The Baffled King Composing Hallelujah (2 of 2)
Title: The Baffled King Composing Hallelujah
Author: Kadiel Krieger
Characters: Sam, Dean, John. Other canon and non-canon characters.
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Through 4.22
Wordcount: 13K
Disclaimer: Only wish they were mine. Woe.
Summary: Belief is one thing, faith is another. It takes Sam a lifetime to figure out what it means to him.
Thanks to: elizah_jane for her supremely patient hand-holding and beta work.
Rural South Dakota - November 2006
Everything is white, the whump of chopper blades, sharp tang of rubbing alcohol and blood. He can’t see or hear or breathe because Dad and Dean are…They try to fix his eye and he can’t move because they have him strapped down. Just wants to swat them away, push them towards Dean and the blinding red bloom where his shirt used to be. Neither is even conscious and he just can’t…
So he closes his eyes and prays. Begs and pleads with God to spare them because there are no words and he doesn’t know how he thought he could stay away. Promises all he is now and forever. Offers himself in their place, because it’s his fault. His. He should have shot the demon in Salvation but he hesitated and now Dad’s…and Dean’s…
His face is wet and he can’t tell where the blood ends and the tears begin, because he’s shaking, falling apart and the longer they both stay under the bigger the hole inside him gets.
All he can do is wait and hope that one of them wakes up before the grief swallows him.
Coralville, Iowa - February 2007
They’re halfway between Bobby’s and a rumor, taking a couple days shore leave. Sam still hasn’t quite recovered from the exorcism and needs all the R&R he can get. If only he could sleep. Just thinking the word exorcism when you were the one exorcised…
Anyway, he hasn’t recovered.
He prays in earnest every night now, for all the good it’s done. Dad made a deal. Dean thinks he should be dead And he’s been possessed.
Sam’s not sure God’s listening.
They’ve been dealt more than their fair share of bad luck. Still, he believes. Has to believe because the visions are getting stranger and he doesn’t want to become something Dean has to kill. He tries to trust in God, but it’s more difficult than ever with the number of demons roaming freely on the rise.
But he’ll be damned if a demon’s ever going to ride him again. Once was too much and he feels like he’ll never be clean. Two, sometimes three showers a day and he can still feel the blood and hair and spittle caking his skin. Like the demon left a stain on his soul he’ll have to live with the rest of his life. Just like he’ll have to live with Wandell and even though he knows it wasn’t him he still remembers every second. He feels his stomach lurch and tries, desperately, to think about something else.
The pendants Bobby gave them are great, but they can be lost, stolen, removed. Sam’s been thinking about it for awhile. Okay, maybe not awhile, but at least a week. To feel safe, as safe as their lives ever get, he needs something more permanent.
He tells himself he’s simply being practical, but there’s a niggling little voice in the back of his head saying maybe it’s doubt - the kind of doubt that calls into question his entire worldview.
Dean nudges the door open with a knee, laden with bags, a fluorescent orange flyer caught between his teeth. Sam has half a mind to leave him like that, but since some the food is his and he’d rather not eat it off the floor, he gets up to help.
“Thanks for nothing,” Dean says, once he’s set everything down. “I kicked the door twice. Was Sammy in his happy place?”
“If by that you mean deep thought, then, yes Dean. I was in my happy place.” Sam checks the salt line at the door to make sure it hasn’t been disturbed, inspects the locks to make sure they’re all engaged and then retrieves his food. He knows he’s gone a little OCD and is grateful Dean hasn’t called him on it yet.
“Don’t let me disturb you Mr. Wizard,” Dean says. Boots kicked in the corner, he cracks open a beer and flops gracelessly all over the bed. The bed protests, loudly, but doesn’t break.
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
All that elicits is a grunt around a mouthful of chili cheese fries that Sam assumes means: ‘please continue.’
“About the charms Bobby gave us…”
Dean swallows, smiles, licks two fingers clean and then plucks the flyer from the refuse pile that was once his bed.
“Way ahead of you.”
Sometimes Sam thinks they share a brain, only Dean got the messy part in the divorce. The flyer’s for a tattoo parlor here in town that’s running a two for one special this week, probably in an effort to drum up business. The Crossroads Tattoo Parlor.
“You gotta be shitting me.”
“Nope,” Dean says, and downs another swig of beer, “not even a little.”
“So you’re cool with this?”
“Dude, got no interest in getting possessed and even less interest in chasing your happy ass all over creation if it happened to you again. I consider this preventative maintenance. Called them already. Appointment’s at two.”
“Huh.”
So Sam eats his sandwich, sucks down his water, and steadfastly ignores the voice in his head. He’s not buying what it’s selling tonight. Instead, he spends his time sharing his brother’s six pack and watching old reruns. Under normal circumstances, Dean would have been in any seedy bar that would take him hitting on any pretty girl who would let him. But these aren’t normal circumstances, and he hasn’t been right since Dad.
They go to bed early and wake up late. He tosses and turns and dreams sticky, red dreams that he doesn’t share with Dean.
When they arrive at the Crossroads, Sam breathes a sigh of relief. From the waiting room, he can tell it’s exactly the kind of place that he would pick to get a tattoo - reputable and surgically clean. Which means it’s the opposite of what Dean would have picked. There aren’t any Harleys parked out front or guys with Bubba emblazoned across their chest, but there’s a respectable portfolio of work displayed in the lobby and a very cheerful, very pierced, very fey receptionist named Neva behind the desk. Her name tag says so.
Dean tugs the sleeve of his jacket and says through gritted teeth, “Let’s get out of here.”
“Two for one,” he says, and holds up the flyer.
“Fuck. Fine.”
Then Dean just looks at him like Sam kicked the puppy they never had and stole all his cool points. It’s a marvel what a baby his brother can be sometimes. He shakes his head and steps up to the counter.
“Winchester. We’ve got an appointment.”
He hands Neva a copy of the charm he painstakingly drew out last night during commercial breaks. Artists in general are known for taking liberties of design whenever they’re allowed, and generally Sam’s all for it. But protective magic is pretty specific and there’s no way in hell he’s taking a chance with this.
She takes the sketch from him with a sly little smile, then tilts her head toward Dean.
“What about you, sweetness?” she says, her voice all Georgia peach and totally out of context both in a tattoo parlor and the middle of nowhere Iowa, “You got something for me too?”
Dean coughs.
“Same thing,” he says, coughs again, “We’re getting the same tat.”
Sam thanks whatever quirk of fate made Dean decide to behave. And then goes to work trying to ignore the obvious once over Neva gives both of them, the slow glaze of her eyes before she sways her way through the curtains into the back room.
Dean watches her go.
“Have a seat, darlings,” she calls back over her shoulder, “Matt and Clare will be right with you.”
There’s a burst of laughter from the back room, and Sam just shakes his head and sits.
“You do realize that Clare’s mine,” Dean says, slumping into one of the plastic chairs beside him.
Normally, Sam would give him hell about it, but he’s pretty sure his brother’s bullshit radar’s broken. It does that sometimes around pretty girls. And if he can’t tell what’s going down, Sam’s certainly not going to enlighten him. It’s not like they haven’t been mistaken for a couple before once or twice. Much more fun to let him twist - especially since it’s harmless.
Instead he just says, “Be my guest,” and leans back in his chair.
Half an hour later, Neva pops out from behind the curtain and waves them back.
“Have fun,” she says with a smirk, before resuming her perch at the front desk.
The back of the shop, thankfully, is pretty much like the front, but with a lot more art. Matt and Clare are leaned up against a table at the far end, their heads tipped together conspiratorially. Every inch of skin he can see is either inked or pierced and Sam wonders how much time they’ve spent under each other’s needle to get there.
Clare moves first, a grin stretched on her lips that tells him Neva shared her suspicions. She’s petite, slender without being skinny, with dark hair and eyes and she moves like a cat on the prowl.
And Sam thinks this just got a lot more interesting.
“Winchester one and two, I presume,” she says. “Which one’s with me?”
Predictably, Dean steps forward, shrugging out of his jacket. “One,” he says, answering her smile, “Dean.”
Sam skirts past them to shake Matt’s hand, because it’s always best to be nice to someone you’re about to pay to stick you with very sharp things over and over. He feels slightly foolish, like he’s on a first date, and hopes it doesn’t come across.
“I’m Sam.”
Matt just nods, but Sam can see the twinkle in his eyes.
Then Clare takes over again. All five feet two of her.
“Take a load off, boys. Now, tell Clare-bear where these babies are going so we can get to the pounding.”
Dean snorts and says, “I like her.”
Sam glances over at Dean, ignoring the innuendo. They haven’t talked about it. Not that it really matters. But if they’re going to get matching tats, and how gay does that sound, they might as well get truly matching tats.
“Heart?” he asks, and shrugs, “Maybe best, symbolically.”
“Yeah,” Dean nods, and starts to unbutton his shirt, “Probably right.”
Dean’s got his head down and misses the look that passes between Matt and Clare. Sam can tell they think he and his brother are pedestrians taking a walk on the slightly wild side, and are planning to humor them as little as is necessary to maintain common professional courtesy. If only they knew. But they don’t and they won’t. Because as badass as they think they are, they couldn’t handle the kind of shit he and Dean face. Even on their very best days.
People.
Annoyed, Sam pulls off his jacket a little more forcefully than necessary and manages to fray the sleeve. By this time Dean’s bare-chested and he hears Clare stifle a gasp. He hides his own satisfied smirk behind his t-shirt as he pulls it off over his head.
Sam knows what it must look like. Sprinklings of puckered pink scar tissue from years of hard hunting. They’ve both been stabbed, shot at, and chewed on a hundred different times. He can name every single one of Dean’s scars. And Dean can do the same.
But when Matt says, “Holy beefcake, Batman,” Sam thinks he may have gotten the wrong idea.
At least the smug looks are gone, and he settles into the chair to let Matt clean the skin and place the stencil. He looks over to see Clare doing the same, mouth set at a more serious, less mocking angle.
“So, uh, what do you guys do?” she asks, smoothing the corner of the stencil down gently.
“We’re dogwalkers,” Dean says, straight-faced.
“Cat,” Sam responds.
“Cat walkers.”
“Cat trainers.”
“They’re big, big cats,” Dean says, finally starting to crack a smile.
“We work for the circus.”
Clare stares at them like they’ve lost their minds and starts to prep her gun, muttering something that sounds like ‘lunatics’ under her breath. And it’s in that moment that Sam thinks maybe Dean really is going to be okay after all.
He didn’t realize how much he needed this, how much they both do. A day with Dean, no hunt to rush to, no demon to run from, no plans but a girl - or guy in his case - with a gun of the non-lethal persuasion. The problem with time is that he uses it to think - about why he needs to be here at all. What in God’s grand plan could possibly be served by his having been possessed? If he’s honest with himself, and unlike Dean he usually can be, Sam knows that even being here equates to questioning his faith. He just doesn’t know what to do about it.
“Ready?” Matt asks, settling onto a stool beside him.
“As I’ll ever be,” Sam says, and twitches as Matt gets going.
He chances a glance at Dean, has to crane his neck a little around Matt. Clare’s already started on him, and Sam can’t believe he missed it, lost in his head. Stubborn as Dean is, the first time the needle touched his skin will be the only time he reacts enough for anyone else to see.
Sam’s not anyone.
He can see the muscle dancing in Dean’s jaw, his Adam’s apple bobbing fitfully, the way his eyes open ever so slightly wider when she hits a tender spot. But Dean being Dean, he just laughs and says,
“That tickles.”
And Sam knows better, because fuck it hurts. Just every so often. Mostly he’s a little uncomfortable and tingly, and maybe stinging, but then there’s a flash and he has to refocus his eyes because they’ve crossed. He has no frame of reference to go by. Obviously, getting shot hurts worse. But it’s bam and done. Not this endless scraping dance of metal on skin.
“You okay over there, Sammy?” Dean says, eyes wide and teeth bared in something that doesn’t even remotely resemble a smile.
“Yeah, you?” is all he gets out before Matt hits another tender spot that makes him want to hit something. He’ll be damned if he gives Dean the satisfaction.
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” he says, and closes his eyes to ride the wave.
Sam takes it as end of conversation and settles back in silence to watch Matt work. The pain dulls after awhile, except for surprising little flares that come up fast to set his teeth on edge and die away just as quickly. He feels the knot in his stomach unravel every time the needle makes a pass and can’t help but feel ashamed.
An hour later, they’re both owners of brand spanking new anti-possession tattoos, and it feels good. Well, not good in the strictest sense. More achy and chafed and hot. But safe. Numbly, he watches Dean press cash into Neva’s palm and roll his shoulders.
“Don’t be strangers,” he hears her say, but what else can they be?
Once they’re both carefully in the car, Dean peels out of the parking lot like they’ve got a demon army on their asses.
Sam winces as his shoulder slams the door.
“Jesus, Dean. Take it easy,” he says, bracing himself so he’s not tossed around the next corner.
“Oh sorry, Sam, did that hurt? My mistake.”
Dean takes the next turn without slowing down.
“Are you suddenly five?”
Dean slams his foot against the brakes at a red light, and Sam has to palm the dash to keep from hitting his head. It stretches the tender skin on his chest and sizzles nerve endings.
“Shit!” he says, “Dean, seriously, cut it out.”
The light changes, and Dean punches it through the intersection.
“You didn’t think to mention,” Dean says through gritted teeth, “that I was volunteering to wipe my ass with asphalt?”
“What?”
“Because that? Was inhuman.”
It’s not often that Dean shows weakness, even to Sam and the idea of him being worked up over a tattoo when he’s been basically ripped apart and sewn back together a hundred times over - it tickles Sam’s funny bone. So he laughs. And the only thing that saves him is that they’re just a block away from the motel, because he’s pretty sure if they’d been any further Dean would have rolled him out the passenger door and made him walk back.
Dean jerks into a spot, but makes no move to slide the gearshift into park. He also doesn’t say anything, but Sam guesses he’s supposed to vacate. The Impala roars out behind him as he’s sliding the key into the motel door, but he’s okay with that. Dean will work through it with booze and probably manage to get in a bar fight before the night’s over. Sam doesn’t have the energy for it. Like sitting in that chair took all the wind out of his sails.
Key tossed on the dresser, he heads for the bathroom shedding layers as he goes. What he really needs is to splash some water on his face and sleep for awhile, but instead he peels the plastic away from his tat and examines it in the mirror, making sure every corner is closed where it needs to be and every line bold. Now that it’s done he doesn’t know what to feel. Relief, of course, but also shame. That his faith failed him, that he failed God, but he knows he had to. To make the nightmares stop. To be safe. Because even Dean can’t fight what’s inside him. Even Dean can’t wash away the fact that a part of him, however small, enjoyed the power.
And it terrifies him.
Enough to tattoo a ward on his chest.
Because he knows he can’t save himself and he wonders if his time in God's good graces is finally running out.
Lincoln, Nebraska - May 2007
He asks this time.
“Please, help me find a way to get Dean out of this deal. I never wanted this. Not with this price tag.”
There’s a muffled thump outside, the sound of Dean throwing the door of the Impala closed.
“Please,” he whispers, then rolls over and pretends to be asleep.
Maple Springs, New York - October 2007
The report of the Colt echoes back against his eardrums like an accusation and in the place he pretends doesn’t exist, fingerling dark tendrils unfurl. Even as he pulled the trigger, he knew the demon was telling the truth.
It didn’t stay his hand.
He wonders, idly, what he’s becoming as he gathers the girl in his arms and carries her into the tall grass beside the road. Another casualty in their endless war. But she’s not and Sam’s not even fooling himself. She died for Dean. Not even for Dean because he believes her - there’s nothing she could have done to release him from his contract.
She died for Sam’s fear and frustration and he doesn’t deserve forgiveness.
He doesn’t ask.
Ypsilanti, Michigan - December 2007
This is killing him, surely as it’s killing Dean. Eating away at his insides until all that’s left is an ache.
The ache that tells him Dean is saying goodbye.
Every syllable he utters, every unnecessary chance he takes has a ‘when I’m gone’ tacked to it. Sam smiles through it, anyway. Sips his eggnog and watches Dean watch the game out of the corner of his eye. Pries the remote from his hand when he falls asleep sitting up and manhandles him into bed.
Because that’s what brothers are for. They take care of you. Sam refuses to think about after. Instead he prays to an increasingly capricious God, asking for a miracle.
All of it has gotten way too big for him.
Broward County, Florida - January 2008
On the twenty-fifth Tuesday, Sam stays in bed, hoping that he is the variable in the equation that needs changing.
Or so he tells himself.
Fact is, he can’t bear to watch Dean die again - especially not in a completely mundane, wholly avoidable way. He doesn’t bother to explain it beyond feeling sick to his stomach. Dean calls him a pussy and promises to pick up some Pepto on the way back from the diner.
Since he’s in a loop, Dean remains unconvinced that the Mystery Spot is a real case and Sam wishes to hell he had listened.
The twenty four Tuesdays before, he’s prayed for guidance, for help, for a clue, for anything…
Today he doesn’t bother.
New Harmony, Indiana - May 2008
Until Lilith looses the hounds, Sam still holds out hope. But something in him snaps, maybe irreparably, watching helpless as the beasts shred Dean’s chest to ribbons.
There is no God in this room, only Lilith.
Sam feels his knees buckle and his stomach riot as he slides down the wall, and all he can think when Lilith turns her wide white eyes on him is, “Good.”
Because for all the promises he’s made, he can’t do this without Dean. He’s prepared to ride that white lightning wherever it takes him.
When the smoke clears and he’s still breathing, Lilith studies him, dumbfounded. He staggers to his feet with the knife in hand, but by the time he gathers himself for a lunge she’s gone, leaving Sam to pick up the pieces.
Vida, Louisiana - June 2008
Time passes differently now. Days and weeks stretch to breaking. Sleep comes in halting restless bursts and only then when he can’t physically go on. Ruby tries to mother hen him into taking better care of himself - that there’s no way he’s going to bounce Lilith if he’s dead - but he’s doing all he can as it is.
If he can’t get Dean back, all he has is revenge.
It’ll have to be enough.
A knock on the door rouses him from his reverie and, mechanically, he gets up to let Ruby in. Sam knows it’s her. She’s the only one that ever knocks anymore.
“Honey, I’m home!” she says, and drops a slightly misshapen bag of fast food on the table.
“Funny,” he says, even though it isn’t. “What’s that?”
“Food for the human. Last I heard you guys don’t run on violence, death, and vengeance alone.”
“Would you stop?” The headache pounding staccato patterns against his skull taps faster, harder.
“Stop what?” she says, and bats her eyelashes in a perverse mockery of innocence.
“You’re not him.”
“I certainly hope not,” she says, sidling in close, her breath warm and moist on his neck, thumbs threaded through his belt loops. “That would take this to a whole other level of weird.”
“Ruby…”
Words don’t belong here though, because Sam has nothing to say. He dedicates everything he is just to getting through the next day and the one after that; he doesn’t have anything else - doesn’t want anything else. The world’s bleached grey, the edges honed. He breathes in grief and spews silent wrath. He certainly doesn’t pray. Not anymore.
Ruby shifts against him and he wraps his fingers around her shoulders, neither pushing nor pulling, just holding on. If he squints hard and stands on his head, she still makes a poor substitute for his brother. All sharp tongue and swagger, but her hands are soft when she cups his face and pulls him into a kiss he doesn’t want. And really, he doesn’t need to be thinking about Dean right now, but he can’t help it. Every thought he’s had since that night has been permeated with him. The terror in Dean’s eyes fueling the flame in his gut that pushes, pushes, pushes until he collapses.
Every now and then, Sam remembers other deals and other days - fleeting flashes of recollection rolling on through with Dean’s resentment in tow. He remembers Dad and the unholy mess his sacrifice made of Dean. Sometimes, when he’s run as far as he can without stopping, he hates his brother for doing him the same favor. Because nothing matters now. Whatever the ends may be the means are probably still unjustified, but who’s left to care?
So, selfishly, he takes the comfort he can, pulls Ruby’s willing, borrowed body against him, hand splayed in the small of her back. She kisses him again, more insistent, smiling into his mouth at some joke he’s not privy to, tugging at the hem of his shirt until it’s bunched under his arms. He lets her peel it off, tries to give into the mindless physicality of it, because he’s well aware that’s all this is. Distraction.
Sam needs the distraction because every time he slows down long enough to close his eyes he sees Dean’s blood pooling around his knees, Dean lying still and silent in the bottom of a pine box, Dean disappearing under six feet of topsoil. Dean leaving. Forever.
And there’s nothing he can do about it.
What he can do is lose himself in flesh and sweat, forget for awhile in a way that even the heat of the hunt doesn’t allow. He feels Ruby’s hands at his belt buckle, slow and deliberate and he pushes her away, hears the whuff of air escape her lungs as she hits the bed hard.
“Sam…” she says, tongue curled around his name like it belongs there.
“Shut up,” he responds, working the belt open himself, skimming off the rest of his clothes with rough, impatient tugs.
She does, but the smile that stretches her lips says it all anyway. Then it doesn’t matter, because she’s shimmying out of her jeans and slipping her own shirt over her head. And Sam thinks how screwed up it is that he still feels so desperately empty. He’s got his fingers hooked on the elastic of her panties, sliding them down over her knees until she kicks them away gleefully. And all he feels is alone. But his dick is way ahead of him, so when he tumbles on top of her she doesn’t seem notice. She grasps at him, like she’s drowning too, like she wishes she could swallow him whole and take on Lilith herself. Maybe they’d both be better off. Maybe if a demon took him, he could just fuck off to Hell and go find Dean.
The thought of it does things to him that he doesn’t particularly like and he takes it out on Ruby. Crushes his lips to hers tasting blood and she whimpers beneath him, hands scrabbling up his back like all she wants is more. That’s something he can give, he thinks absently, as he jerks his hips forward, burying his cock inside the soft heat of her. His teeth rattle with the impact, hears and feels Ruby gasp into his mouth. The rhythm he sets is meant to punish, but he’s not sure who. Her nails dig in, sharp little half moons of pain against his skin and he doesn’t deserve that much diversion. He wraps her wrists together in one hand and pins them above her head.
“Ooh, kinky,” she grits out, struggling against his grip, “Sammy you’ve been holding out on me.”
Sammy
It’s already enough to send him crashing headlong, but then the quirk of her eyebrow and the twinkle in her eye pushes him over. Makes Dean fucking materialize out of thin air, but it’s not his D…not the Dean before. It’s the Dean he lost, the Dean enduring only God knows what in some corner of Hell they reserve for the righteous to burn. The Dean that might someday look at him out of someone else’s eyes.
Because Ruby was human once upon a time.
Sam’s thought about it more than he wants, more than anyone could ever wish to. That if Dean did come back…
He just needs to escape, for a minute. So he closes his eyes against the silent, suffering, watchful Dean and pours the pain into Ruby. Feels the tightness in his thighs, his lower back start to gather. Feels the sweat on his neck and chest slip-slide in all sorts of interesting ways. Feels Ruby rise to meet him, her head turning, teeth sunk into the meat of his arm, hard.
And he’s gone. Blissful silence and nothing in the world but the stutter of his hips and the now familiar sound of Ruby tumbling after.
Sam allows himself a full minute to lie there, spent and boneless, he counts it in heartbeats. Sixty seconds of peace before he stands up, slick and sticky, wishing there was some other way to quiet his head. He’s bone tired and needs to shower and sleep in that order, but Dean’s back tickling the edges of his consciousness and he knows better than to think he’ll really rest. He makes for the bathroom, collecting discarded clothes as he goes, steadfastly not looking at Ruby. She knows better. And yet keeps on pushing.
“Get dressed and get out,” he tosses back at her over his shoulder. And he’s not even going to give her the satisfaction of entertaining her hurt look.
“You gotta be kidding me” she says, but he hears her gathering her things because they both know he isn’t.
“Thanks for the hamburger. If you ever call me Sammy again…,” he says and shuts the bathroom door, letting the threat dangle like the unfinished business between them.
He runs the water awhile, to let it get hot. Outside, he hears Ruby leave and wishes he could drum up something to feel about it. It isn’t right and he knows it - the casual cavorting with Ruby, treating her like a thing instead of a person. It’s that slippery slope he never intended to be on, but where does he have left to go but down.
The only two people in the world that could have helped him have abandoned him.
It seems they took God with them.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota - September 2008
The first thing Sam does when Dean gets back is lie.
He’s not immune to the irony, but he can’t even begin to work out how to explain what he’s been doing and why in a way that he thinks Dean would understand. The fact that Dean’s here combined with their suspicions about how he returned leaves little room for other trains of thought to run to completion.
Angels.
And the faith that fled when Dean…left comes rushing back in all its former glory and then some. Now there’s proof. Perhaps not any he’s seen with his own eyes, but he trusts Dean - even if Dean doesn’t trust this Castiel. What else could possibly have done this? Not only torn his brother’s soul out of hell, but purified his body…
Took them long enough.
But he’s grateful and convinced that God’s finally paying attention to their struggle.
So he prays.
Murmurs quiet words of thanks and asks for direction, asks for strength to do what he knows needs to be done to rid the world of Lilth’s stain once and for all. Dean may not understand, but Sam does - like Dad did.
Dean’s alive.
And things may not be perfect, but as he lies in the dark listening to his brother’s soft snores, Sam thinks maybe, just maybe, they’ll be okay.
Davenport, Washington - November 2008
Despite every effort, the doubt creeps back in. Slowly, at first, because he tries to believe the agents of the Lord are righteous even if they aren’t exactly what he expected. Then he meets Uriel. And if anyone knows that angels are supposed to be warriors, it’s Sam. What he can’t reconcile is the fact that Uriel would rather smite a town’s worth of innocents than do the legwork necessary to save them.
He hasn’t decided yet about Castiel.
Hell, maybe he even agrees with them that using his powers is a bad idea - for him. They don’t seem to understand that it’s also necessary. Without them, he would have died last night. And Dean…
And Samhain would have walked free. At least until Uriel leveled the city.
Nobody’s perfect and when faced with a choice between twelve hundred dead on the one hand and a questionable use of power on the other, he’s happy to bear the burden. Never mind that another seal has fallen and they should be chasing Lilith rather than traipsing all over the country fighting battles that may or may not have any bearing on the final outcome.
Lilith is the war. Her destruction would mean an end to this for good. According to Ruby, he’s the only one who has the slightest chance of stopping her, but to do it…to do it he has to be what he’s spent his entire life trying not to be in one way or another.
So he doubts - whether the angels are truly virtuous, whether he’s made the right decision, the decision that will inevitably save him in spite of the rest of the human race, whether he’s just being selfish.
One way or another destiny has a way of creeping up on you, and the faith he had in the grand plan when Dean came back branded by angelic deliverance is wavering. He’s not sure anymore if he can trust in God or his agents to take care of Lilith.
For now, all he can do is wait, and pray.
Sioux City, Iowa - December 2008
“I don’t want to be doing this when I’m an old man,” he says, and it’s true. He wants the war to be over. He wants a life, a normal life and he wants Dean to have one too. They deserve it, so Sam’s going to get it for them or die trying.
That’s what he tells himself anyway.
Mostly, he believes it. But the Dean who came back from Hell is not the man who left. He’s quieter in small ways, more contained than he used to be. And cautious to a point that has Sam worried he plans to ignore the pending apocalypse until forced bodily into the middle of it. Broken. Like he’s forgotten the steps. It makes him a liability and Jesus he hates to think about Dean that way, the older brother he idolized to the point of nausea until he was…well, in some ways he’s never really stopped. To think of Dean as weak borders on sacrilege. The bitch of it is that Sam’s okay with taking up the mantle, being the one to protect Dean for awhile. So the decision’s inevitable when he makes it. Dean is not long for this life, not a hunter’s life, because he’s lost the fire. And all Sam has to do to earn them respite is drink some demon blood and execute a hell bitch.
It’s the right thing to do.
He refuses to think about how it will change him, because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. There’s probably no coming back from it, he realizes that. But how else do you repay a brother who condemned himself to hell for you, if not by doing anything you can to save him? It’s who they are and his hope for a normal life burned up on that ceiling with Jess.
Ruby shifts beside him, edgy in the silence.
“I have to get back, you know,” he says quietly over the hum of the engine. “Dean won’t come looking right away, but he will look and the last thing I want is to try to explain this.”
“Fine,” is what she says, but he can tell she doesn’t mean it, “So how exactly do you see this going down?”
“It’s really pretty simple,” he says, like it actually is but he’s not even fooling himself. “You bleed. I drink. We look for Lilith. Whatever else we’ll deal with as it comes.”
“And if Dean does find out?”
“He won’t.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure, Sam.”
“I’ll handle it when it happens, if it happens. I have kept secrets before, you know. It’s not like demons have a corner on the market.”
“Fair enough,” she says, a furtive little smile Sam can’t explain stretched across her lips. “There’s a flask in the glove compartment. I figured I might need it.”
Sam nods, mouth dry, throat too tight for words. The metal’s still warm when he pulls it out, power pulsing off it in waves. Or maybe he’s just imagining it. Until he actually swallows, he still has a chance to change his mind. Ruby watches him, waiting, as he uncaps it and sniffs. Doesn’t smell like much but copper and sulfur, but the metal thrums hot against his palm.
For a second, he stops and wonders how he got here, welcoming the thing he wants least. He would ask God for guidance, but Sam knows better. This is not the sort of thing the Almighty is in the habit of condoning. So all he can do is pray for forgiveness and hope that God can see the inevitability of it. He also prays for the strength to see this through to the end because for all his hope he knows that if he does this he’s damned.
He prays for Dean, because Dean can still be saved but would never ask.
And that’s all Sam needs to know, so he tips the flask back with a grimace and drinks.
Cheyenne, Wyoming - January 2009
He can only hope the orders didn’t come from God, but hoping is not knowing and it’s obvious that the holy legions are in the same disarray as the demonic ones. Such is the way of war, he supposes. It looks tidy on paper. Lines of numbers - wounded, casualties, engagements, battles won, others lost. Different when you’re a soldier and Sam finds no comfort in the fact that both armies are just as befuddled as the humans ever were.
All the more reason for him to do what he’s doing. He’s all there is, humanity’s only chance at survival. His soul, his salvation is a small price to pay. For all he would do for Dean, it’s not about that anymore. Not in the way it was. He knows now that once he does this, there is no coming back. But he’s his father’s son and will do what’s necessary to get the job done, even this.
So now, all that’s left is to watch and wait. The doctors say Dean will be okay, that he should wake up anytime. No evidence of permanent damage. They’re wrong, but he doesn’t say so. He calls Ruby a couple times from the hallway, tells her to be ready because this is it. If he made the decision in Sioux City, now he’s committed to it completely. But he can’t leave Dean, not for any length of time. Once a day he goes back to the motel for an hour to shower and take his vitamins. So to speak. The rest of the time he sits or dozes in the straight-backed chair at Dean’s bedside, thinking.
The machines beep at him, and he cringes. Angel or no, he wanted to do dark and terrible things to Castiel when he denied Dean the miracle he needed. He takes a second to marvel at the fact that the more concrete evidence he has of God and the angels, the more his faith erodes.
He shouldn’t have expected anything else.
But he still prays for Dean. Prays that time and distance will wear down the stain of the Pit, if not remove it entirely. Prays that when everything is over and he is gone, that Dean will find his way to peace. Prays that somehow, someday Dean rediscovers the indomitable will that made Sam believe his brother could do anything.
They never asked to be chosen.
Ilchester, Maryland - May 2009
They don’t stick around after the light show ends. Lucifer didn’t. Ruby’s car is still parked outside, lights on, trunk ajar. He stumbles, falling to his knees in the tall weeds and voids the contents of his stomach. Twice. The sound of his name reaches him, not more than a whisper, and he starts to raise his head, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It comes away bloody, but that’s expected when the only thing you’ve ingested in the last two days is demon blood. He stares down at the red smear against pale skin and thinks about the nurse, curls in on himself, gagging until there’s nothing left but bile. Again, someone is at his ear, saying his name. So soft. All he hears clearly is the buzzing stutter of his own heartbeat, but he looks up anyway.
It’s Dean - wearing the look Sam’s seen a million times, jaw clenched, green eyes sparked with gold flecks of panic, veins in his neck stretching the skin taut as he screams six inches from Sam’s face.
Suddenly reality slips back into focus. And he wants to vomit all over again.
“C’mon Sammy, snap out of it.” Dean shouts, shaking him roughly, and Sam almost wishes it was a mirage.
“Dean?” he coughs out, and pushes himself upright slowly, unsteady on his feet, his head spinning.
He watches the relief spread on Dean’s face absently, hypnotized by the smoothing of the furrow between his brows and the slightly slower than normal slide of lid across eye. Thinks that maybe, if he’s lucky, he can just stand here forever watching Dean blink at him. That maybe they won’t have to face…he won’t have to face what he just did. Lucifer walks free. Thanks to him.
Then his head snaps sideways, the sharp sting of knuckles against his jaw.
“Ow.”
Dean sighs and shakes his hand out, tugging him towards the passenger seat.
“We don’t have time for this.”
He lets his brother shove him into the car, starting when the door slams as soon as he’s got his ankle clear. Dean slides behind the wheel and peels out, away, anywhere but here. It’s only then he can think, maybe not clearly, but something that passes for it. And he can’t figure out what Dean’s even doing here, because Dean thinks he’s a monster. Dean is done saving him. Dean…
“You came,” he says, and Sam doesn’t recognize his own voice. He’s not a child, far from it, but he feels so small and stupid, played. Betrayed by his love. Betrayed by his faith. Betrayed by his sins.
“Of course I did,” Dean says, like it was never a question. Sam wants nothing more than to curl up inside that certainty and die.
“Why?”
“You’re my family, Sammy. What else could I do?” Dean flicks a quick glance at him, then back to the road. The calm front is just that and Sam knows it, Dean’s knuckles are white with the intensity of his grip on the steering wheel. It’s probably taking him an enormous amount of restraint not to just reach over and end it. Not that Sam doesn’t deserve it.
“I thought I was a monster.”
“Look, I said I was sorry.”
“Must have missed that memo.”
“I called,” Dean says and sighs again, gaze drifting back his way. This time though, all Sam sees is the fear, as if Dean has to keep checking to make sure he’s still there and in one piece and not back at the convent. Sam feels his body pressed back against the seat as Dean accelerates, running from something unseen. They’re always running. “Hell, it doesn’t matter now. I was fucking pissed at you. For letting Ruby manipulate you. For not seeing she was.”
“Yeah, well, probably should have listened.”
“No shit, Sherlock. You should always defer to my superior wisdom.”
“Funny,” Sam says, and makes a half-hearted attempt at a laugh, because Dean was right. From the very beginning, Dean was right. No matter how much Ruby helped them, she was still a demon and he forgot that somewhere along the way. Let his guard down. Overlooked the fact that maybe she had motives she wasn’t sharing. That, yeah, she saved his life, but she had a vested interest in keeping him alive.
“Not as funny as you might think,” Dean says. “Ironic maybe, not funny.”
“Ironic how?”
“They were playing me too. Like a goddamned human accordion,” Dean smiles a sheepish smile and runs a hand through his hair like he’s ashamed he didn’t catch on sooner.
“Who?”
“Who do you think? Zachariah and his merry band of flaming swords. Cas got me out.”
“The angels? Why would they…”
“Because they wanted this as much as Lilith.”
“But how could God want this?” And even as he asks, he feels the tenuous tethers he still has to his faith unraveling, rearranging, shifting. How can he possibly get behind a God who could do this to the world on purpose?
“Sammy, I don’t think God has anything to do with it.”
Sam remembers the last time he prayed.
Dean’s rage is still bouncing around between his ears when he tells Ruby to do it.
Then he prays for Cindy McLennan’s salvation, asking God to welcome her into the kingdom. The demon inside her is not her fault and she deserves forgiveness more than judgment.
She screams. Sam winces and blinks back tears, knowing that all the faith in the world doesn’t amount to much when he just willingly murdered an innocent. It’s not his place to make decisions about the value of a human life, he knows that.
It’s God’s.
Still he makes them.
And that’s the blasphemy he knows will land him in Hell someday, if not today.
It did Lucifer.
Back to Part One
Author: Kadiel Krieger
Characters: Sam, Dean, John. Other canon and non-canon characters.
Rating: Teen
Spoilers: Through 4.22
Wordcount: 13K
Disclaimer: Only wish they were mine. Woe.
Summary: Belief is one thing, faith is another. It takes Sam a lifetime to figure out what it means to him.
Thanks to: elizah_jane for her supremely patient hand-holding and beta work.
Rural South Dakota - November 2006
Everything is white, the whump of chopper blades, sharp tang of rubbing alcohol and blood. He can’t see or hear or breathe because Dad and Dean are…They try to fix his eye and he can’t move because they have him strapped down. Just wants to swat them away, push them towards Dean and the blinding red bloom where his shirt used to be. Neither is even conscious and he just can’t…
So he closes his eyes and prays. Begs and pleads with God to spare them because there are no words and he doesn’t know how he thought he could stay away. Promises all he is now and forever. Offers himself in their place, because it’s his fault. His. He should have shot the demon in Salvation but he hesitated and now Dad’s…and Dean’s…
His face is wet and he can’t tell where the blood ends and the tears begin, because he’s shaking, falling apart and the longer they both stay under the bigger the hole inside him gets.
All he can do is wait and hope that one of them wakes up before the grief swallows him.
Coralville, Iowa - February 2007
They’re halfway between Bobby’s and a rumor, taking a couple days shore leave. Sam still hasn’t quite recovered from the exorcism and needs all the R&R he can get. If only he could sleep. Just thinking the word exorcism when you were the one exorcised…
Anyway, he hasn’t recovered.
He prays in earnest every night now, for all the good it’s done. Dad made a deal. Dean thinks he should be dead And he’s been possessed.
Sam’s not sure God’s listening.
They’ve been dealt more than their fair share of bad luck. Still, he believes. Has to believe because the visions are getting stranger and he doesn’t want to become something Dean has to kill. He tries to trust in God, but it’s more difficult than ever with the number of demons roaming freely on the rise.
But he’ll be damned if a demon’s ever going to ride him again. Once was too much and he feels like he’ll never be clean. Two, sometimes three showers a day and he can still feel the blood and hair and spittle caking his skin. Like the demon left a stain on his soul he’ll have to live with the rest of his life. Just like he’ll have to live with Wandell and even though he knows it wasn’t him he still remembers every second. He feels his stomach lurch and tries, desperately, to think about something else.
The pendants Bobby gave them are great, but they can be lost, stolen, removed. Sam’s been thinking about it for awhile. Okay, maybe not awhile, but at least a week. To feel safe, as safe as their lives ever get, he needs something more permanent.
He tells himself he’s simply being practical, but there’s a niggling little voice in the back of his head saying maybe it’s doubt - the kind of doubt that calls into question his entire worldview.
Dean nudges the door open with a knee, laden with bags, a fluorescent orange flyer caught between his teeth. Sam has half a mind to leave him like that, but since some the food is his and he’d rather not eat it off the floor, he gets up to help.
“Thanks for nothing,” Dean says, once he’s set everything down. “I kicked the door twice. Was Sammy in his happy place?”
“If by that you mean deep thought, then, yes Dean. I was in my happy place.” Sam checks the salt line at the door to make sure it hasn’t been disturbed, inspects the locks to make sure they’re all engaged and then retrieves his food. He knows he’s gone a little OCD and is grateful Dean hasn’t called him on it yet.
“Don’t let me disturb you Mr. Wizard,” Dean says. Boots kicked in the corner, he cracks open a beer and flops gracelessly all over the bed. The bed protests, loudly, but doesn’t break.
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
All that elicits is a grunt around a mouthful of chili cheese fries that Sam assumes means: ‘please continue.’
“About the charms Bobby gave us…”
Dean swallows, smiles, licks two fingers clean and then plucks the flyer from the refuse pile that was once his bed.
“Way ahead of you.”
Sometimes Sam thinks they share a brain, only Dean got the messy part in the divorce. The flyer’s for a tattoo parlor here in town that’s running a two for one special this week, probably in an effort to drum up business. The Crossroads Tattoo Parlor.
“You gotta be shitting me.”
“Nope,” Dean says, and downs another swig of beer, “not even a little.”
“So you’re cool with this?”
“Dude, got no interest in getting possessed and even less interest in chasing your happy ass all over creation if it happened to you again. I consider this preventative maintenance. Called them already. Appointment’s at two.”
“Huh.”
So Sam eats his sandwich, sucks down his water, and steadfastly ignores the voice in his head. He’s not buying what it’s selling tonight. Instead, he spends his time sharing his brother’s six pack and watching old reruns. Under normal circumstances, Dean would have been in any seedy bar that would take him hitting on any pretty girl who would let him. But these aren’t normal circumstances, and he hasn’t been right since Dad.
They go to bed early and wake up late. He tosses and turns and dreams sticky, red dreams that he doesn’t share with Dean.
When they arrive at the Crossroads, Sam breathes a sigh of relief. From the waiting room, he can tell it’s exactly the kind of place that he would pick to get a tattoo - reputable and surgically clean. Which means it’s the opposite of what Dean would have picked. There aren’t any Harleys parked out front or guys with Bubba emblazoned across their chest, but there’s a respectable portfolio of work displayed in the lobby and a very cheerful, very pierced, very fey receptionist named Neva behind the desk. Her name tag says so.
Dean tugs the sleeve of his jacket and says through gritted teeth, “Let’s get out of here.”
“Two for one,” he says, and holds up the flyer.
“Fuck. Fine.”
Then Dean just looks at him like Sam kicked the puppy they never had and stole all his cool points. It’s a marvel what a baby his brother can be sometimes. He shakes his head and steps up to the counter.
“Winchester. We’ve got an appointment.”
He hands Neva a copy of the charm he painstakingly drew out last night during commercial breaks. Artists in general are known for taking liberties of design whenever they’re allowed, and generally Sam’s all for it. But protective magic is pretty specific and there’s no way in hell he’s taking a chance with this.
She takes the sketch from him with a sly little smile, then tilts her head toward Dean.
“What about you, sweetness?” she says, her voice all Georgia peach and totally out of context both in a tattoo parlor and the middle of nowhere Iowa, “You got something for me too?”
Dean coughs.
“Same thing,” he says, coughs again, “We’re getting the same tat.”
Sam thanks whatever quirk of fate made Dean decide to behave. And then goes to work trying to ignore the obvious once over Neva gives both of them, the slow glaze of her eyes before she sways her way through the curtains into the back room.
Dean watches her go.
“Have a seat, darlings,” she calls back over her shoulder, “Matt and Clare will be right with you.”
There’s a burst of laughter from the back room, and Sam just shakes his head and sits.
“You do realize that Clare’s mine,” Dean says, slumping into one of the plastic chairs beside him.
Normally, Sam would give him hell about it, but he’s pretty sure his brother’s bullshit radar’s broken. It does that sometimes around pretty girls. And if he can’t tell what’s going down, Sam’s certainly not going to enlighten him. It’s not like they haven’t been mistaken for a couple before once or twice. Much more fun to let him twist - especially since it’s harmless.
Instead he just says, “Be my guest,” and leans back in his chair.
Half an hour later, Neva pops out from behind the curtain and waves them back.
“Have fun,” she says with a smirk, before resuming her perch at the front desk.
The back of the shop, thankfully, is pretty much like the front, but with a lot more art. Matt and Clare are leaned up against a table at the far end, their heads tipped together conspiratorially. Every inch of skin he can see is either inked or pierced and Sam wonders how much time they’ve spent under each other’s needle to get there.
Clare moves first, a grin stretched on her lips that tells him Neva shared her suspicions. She’s petite, slender without being skinny, with dark hair and eyes and she moves like a cat on the prowl.
And Sam thinks this just got a lot more interesting.
“Winchester one and two, I presume,” she says. “Which one’s with me?”
Predictably, Dean steps forward, shrugging out of his jacket. “One,” he says, answering her smile, “Dean.”
Sam skirts past them to shake Matt’s hand, because it’s always best to be nice to someone you’re about to pay to stick you with very sharp things over and over. He feels slightly foolish, like he’s on a first date, and hopes it doesn’t come across.
“I’m Sam.”
Matt just nods, but Sam can see the twinkle in his eyes.
Then Clare takes over again. All five feet two of her.
“Take a load off, boys. Now, tell Clare-bear where these babies are going so we can get to the pounding.”
Dean snorts and says, “I like her.”
Sam glances over at Dean, ignoring the innuendo. They haven’t talked about it. Not that it really matters. But if they’re going to get matching tats, and how gay does that sound, they might as well get truly matching tats.
“Heart?” he asks, and shrugs, “Maybe best, symbolically.”
“Yeah,” Dean nods, and starts to unbutton his shirt, “Probably right.”
Dean’s got his head down and misses the look that passes between Matt and Clare. Sam can tell they think he and his brother are pedestrians taking a walk on the slightly wild side, and are planning to humor them as little as is necessary to maintain common professional courtesy. If only they knew. But they don’t and they won’t. Because as badass as they think they are, they couldn’t handle the kind of shit he and Dean face. Even on their very best days.
People.
Annoyed, Sam pulls off his jacket a little more forcefully than necessary and manages to fray the sleeve. By this time Dean’s bare-chested and he hears Clare stifle a gasp. He hides his own satisfied smirk behind his t-shirt as he pulls it off over his head.
Sam knows what it must look like. Sprinklings of puckered pink scar tissue from years of hard hunting. They’ve both been stabbed, shot at, and chewed on a hundred different times. He can name every single one of Dean’s scars. And Dean can do the same.
But when Matt says, “Holy beefcake, Batman,” Sam thinks he may have gotten the wrong idea.
At least the smug looks are gone, and he settles into the chair to let Matt clean the skin and place the stencil. He looks over to see Clare doing the same, mouth set at a more serious, less mocking angle.
“So, uh, what do you guys do?” she asks, smoothing the corner of the stencil down gently.
“We’re dogwalkers,” Dean says, straight-faced.
“Cat,” Sam responds.
“Cat walkers.”
“Cat trainers.”
“They’re big, big cats,” Dean says, finally starting to crack a smile.
“We work for the circus.”
Clare stares at them like they’ve lost their minds and starts to prep her gun, muttering something that sounds like ‘lunatics’ under her breath. And it’s in that moment that Sam thinks maybe Dean really is going to be okay after all.
He didn’t realize how much he needed this, how much they both do. A day with Dean, no hunt to rush to, no demon to run from, no plans but a girl - or guy in his case - with a gun of the non-lethal persuasion. The problem with time is that he uses it to think - about why he needs to be here at all. What in God’s grand plan could possibly be served by his having been possessed? If he’s honest with himself, and unlike Dean he usually can be, Sam knows that even being here equates to questioning his faith. He just doesn’t know what to do about it.
“Ready?” Matt asks, settling onto a stool beside him.
“As I’ll ever be,” Sam says, and twitches as Matt gets going.
He chances a glance at Dean, has to crane his neck a little around Matt. Clare’s already started on him, and Sam can’t believe he missed it, lost in his head. Stubborn as Dean is, the first time the needle touched his skin will be the only time he reacts enough for anyone else to see.
Sam’s not anyone.
He can see the muscle dancing in Dean’s jaw, his Adam’s apple bobbing fitfully, the way his eyes open ever so slightly wider when she hits a tender spot. But Dean being Dean, he just laughs and says,
“That tickles.”
And Sam knows better, because fuck it hurts. Just every so often. Mostly he’s a little uncomfortable and tingly, and maybe stinging, but then there’s a flash and he has to refocus his eyes because they’ve crossed. He has no frame of reference to go by. Obviously, getting shot hurts worse. But it’s bam and done. Not this endless scraping dance of metal on skin.
“You okay over there, Sammy?” Dean says, eyes wide and teeth bared in something that doesn’t even remotely resemble a smile.
“Yeah, you?” is all he gets out before Matt hits another tender spot that makes him want to hit something. He’ll be damned if he gives Dean the satisfaction.
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” he says, and closes his eyes to ride the wave.
Sam takes it as end of conversation and settles back in silence to watch Matt work. The pain dulls after awhile, except for surprising little flares that come up fast to set his teeth on edge and die away just as quickly. He feels the knot in his stomach unravel every time the needle makes a pass and can’t help but feel ashamed.
An hour later, they’re both owners of brand spanking new anti-possession tattoos, and it feels good. Well, not good in the strictest sense. More achy and chafed and hot. But safe. Numbly, he watches Dean press cash into Neva’s palm and roll his shoulders.
“Don’t be strangers,” he hears her say, but what else can they be?
Once they’re both carefully in the car, Dean peels out of the parking lot like they’ve got a demon army on their asses.
Sam winces as his shoulder slams the door.
“Jesus, Dean. Take it easy,” he says, bracing himself so he’s not tossed around the next corner.
“Oh sorry, Sam, did that hurt? My mistake.”
Dean takes the next turn without slowing down.
“Are you suddenly five?”
Dean slams his foot against the brakes at a red light, and Sam has to palm the dash to keep from hitting his head. It stretches the tender skin on his chest and sizzles nerve endings.
“Shit!” he says, “Dean, seriously, cut it out.”
The light changes, and Dean punches it through the intersection.
“You didn’t think to mention,” Dean says through gritted teeth, “that I was volunteering to wipe my ass with asphalt?”
“What?”
“Because that? Was inhuman.”
It’s not often that Dean shows weakness, even to Sam and the idea of him being worked up over a tattoo when he’s been basically ripped apart and sewn back together a hundred times over - it tickles Sam’s funny bone. So he laughs. And the only thing that saves him is that they’re just a block away from the motel, because he’s pretty sure if they’d been any further Dean would have rolled him out the passenger door and made him walk back.
Dean jerks into a spot, but makes no move to slide the gearshift into park. He also doesn’t say anything, but Sam guesses he’s supposed to vacate. The Impala roars out behind him as he’s sliding the key into the motel door, but he’s okay with that. Dean will work through it with booze and probably manage to get in a bar fight before the night’s over. Sam doesn’t have the energy for it. Like sitting in that chair took all the wind out of his sails.
Key tossed on the dresser, he heads for the bathroom shedding layers as he goes. What he really needs is to splash some water on his face and sleep for awhile, but instead he peels the plastic away from his tat and examines it in the mirror, making sure every corner is closed where it needs to be and every line bold. Now that it’s done he doesn’t know what to feel. Relief, of course, but also shame. That his faith failed him, that he failed God, but he knows he had to. To make the nightmares stop. To be safe. Because even Dean can’t fight what’s inside him. Even Dean can’t wash away the fact that a part of him, however small, enjoyed the power.
And it terrifies him.
Enough to tattoo a ward on his chest.
Because he knows he can’t save himself and he wonders if his time in God's good graces is finally running out.
Lincoln, Nebraska - May 2007
He asks this time.
“Please, help me find a way to get Dean out of this deal. I never wanted this. Not with this price tag.”
There’s a muffled thump outside, the sound of Dean throwing the door of the Impala closed.
“Please,” he whispers, then rolls over and pretends to be asleep.
Maple Springs, New York - October 2007
The report of the Colt echoes back against his eardrums like an accusation and in the place he pretends doesn’t exist, fingerling dark tendrils unfurl. Even as he pulled the trigger, he knew the demon was telling the truth.
It didn’t stay his hand.
He wonders, idly, what he’s becoming as he gathers the girl in his arms and carries her into the tall grass beside the road. Another casualty in their endless war. But she’s not and Sam’s not even fooling himself. She died for Dean. Not even for Dean because he believes her - there’s nothing she could have done to release him from his contract.
She died for Sam’s fear and frustration and he doesn’t deserve forgiveness.
He doesn’t ask.
Ypsilanti, Michigan - December 2007
This is killing him, surely as it’s killing Dean. Eating away at his insides until all that’s left is an ache.
The ache that tells him Dean is saying goodbye.
Every syllable he utters, every unnecessary chance he takes has a ‘when I’m gone’ tacked to it. Sam smiles through it, anyway. Sips his eggnog and watches Dean watch the game out of the corner of his eye. Pries the remote from his hand when he falls asleep sitting up and manhandles him into bed.
Because that’s what brothers are for. They take care of you. Sam refuses to think about after. Instead he prays to an increasingly capricious God, asking for a miracle.
All of it has gotten way too big for him.
Broward County, Florida - January 2008
On the twenty-fifth Tuesday, Sam stays in bed, hoping that he is the variable in the equation that needs changing.
Or so he tells himself.
Fact is, he can’t bear to watch Dean die again - especially not in a completely mundane, wholly avoidable way. He doesn’t bother to explain it beyond feeling sick to his stomach. Dean calls him a pussy and promises to pick up some Pepto on the way back from the diner.
Since he’s in a loop, Dean remains unconvinced that the Mystery Spot is a real case and Sam wishes to hell he had listened.
The twenty four Tuesdays before, he’s prayed for guidance, for help, for a clue, for anything…
Today he doesn’t bother.
New Harmony, Indiana - May 2008
Until Lilith looses the hounds, Sam still holds out hope. But something in him snaps, maybe irreparably, watching helpless as the beasts shred Dean’s chest to ribbons.
There is no God in this room, only Lilith.
Sam feels his knees buckle and his stomach riot as he slides down the wall, and all he can think when Lilith turns her wide white eyes on him is, “Good.”
Because for all the promises he’s made, he can’t do this without Dean. He’s prepared to ride that white lightning wherever it takes him.
When the smoke clears and he’s still breathing, Lilith studies him, dumbfounded. He staggers to his feet with the knife in hand, but by the time he gathers himself for a lunge she’s gone, leaving Sam to pick up the pieces.
Vida, Louisiana - June 2008
Time passes differently now. Days and weeks stretch to breaking. Sleep comes in halting restless bursts and only then when he can’t physically go on. Ruby tries to mother hen him into taking better care of himself - that there’s no way he’s going to bounce Lilith if he’s dead - but he’s doing all he can as it is.
If he can’t get Dean back, all he has is revenge.
It’ll have to be enough.
A knock on the door rouses him from his reverie and, mechanically, he gets up to let Ruby in. Sam knows it’s her. She’s the only one that ever knocks anymore.
“Honey, I’m home!” she says, and drops a slightly misshapen bag of fast food on the table.
“Funny,” he says, even though it isn’t. “What’s that?”
“Food for the human. Last I heard you guys don’t run on violence, death, and vengeance alone.”
“Would you stop?” The headache pounding staccato patterns against his skull taps faster, harder.
“Stop what?” she says, and bats her eyelashes in a perverse mockery of innocence.
“You’re not him.”
“I certainly hope not,” she says, sidling in close, her breath warm and moist on his neck, thumbs threaded through his belt loops. “That would take this to a whole other level of weird.”
“Ruby…”
Words don’t belong here though, because Sam has nothing to say. He dedicates everything he is just to getting through the next day and the one after that; he doesn’t have anything else - doesn’t want anything else. The world’s bleached grey, the edges honed. He breathes in grief and spews silent wrath. He certainly doesn’t pray. Not anymore.
Ruby shifts against him and he wraps his fingers around her shoulders, neither pushing nor pulling, just holding on. If he squints hard and stands on his head, she still makes a poor substitute for his brother. All sharp tongue and swagger, but her hands are soft when she cups his face and pulls him into a kiss he doesn’t want. And really, he doesn’t need to be thinking about Dean right now, but he can’t help it. Every thought he’s had since that night has been permeated with him. The terror in Dean’s eyes fueling the flame in his gut that pushes, pushes, pushes until he collapses.
Every now and then, Sam remembers other deals and other days - fleeting flashes of recollection rolling on through with Dean’s resentment in tow. He remembers Dad and the unholy mess his sacrifice made of Dean. Sometimes, when he’s run as far as he can without stopping, he hates his brother for doing him the same favor. Because nothing matters now. Whatever the ends may be the means are probably still unjustified, but who’s left to care?
So, selfishly, he takes the comfort he can, pulls Ruby’s willing, borrowed body against him, hand splayed in the small of her back. She kisses him again, more insistent, smiling into his mouth at some joke he’s not privy to, tugging at the hem of his shirt until it’s bunched under his arms. He lets her peel it off, tries to give into the mindless physicality of it, because he’s well aware that’s all this is. Distraction.
Sam needs the distraction because every time he slows down long enough to close his eyes he sees Dean’s blood pooling around his knees, Dean lying still and silent in the bottom of a pine box, Dean disappearing under six feet of topsoil. Dean leaving. Forever.
And there’s nothing he can do about it.
What he can do is lose himself in flesh and sweat, forget for awhile in a way that even the heat of the hunt doesn’t allow. He feels Ruby’s hands at his belt buckle, slow and deliberate and he pushes her away, hears the whuff of air escape her lungs as she hits the bed hard.
“Sam…” she says, tongue curled around his name like it belongs there.
“Shut up,” he responds, working the belt open himself, skimming off the rest of his clothes with rough, impatient tugs.
She does, but the smile that stretches her lips says it all anyway. Then it doesn’t matter, because she’s shimmying out of her jeans and slipping her own shirt over her head. And Sam thinks how screwed up it is that he still feels so desperately empty. He’s got his fingers hooked on the elastic of her panties, sliding them down over her knees until she kicks them away gleefully. And all he feels is alone. But his dick is way ahead of him, so when he tumbles on top of her she doesn’t seem notice. She grasps at him, like she’s drowning too, like she wishes she could swallow him whole and take on Lilith herself. Maybe they’d both be better off. Maybe if a demon took him, he could just fuck off to Hell and go find Dean.
The thought of it does things to him that he doesn’t particularly like and he takes it out on Ruby. Crushes his lips to hers tasting blood and she whimpers beneath him, hands scrabbling up his back like all she wants is more. That’s something he can give, he thinks absently, as he jerks his hips forward, burying his cock inside the soft heat of her. His teeth rattle with the impact, hears and feels Ruby gasp into his mouth. The rhythm he sets is meant to punish, but he’s not sure who. Her nails dig in, sharp little half moons of pain against his skin and he doesn’t deserve that much diversion. He wraps her wrists together in one hand and pins them above her head.
“Ooh, kinky,” she grits out, struggling against his grip, “Sammy you’ve been holding out on me.”
Sammy
It’s already enough to send him crashing headlong, but then the quirk of her eyebrow and the twinkle in her eye pushes him over. Makes Dean fucking materialize out of thin air, but it’s not his D…not the Dean before. It’s the Dean he lost, the Dean enduring only God knows what in some corner of Hell they reserve for the righteous to burn. The Dean that might someday look at him out of someone else’s eyes.
Because Ruby was human once upon a time.
Sam’s thought about it more than he wants, more than anyone could ever wish to. That if Dean did come back…
He just needs to escape, for a minute. So he closes his eyes against the silent, suffering, watchful Dean and pours the pain into Ruby. Feels the tightness in his thighs, his lower back start to gather. Feels the sweat on his neck and chest slip-slide in all sorts of interesting ways. Feels Ruby rise to meet him, her head turning, teeth sunk into the meat of his arm, hard.
And he’s gone. Blissful silence and nothing in the world but the stutter of his hips and the now familiar sound of Ruby tumbling after.
Sam allows himself a full minute to lie there, spent and boneless, he counts it in heartbeats. Sixty seconds of peace before he stands up, slick and sticky, wishing there was some other way to quiet his head. He’s bone tired and needs to shower and sleep in that order, but Dean’s back tickling the edges of his consciousness and he knows better than to think he’ll really rest. He makes for the bathroom, collecting discarded clothes as he goes, steadfastly not looking at Ruby. She knows better. And yet keeps on pushing.
“Get dressed and get out,” he tosses back at her over his shoulder. And he’s not even going to give her the satisfaction of entertaining her hurt look.
“You gotta be kidding me” she says, but he hears her gathering her things because they both know he isn’t.
“Thanks for the hamburger. If you ever call me Sammy again…,” he says and shuts the bathroom door, letting the threat dangle like the unfinished business between them.
He runs the water awhile, to let it get hot. Outside, he hears Ruby leave and wishes he could drum up something to feel about it. It isn’t right and he knows it - the casual cavorting with Ruby, treating her like a thing instead of a person. It’s that slippery slope he never intended to be on, but where does he have left to go but down.
The only two people in the world that could have helped him have abandoned him.
It seems they took God with them.
Sioux Falls, South Dakota - September 2008
The first thing Sam does when Dean gets back is lie.
He’s not immune to the irony, but he can’t even begin to work out how to explain what he’s been doing and why in a way that he thinks Dean would understand. The fact that Dean’s here combined with their suspicions about how he returned leaves little room for other trains of thought to run to completion.
Angels.
And the faith that fled when Dean…left comes rushing back in all its former glory and then some. Now there’s proof. Perhaps not any he’s seen with his own eyes, but he trusts Dean - even if Dean doesn’t trust this Castiel. What else could possibly have done this? Not only torn his brother’s soul out of hell, but purified his body…
Took them long enough.
But he’s grateful and convinced that God’s finally paying attention to their struggle.
So he prays.
Murmurs quiet words of thanks and asks for direction, asks for strength to do what he knows needs to be done to rid the world of Lilth’s stain once and for all. Dean may not understand, but Sam does - like Dad did.
Dean’s alive.
And things may not be perfect, but as he lies in the dark listening to his brother’s soft snores, Sam thinks maybe, just maybe, they’ll be okay.
Davenport, Washington - November 2008
Despite every effort, the doubt creeps back in. Slowly, at first, because he tries to believe the agents of the Lord are righteous even if they aren’t exactly what he expected. Then he meets Uriel. And if anyone knows that angels are supposed to be warriors, it’s Sam. What he can’t reconcile is the fact that Uriel would rather smite a town’s worth of innocents than do the legwork necessary to save them.
He hasn’t decided yet about Castiel.
Hell, maybe he even agrees with them that using his powers is a bad idea - for him. They don’t seem to understand that it’s also necessary. Without them, he would have died last night. And Dean…
And Samhain would have walked free. At least until Uriel leveled the city.
Nobody’s perfect and when faced with a choice between twelve hundred dead on the one hand and a questionable use of power on the other, he’s happy to bear the burden. Never mind that another seal has fallen and they should be chasing Lilith rather than traipsing all over the country fighting battles that may or may not have any bearing on the final outcome.
Lilith is the war. Her destruction would mean an end to this for good. According to Ruby, he’s the only one who has the slightest chance of stopping her, but to do it…to do it he has to be what he’s spent his entire life trying not to be in one way or another.
So he doubts - whether the angels are truly virtuous, whether he’s made the right decision, the decision that will inevitably save him in spite of the rest of the human race, whether he’s just being selfish.
One way or another destiny has a way of creeping up on you, and the faith he had in the grand plan when Dean came back branded by angelic deliverance is wavering. He’s not sure anymore if he can trust in God or his agents to take care of Lilith.
For now, all he can do is wait, and pray.
Sioux City, Iowa - December 2008
“I don’t want to be doing this when I’m an old man,” he says, and it’s true. He wants the war to be over. He wants a life, a normal life and he wants Dean to have one too. They deserve it, so Sam’s going to get it for them or die trying.
That’s what he tells himself anyway.
Mostly, he believes it. But the Dean who came back from Hell is not the man who left. He’s quieter in small ways, more contained than he used to be. And cautious to a point that has Sam worried he plans to ignore the pending apocalypse until forced bodily into the middle of it. Broken. Like he’s forgotten the steps. It makes him a liability and Jesus he hates to think about Dean that way, the older brother he idolized to the point of nausea until he was…well, in some ways he’s never really stopped. To think of Dean as weak borders on sacrilege. The bitch of it is that Sam’s okay with taking up the mantle, being the one to protect Dean for awhile. So the decision’s inevitable when he makes it. Dean is not long for this life, not a hunter’s life, because he’s lost the fire. And all Sam has to do to earn them respite is drink some demon blood and execute a hell bitch.
It’s the right thing to do.
He refuses to think about how it will change him, because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. There’s probably no coming back from it, he realizes that. But how else do you repay a brother who condemned himself to hell for you, if not by doing anything you can to save him? It’s who they are and his hope for a normal life burned up on that ceiling with Jess.
Ruby shifts beside him, edgy in the silence.
“I have to get back, you know,” he says quietly over the hum of the engine. “Dean won’t come looking right away, but he will look and the last thing I want is to try to explain this.”
“Fine,” is what she says, but he can tell she doesn’t mean it, “So how exactly do you see this going down?”
“It’s really pretty simple,” he says, like it actually is but he’s not even fooling himself. “You bleed. I drink. We look for Lilith. Whatever else we’ll deal with as it comes.”
“And if Dean does find out?”
“He won’t.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure, Sam.”
“I’ll handle it when it happens, if it happens. I have kept secrets before, you know. It’s not like demons have a corner on the market.”
“Fair enough,” she says, a furtive little smile Sam can’t explain stretched across her lips. “There’s a flask in the glove compartment. I figured I might need it.”
Sam nods, mouth dry, throat too tight for words. The metal’s still warm when he pulls it out, power pulsing off it in waves. Or maybe he’s just imagining it. Until he actually swallows, he still has a chance to change his mind. Ruby watches him, waiting, as he uncaps it and sniffs. Doesn’t smell like much but copper and sulfur, but the metal thrums hot against his palm.
For a second, he stops and wonders how he got here, welcoming the thing he wants least. He would ask God for guidance, but Sam knows better. This is not the sort of thing the Almighty is in the habit of condoning. So all he can do is pray for forgiveness and hope that God can see the inevitability of it. He also prays for the strength to see this through to the end because for all his hope he knows that if he does this he’s damned.
He prays for Dean, because Dean can still be saved but would never ask.
And that’s all Sam needs to know, so he tips the flask back with a grimace and drinks.
Cheyenne, Wyoming - January 2009
He can only hope the orders didn’t come from God, but hoping is not knowing and it’s obvious that the holy legions are in the same disarray as the demonic ones. Such is the way of war, he supposes. It looks tidy on paper. Lines of numbers - wounded, casualties, engagements, battles won, others lost. Different when you’re a soldier and Sam finds no comfort in the fact that both armies are just as befuddled as the humans ever were.
All the more reason for him to do what he’s doing. He’s all there is, humanity’s only chance at survival. His soul, his salvation is a small price to pay. For all he would do for Dean, it’s not about that anymore. Not in the way it was. He knows now that once he does this, there is no coming back. But he’s his father’s son and will do what’s necessary to get the job done, even this.
So now, all that’s left is to watch and wait. The doctors say Dean will be okay, that he should wake up anytime. No evidence of permanent damage. They’re wrong, but he doesn’t say so. He calls Ruby a couple times from the hallway, tells her to be ready because this is it. If he made the decision in Sioux City, now he’s committed to it completely. But he can’t leave Dean, not for any length of time. Once a day he goes back to the motel for an hour to shower and take his vitamins. So to speak. The rest of the time he sits or dozes in the straight-backed chair at Dean’s bedside, thinking.
The machines beep at him, and he cringes. Angel or no, he wanted to do dark and terrible things to Castiel when he denied Dean the miracle he needed. He takes a second to marvel at the fact that the more concrete evidence he has of God and the angels, the more his faith erodes.
He shouldn’t have expected anything else.
But he still prays for Dean. Prays that time and distance will wear down the stain of the Pit, if not remove it entirely. Prays that when everything is over and he is gone, that Dean will find his way to peace. Prays that somehow, someday Dean rediscovers the indomitable will that made Sam believe his brother could do anything.
They never asked to be chosen.
Ilchester, Maryland - May 2009
They don’t stick around after the light show ends. Lucifer didn’t. Ruby’s car is still parked outside, lights on, trunk ajar. He stumbles, falling to his knees in the tall weeds and voids the contents of his stomach. Twice. The sound of his name reaches him, not more than a whisper, and he starts to raise his head, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It comes away bloody, but that’s expected when the only thing you’ve ingested in the last two days is demon blood. He stares down at the red smear against pale skin and thinks about the nurse, curls in on himself, gagging until there’s nothing left but bile. Again, someone is at his ear, saying his name. So soft. All he hears clearly is the buzzing stutter of his own heartbeat, but he looks up anyway.
It’s Dean - wearing the look Sam’s seen a million times, jaw clenched, green eyes sparked with gold flecks of panic, veins in his neck stretching the skin taut as he screams six inches from Sam’s face.
Suddenly reality slips back into focus. And he wants to vomit all over again.
“C’mon Sammy, snap out of it.” Dean shouts, shaking him roughly, and Sam almost wishes it was a mirage.
“Dean?” he coughs out, and pushes himself upright slowly, unsteady on his feet, his head spinning.
He watches the relief spread on Dean’s face absently, hypnotized by the smoothing of the furrow between his brows and the slightly slower than normal slide of lid across eye. Thinks that maybe, if he’s lucky, he can just stand here forever watching Dean blink at him. That maybe they won’t have to face…he won’t have to face what he just did. Lucifer walks free. Thanks to him.
Then his head snaps sideways, the sharp sting of knuckles against his jaw.
“Ow.”
Dean sighs and shakes his hand out, tugging him towards the passenger seat.
“We don’t have time for this.”
He lets his brother shove him into the car, starting when the door slams as soon as he’s got his ankle clear. Dean slides behind the wheel and peels out, away, anywhere but here. It’s only then he can think, maybe not clearly, but something that passes for it. And he can’t figure out what Dean’s even doing here, because Dean thinks he’s a monster. Dean is done saving him. Dean…
“You came,” he says, and Sam doesn’t recognize his own voice. He’s not a child, far from it, but he feels so small and stupid, played. Betrayed by his love. Betrayed by his faith. Betrayed by his sins.
“Of course I did,” Dean says, like it was never a question. Sam wants nothing more than to curl up inside that certainty and die.
“Why?”
“You’re my family, Sammy. What else could I do?” Dean flicks a quick glance at him, then back to the road. The calm front is just that and Sam knows it, Dean’s knuckles are white with the intensity of his grip on the steering wheel. It’s probably taking him an enormous amount of restraint not to just reach over and end it. Not that Sam doesn’t deserve it.
“I thought I was a monster.”
“Look, I said I was sorry.”
“Must have missed that memo.”
“I called,” Dean says and sighs again, gaze drifting back his way. This time though, all Sam sees is the fear, as if Dean has to keep checking to make sure he’s still there and in one piece and not back at the convent. Sam feels his body pressed back against the seat as Dean accelerates, running from something unseen. They’re always running. “Hell, it doesn’t matter now. I was fucking pissed at you. For letting Ruby manipulate you. For not seeing she was.”
“Yeah, well, probably should have listened.”
“No shit, Sherlock. You should always defer to my superior wisdom.”
“Funny,” Sam says, and makes a half-hearted attempt at a laugh, because Dean was right. From the very beginning, Dean was right. No matter how much Ruby helped them, she was still a demon and he forgot that somewhere along the way. Let his guard down. Overlooked the fact that maybe she had motives she wasn’t sharing. That, yeah, she saved his life, but she had a vested interest in keeping him alive.
“Not as funny as you might think,” Dean says. “Ironic maybe, not funny.”
“Ironic how?”
“They were playing me too. Like a goddamned human accordion,” Dean smiles a sheepish smile and runs a hand through his hair like he’s ashamed he didn’t catch on sooner.
“Who?”
“Who do you think? Zachariah and his merry band of flaming swords. Cas got me out.”
“The angels? Why would they…”
“Because they wanted this as much as Lilith.”
“But how could God want this?” And even as he asks, he feels the tenuous tethers he still has to his faith unraveling, rearranging, shifting. How can he possibly get behind a God who could do this to the world on purpose?
“Sammy, I don’t think God has anything to do with it.”
Sam remembers the last time he prayed.
Dean’s rage is still bouncing around between his ears when he tells Ruby to do it.
Then he prays for Cindy McLennan’s salvation, asking God to welcome her into the kingdom. The demon inside her is not her fault and she deserves forgiveness more than judgment.
She screams. Sam winces and blinks back tears, knowing that all the faith in the world doesn’t amount to much when he just willingly murdered an innocent. It’s not his place to make decisions about the value of a human life, he knows that.
It’s God’s.
Still he makes them.
And that’s the blasphemy he knows will land him in Hell someday, if not today.
It did Lucifer.
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