Fic: Lifeboat (2/2)

[jedisapphire]

Part I

Bargaining

As soon as he's alone, Dean's on his knees on the ground, shoving the rug out of the way, chalking outlines onto the ground.

He's halfway through when he hears a voice say, "Hello, Rocky."

Dean looks up. "Crowley."

"I thought you might want me, and I decided to save you the trouble." Crowley pulls out one of the little chairs by the coffee table and sits. "I heard what happened. A lot of my people were involved in the… incident… too."

"Your people deserved it."

"Still judgemental, I see." Crowley shrugs. "You never change, do you? I'm sorry about Moose."

"Shut up."

"I am. He was the sane half of the Winchesters. Without him, there's nobody to keep you from going rogue. I like Samantha alive."

Dean stares at him. Does this mean…

"What are you saying?"

"You think I'm here to offer you a deal? I admit that usually is my style, but… not today, Squirrel."

"Why not? You make deals for all kinds of crap. Why can't I make a deal for Sammy back?"

"I don't want your soul. It's more trouble than it's worth. Knowing you and Moose, the moment your deal came due, he would either kill me or find a loophole. What do you have to offer?"

"You just said you like Sam alive. Just do it. You want him alive."

"I do. But I don't want him alive even a fraction as much as you want him alive, so I think I'll hold out for a bargain. I'm a businessman, Dean. You want something, and I can provide it. What can you give me in return?"

"We'll leave you alone," Dean says after a moment's thought. "You, and only you, will be off limits. As long as you don't make a move on either of us, I won't kill you, and I'll make sure Sam doesn't, either."

Crowley leans forward. "I get immunity from the Winchesters?"

"One-time offer."

"And you won't try to turn me human again?"

"You can be a demon forever. Sam and I will leave you alone. I'm not saying we won't go after other demons, but you are safe."

Crowley grins. "You do understand that this is binding? If I bring Sam back and you renege on the deal, he'll drop dead."

"Yeah. I know the drill."

"Fine. I'll take it. Just a moment."

Crowley vanishes. Dean sits back on his heels, relief seeping through him. Sam's probably going to be pissed about making a deal with Crowley, but Dean can handle that. He can handle anything, as long as Sam's alive.

He's just getting to his feet when Crowley shows up again. Alone.

"What happened?" Dean asks. "Where's Sam?"

"I can't find him," Crowley says. "He's not in Hell -"

"Of course he's not in Hell. Good guys don't go downstairs."

"Well, he's not in Heaven either - or, if he is, he's found a way to conceal himself from me. Knowing Moose, it's possible."

"No." Dean shakes his head. "Is it - if he's not in Heaven and not in Hell, he might still be alive."

"I hate to say this, Dean, but I don't see any way little baby Winchester can still be alive. Two of my best demons were in that building, and they died there. If they couldn't get out past the God Squad, Sam couldn't." He shrugs. "Knowing how Moose feels about being resurrected…"

Dean's breath catches in his throat as a horrible thought occurs to him.

"What?" Crowley asks.

"When… Oh, crap… After the trials, when Sam was dying… Gadreel showed me what was going on in his head. He made Death promise that if he died, there'd be no going back. No deals, no undoing it. Do you think… Is that… Is that why you can't find him?"

"Probably." There's a strange expression on Crowley's face, and Dean wants to scream. Even goddamn Crowley pities him. "I hate to say it, Squirrel, but I think you're just going to have to get used to life without Moose. If Death is in the game… Well, not even your Angel friend can bring Sam back."

"Death's going to reap God one day," Dean whispers, remembering an old conversation. "But - no - no, I can deal with Death."

"Dean." Crowley's shaking his head. "This is Death we're talking about. He doesn't deal. I don't even know how Moose got that promise from him. It must have been those eyes."

"Crowley -"

"Listen to me, Squirrel. You cannot muck around with this. I heard about that stunt you pulled to get Sam's soul out of the Cage. Don't try it again. It won't work. I don't know how Samantha managed to cajole a promise of any kind out of Death, but one thing I've learnt about him: he always keeps his word."

"There must be something I can threaten him with -"

"What are you, crazy? You can't threaten Death."

"Lucifer had him trapped, if I do that -"

"Dean!" Crowley takes a step forward and makes as if to grab him by the shoulders before he thinks better of it. "Dean, don't. Do you have any idea what it'll do to the natural balance?"

"If it gets Sam back, I don't care."

"Dean." Crowley sighs. "I'm not saying I don't understand. I like Moose. I do. But this isn't going to work. Lucifer trapped Death. You can't. He'll just kill you as soon as he sees you."

"But -"

"I'm sorry, Dean." Crowley backs away. "He's gone. Look, as a sign of goodwill, I'll go to the morgue and see if I can… identify him. I'm sure you don't want to -"

"No!" Dean snaps. "Just… Fine, if you won't deal with me, get the hell out."

Crowley goes.

Depression

Dean heaves a deep breath and sits on his bed.

If Sam's up in Heaven, Sam's happy. And he's where he belongs. Dean can't be the one to drag him down and force him to go through this crap again, the world ending and Angels and demons and fighting a battle that's looking more pointless every day.

Sam deserves to be happy.

And Dean…

Dean's just going to have to deal.

He knows now that normal isn't for him. His normal is Sammy sitting across from him buried in a book, or slumping against Dean's shoulder when they're driving and he falls asleep, or lecturing him about how hamburgers are bad for his arteries, or…

Anything. Just being Sammy.

Dean's normal is gone.

There's a pair of shot glasses in the motel cupboard, and Dean's got one filled with whiskey before he even realizes he's done it.

It burns going down. He bought it a couple of days ago as a surprise for Sam, planning for a few quiet evenings to themselves as soon as the case was done. Dean was going make the spaghetti Sam had loved as a kid, and they'd have whiskey instead of Coke because they're adults now, and he'd get Sam to hack somebody's Netflix account. (Sammy has a Netflix account, of course, because he's Sammy, but Dean always enjoys binge-watching TV shows more when someone else is paying.)

He'd been thinking of that when he'd bought the bottle of smooth, rich whiskey that really deserved to be savoured, not wasted on shots.

But Dean can't savour whiskey without Sammy around to savour it with him.

He fills the shot glass again.

He can figure out how to live. People have lost people before - they lost Mom, and Dad and Bobby. Hell, Dad lost Mom. Of course, as much as Dean loved Mom and Dad and Bobby, all three of them together wouldn't come close to taking Sammy's place. As for Dad…

Dean wonders bitterly if it's a sign of how screwed up he is that he's perfectly certain Sammy means more to him than Mom ever did to Dad, or for that matter than anyone's ever meant to anyone in the history of the human race. But that's just because nobody else has ever had Sammy for a little brother.

He can kill Jerusha. He's going to kill the bitch, no matter what Cas says about it. But that won't bring Sammy back.

Nothing will bring Sammy back.

The rest of his life is going to be an endless series of days without Sammy. He'll keep waking up and tiptoeing to Sam's room and opening the door hoping there's been a miracle, but Sam's bed is going to be empty and his journal is going to be incomplete, Sam's pen still stuck in it where he was scribbling notes about Acarnanian summoning spells.

But Dean can leave the bunker. He doesn't have to stay there, and there's no point staying there without Sam, anyway. He can go back to the motel lifestyle -

No, he'll just get up every morning and look at the empty bed across from his and want to shoot himself. And then Sammy'll be mad at him.

He'll get a cabin.

That's it. He'll get a cabin in the woods, one room, one bed, with nothing to remind him of the days when he had a little brother. He'll put whatever he has that reminds him of Sammy in storage. Like the Led Zeppelin tee he's wearing now, Sam got it for him last Christmas. And the shirt he was wearing yesterday, Sammy hated that shirt and Dean always wore it to annoy him.

Also all his FBI gear, Sammy picked that out for them both.

And his jeans, he's pretty sure Sam's handled them a few times while he was doing laundry or something.

So basically all Dean's clothes are going into storage.

And his music. And all the weapons. Dean can get new weapons. These ones are going to remind him of all the times they sat together cleaning the guns and polishing the knives and filling shotgun pellets with rock salt.

All Dean's possessions are going into storage.

He doesn't think he really wants to eat burgers anymore, either. There's no point, not without Sammy to bitchface about them. And he can't eat steak, or Lucky Charms, or salad shakes, or anything he's had with Sammy -

He doesn't think he's ever had Ethiopian food with Sammy.

Dean's diet is now going to consist exclusively of Ethiopian food.

Sammy'll never get to eat Ethiopian food.

Dean starts to pour himself another shot, and notices with some surprise that the bottle's half-empty. Did he really drink half a bottle of whiskey in the last ten minutes?

He glances at his watch.

It's been nearly three hours. Three hours he's spent sitting in a motel room thinking about how much his life is going to suck. Assuming Dean lives to be sixty, which is a big assumption without Sammy to watch his back but just suppose he does, that's only another - um - that's, what, twenty-five years, maybe six leap years, twenty-four hours in a day -

Oh, screw it. Doing this kind of mental math is Sammy's thing. Dean'll just go with approximately a billion hours that he has to find a way to fill.

Without Sammy.

He chucks the shot glass away and takes a long swallow straight from the bottle.

Sam wouldn't want him to drink an entire bottle of whiskey in one sitting, though. But then, Sam left him, so Sam doesn't get to tell him he can't get drunk.

But it's not like Sammy left him willingly.

Dean sighs. He feels like he's losing his mind, neuron by neuron, and soon all that's left will be the empty husk that used to be Dean Winchester, back when Dean had a Sam.

Dean frowns down at the bottle before taking another drink.

He's not quite sure when he falls asleep, and when he wakes up with a hangover he doesn't even notice because his mind and heart are too full of grief, but he does know that when he makes his way to the bathroom and stumbles over Sam's boots, something comes to life inside him.

This can't be happening. It can't be. Sam can't be dead. Dean can't live without his little brother, and Sammy made that stupid deal with Death so Dean can't resurrect him, so the only solution is for Sam to not be dead.

He takes a deep breath. That's a thought he can cling to.

Screw that Five Stages crap, I'm Dean Winchester

If Sam's not dead, and if Sam didn't leave the building, there's only one answer. Sam's still in there.

It's a few hours before Dean's feeling steady enough to drive, and he spends every minute of it cursing the whiskey he drank last night. He wants nothing more than to get going, DUI laws be damned, but he can't help Sammy if he ends up in jail or wraps the Impala around a tree.

When he finally gets going, he leaves a trail of jumped red lights and cursing pedestrians. The building's deserted now. The Angels have left, probably back upstairs to finish the interrogation and dispense whatever form of justice they're going to use.

He ignores the warning labels and the crime scene tape, taking the stairs three at a time. The fourth floor is empty, the smell of smoke still strong, burning his nostrils and making his eyes sting.

"Sam!" Dean yells. "Sammy! You here?"

Silence is his only answer.

"Sammy!" He goes from room to room, calling for his brother, hoping for a response, a sign, anything. He goes through the living room, bedrooms, study, kitchen. "Sammy!" He's screaming now, despair and frustration, and he finally thunks his head against the wall by the stove. "Sammy."

The last word is whispered, and that's a good thing, because if Dean had been yelling, he wouldn't have heard the faint thump.

His heart picks up, thudding a mile a minute as his hands fly over the soot-black wall.

"Sammy?" He bangs the wall. "Sammy, are you here?"

The answering thump is louder.

"Sammy! Hold on, kiddo. I'm coming!" He runs his hands over the wall - there must be some kind of concealed door, maybe a closet or something, and Sam got trapped. "Sammy? Stay with me, OK. Stay with me. I'm getting you out."

His desperate searching fingers find an edge, and a draught of cool air. There's a shaft of some kind.

Dean looks for a spring, a latch, anything, but this is taking too long. He doesn't dare kick the wall in. He might hurt Sam.

He searches through the kitchen drawers until he finds a barbecue skewer that's mostly undamaged. He wedges it into the gap, levering away the section of paneling where he felt the draught.

There is a shaft. Dean sticks his head in, and there, a few feet below him, is a dumb waiter.

It's not hard to figure out. Sam probably got in it - how he managed to fold that huge body into a dumb waiter Dean doesn't want to know - and tried to go down that way, but he got stuck.

"Hang on, Sammy," Dean shouts. "I'm getting you out."

There's a faint answering noise, that might be an attempt to say his name, and another thump.

Dean contemplates letting the dumb waiter down all the way, but if he can't control the fall, it'll hurt Sammy. They have to work with what they've got. He uses the skewer, more gently this time, and manages to prise the top off the dumb waiter.

Sammy's inside, scrunched up in what has to be a miserably painful position.

"Awww, Sammy," Dean whispers. "Come on, kiddo. Let's get you out."

He's as gentle as he can be, but it must still be hell on muscles that have been cramped for over two days. Sam's making tiny whimpery gasps of pain that wrench at Dean's gut, but he forces himself to keep going, and eventually Sammy's curled up in his arms on the kitchen floor.

His shirt is bloodstained down the left side, fabric damp and tacky, and when Dean pulls it away, making soothing noises all the while, he sees a deep gash just under Sam's ribs, oozing blood. Jerusha's sword, he thinks, and if she were in front of him right now he'd probably rip her entrails out.

Instead, he runs his hands gently down Sam's chest, wincing when he feels how fluttery and uneven Sam's heartbeat is.

"You're exhausted," Dean murmurs, tilting his shoulder a little to let Sam's head settle comfortably in the crook of his neck. "And dehydrated. And probably a whole lot else. Come on, Sammy. Hospital. We're not taking risks."

Sam just clutches at Dean's shirt.

He's out of it on the drive to the hospital, but when they get there and the nurse goes to put him on a stretcher, he grabs Dean's hand, looking at him so pleadingly that the nurse relents and lets Dean walk into the exam room with him.

Deep as the cut is, it's managed to miss all the vital organs, so the doctor stitches Sammy up, puts him on an IV, and tells Dean how lucky they are. A few more hours, he says, and blood loss would have killed Sam if dehydration didn't. Dean doesn't need the doctor to tell him he's lucky. He knows he is. But the guy's nice, and he's been gentle with Sammy. Dean listens and nods.

As soon as he's gone, a nurse pokes her head in.

"How are you, sweetie?"

"He's going to be fine," Dean says, because Sammy, although he's awake, is too tired to do much more than squeeze Dean's fingers and smile at the nurse.

"That's good to hear. Someone just came in and left flowers for him, should I bring them in?"

Dean exchanges a confused glance with Sam. "Flowers? For Sammy?"

"Yes… Why, is something wrong?"

"We don't know anyone in town, we were just passing through." Dean's mind is already on what this might be - a trick, an attempt to get to Sam. "Did the guy leave a name?"

"Um…" The nurse consults a slip of paper. "He said his name was Fergus."

Crowley? Dean glances at Sam, who looks as shocked as he feels. His first instinct is not to trust Crowley, not when Sammy's safety might be compromised, but after a moment he shrugs and nods. This one time, he doesn't think there'll be a concealed hex bag.

The basket the nurse brings in is bigger than she is, a rainbow of colours, lilies and chrysanthemums, roses and daisies, forget-me-nots and buttercups, and bunches of other flowers Dean can't identify. There's a note, which he reads over Sam's shoulder.

Moose - Difficult as this may be to believe, I'm glad you're not dead. Squirrel - If you get rid of those anti-demon tattoos, I might be able to find him next time.

Dean rolls his eyes, but his exasperation turns into warmth when he rests a hand on Sam's chest to feel the steady, reassuring heartbeat.

Sammy's alive, and he's going to come out of this with nothing worse than another scar. Crowley sent Sam flowers, which, once Sam is on his feet again, will provide Dean with at least a year's worth of teasing. It's turning into a perfect day.

THE END