revenge of the Jedi, Part 2/3
Blood.
So much blood.
Puddles of blood, rivers of blood, oceans of blood.
Enough blood to drown in.
Bodies.
So many bodies.
Horrifically mutilated, chests gouged open, one after another after another.
Faces.
Frozen in shock, in pain, in terror.
One face.
Blue eyes. Fierce eyes. Believing eyes.
Dead eyes.
***
Sam struggles to get Dean’s inert body down the bunker stairs, into the bedroom. He can find no physical reason for Dean’s continued unconsciousness, the only physical injury Sam can see is the hand-shaped burn on Dean’s forearm.
But there is no response to Sam’s attempts to wake him.
By the third day Sam is frantic. Dean’s face is ashen, his closed eyes sunken in his face. Sam raids the bunker medical closet for supplies to put Dean on an IV. He has the rubber tube tied around Dean’s arm and is trying to find the vein for the needle when Dean gasps and jerks away as his eyes stutter open.
“No! No! I…”
“Dean!”
The flailing stops. Sam watches as recognition slowly crosses Dean’s face.
“Sam?” Dean’s voice is a scratchy whisper. Sam puts the glass of water that’s been sitting on the nightstand in Dean’s hand, helps him raise it to swallow a few sips.
“How am I here?” Bewilderment as Dean weakly pushes the glass away.
“What do you remember?” Sam has prepared himself to ask that first, before he attempts to explain … to make up a story …
To lie.
“Killing … demons … Abaddon? Crowley?” Dean’s paper-thin voice rises in uncertainty.
“You did, Dean. You killed both of them.”
“What … how … I can’t remember … just … blood …”
“I didn’t see the fight, Dean, I got there after it”- the first one, anyway - “was over. Abaddon, Crowley, and a lot of demons were dead.” Sam stops, wondering if he should get the worst, Cas, over with right away, or wait till Dean is stronger.
Sam can tell Dean is searching his mind to find something that corroborates what Sam just told him.
“I remember swinging the First Blade … putting it through Abaddon’s chest …” Dean looks up, sharp-eyed for a moment. “She was laughing until I killed her.” Dean starts coughing.
“Drink some more water and I’ll get you some soup. You’ve been out of it for three days, you need nourishment.”
The hard part can wait.
***
“Sam!” There is panic in Dean’s shout.
He had insisted he could take a shower by himself. Sam flings open the bathroom door.
Dean is half undressed, staring at his arm.
“What the fuck is this?”
Sam knows there is no way to explain it. “I don’t know.”
“Who did this? Did Cas-“
“Dean, when I found you … you were on the ground surrounded by bodies … including Cas …”
Sam thinks Dean stops breathing.
“Cas is … Cas is dead?” His voice breaks on the last word.
“I’m sorry, Dean. I didn’t want to tell you yet. The mark was on your arm, I don’t know how it got there.”
Dean slowly sinks to sit on the closed toilet.
“Everyone’s gone.”
Sam rests a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“Not everyone. I’m here. I’m staying.”
***
They stay inside the bunker. Dean is listless, lethargic, and Sam wants the apathetic look in Dean’s eyes to go away.
Sam ignores the outside world until Dean is at least eating again. Not heartily, but enough. Finally he takes a look at his usual web pages to see if he can find out what has been happening since the top spot in Hell opened up. He’s thinking that he hasn’t seen so many chaotic demon indications since the Devil’s Gate was opened in Wyoming.
He’s reluctant to say anything to Dean who doesn’t look remotely ready to go hunting.
Saving people, hunting things. He’s tried giving it up so many times … But this time the decision to ignore the job is because he needs to fix Dean first. Though he has no idea how to do that.
***
In his blood-drenched nightmares, Castiel’s chest implodes as he stares at Dean with sorrow-filled eyes.
He wants to ask Sam.
But he won’t.
***
Someone is pounding on the bunker’s steel door. Sam is up the stairs with his gun in hand faster than should be possible. There’s no peephole and no more sound, and for a moment he thinks maybe he imagined it.
The banging starts again.
He opens the door the tiniest crack and pokes the tip of the gun at the suited man whose hand is paused mid-knock.
“Dean Winchester?”
Sam growls. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?”
“I am Pahaliah. Gadreel sent us.”
“The fuck.” Sam sees a small group of people - angels - waiting expectantly on the other side of the road.
“You can’t be here!” Sam hisses.
“Gadreel said -“
Sam steps out, pulls the door behind him. “You do not mention his name. Ever. Now. Why the fuck are you here?”
“Ga- he said that we could be of best service to the cause by helping the Winchesters. And he told us where to find you.”
Of course. Gadreel knows where the bunker is. And now so do who knows how many angels…
“’Cause?’ What ‘cause’ do you mean?”
“Ga … His mission is to retake heaven from Metatron. When Castiel was destroyed, G-he took over as our leader. He said we must help you.”
“What do you think you can do for us?”
Another angel, an African-American woman, has stepped closer during the conversation. Now, with a pronounced Caribbean accent, she speaks.
“Mr. Winchester, sir, we can help you with the demon infestation. If you direct us to them we will fight them for you. Even though we do not have our wings, we do have our weapons, and our vessels benefit from our innate speed and strength. Our Leader is concerned that the flood of uncontrolled evil loosed from Hell because of its leaderless state is causing unnecessary harm to humanity.”
Pahaliah takes over the explanation. “Because the souls who should be going to Heaven are trapped between realms and more and more of them have been dispatched by the hand of a demon, the veil risks being overrun with spirits caught in despair and fear. And more of them seek vengeance in this realm. Surely you have noticed the increase in hauntings?”
“How many of you are there?”
“Seven of us are here. More are coming.”
“How many more?”
The woman speaks again. “There should be eleven joining us, though we have not heard from Jehoel or Jophiel and we fear the worst.”
“Okay.” Sam thinks quickly. Angel allies against the demons is not a bad idea - if they can be trusted. Which he doesn’t.
He does not want them in the bunker.
“You have money? Credit cards? You need to find somewhere to stay, one of the motels along the highway. There’s a Biggerson’s restaurant not too far along route 281. I will meet the two of you - just the two of you - in the parking lot there tomorrow morning at ten.”
“We will do as you instruct, Dean Winchester.”
“I’m Sam. And you are not to let any other angels know of this location, do you understand? Don’t let it get broadcast on your angel radio.” Sam glares for emphasis.
“Certainly.”
After he’s watched them leave, Sam locks the door and rests his head against it for support.
He once turned down leadership of a demon army. Now he’s been given an angel army instead?
***
To Sam's surprise, the angels are actually useful. He sends them out to areas of concentrated demon activity to protect the innocent and finds himself feeling less guilty about hiding in the bunker. Because that's what he's doing, since he doesn't want to make Dean go out until he's recovered, and he can't leave his brother alone now. He's never seen Dean in such an apathetic state … it's worse than when they were fighting Michael and Lucifer, when Cas freed the Leviathans, when Bobby died ... Dean just doesn't respond to anything.
He's not even drinking.
“C'mon, Dean, you have to eat.”
No reaction.
“Do I have to fly the spoon into the hangar door?” He waits for the snarky response, you just try it, Sammy he can hear in his head, but Dean doesn't even look up.
Sam sits down heavily on the chair next to his brother.
“Dean. You gotta talk to me.” He puts his hand to Dean's stubbled chin, turns Dean's head so he has to look at Sam's face. “You won, Dean. Abaddon and Crowley are both gone. You did it. And I get it, we lost Cas, and that hurts, but he wouldn't want you to stop because he's gone. There's still evil out there to fight, people to save. Dick angels still cluttering up the world. And I'm not leaving you, we're in this together. From now on, the two of us. Okay?”
When Dean finally speaks his voice is rusty, barely audible.
“It's all blood, Sammy. That's all I see. All the time. And my arm, it burns. Like even though the Mark is gone, it still wants the Blade. The power. Nothing could stop me. And I want that feeling back … and it terrifies me like … like what I did in Hell, Sam, only worse. Ten times, hundred times worse. I shouldn't be here.”
Sam picks his words carefully. This is the most Dean has talked since Sam brought him here after the carnage.
“I know what it feels like, to want to have that kind of power. When I was souped up on demon blood I was invincible, and right, and it was the best feeling in the world. But what I did with it … well, I almost ended the world. Would have, if you hadn't stopped me. So I know how it feels right even though you know it's wrong. But you did something good with that terrible power, got rid of the two worst demons torturing humanity just for fun. And now it's over, and the pull will lessen, I know it will, it takes time, but it will.”
“I'm a monster, just like what we hunt.”
“No, Dean. You're not a monster just because you held that Blade. You're not.”
Dean's only response to that is a slight shake of his head.
But he eats a little of his soup.
***
“Where is it, Sam?”
Sam knows what Dean is asking about, but pretends he doesn't to see what his brother will say.
“It … the Bl -” Dean takes a breath. “The Blade. What did you do with it?”
He'd thrown it in the trunk of the Impala, he didn't dare leave such a weapon loose, and now Sam realizes he's forgotten it there. Sam looks at the gray circles under Dean's eyes, the only color in his brother's white face, and evades the question.
"Why do you want to know?"
A flash of irritation, the first animation Dean's shown in ages. "Can you just answer the fucking question?"
"It's secure." Sam decides to take a chance. "There's what looks like a salt-n-burn not far ... Do you feel up to tackling a hunt?"
Sam can't interpret the expression that flashes across his brother's face. So he reaches across the table and flips the Impala's keys at Dean, who catches them unthinkingly.
“Meet you at the car in ten,” Sam says, and leaves the room before Dean can answer.
***
A dirty film filters everything.
Fingers curl around what should be familiar … but his hands clench the wheel too tightly and his arm muscles ache.
The silence pounds over miles without speaking.
Sam hands him the shotgun, takes the shovel, leads the way to a heartless stone marker.
Dean watches, knows how to do this job.
Rocksalt shatters the coalescing mist and a spike of satisfaction curls his lip. He wants it to form again so he can destroy it another time. He feels the warm rush of flames from the grave before he can shoot again and disappointment surges.
For just a moment his purpose was clear.
***
Sam knows they could have made it back to Lebanon tonight but he's hoping a change of scenery will spark something more in Dean. He'd seen, peripherally, Dean snap to alertness when the ghost approached, and he'd watched Dean obliterate it without hesitation. He thinks the hunter part of Dean is still there and wonders if he can use it as a hook to pull Dean back together.
Dean's back to the shadow of himself once they leave the cemetery, but Sam has to try.
“Let's stop there.” Sam points to a red neon sign for Shaggy's Bar.
The look Dean gives him is pure what the fuck.
"I just thought … we can celebrate an easy win, right?"
"Right," Dean mutters under his breath, but he turns into the parking lot.
It's a bust, though. Dean downs three whiskeys in rapid succession and then just sits and stares at his empty glass. Sam can tell he wants to order another one but won't because he doesn't want Sam to bitch about him drinking too much. The place is filled with what look to Sam like kids, and the piped-in music is godawful modern pop. He gives up after forty-five minutes.
“You were right, bad idea. Or at least, totally not our kind of place...” Sam starts to slide out of the booth. “Let's go.”
“Our kind of place? Didn't think there was an our anymore.” Dean mutters so softly that Sam thinks he isn't supposed to hear. He stops getting up and stares until Dean looks at him.
“What?”
“Dean, look, I know things got … kinda … tense … between us … but it's over, you beat the bastards, and I still think you should have just … let me go, but I'm here now, and maybe I … understand a little better why you did it, and you are still my brother, okay?” He didn't mean for the words to spill out so artlessly, but he knows some of what Dean did is on Sam because of how Sam let his brother feel abandoned.
Dean is silent.
Sam starts to regret saying anything as Dean continues just to stare, his face unreadable.
“It's late, we're both tired, let's just get a room and head back in the morning, okay?”
Finally Dean nods.
They're in the motel room for about a half-hour when there's a pounding on the door. “Winchesters! Open the damn door, we know you're in there!” They are up together instantly, guns in hand, Sam at the door, Dean backing him up. A nod, and Sam twists the doorknob.
Sam recognizes the two young people who nearly fall into the room. “Where's Dean?”
“I'm right here, Aiden … Josephine. Why are you here?” Dean frowns. “Where's Krissy?”
Shit.
“Why don't you tell us, Dean, the last we heard from her she was being stalked by you!” Aiden is fearlessly up in Dean's face, completely ignoring the gun.
“What?”
“We were in New Mexico, on a hunt, and Krissy stayed here because she was working on a project, and she called and said you were following her and acting weird … she was scared - “
Aiden interrupts Josephine's torrent of words. “She was scared of you, Winchester, and she went to a Wal-Mart because Sam told her to ...” Here Aiden turns to glare viciously at Sam, “And she said you were coming, and then we don't hear anything more, and we get back and the whole damn store was burned down! What did you do to Krissy?!”
Aiden grabs the front of Dean's shirt.
“I don't … remember anything about seeing Krissy ...” Dean is ignoring the young hunters, staring at Sam. “Sam?” Dean's lowered his gun hand and is looking for a lifeline from him.
Sam knows he is walking through a minefield. He keeps his eyes on Dean as he talks. “That's where I found you, Dean, at the Wal-Mart, but I was too late, the fight had gone down. Krissy was … I think one of the demons had killed her. All the demons were dead, and Crowley, and all I could do was to get you out and torch the place.”
“Nooo!” Sam is knocked back against the door, and Aiden is punching wildly. “Not Krissy, No!”
“Why didn't you tell us?” Josephine screams, and jumps to join Aiden, but Dean restrains her even as he continues to stare at Sam.
Sam lets Aiden pound his anger and grief out on him, he deserves it. But once Dean has Josephine under control, he pulls Aiden off Sam. “Stop it,” is all he says to the boy, and the kid starts shaking with body-wrenching sobs. Another minute and Josephine is clutching Aiden and weeping as well.
Sam rubs along his jaw where Aiden landed a hard blow.
“Sam?” Dean is simultaneously asking if Sam's okay and was that the truth about Krissy, and Sam nods.
***
Sam is lying.
He wants to ask, 'Did I kill Krissy?'
He's terrified of the answer.
***
As he waits for Dean to ask, Sam ties to concoct an answer that's not a bald-faced lie. He can't … but Dean doesn't bring it up.
He understands, now, how Dean must have felt hiding the secret of Sam's possession by Gadreel - there's a knot in his gut that never relaxes, waiting for when Dean will figure out Sam is hiding what he's done to Dean. Sam's kept secrets before - applying to Stanford, Ruby and the demon blood - but this is different. He's not keeping his own secret - he's hiding what's been done - what Sam did - to Dean.
Dean's acting different, though Sam can't tell if it's from the hunt or from the confrontation with Aiden and Josephine. Dean wants to resume hunting, and Sam should be pleased, except that the ferocity with which Dean slashes and stabs is even more intense than when Dean returned from Purgatory. It scares Sam.
“Wipe your face, Dean.” Sam hands him a rag from the Impala's open trunk. Dean seems oblivious to the blood spatters across his face, residue of the three vampires they've just put down. “You don't want to be driving looking like an escapee from a bad horror movie.”
Dean stares at the cloth a moment like he doesn't understand why that would be a concern, but then shrugs and does as Sam asks. Dean's about to drop the rag back into the trunk when he freezes. Sam follows his eyes and sees Dean staring at a towel-wrapped bundle pressed into the corner by the taillight. Shit. Sam had forgotten to move it.
He holds his breath as he watches Dean's reaction, the twitching of his hand, the stoniness of his face. The moment lasts longer than Sam can stand, and he puts his hand on the trunk lid. “Watch yourself,” he tells Dean, and slams the trunk as Dean snatches his hand back. But Dean doesn't move, doesn't stop staring at the corner where the Blade is hidden.
“I'm driving. Get in the car.” Sam gives his brother a rough shove to break the trance and snags the keys from Dean's jacket.
It's telling that Dean doesn't object.
Sam finds him that night, out by the car with the First Blade in his hand. The tendons on the back of his hand are popped out with the intensity of Dean's trembling grip.
“Put it down, Dean,” he says quietly. Sam's careful, afraid Dean's so deeply enthralled that he might strike without thinking at any sudden movement. “Dean,” he tries again, but there's no reaction. Sam continues to approach his brother cautiously until he's within arm's reach, and then Sam grabs Dean's wrist, intending to force Dean to drop the weapon.
Dean whirls in a frenzy, and suddenly Sam is fighting for his life, using all his strength to keep the wicked jawbone from plunging into him. He yells Dean's name to get through to him, two hands now twisting Dean's arm to keep the Blade pointed up and away from Sam's body. Sam shoulders Dean's chest, but Dean arches behind Sam and his free arm locks around Sam's throat. Dean is growling in Sam's ear, and in desperation Sam lets go of Dean's knife-hand and thrusts both his elbows into Dean's gut.
The Blade falls from Dean's grasp, and Sam kicks it under the car. When he turns, Dean is ashen, gasping for air and looking horror-stricken.
“It still has me, Sam, it still has me!” Dean frantically pulls up his sleeve to show the handprint that obliterates the Mark. “Why?” He rubs the scar. “Why? It's gone!”
***
Killer. Killer. Killer.
It pounds through him with each pulse beat.
He wakes up tasting blood, feeling its stickiness on his skin, reveling in the crunch of shattered sternums, the gush of pierced hearts. And proceeds to puke up his last several meals in the toilet.
Because with every kill he dreams, he sees terrified, pleading eyes staring at him.
***
Sam doesn't want to do this. But he has to have answers. So when he hears from Pahaliah again, he tells him he needs to see Gadreel.
“The Mark is gone, so why is he still under the control of the Blade?” he asks heatedly when Gadreel shows up in the Biggerson's parking lot.
“I removed the outward sign of the Mark, but your brother wielded the First Blade repeatedly. It may have become absorbed into him. I do not know.”
“You have to fix him!”
“Sam ...”
“You owe us, Gadreel. You owe me. You figure out how to make it right.”
“It is not within my power. But there is someone who may have the answers you seek … the one who bore the Mark originally.”
“Cain?”
“Who would know more of the Mark's power than him?”
Sam weighs whether to involve Dean in searching for a way to summon Cain. But Dean's question when Sam arrives back at the bunker drives Cain from his mind.
Dean is staring at his laptop, an empty Jack Daniels bottle beside it. He glares at Sam as he comes down the stairs.
“How many hunters did I kill?”
“What?” Sam squeezes down his immediate panic.
“How many?” Dean's face is dark. Sam identifies the self-loathing in it, knows it from his own experiences.
“What are you talking about, Dean?”
“Don't treat me like I'm stupid, Sam. I checked. Between the time I left the bunker to fight Abaddon and the time you say you found me in Wal-Mart, someone was leaving dead hunters with pulverized bodies all over the country. I've found a half-dozen stories online so far.”
“Dean ...”
“Don't lie to me, Sam. I recognize their faces. I see them when I try to sleep.” Dean lowers his head. “I killed Krissy, didn't I.” It's not a question.
Sam knows the words are pointless, but he says them anyway. “It wasn't you, Dean, it was the Mark.” And because he cannot bear what he sees in Dean's slumped body, he adds “I don't know if you killed Krissy, she was dead when I got there, and you weren't the only one there who could have done it.” Half-truth, half-lie, he wills Dean to believe it.
It becomes Sam's obsession to find Cain now. Dean … Dean stares at nothing while he sits and drinks, and Sam knows he is not sleeping. When he finds the ritual in one of the Men of Letters' obscure files, he has to decide whether to involve Dean in the summoning or not.
Dean decides for him. Sam isn't even aware that Dean's been paying attention to him, until Dean's rough voice stops him as he's leaving the library.
“You found it, didn't you? A way to summon Cain?”
A 'yes' is startled out of Sam.
“I'm doing it.” Dean wobbles as he stands, but there's no ambivalence in his bearing.
“Together,” Sam counters.
Cain is more refined than Sam expected, trim peppery beard and ice blue eyes. And he seems very interested in Sam, who stands very still as Cain stalks around him.
“So this is the brother you couldn't kill,” Cain finally speaks. “In fact, not only couldn't you kill him, you went to Hell to save him. You made bargain after bargain to save him. I don't understand why, after everything he’s done.”
“He's my brother,” is all Dean says.
Cain dismisses Sam, goes face to face with Dean.
“You say that like that is a reason … yet I see the doubt in you that he was worth all the pain.”
“We're not here to psychoanalyze me, Cain. We called you here to answer questions about your Mark. I don't have it any more,” Dean pushes up his sleeve to show the handprint, “And I want to know why it's still affecting me.”
“Who did this?” Cain's anger impels Dean a step backward, but Cain seizes Dean's arm to stop him.
“I don't know.”
Dean flinches as Cain runs his fingers over the scar. “An angel did this. But it didn't work, did it? You still feel the pull of the Blade, the hunger to kill ...”
Sam chances speaking. “Why? Why is Dean still affected?”
Cain doesn't bother to look at Sam as he answers, instead keeping his piercing eyes boring into Dean's.
“The Mark is just an outward symbol. When you accepted it, you allowed its power into your very being.”
“So this is it, then? This killer is what I'll always be?”
“I said when I met you, Dean, we are very much alike.”
“There's got to be something ...” Sam bursts out, only to stop at the look Cain gives him.
“Once Dean accepted the Mark it became his destiny. He is the First Knight of Hell … but as it is a Hell without a ruler, he is free to choose where he goes. He will use the Blade, that cannot be changed. It was the first weapon and its power will not be denied.” Cain looks back at Dean. “As long as it exists on Earth, you are tied to it.”
Still holding Dean's arm, Cain suddenly closes his eyes, then he hisses. “You don't know ...”
Cain drops Dean's arm and strides to Sam. “You had no right! Were I him, I would kill you for what you've done.” He disappears.
“Sam?” There is a grim warning in Dean's voice.
“I don't … I didn't … I didn't tell you about the hunters, or Krissy, all right, because it's like when I was soulless, okay? You said that it wasn't me that killed innocent people and this wasn't you either! It was the Mark!”
Dean just stares at him. Then he turns and walks away.
Dean disappears again.
He takes the Impala, his duffle, his favorite weapons … and he found where Sam hid the Blade, in Sam's own room. When Sam checks in the back of the bottom dresser drawer, he finds Dean's note: Don't look for me.
***
He's always been a killer.
He thinks back to his very first kill, the adrenaline rush, the pride in taking the monster down. Even then he was wrong.
The first time he killed a demon without a thought for the innocent meatsuit it was wearing … and how many, many since that one?
Alastair didn't break him in Hell, he'd just been denying what he really was for the first thirty years. And when he'd given in, stopped fighting, he'd been horrifically good at destroying souls.
Now he acknowledges there was pleasure in being so good. In Alastair's praise.
It makes him want to throw up and he pulls to the side of the road.
He fights getting his stomach under control, but the memories keep hitting him - the power he felt as he slaughtered the entire vampire's nest when he was turned, the thirst he felt for Lisa's blood, how he barely got away before hurting her ...
The exhilaration of Purgatory - its purity - was simply unfettered license to kill everything that got in his way.
Finally he sees the truth in what Cain said. He was 'Daddy's blunt little instrument' after all.
He unleashes his bloodthirst in hunting. With the Blade he can kill anything. No more need for silver bullets or blessed stakes, though ghosts still require a salt-n-burn. He skips over them mostly, for the reward of grappling with a werewolf and feeling invincible. He thinks the slashes and bruises heal faster than they used to. He tries to keep the human body count down, doesn't always succeed, but refuses to feel bad when someone gets in the way.
He throws away all his phones and stops scrubbing the blood from under his fingernails.
***
Sam has to find him.
He thinks back to how hard Dean fought to recover Sam's soul. Dean's soul might as well have been ripped from him. It would be different, Sam thinks, if Dean were dead … but he cannot leave his brother to suffer alone, believing he is something evil.
Sam wishes Castiel was still here.
After a few weeks Sam sees the pattern, sees that Dean is going after corporeal creatures that are at the First Blade's mercy.
He gives his angel army a new task, sending them out in the possible directions Dean might go, charging them with the job of locating him.
Sam has no idea what he will do when they find Dean.
***
He knows the suited man that has been following him is an angel. He makes himself easy to spot, lures the lame bastard into an alley and has the Blade at his throat without even breaking a sweat.
“You can't hurt me,” the little man wheezes.
“I know this isn't an angel blade, but I'm betting it works on angels just as well.” His mind flashes to Cas. His gut tells him that the First Blade, in his hand, killed the angel, and he presses the jawbone harder against this one's neck.
“Who sent you to follow me? Gadreel? Metatron?”
“Your brother, Sam.”
Confusion. “You are working for him? Why would he want to know where I am?”
“There is a small contingent of angels who do not believe what is happening is right. We followed Castiel until he died, then Gadreel led us until he told us to follow the orders of the Winchesters. Now we do as your brother instructs.”
“And he told you to follow me?”
“Our small army is searching for you. When I found you, I reported that and was told to keep you in my sight until he gets here.”
“Your bad luck.” He slices the angel's throat. Its warm blood spurts in his face.
All angels are dicks. And he doesn't want to see Sam.
He dreams of climbing a mountain of eviscerated corpses. A blue-eyed angel in a trench coat waits at the top and says, This is not you. He feels the sizzle of the Blade in his fist, then the angel falls at his feet without having been touched.
He wakes from his nightmare clutching the Blade.
***
Sam has lost enough of his angel company - their vessels are not indestructible - that when he hears Dean killed Pahaliah he calls them off the search. He will find Dean himself.
Sam drives to Dean's last location, hoping he will be able to track Dean from there. A couple people remember the 'scary dude with the big black car' and Sam even finds Dean's motel room … but then nothing.
He clicks through websites, looking for hunts that Dean might have gone after next, figuring Dean has a four-day head start.
He thinks it's hopeless, with that much of a lead Dean could be anywhere.
He's not expecting Metatron to solve the problem.
***
“I've brought you a present.”
Dean whirls, knows that oily voice, charges blindly only to hit an invisible barrier.
“Dean.”
Dean freezes.
Sam is standing between Metatron and Gadreel.
“I didn't ask him to bring me here,” Sam rushes. “But we have to talk.”
He growls and pushes the Blade against the transparent wall that is keeping him from carving the two angels into the same bloody pulp as everything - everyone - else he's killed.
He ignores Sam, focuses his rage on the gray-haired face mocking him.
“You are very fond of your new weapon, aren't you, Dean. I have to say, I am very impressed with how you've mastered it … or should I say, it's mastered you? Either way, your single-minded ruthlessness is truly something to watch. But it's time for the denouement of the story.”
He sees Sam try to move, be held by Gadreel. But Dean’s target is Metatron.
“I was there, you know, at the start of the conflict … when Cain killed Abel because of jealousy … or love … or, since they were human, probably both. Brother against brother, a universal theme. Heaven knows, you boys were supposed to act it out before and managed to mess that up spectacularly, so I'm giving you the chance to get it right this time.”
Metatron waves his hand and the barrier dissolves.
“You've spent your life protecting Sammy. Sacrificed your wants, your needs, your life, your very soul for him. And how has he repaid your loyalty? By abandoning you. Choosing Stanford, then a demon, then Lucifer, then a girl and a dog over you. And when you do everything in your power to save his life, what does he tell you? That you shouldn't have done it, and by the way, he'd never save you … So why exactly is it you care about him so much?”
Metatron is right, Sam has never been there for him in the same way … he went to Hell for Sam, became the monster he is for Sam, and Sam … Sam despises him … His arm trembles with the desire for Sam's blood and he strides to where Sam now stands alone.
He places the tip of the bone against Sam's chest.
“Kill your brother, Dean. And it will all be over.”
Sam meets his eyes, and Dean wonders why they are not afraid like all the others in the moment before he killed them.
“You don't want to kill me, Dean. It's the Mark and Metatron getting in your head.” Sam's voice is quiet, pitched for only Dean to hear.
Every cell in Dean's body is telling him to thrust the Blade, break the ribs, pierce Sam's heart.
“I'm not afraid of dying, but I don't want it to be you that kills me, Dean. Because it would kill you. You've spent your whole life protecting me even when I didn't think I wanted it. God knows I've let you down, and I've been angry at decisions you made for me, but you've always been my brother and if you do this, it will be because I didn't let you believe in me.”
The world hangs on a single heartbeat.
“End it, Dean!” Metatron commands. “End it and the story will be over! End it and you can be free.”
Dean’s eyes lock on Sam’s and burn to liquid. Sam realizes what Dean is going to do in the instant before Dean moves and Sam shoves his hand to deflect the Blade as Dean stabs it in his own chest.
“DEAN!”
Sam grabs his brother's shoulders, eases his dead - no, not dead - weight down to the floor and stares at the gaping furrow running from the middle of Dean's breastbone to his navel. The shredded flannel of his shirt is turning sodden with blood and Sam is reliving the worst moment of his life holding his brother's corpse shredded by Hellhounds and he is frozen.
“'S okay, Sammy,” Dean's whisper breaks the memory, “Someone had t'die. Better me 'n you.”
“No!” Sam can barely breathe through the tightness in his chest.
He is jolted by a shout and a scuffling noise behind him and turns his head to see Gadreel pierce Metratron with an angel blade.
Metatron's face shows a moment of shock before his grace explodes from him and Sam closes his eyes against the brilliance. He hears the thud as Metatron's meatsuit drops to the floor and when Sam opens his eyes, shadows of feathers are burned into the concrete.
It should be a triumphant moment.
Sam doesn't feel any victory.
Though his eyes are closed, Dean is still struggling, with shallow gasping breaths that send more blood bubbling out of his chest with each exhale. Sam tears off his own jacket and shirt, then balls the jacket and presses it against the wound.
“Gadreel! Help me!”
The angel's shadow falls over Dean. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Heal him!”
Gadreel bends, touches Dean's body briefly, then stands again.
“I cannot.”
“What the hell do you mean, you can't?!”
“I cannot help your brother. The damage to him, because it was inflicted by the First Blade, is beyond my ability to heal.”
“You've got to be able to do something!”
“I am sorry, Sam.”
***
Dean feels nothing.
It should hurt, he thinks, and instantly a vicious pain is slicing through him. He flails until his suddenly acquired body connects with solidity.
I'm dead.
He opens his eyes to a brilliant cloudless sky, feels grass feathering his arms. Dark hair falls into the edge of his vision.
“Have a nice nap?”
“Lisa?” He remembers this day. He hears Ben laughing in the distance. It had been, in that terrible year, one of the good days.
“Hey, Dean, did you remember to bring the lighter fluid?”
He sits up with a shock, there'd been no Sam then … but Sam is standing by a small barbeque grill.
This never happened.
“It's your heaven, Dean, you can mix up the memories if you want,” Sam grins.
He gets to his feet. Lisa smiles at him.
A hand touches his shoulder and his legs barely hold as he turns to his mother’s brilliant blue gaze.
“Mom?”
“Hi, honey,” she says softly, the warmth of her voice washing over him in waves of sunlight. Dean feels like he’s made of helium, about to become untethered.
Ben joins the cluster, bringing someone else into the circle of people standing around him. “Hey, Dean, I met someone who says she’s a friend of yours.”
A tiny blonde greets him with a hug, “You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you!”
Jo.
“I’m dead.”
“Not a problem, so am I,” Jo smirks.
Wait.
“Does that mean … no! Lisa and Ben are safe! And Sam … I didn’t …” Dean spins around in agitation. “This isn’t real! I wouldn’t be in Heaven!”
“Dean …”
He pulls away from Jo’s touch, puts a hand up to keep Lisa and Ben away, turns his back on all of them …
He knows where he belongs.
He is back on the rack in Alastair's dungeon with the skin stripped from his arms and legs and his intestines hanging out.
Dean screams as Alastair delicately slices off ribbons of exposed muscle, as if Alastair is carving a roast.
“I knew you’d come back to me, boy,” Alastair whispers. “This is where you belong. Ready to be my star pupil again?”
How it can hurt even worse than Dean remembers he can’t grasp, even as he remembers the lessons on where to place a blade to inflict the most excruciating torment. He knows he’s going to break and wonders why he should even try to fight it. Alastair digs again and Dean surrenders with a cry.
“Stop! Let me off!”
Alastair freezes as a white light floods the torture chamber.
“Dean.” He knows that gravelly voice.
“Cas?” he breathes.
In his iconic suit and trenchcoat, the angel walks past the immobile demon and touches the shackles binding Dean to the rack. As they dissolve, Cas grabs Dean to keep him from collapsing to the floor. As his hands touch Dean’s mangled body it heals. Dean staggers at the cessation of pain.
“You do not deserve this, Dean. You have always been the Righteous Man. You have sacrificed everything and it is enough.”
“No.” Dean shakes his head. “It’s not just what I did here, in Hell. I didn’t care what it cost to be able to kill Abaddon. I killed … innocent people … I killed you.” He pulls away from Cas’ touch.
“I forgive you, Dean. Forgive yourself.”
Hell dissolves with a thunderous crack and Dean is standing in a corridor of fragmented mirrors ... only, instead of reflecting his face, each shard contains an image of one of his failures ...
Jessica burning on the ceiling.
Lucifer with Sam's face, his fist pounding again and again.
Sarah Blake's body on the hotel room floor.
"No!" he cries as he begins to run.
The striga bending over Sammy.
John's face after he kills it.
Alastair mocking as Dean tortures him for the angels.
There is no escape.
Gadreel in Sam.
The demon in Lisa.
Jo. Ellen.
Bobby.
Kevin.
Each of the souls he had destroyed on Hell's rack.
Dean falls, curls in a ball as the mirror shards become saturated with red.
***
Revenge of the Jedi, Part 3
Author: borgmama1of5
Summary: Dean’s lost the Mark, doesn’t remember what he’s done … yet he’s still haunted.
Wordcount: 11,600 parts 2 & 3, 14,600 total
Genre/pairings: Gen
Rating: R
Spoilers: through 9.16 Mention of Major character death
Beta: sandymg
Disclaimer: Not mine, simply engaging in wish fulfillment.
Direct continuation of Revenge of the Jedi which needs to be read first.
Revenge of the Jedi, Part 2/3
Blood.
So much blood.
Puddles of blood, rivers of blood, oceans of blood.
Enough blood to drown in.
Bodies.
So many bodies.
Horrifically mutilated, chests gouged open, one after another after another.
Faces.
Frozen in shock, in pain, in terror.
One face.
Blue eyes. Fierce eyes. Believing eyes.
Dead eyes.
***
Sam struggles to get Dean’s inert body down the bunker stairs, into the bedroom. He can find no physical reason for Dean’s continued unconsciousness, the only physical injury Sam can see is the hand-shaped burn on Dean’s forearm.
But there is no response to Sam’s attempts to wake him.
By the third day Sam is frantic. Dean’s face is ashen, his closed eyes sunken in his face. Sam raids the bunker medical closet for supplies to put Dean on an IV. He has the rubber tube tied around Dean’s arm and is trying to find the vein for the needle when Dean gasps and jerks away as his eyes stutter open.
“No! No! I…”
“Dean!”
The flailing stops. Sam watches as recognition slowly crosses Dean’s face.
“Sam?” Dean’s voice is a scratchy whisper. Sam puts the glass of water that’s been sitting on the nightstand in Dean’s hand, helps him raise it to swallow a few sips.
“How am I here?” Bewilderment as Dean weakly pushes the glass away.
“What do you remember?” Sam has prepared himself to ask that first, before he attempts to explain … to make up a story …
To lie.
“Killing … demons … Abaddon? Crowley?” Dean’s paper-thin voice rises in uncertainty.
“You did, Dean. You killed both of them.”
“What … how … I can’t remember … just … blood …”
“I didn’t see the fight, Dean, I got there after it”- the first one, anyway - “was over. Abaddon, Crowley, and a lot of demons were dead.” Sam stops, wondering if he should get the worst, Cas, over with right away, or wait till Dean is stronger.
Sam can tell Dean is searching his mind to find something that corroborates what Sam just told him.
“I remember swinging the First Blade … putting it through Abaddon’s chest …” Dean looks up, sharp-eyed for a moment. “She was laughing until I killed her.” Dean starts coughing.
“Drink some more water and I’ll get you some soup. You’ve been out of it for three days, you need nourishment.”
The hard part can wait.
***
“Sam!” There is panic in Dean’s shout.
He had insisted he could take a shower by himself. Sam flings open the bathroom door.
Dean is half undressed, staring at his arm.
“What the fuck is this?”
Sam knows there is no way to explain it. “I don’t know.”
“Who did this? Did Cas-“
“Dean, when I found you … you were on the ground surrounded by bodies … including Cas …”
Sam thinks Dean stops breathing.
“Cas is … Cas is dead?” His voice breaks on the last word.
“I’m sorry, Dean. I didn’t want to tell you yet. The mark was on your arm, I don’t know how it got there.”
Dean slowly sinks to sit on the closed toilet.
“Everyone’s gone.”
Sam rests a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“Not everyone. I’m here. I’m staying.”
***
They stay inside the bunker. Dean is listless, lethargic, and Sam wants the apathetic look in Dean’s eyes to go away.
Sam ignores the outside world until Dean is at least eating again. Not heartily, but enough. Finally he takes a look at his usual web pages to see if he can find out what has been happening since the top spot in Hell opened up. He’s thinking that he hasn’t seen so many chaotic demon indications since the Devil’s Gate was opened in Wyoming.
He’s reluctant to say anything to Dean who doesn’t look remotely ready to go hunting.
Saving people, hunting things. He’s tried giving it up so many times … But this time the decision to ignore the job is because he needs to fix Dean first. Though he has no idea how to do that.
***
In his blood-drenched nightmares, Castiel’s chest implodes as he stares at Dean with sorrow-filled eyes.
He wants to ask Sam.
But he won’t.
***
Someone is pounding on the bunker’s steel door. Sam is up the stairs with his gun in hand faster than should be possible. There’s no peephole and no more sound, and for a moment he thinks maybe he imagined it.
The banging starts again.
He opens the door the tiniest crack and pokes the tip of the gun at the suited man whose hand is paused mid-knock.
“Dean Winchester?”
Sam growls. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?”
“I am Pahaliah. Gadreel sent us.”
“The fuck.” Sam sees a small group of people - angels - waiting expectantly on the other side of the road.
“You can’t be here!” Sam hisses.
“Gadreel said -“
Sam steps out, pulls the door behind him. “You do not mention his name. Ever. Now. Why the fuck are you here?”
“Ga- he said that we could be of best service to the cause by helping the Winchesters. And he told us where to find you.”
Of course. Gadreel knows where the bunker is. And now so do who knows how many angels…
“’Cause?’ What ‘cause’ do you mean?”
“Ga … His mission is to retake heaven from Metatron. When Castiel was destroyed, G-he took over as our leader. He said we must help you.”
“What do you think you can do for us?”
Another angel, an African-American woman, has stepped closer during the conversation. Now, with a pronounced Caribbean accent, she speaks.
“Mr. Winchester, sir, we can help you with the demon infestation. If you direct us to them we will fight them for you. Even though we do not have our wings, we do have our weapons, and our vessels benefit from our innate speed and strength. Our Leader is concerned that the flood of uncontrolled evil loosed from Hell because of its leaderless state is causing unnecessary harm to humanity.”
Pahaliah takes over the explanation. “Because the souls who should be going to Heaven are trapped between realms and more and more of them have been dispatched by the hand of a demon, the veil risks being overrun with spirits caught in despair and fear. And more of them seek vengeance in this realm. Surely you have noticed the increase in hauntings?”
“How many of you are there?”
“Seven of us are here. More are coming.”
“How many more?”
The woman speaks again. “There should be eleven joining us, though we have not heard from Jehoel or Jophiel and we fear the worst.”
“Okay.” Sam thinks quickly. Angel allies against the demons is not a bad idea - if they can be trusted. Which he doesn’t.
He does not want them in the bunker.
“You have money? Credit cards? You need to find somewhere to stay, one of the motels along the highway. There’s a Biggerson’s restaurant not too far along route 281. I will meet the two of you - just the two of you - in the parking lot there tomorrow morning at ten.”
“We will do as you instruct, Dean Winchester.”
“I’m Sam. And you are not to let any other angels know of this location, do you understand? Don’t let it get broadcast on your angel radio.” Sam glares for emphasis.
“Certainly.”
After he’s watched them leave, Sam locks the door and rests his head against it for support.
He once turned down leadership of a demon army. Now he’s been given an angel army instead?
***
To Sam's surprise, the angels are actually useful. He sends them out to areas of concentrated demon activity to protect the innocent and finds himself feeling less guilty about hiding in the bunker. Because that's what he's doing, since he doesn't want to make Dean go out until he's recovered, and he can't leave his brother alone now. He's never seen Dean in such an apathetic state … it's worse than when they were fighting Michael and Lucifer, when Cas freed the Leviathans, when Bobby died ... Dean just doesn't respond to anything.
He's not even drinking.
“C'mon, Dean, you have to eat.”
No reaction.
“Do I have to fly the spoon into the hangar door?” He waits for the snarky response, you just try it, Sammy he can hear in his head, but Dean doesn't even look up.
Sam sits down heavily on the chair next to his brother.
“Dean. You gotta talk to me.” He puts his hand to Dean's stubbled chin, turns Dean's head so he has to look at Sam's face. “You won, Dean. Abaddon and Crowley are both gone. You did it. And I get it, we lost Cas, and that hurts, but he wouldn't want you to stop because he's gone. There's still evil out there to fight, people to save. Dick angels still cluttering up the world. And I'm not leaving you, we're in this together. From now on, the two of us. Okay?”
When Dean finally speaks his voice is rusty, barely audible.
“It's all blood, Sammy. That's all I see. All the time. And my arm, it burns. Like even though the Mark is gone, it still wants the Blade. The power. Nothing could stop me. And I want that feeling back … and it terrifies me like … like what I did in Hell, Sam, only worse. Ten times, hundred times worse. I shouldn't be here.”
Sam picks his words carefully. This is the most Dean has talked since Sam brought him here after the carnage.
“I know what it feels like, to want to have that kind of power. When I was souped up on demon blood I was invincible, and right, and it was the best feeling in the world. But what I did with it … well, I almost ended the world. Would have, if you hadn't stopped me. So I know how it feels right even though you know it's wrong. But you did something good with that terrible power, got rid of the two worst demons torturing humanity just for fun. And now it's over, and the pull will lessen, I know it will, it takes time, but it will.”
“I'm a monster, just like what we hunt.”
“No, Dean. You're not a monster just because you held that Blade. You're not.”
Dean's only response to that is a slight shake of his head.
But he eats a little of his soup.
***
“Where is it, Sam?”
Sam knows what Dean is asking about, but pretends he doesn't to see what his brother will say.
“It … the Bl -” Dean takes a breath. “The Blade. What did you do with it?”
He'd thrown it in the trunk of the Impala, he didn't dare leave such a weapon loose, and now Sam realizes he's forgotten it there. Sam looks at the gray circles under Dean's eyes, the only color in his brother's white face, and evades the question.
"Why do you want to know?"
A flash of irritation, the first animation Dean's shown in ages. "Can you just answer the fucking question?"
"It's secure." Sam decides to take a chance. "There's what looks like a salt-n-burn not far ... Do you feel up to tackling a hunt?"
Sam can't interpret the expression that flashes across his brother's face. So he reaches across the table and flips the Impala's keys at Dean, who catches them unthinkingly.
“Meet you at the car in ten,” Sam says, and leaves the room before Dean can answer.
***
A dirty film filters everything.
Fingers curl around what should be familiar … but his hands clench the wheel too tightly and his arm muscles ache.
The silence pounds over miles without speaking.
Sam hands him the shotgun, takes the shovel, leads the way to a heartless stone marker.
Dean watches, knows how to do this job.
Rocksalt shatters the coalescing mist and a spike of satisfaction curls his lip. He wants it to form again so he can destroy it another time. He feels the warm rush of flames from the grave before he can shoot again and disappointment surges.
For just a moment his purpose was clear.
***
Sam knows they could have made it back to Lebanon tonight but he's hoping a change of scenery will spark something more in Dean. He'd seen, peripherally, Dean snap to alertness when the ghost approached, and he'd watched Dean obliterate it without hesitation. He thinks the hunter part of Dean is still there and wonders if he can use it as a hook to pull Dean back together.
Dean's back to the shadow of himself once they leave the cemetery, but Sam has to try.
“Let's stop there.” Sam points to a red neon sign for Shaggy's Bar.
The look Dean gives him is pure what the fuck.
"I just thought … we can celebrate an easy win, right?"
"Right," Dean mutters under his breath, but he turns into the parking lot.
It's a bust, though. Dean downs three whiskeys in rapid succession and then just sits and stares at his empty glass. Sam can tell he wants to order another one but won't because he doesn't want Sam to bitch about him drinking too much. The place is filled with what look to Sam like kids, and the piped-in music is godawful modern pop. He gives up after forty-five minutes.
“You were right, bad idea. Or at least, totally not our kind of place...” Sam starts to slide out of the booth. “Let's go.”
“Our kind of place? Didn't think there was an our anymore.” Dean mutters so softly that Sam thinks he isn't supposed to hear. He stops getting up and stares until Dean looks at him.
“What?”
“Dean, look, I know things got … kinda … tense … between us … but it's over, you beat the bastards, and I still think you should have just … let me go, but I'm here now, and maybe I … understand a little better why you did it, and you are still my brother, okay?” He didn't mean for the words to spill out so artlessly, but he knows some of what Dean did is on Sam because of how Sam let his brother feel abandoned.
Dean is silent.
Sam starts to regret saying anything as Dean continues just to stare, his face unreadable.
“It's late, we're both tired, let's just get a room and head back in the morning, okay?”
Finally Dean nods.
They're in the motel room for about a half-hour when there's a pounding on the door. “Winchesters! Open the damn door, we know you're in there!” They are up together instantly, guns in hand, Sam at the door, Dean backing him up. A nod, and Sam twists the doorknob.
Sam recognizes the two young people who nearly fall into the room. “Where's Dean?”
“I'm right here, Aiden … Josephine. Why are you here?” Dean frowns. “Where's Krissy?”
Shit.
“Why don't you tell us, Dean, the last we heard from her she was being stalked by you!” Aiden is fearlessly up in Dean's face, completely ignoring the gun.
“What?”
“We were in New Mexico, on a hunt, and Krissy stayed here because she was working on a project, and she called and said you were following her and acting weird … she was scared - “
Aiden interrupts Josephine's torrent of words. “She was scared of you, Winchester, and she went to a Wal-Mart because Sam told her to ...” Here Aiden turns to glare viciously at Sam, “And she said you were coming, and then we don't hear anything more, and we get back and the whole damn store was burned down! What did you do to Krissy?!”
Aiden grabs the front of Dean's shirt.
“I don't … remember anything about seeing Krissy ...” Dean is ignoring the young hunters, staring at Sam. “Sam?” Dean's lowered his gun hand and is looking for a lifeline from him.
Sam knows he is walking through a minefield. He keeps his eyes on Dean as he talks. “That's where I found you, Dean, at the Wal-Mart, but I was too late, the fight had gone down. Krissy was … I think one of the demons had killed her. All the demons were dead, and Crowley, and all I could do was to get you out and torch the place.”
“Nooo!” Sam is knocked back against the door, and Aiden is punching wildly. “Not Krissy, No!”
“Why didn't you tell us?” Josephine screams, and jumps to join Aiden, but Dean restrains her even as he continues to stare at Sam.
Sam lets Aiden pound his anger and grief out on him, he deserves it. But once Dean has Josephine under control, he pulls Aiden off Sam. “Stop it,” is all he says to the boy, and the kid starts shaking with body-wrenching sobs. Another minute and Josephine is clutching Aiden and weeping as well.
Sam rubs along his jaw where Aiden landed a hard blow.
“Sam?” Dean is simultaneously asking if Sam's okay and was that the truth about Krissy, and Sam nods.
***
Sam is lying.
He wants to ask, 'Did I kill Krissy?'
He's terrified of the answer.
***
As he waits for Dean to ask, Sam ties to concoct an answer that's not a bald-faced lie. He can't … but Dean doesn't bring it up.
He understands, now, how Dean must have felt hiding the secret of Sam's possession by Gadreel - there's a knot in his gut that never relaxes, waiting for when Dean will figure out Sam is hiding what he's done to Dean. Sam's kept secrets before - applying to Stanford, Ruby and the demon blood - but this is different. He's not keeping his own secret - he's hiding what's been done - what Sam did - to Dean.
Dean's acting different, though Sam can't tell if it's from the hunt or from the confrontation with Aiden and Josephine. Dean wants to resume hunting, and Sam should be pleased, except that the ferocity with which Dean slashes and stabs is even more intense than when Dean returned from Purgatory. It scares Sam.
“Wipe your face, Dean.” Sam hands him a rag from the Impala's open trunk. Dean seems oblivious to the blood spatters across his face, residue of the three vampires they've just put down. “You don't want to be driving looking like an escapee from a bad horror movie.”
Dean stares at the cloth a moment like he doesn't understand why that would be a concern, but then shrugs and does as Sam asks. Dean's about to drop the rag back into the trunk when he freezes. Sam follows his eyes and sees Dean staring at a towel-wrapped bundle pressed into the corner by the taillight. Shit. Sam had forgotten to move it.
He holds his breath as he watches Dean's reaction, the twitching of his hand, the stoniness of his face. The moment lasts longer than Sam can stand, and he puts his hand on the trunk lid. “Watch yourself,” he tells Dean, and slams the trunk as Dean snatches his hand back. But Dean doesn't move, doesn't stop staring at the corner where the Blade is hidden.
“I'm driving. Get in the car.” Sam gives his brother a rough shove to break the trance and snags the keys from Dean's jacket.
It's telling that Dean doesn't object.
Sam finds him that night, out by the car with the First Blade in his hand. The tendons on the back of his hand are popped out with the intensity of Dean's trembling grip.
“Put it down, Dean,” he says quietly. Sam's careful, afraid Dean's so deeply enthralled that he might strike without thinking at any sudden movement. “Dean,” he tries again, but there's no reaction. Sam continues to approach his brother cautiously until he's within arm's reach, and then Sam grabs Dean's wrist, intending to force Dean to drop the weapon.
Dean whirls in a frenzy, and suddenly Sam is fighting for his life, using all his strength to keep the wicked jawbone from plunging into him. He yells Dean's name to get through to him, two hands now twisting Dean's arm to keep the Blade pointed up and away from Sam's body. Sam shoulders Dean's chest, but Dean arches behind Sam and his free arm locks around Sam's throat. Dean is growling in Sam's ear, and in desperation Sam lets go of Dean's knife-hand and thrusts both his elbows into Dean's gut.
The Blade falls from Dean's grasp, and Sam kicks it under the car. When he turns, Dean is ashen, gasping for air and looking horror-stricken.
“It still has me, Sam, it still has me!” Dean frantically pulls up his sleeve to show the handprint that obliterates the Mark. “Why?” He rubs the scar. “Why? It's gone!”
***
Killer. Killer. Killer.
It pounds through him with each pulse beat.
He wakes up tasting blood, feeling its stickiness on his skin, reveling in the crunch of shattered sternums, the gush of pierced hearts. And proceeds to puke up his last several meals in the toilet.
Because with every kill he dreams, he sees terrified, pleading eyes staring at him.
***
Sam doesn't want to do this. But he has to have answers. So when he hears from Pahaliah again, he tells him he needs to see Gadreel.
“The Mark is gone, so why is he still under the control of the Blade?” he asks heatedly when Gadreel shows up in the Biggerson's parking lot.
“I removed the outward sign of the Mark, but your brother wielded the First Blade repeatedly. It may have become absorbed into him. I do not know.”
“You have to fix him!”
“Sam ...”
“You owe us, Gadreel. You owe me. You figure out how to make it right.”
“It is not within my power. But there is someone who may have the answers you seek … the one who bore the Mark originally.”
“Cain?”
“Who would know more of the Mark's power than him?”
Sam weighs whether to involve Dean in searching for a way to summon Cain. But Dean's question when Sam arrives back at the bunker drives Cain from his mind.
Dean is staring at his laptop, an empty Jack Daniels bottle beside it. He glares at Sam as he comes down the stairs.
“How many hunters did I kill?”
“What?” Sam squeezes down his immediate panic.
“How many?” Dean's face is dark. Sam identifies the self-loathing in it, knows it from his own experiences.
“What are you talking about, Dean?”
“Don't treat me like I'm stupid, Sam. I checked. Between the time I left the bunker to fight Abaddon and the time you say you found me in Wal-Mart, someone was leaving dead hunters with pulverized bodies all over the country. I've found a half-dozen stories online so far.”
“Dean ...”
“Don't lie to me, Sam. I recognize their faces. I see them when I try to sleep.” Dean lowers his head. “I killed Krissy, didn't I.” It's not a question.
Sam knows the words are pointless, but he says them anyway. “It wasn't you, Dean, it was the Mark.” And because he cannot bear what he sees in Dean's slumped body, he adds “I don't know if you killed Krissy, she was dead when I got there, and you weren't the only one there who could have done it.” Half-truth, half-lie, he wills Dean to believe it.
It becomes Sam's obsession to find Cain now. Dean … Dean stares at nothing while he sits and drinks, and Sam knows he is not sleeping. When he finds the ritual in one of the Men of Letters' obscure files, he has to decide whether to involve Dean in the summoning or not.
Dean decides for him. Sam isn't even aware that Dean's been paying attention to him, until Dean's rough voice stops him as he's leaving the library.
“You found it, didn't you? A way to summon Cain?”
A 'yes' is startled out of Sam.
“I'm doing it.” Dean wobbles as he stands, but there's no ambivalence in his bearing.
“Together,” Sam counters.
Cain is more refined than Sam expected, trim peppery beard and ice blue eyes. And he seems very interested in Sam, who stands very still as Cain stalks around him.
“So this is the brother you couldn't kill,” Cain finally speaks. “In fact, not only couldn't you kill him, you went to Hell to save him. You made bargain after bargain to save him. I don't understand why, after everything he’s done.”
“He's my brother,” is all Dean says.
Cain dismisses Sam, goes face to face with Dean.
“You say that like that is a reason … yet I see the doubt in you that he was worth all the pain.”
“We're not here to psychoanalyze me, Cain. We called you here to answer questions about your Mark. I don't have it any more,” Dean pushes up his sleeve to show the handprint, “And I want to know why it's still affecting me.”
“Who did this?” Cain's anger impels Dean a step backward, but Cain seizes Dean's arm to stop him.
“I don't know.”
Dean flinches as Cain runs his fingers over the scar. “An angel did this. But it didn't work, did it? You still feel the pull of the Blade, the hunger to kill ...”
Sam chances speaking. “Why? Why is Dean still affected?”
Cain doesn't bother to look at Sam as he answers, instead keeping his piercing eyes boring into Dean's.
“The Mark is just an outward symbol. When you accepted it, you allowed its power into your very being.”
“So this is it, then? This killer is what I'll always be?”
“I said when I met you, Dean, we are very much alike.”
“There's got to be something ...” Sam bursts out, only to stop at the look Cain gives him.
“Once Dean accepted the Mark it became his destiny. He is the First Knight of Hell … but as it is a Hell without a ruler, he is free to choose where he goes. He will use the Blade, that cannot be changed. It was the first weapon and its power will not be denied.” Cain looks back at Dean. “As long as it exists on Earth, you are tied to it.”
Still holding Dean's arm, Cain suddenly closes his eyes, then he hisses. “You don't know ...”
Cain drops Dean's arm and strides to Sam. “You had no right! Were I him, I would kill you for what you've done.” He disappears.
“Sam?” There is a grim warning in Dean's voice.
“I don't … I didn't … I didn't tell you about the hunters, or Krissy, all right, because it's like when I was soulless, okay? You said that it wasn't me that killed innocent people and this wasn't you either! It was the Mark!”
Dean just stares at him. Then he turns and walks away.
Dean disappears again.
He takes the Impala, his duffle, his favorite weapons … and he found where Sam hid the Blade, in Sam's own room. When Sam checks in the back of the bottom dresser drawer, he finds Dean's note: Don't look for me.
***
He's always been a killer.
He thinks back to his very first kill, the adrenaline rush, the pride in taking the monster down. Even then he was wrong.
The first time he killed a demon without a thought for the innocent meatsuit it was wearing … and how many, many since that one?
Alastair didn't break him in Hell, he'd just been denying what he really was for the first thirty years. And when he'd given in, stopped fighting, he'd been horrifically good at destroying souls.
Now he acknowledges there was pleasure in being so good. In Alastair's praise.
It makes him want to throw up and he pulls to the side of the road.
He fights getting his stomach under control, but the memories keep hitting him - the power he felt as he slaughtered the entire vampire's nest when he was turned, the thirst he felt for Lisa's blood, how he barely got away before hurting her ...
The exhilaration of Purgatory - its purity - was simply unfettered license to kill everything that got in his way.
Finally he sees the truth in what Cain said. He was 'Daddy's blunt little instrument' after all.
He unleashes his bloodthirst in hunting. With the Blade he can kill anything. No more need for silver bullets or blessed stakes, though ghosts still require a salt-n-burn. He skips over them mostly, for the reward of grappling with a werewolf and feeling invincible. He thinks the slashes and bruises heal faster than they used to. He tries to keep the human body count down, doesn't always succeed, but refuses to feel bad when someone gets in the way.
He throws away all his phones and stops scrubbing the blood from under his fingernails.
***
Sam has to find him.
He thinks back to how hard Dean fought to recover Sam's soul. Dean's soul might as well have been ripped from him. It would be different, Sam thinks, if Dean were dead … but he cannot leave his brother to suffer alone, believing he is something evil.
Sam wishes Castiel was still here.
After a few weeks Sam sees the pattern, sees that Dean is going after corporeal creatures that are at the First Blade's mercy.
He gives his angel army a new task, sending them out in the possible directions Dean might go, charging them with the job of locating him.
Sam has no idea what he will do when they find Dean.
***
He knows the suited man that has been following him is an angel. He makes himself easy to spot, lures the lame bastard into an alley and has the Blade at his throat without even breaking a sweat.
“You can't hurt me,” the little man wheezes.
“I know this isn't an angel blade, but I'm betting it works on angels just as well.” His mind flashes to Cas. His gut tells him that the First Blade, in his hand, killed the angel, and he presses the jawbone harder against this one's neck.
“Who sent you to follow me? Gadreel? Metatron?”
“Your brother, Sam.”
Confusion. “You are working for him? Why would he want to know where I am?”
“There is a small contingent of angels who do not believe what is happening is right. We followed Castiel until he died, then Gadreel led us until he told us to follow the orders of the Winchesters. Now we do as your brother instructs.”
“And he told you to follow me?”
“Our small army is searching for you. When I found you, I reported that and was told to keep you in my sight until he gets here.”
“Your bad luck.” He slices the angel's throat. Its warm blood spurts in his face.
All angels are dicks. And he doesn't want to see Sam.
He dreams of climbing a mountain of eviscerated corpses. A blue-eyed angel in a trench coat waits at the top and says, This is not you. He feels the sizzle of the Blade in his fist, then the angel falls at his feet without having been touched.
He wakes from his nightmare clutching the Blade.
***
Sam has lost enough of his angel company - their vessels are not indestructible - that when he hears Dean killed Pahaliah he calls them off the search. He will find Dean himself.
Sam drives to Dean's last location, hoping he will be able to track Dean from there. A couple people remember the 'scary dude with the big black car' and Sam even finds Dean's motel room … but then nothing.
He clicks through websites, looking for hunts that Dean might have gone after next, figuring Dean has a four-day head start.
He thinks it's hopeless, with that much of a lead Dean could be anywhere.
He's not expecting Metatron to solve the problem.
***
“I've brought you a present.”
Dean whirls, knows that oily voice, charges blindly only to hit an invisible barrier.
“Dean.”
Dean freezes.
Sam is standing between Metatron and Gadreel.
“I didn't ask him to bring me here,” Sam rushes. “But we have to talk.”
He growls and pushes the Blade against the transparent wall that is keeping him from carving the two angels into the same bloody pulp as everything - everyone - else he's killed.
He ignores Sam, focuses his rage on the gray-haired face mocking him.
“You are very fond of your new weapon, aren't you, Dean. I have to say, I am very impressed with how you've mastered it … or should I say, it's mastered you? Either way, your single-minded ruthlessness is truly something to watch. But it's time for the denouement of the story.”
He sees Sam try to move, be held by Gadreel. But Dean’s target is Metatron.
“I was there, you know, at the start of the conflict … when Cain killed Abel because of jealousy … or love … or, since they were human, probably both. Brother against brother, a universal theme. Heaven knows, you boys were supposed to act it out before and managed to mess that up spectacularly, so I'm giving you the chance to get it right this time.”
Metatron waves his hand and the barrier dissolves.
“You've spent your life protecting Sammy. Sacrificed your wants, your needs, your life, your very soul for him. And how has he repaid your loyalty? By abandoning you. Choosing Stanford, then a demon, then Lucifer, then a girl and a dog over you. And when you do everything in your power to save his life, what does he tell you? That you shouldn't have done it, and by the way, he'd never save you … So why exactly is it you care about him so much?”
Metatron is right, Sam has never been there for him in the same way … he went to Hell for Sam, became the monster he is for Sam, and Sam … Sam despises him … His arm trembles with the desire for Sam's blood and he strides to where Sam now stands alone.
He places the tip of the bone against Sam's chest.
“Kill your brother, Dean. And it will all be over.”
Sam meets his eyes, and Dean wonders why they are not afraid like all the others in the moment before he killed them.
“You don't want to kill me, Dean. It's the Mark and Metatron getting in your head.” Sam's voice is quiet, pitched for only Dean to hear.
Every cell in Dean's body is telling him to thrust the Blade, break the ribs, pierce Sam's heart.
“I'm not afraid of dying, but I don't want it to be you that kills me, Dean. Because it would kill you. You've spent your whole life protecting me even when I didn't think I wanted it. God knows I've let you down, and I've been angry at decisions you made for me, but you've always been my brother and if you do this, it will be because I didn't let you believe in me.”
The world hangs on a single heartbeat.
“End it, Dean!” Metatron commands. “End it and the story will be over! End it and you can be free.”
Dean’s eyes lock on Sam’s and burn to liquid. Sam realizes what Dean is going to do in the instant before Dean moves and Sam shoves his hand to deflect the Blade as Dean stabs it in his own chest.
“DEAN!”
Sam grabs his brother's shoulders, eases his dead - no, not dead - weight down to the floor and stares at the gaping furrow running from the middle of Dean's breastbone to his navel. The shredded flannel of his shirt is turning sodden with blood and Sam is reliving the worst moment of his life holding his brother's corpse shredded by Hellhounds and he is frozen.
“'S okay, Sammy,” Dean's whisper breaks the memory, “Someone had t'die. Better me 'n you.”
“No!” Sam can barely breathe through the tightness in his chest.
He is jolted by a shout and a scuffling noise behind him and turns his head to see Gadreel pierce Metratron with an angel blade.
Metatron's face shows a moment of shock before his grace explodes from him and Sam closes his eyes against the brilliance. He hears the thud as Metatron's meatsuit drops to the floor and when Sam opens his eyes, shadows of feathers are burned into the concrete.
It should be a triumphant moment.
Sam doesn't feel any victory.
Though his eyes are closed, Dean is still struggling, with shallow gasping breaths that send more blood bubbling out of his chest with each exhale. Sam tears off his own jacket and shirt, then balls the jacket and presses it against the wound.
“Gadreel! Help me!”
The angel's shadow falls over Dean. “What is it you want me to do?”
“Heal him!”
Gadreel bends, touches Dean's body briefly, then stands again.
“I cannot.”
“What the hell do you mean, you can't?!”
“I cannot help your brother. The damage to him, because it was inflicted by the First Blade, is beyond my ability to heal.”
“You've got to be able to do something!”
“I am sorry, Sam.”
***
Dean feels nothing.
It should hurt, he thinks, and instantly a vicious pain is slicing through him. He flails until his suddenly acquired body connects with solidity.
I'm dead.
He opens his eyes to a brilliant cloudless sky, feels grass feathering his arms. Dark hair falls into the edge of his vision.
“Have a nice nap?”
“Lisa?” He remembers this day. He hears Ben laughing in the distance. It had been, in that terrible year, one of the good days.
“Hey, Dean, did you remember to bring the lighter fluid?”
He sits up with a shock, there'd been no Sam then … but Sam is standing by a small barbeque grill.
This never happened.
“It's your heaven, Dean, you can mix up the memories if you want,” Sam grins.
He gets to his feet. Lisa smiles at him.
A hand touches his shoulder and his legs barely hold as he turns to his mother’s brilliant blue gaze.
“Mom?”
“Hi, honey,” she says softly, the warmth of her voice washing over him in waves of sunlight. Dean feels like he’s made of helium, about to become untethered.
Ben joins the cluster, bringing someone else into the circle of people standing around him. “Hey, Dean, I met someone who says she’s a friend of yours.”
A tiny blonde greets him with a hug, “You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you!”
Jo.
“I’m dead.”
“Not a problem, so am I,” Jo smirks.
Wait.
“Does that mean … no! Lisa and Ben are safe! And Sam … I didn’t …” Dean spins around in agitation. “This isn’t real! I wouldn’t be in Heaven!”
“Dean …”
He pulls away from Jo’s touch, puts a hand up to keep Lisa and Ben away, turns his back on all of them …
He knows where he belongs.
He is back on the rack in Alastair's dungeon with the skin stripped from his arms and legs and his intestines hanging out.
Dean screams as Alastair delicately slices off ribbons of exposed muscle, as if Alastair is carving a roast.
“I knew you’d come back to me, boy,” Alastair whispers. “This is where you belong. Ready to be my star pupil again?”
How it can hurt even worse than Dean remembers he can’t grasp, even as he remembers the lessons on where to place a blade to inflict the most excruciating torment. He knows he’s going to break and wonders why he should even try to fight it. Alastair digs again and Dean surrenders with a cry.
“Stop! Let me off!”
Alastair freezes as a white light floods the torture chamber.
“Dean.” He knows that gravelly voice.
“Cas?” he breathes.
In his iconic suit and trenchcoat, the angel walks past the immobile demon and touches the shackles binding Dean to the rack. As they dissolve, Cas grabs Dean to keep him from collapsing to the floor. As his hands touch Dean’s mangled body it heals. Dean staggers at the cessation of pain.
“You do not deserve this, Dean. You have always been the Righteous Man. You have sacrificed everything and it is enough.”
“No.” Dean shakes his head. “It’s not just what I did here, in Hell. I didn’t care what it cost to be able to kill Abaddon. I killed … innocent people … I killed you.” He pulls away from Cas’ touch.
“I forgive you, Dean. Forgive yourself.”
Hell dissolves with a thunderous crack and Dean is standing in a corridor of fragmented mirrors ... only, instead of reflecting his face, each shard contains an image of one of his failures ...
Jessica burning on the ceiling.
Lucifer with Sam's face, his fist pounding again and again.
Sarah Blake's body on the hotel room floor.
"No!" he cries as he begins to run.
The striga bending over Sammy.
John's face after he kills it.
Alastair mocking as Dean tortures him for the angels.
There is no escape.
Gadreel in Sam.
The demon in Lisa.
Jo. Ellen.
Bobby.
Kevin.
Each of the souls he had destroyed on Hell's rack.
Dean falls, curls in a ball as the mirror shards become saturated with red.
***
Revenge of the Jedi, Part 3