Crossover: Walk in Shadow, Move in Silence [Part 3/3] (Supernatural X Men in Black)
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PART THREE
"Blastulas are even worse than Vermax," Dean complains as they make their way to their fourth motel room in as many days. It feels just like their childhood and not in a good way, either. For all he teases Sam for being out of shape, Dean forgets sometimes just how attached he's gotten to having an apartment of his own with a nice, soft bed to come home to. "I fucking hate those things."
"I stink in places I didn’t know were on me," Sam replies. "Very educational hunt all around."
Dean starts a snort of a laugh, but he ends up coughing and choking as soon as he gets a good whiff of himself.
"Rock, paper, scissors for first shower?" Sam suggests.
Dean rolls his eyes and waves Sam toward the bathroom. "Just leave me some hot water or I will murder you."
Sam looks overwhelmingly grateful for the shower, but he doesn't stick around to thank Dean. Probably, he's correctly surmised that he should get in the bathroom with the door locked before Dean changes his mind.
Sam takes about twenty minutes before he comes out into the room, towel wrapped around his hips. Twenty minutes in the shower would normally be a hell of a luxury for a Winchester, but they just fought a damn Blastula, so, considering, Sam clearly did make an effort to get in and out before the hot water was all gone.
"There's gotta be some secret to removing that goo that's easier than scraping off your first four layers of skin, right?" Sam jokes.
Dean grins as he makes his way to the bathroom. "If there is, I have yet to discover it. Good thing this motel so considerately provided towels made of sandpaper, right?"
"Oh, yeah," Sam agrees. "I feel pampered."
He turns around and takes his towel off, probably assuming Dean will be too busy getting to the shower to linger for the show. But Dean gets a look at his brother's California-tanned skin, the perfect curve of his ass, and well-defined thighs, and it's like he can't fucking move for half a minute.
Sam digs into his bag for boxers and a t shirt, but he turns and finds Dean staring before he puts them on. His eyes meet Dean's, dark dark hazel, and he doesn't say a goddamn word.
It's been nearly a week since Dean put his foot down about fucking, and every day's been a constant test. Not that Sam is pushing-Sam respects his boundaries in the most frustrating ways possible.
Because he's there, like he hasn't been in years, making the same shitty jokes and bitchy faces and fucked if Dean's walls aren't crumbling every moment he spends remembering how good it is just to be by his brother. Sam doesn't have to try to get his attention.
It's like Sam is fifteen all over again, driving Dean crazy just by existing. They're in close quarters like they always used to be, the physicality of the job sending them home every day with their blood pumping. And there are moments like this-always moments like this, where one of them is changing or they get too damn close and it's like the tension is so thick they'll both choke.
"You were gonna shower," Sam finally says after a good, long time.
Dean feels his cheeks flush, so he nods and goes into the bathroom, stripping quickly. If he thought he could fit a quick orgasm in, he'd jerk off, but he's too filthy and he knows there's only so much hot water left before he'll be stuck in a freezing shower trying to get rid of all the grime.
So by the time he gets out he's only more turned on than when he went in.
He can see the lump of his brother lying in the farthest bed, and he knows he should ignore it. God, he knows. He knew back when Sam was just a teenager, too, and that didn't stop him.
Dean's feet carry him without any input from his brain. He finds himself standing over Sam's bed, his fingers reaching out to run through the ends of Sam's hair. He doesn't think Sam is really asleep, and as soon as his fingertips make contact, Sam's eyes spring open.
He looks up at Dean from down there on the bed, and Dean loses himself for a moment. He's back, back so many years ago, when he used to come home to find Sam like this after a hunt. He'd shake Sam lightly to wake him, let Sam see that he was home and safe, and sometimes, times like now, Sam would blink his sleepy eyes open and rise up onto his elbows.
He doesn't say a word. Dean doesn't either, not until Sam's mouth is wrapped around the head of his dick, when he tangles his hand in Sam's long hair and pushes his brother to take him, whispering Sammy.
Sam still gets off on letting Dean ride him, and Dean always loved that he would give up control like this, too tired to coordinate the blowjob but too hungry to go on sleeping without Dean's come on his tongue. He doesn't fuck roughly, just leads Sam slow and smooth along the length of his dick until it's too damn good and Sam is too fucking beautiful and willing underneath him.
"Gonna come," Dean warns him.
Sam hums contentedly. He expects it when Dean shoves himself in just a little deeper, likes it when Dean holds him there, and the filthy smile he gives Dean when he pulls off, come still shining at the corners of his lips, is nearly enough to make Dean lose it all over again.
"Dean," Sam whispers, pulling him forward. Dean lets himself be led, tumbles onto the mattress with his brother. Fuck whether this is a good idea. Fuck whatever happens next. Sam's mouth presses against the side of Dean's neck, and he doesn't say 'I told you so.' He just holds onto Dean like he never doubted this would happen enough to bother feeling smug about it now. Like this was inevitable, which it was, and it always has been.
Dean slips under the blanket and immediately has his hands on Sam, grabbing at all that smooth flesh he's been missing for years. He nearly lets out a sob as he pulls Sam in closer, closer, too close, so that they're pressed up so tight it hurts more than it feels good. Sam clings back just as forcefully, his mouth meeting Dean's with greedy licks and possessive bites.
"Tell me what you want," Dean says after they've made out for what seems like hours. "You want to fuck me? Fuck me anyway you need."
Sam takes his hand and moves it slowly down his body, past the line of his boxers, which he quickly kicks away under the covers. "Touch me," he begs. "I just want your hands on me. In me. I want you to touch me until you're hard again. Because I need you to fuck me. Please Dean. Please."
"You sure?" Dean asks. "I think it'll be a while, Sam."
Sam laughs like the question delights him, turning his face so it's pressed into Dean's shoulder. "If you spend the rest of your life with your fingers inside of me, I'd consider that time well spent."
Dean laughs. "Fair enough."
They have to break for lube, so Dean stumbles out of bed and back in the space of a minute, uncapping the tube he stashed in his duffel and letting the gel dribble over his fingers. He isn't worried about not opening Sam up enough-knowing the slow, lazy way his brother likes to be tortured and toyed with, Sam's gonna be good and ready to take him once Dean has recovered from that blowjob. But he loves the slick sensation, the way it allows three of his fingers to tease into Sam at once.
Sam looks so goddamn good with his eyes shut tight as he fights to keep still, resisting the urge to touch his cock or thrust on Dean's fingers. Sam's always had a thing for stringing himself out until he can't stand it, and Dean's never going to outgrow the urge to watch his brother gradually fall apart.
Once he's got Sam on the hook, he puts his mouth to work, driving Sam crazy with teases of his lips all along his brother's jaw and neck until Sam is damn near whining. He doesn't ask for release, though. Dean's never understood how Sam could stand this. Dean likes to come-fast and often-but Sam makes an art out of drawing things out.
He's hard again faster than he could have thought possible.
He shifts a little, so his fingers are stabbing into Sam at a more insistent angle and his body is nearly on top of Sam's. Sam gets the message immediately, his hand moving between them to curl around Dean's erection.
"Got a big hard cock for me now?" Sam says, his voice raw and honey sweet. "Please, please, let me have it. Oh god, Dean. Let me have it."
He begs like only a little brother can-like everything he could want is supposed to be his, and that calls to Dean the same as it did when all Sam wanted was the last bowl of cereal. He spoiled Sam then, and he's damn well gonna spoil Sam now.
"Yeah, baby," Dean whispers, feeling around for the lube with the hand that isn't knuckle-deep in Sam. "I can do that for you."
Once his dick is wet, he slides home inside of Sam, panting as he remembers the too-good heat and tightness of this. He hasn't been with a guy other than Sam, not ever. It would have felt too much like trying to substitute for something Dean's always known is irreplaceable.
Sam is still at first, letting Dean establish a rhythm before trying to match it. By the time Sam does start rolling his hips, though, it's perfect, everything about them that works. Sam knows instinctively when to pull back, when to push forward. His breathless hitches get drowned out by Dean's grunts, but Dean knows that just means Sam's too strung out to make a sound, and that's how he likes it.
He kisses his brother gentler once they're going-neither of them urgent to reach climax. Sam's too patient, and Dean came so recently that he knows he'll be able to give his brother just the kind of unending ride that Sam needs.
They fuck so long Sam comes without ever touching his dick, just from the friction of their bodies when they meet and the pleasure of Dean's cock deep inside of him, bringing every thrust home. Dean doesn't last much longer than that, not after Sam cries out his name like it hurts him.
When he finishes coming, he tries to pull back, out of his brother so they can clean up and get to bed. But Sam just wraps his whole body around Dean, arms and legs clinging so tight Dean can't get out.
"Stay," Sam whispers. "Stay right there until tomorrow."
Dean huffs a laugh into Sam's hair, shifting his hips a little. "It's not gonna feel so good for either of us in the morning."
"I don't care," Sam replies. His finger is dragging a long, horizontal line on Dean's back, just between his shoulder blades. "I only feel complete with you inside of me like this. It's like I only remember who I am because you're a part of me." He laughs at himself, turning his face away from Dean's. "How fucked up is that?"
Pretty fucked up, Dean thinks, wishing he could stop the voice in the back of his head from asking just how bad things are gonna be when Sam finds out why he feels that way.
He doesn't answer out loud. Instead, Dean kisses Sam; he's not sure when the kissing turns into sleeping.
_______________________________________________________________
Dean drops two thick files onto the desk in front of Sam. "So what do you think," he asks. "Charnucks gone wild, or little green symbiots?"
"I think my ass is sore, that's what I think," Sam grumbles. "And this coffee tastes like shit."
"You know, everyone agrees about the coffee and yet no one does anything about it." Dean plops down in the chair opposite his brother and grins. "Got any thoughts on the cases that aren't about your ass? Because I think it's pretty cut-and-dry how that happened."
"It's too hot in here," Sam whines, pulling at his tie. "These stupid suits aren't good for anything but taking off."
"Well, then, I can figure out a way to fix it," Dean replies, waggling his eyebrows.
Sam laughs, but he still looks pretty beat, and he's got his cranky bitch voice all keyed up when he responds. "First of all, we're at work, so no. Second, I think if I have another orgasm this week, my dick is officially going to fall off, so definitely no. And to conclude…we should probably think about killing some aliens or something before we get fired."
"I'm all for killing aliens if you wanna tell me which of these two excellent cases I found you want to work on." He sits and watches Sam as Sam makes absolutely no move to look at either of the files in front of him. Finally, Dean can't help laughing at him. "Are you sex hungover? Am I that good?"
"We haven't slept for more than three hours at a time in like…" Sam stops, making a face like he's thinking back, and then he shakes his head, deeply ashamed by whatever he's discovered. "Basically not since we started fucking."
"In the morning it's complain complain complain, but when I'm trying to tuck in for a good night's rest it's 'oh, please, I love your big cock so much.'"
"I don't talk in falsetto, asswipe," Sam says, throwing a pen at him. It misses, which is actually kind of pathetic.
"Gonna get one of us killed throwing like that on the job," Dean tells him as he turns around to try locating the pen in the room. "Maybe we should pass on the charnucks and the symbiots and take an early weekend? That way we might, theoretically, have enough time for sleep and sex."
"You're a real problem solver," Sam murmurs into the hand that he's using to prop up his head.
"I don't like to brag too much," Dean says. Sam just gives him a weak glare, so Dean smiles, kicking him supportively under the table. "Hey, why don't I talk to O about getting us some time off and you head home and get started on napping? I'll even pick up food on the way, so you don't have to leave the bed again until Monday if you don't want."
Unsurprisingly, Sam doesn't need much convincing.
_______________________________________________________________
About an hour later, Dean gets home with two bags full of delicious, greasy carryout only to find his apartment an overturned mess with no Sam in sight.
He thinks at first it's just a robbery, which would explain why everything seems to have been riffled through. It could explain Sam not being home, too-Sam would have gone directly to the police to report something like this. But Sam would have called Dean, and Dean isn't really all that surprised when he finds a small pile of sulfur by his bedroom window.
There's only one kind of alien that leaves sulfur behind. He immediately finds his phone and dials J, and the phone hardly rings before there's an answer. "This is J."
"J, it's D. I think an azazel has Sam."
J whistles. "I can't leave you alone for five minutes without one of you putting your foot in it, huh?"
"It has Sam," Dean repeats, this time nearly growling. "The thing that killed both my parents has my brother."
"Alright," J says. "Point taken. Any clue where it might have taken him?"
"How the fuck am I supposed to know?" Dean shouts. "I get home and my place is in shambles and all I find is a pile of goddamned sulfur. I don't have clues and I don't have time."
"You need to calm down and think here, D, 'cause I can't pull your brother out of my ass."
Dean takes a deep breath and thinks back on everything he knows about azazels. He remembers what Sam told him about the Yellow Eye that tried to kill Jess and, fuck, that is really not convenient. "There's, uh, one that tried to get him at Stanford. It wanted something from him or his girlfriend. He didn't know what. It might have taken Sam back to Stanford to get it? My apartment looks like it already searched here."
"Okay," J says, irritatingly calm. "That's a start."
"California is all the way across the country and even flying there it'll be hours, what if the thing kills Sam?"
"Forget that. We have time travel. You think no one at MiB has figured out something as simple as transporting?"
Even in his current state of distress, Dean has to stop to take that in. "You have what and what?"
"Right. It's amazing the things you learn when you become a senior agent. Just, uh, meet me at headquarters in fifteen."
Dean is there in ten. J is already waiting by the entrance in order to spend as much of their walking time brainstorming as possible. "If we can figure out what the thing wants and why it thinks Sam has it, that might be a good start in how to stop the rest of them once we kill this one. Any ideas at all?"
"No," Dean answers instantly. He spent the whole drive over here thinking this over, and he's got nothing. "He doesn't remember anything, J. And if it's from before the Neuralyzing-I still don't know what it could be."
"Before," J replies, like the word has given him an idea. He chews it over for a few minutes. "Before, before, before," he says, pacing to and fro until he gives Dean a worried look. "Man, if it's that far back and Sam doesn't remember, it could be anywhere."
"What could be anywhere?"
"The galaxy," J replies. "That's gotta be what it wants. The YEDs have been trying to break into Edonia for billions of years."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Dean says. "And I feel like I should have some idea what you're talking about."
"No time," J tells him, giving him a quick slap on the back. "You need to get to your brother and fast, because this azazel is not messing around. You kill it, then bring Sam back and we'll worry about the galaxy later. There will be more of them-they're not gonna give up on this-but for now what you need to do is save your brother before the YED that has him realizes he lost that damn galaxy."
"What are you-?"
"How many guns do you have on you?"
"Uh," Dean thinks. "Two?"
"Either of them level 7 or above?"
"I've got a level 9 laser Colt?"
"Good!" J says. "Use that. I'll try to muster up some backup."
Before Dean knows what's what, J claps him on the back and in the blink of an eye, he finds that he's in Sam's old apartment in Palo Alto instead of at Men in Black headquarters in Manhattan.
Sam is pushed up against a wall, his eyes scared but his expression defiant. Standing in front of him is a blonde guy Dean vaguely remembers seeing Sam talking to years ago, before he even joined the Men in Black.
"For the last time," the douche is saying. "Where is the galaxy?"
"I don't know," Sam says. "And if I knew, I wouldn't tell you."
"Okay, I'm tired of this. I know you hid it here somewhere. You didn't take it to New York with you. Did you give it to pretty Jess? Because if you tell me where she put it, maybe I won't make her death go on too long."
Sam shakes his head. "Please," he says. "Brady, if you're in there. You can fight this."
"Brady never existed, you dumb fuck. It was me the whole time. And you have no idea how obnoxious it was pretending to like you all those years, just waiting for one goddamn slip about where you put it. I'm tired of doing this the nice way."
"For the last time: I don't know what you're looking for. I don't know, okay? I don't know anything."
Dean takes the Colt out and levels it, aiming for the demon's head. Somehow it senses him, and before Dean gets a chance to fire off a shot, the gun is pulled out of his hand and Dean is flying across the room, right into a wall.
"Dean!" he hears Sam cry. "Please. Leave him alone."
Brady laughs. "I've got a good bargaining chip now, don't I? Tell me where the galaxy is and I'll let big brother live. I've got nothing against him, even if he did just try to shoot me."
"Big…brother?" Sam asks, looking from Brady to Dean.
The azazel's eyes are trained on Dean, so he sees them turn the pale, sickly yellow when he realizes Sam genuinely didn’t know.
"Your memory's been wiped?" He turns back to look at Sam, a big nasty grin taking over his face. "Someone tried to clean you right up, huh? No wonder you weren't caving to all my fun torture methods."
Dean feels the azazel's grip on him loosening, but whatever relief that might have brought dies as soon as he figures out why.
"I'm gonna do you a favor, Sammy. I'm gonna give you your memory back. And once you've got that, I'm gonna read your mind and you'll tell me where the goddamn galaxy is whether you want to or not."
He turns to look at Dean again, his smile getting even bigger as he clearly reads out the horror in Dean's expression. "Bet you didn't know azazels could pull handy tricks like that, did you, Dean? It's hard, I admit, I'll have to focus most of my strength, but I think it'll be worth it. I bet Sammy's gonna learn all kinds of fun stuff about his…partner."
"Dean," Sam asks, looking at Dean imploringly. "Dean what is he-?"
The demon cuts him off there, and Dean fights as hard as he can against the invisible hold on him, trying to break free, to kill that demon before it can give Sam his memory back. He knew it would have to happen eventually, but not like this. Sam's not supposed to find out from the thing that took their lives.
"No," he manages to shout out just as the demon begins to glow and Sam cries out, his face scrunching up like he's in terrible agony and a thin stream of blood beginning to drip from his nose. "Please no."
The demon laughs, getting more into what he's doing as Sam begins to cry, looking from Dean to the demon like he can't decide who he's mad at.
"Dean," Sam whispers brokenly, and then the demon stops everything-its hold on Dean disappears entirely and Sam collapses to the floor, still crying. Dean doesn't let anything else stop him, he pounces on the Colt just as the demon turns on him and yells, "You have it!"
He waits for the demon to start running for him, apparently too determined to get whatever it thinks Dean has to remember the gun he'd taken from Dean earlier. He waits until the demon is too close to miss, right in his line, and then raises his hand and shoots.
It's a beautiful hit, sinking the azazel right between the eyes. It falls to its knees, orange life force flickering dramatically under the alien's skin until finally it dies.
Around them, the building begins to shake, lights flickering on and off and a loud sound of static filling the room, but Dean hardly notices the chaos. He's too busy running to his brother's side.
"Sammy," he says, wrapping an arm around Sam's shoulder. "Are you okay?"
Sam shoves him roughly, which only makes him fall back. "Don't touch me," he says, crawling away even further from Dean. "Don't you fucking touch me."
"Sam, let me-"
"What, explain?" he asks, his hand clutching at his chest like he expects his heart to fall out any moment. "Fuck you. Fuck you. How could you?"
"They can plant false memories, too," Dean says. "If they think it'll hurt you."
"Don't lie to me more, Dean! What could hurt me more than the truth?" Sam asks. He shakes his head. "I can't believe that excuse just because I want to. I know-I know you did exactly what I remember you doing. That's the worst part. Fuck, I know you did it. How could you do it?"
"I just wanted you to be happy, Sammy," he says.
Sam stumbles to his feet. "My name is S. Don't you ever fucking call me anything else."
"Sam, c'mon." Dean stands, too, trying to reach out to his brother.
"Sam who, Dean?" Sam asks, shoving his hand away. "The one you killed? That Sam? The one you left at school with no memories of how he got there? Do you know what that was like for me?"
"No," he admits.
"No. No you don't. You sonofabitch." Sam grabs Dean by the collar of his suit and before Dean even sees it coming, he feels a fault line of pain spread across his jaw from where Sam's fist connects with it. Sam punches him again, and again, and again, and Dean lets him. He doesn't fight back. How could he fight back?
Sam stops hitting him, but it doesn't get any better as far as Dean's concerned. He shakes Dean instead, standing right in front of him so Dean has to come face-to-face with how much he hurt his brother. "How could you do that to me, Dean? How?"
"Excuse us," says someone in a bland, businesslike tone.
Dean's getting the pulp beat out of him, and even he can tell that it's almost funny to hear someone cut into the moment so politely.
Sam drops Dean's shirt where he was holding him up, taking several steps back and looking like he's just come out of a spell. He stares down at his hand, knuckles covered in a mix of his own blood and Dean's, and Dean knows Sam hadn't meant to take the fight as far as he had.
Sam looks up from his hands to the corner of the room where the voice had interrupted them from, and Dean follows his gaze. Inexplicably, there's a huge group of people there-maybe thirty or forty, all crowded together, wearing matching gray suits and bored expressions.
"Who-who the hell are you?" Sam asks them.
"It's cool," Dean hears a familiar voice, and J pops out of nowhere, just like these people had.
He's dressed in the usual black suit, but Dean doesn't assume the obvious, that this new group is the backup he'd promised. For one, their suits are too light to be from the Men in Black, and Dean would have to recognize at least one of them. It's not exactly a big agency.
"These are the good guys," J tells him. Then he looks from Sam to Dean and back again, probably summing up the situation. "Annnnd…this is bad timing."
Dean huffs out a laugh, and Sam sends him a glare.
There's a man in front of the crowd; he's the only one wearing a tan trench coat instead of a suit. He steps forward, and when he speaks, Dean recognizes that he's the one who interrupted earlier.
"I am Castiel," the man says, his blue eyes looking from Sam to Dean with a weirdly fond expression. "I am sorry to interrupt, but I believe one of you has our galaxy."
Sam rolls his eyes. "Look, I'll tell you the same thing I told the demon. I don't have any galaxy."
"That is because you gave it to him," he says, looking to Dean. "We understand that you have grown rather attached to it, but I am afraid we'll need it back."
Sam gives Dean a confused look, and Dean shrugs. "I don't know what they're talking about, either."
"It would appear to be a piece of jewelry to your human eyes. An amulet of some kind."
Dean's hand immediately goes to his chest, to the familiar bump of his amulet under his shirt. They can't take this now. Sam hates him. It's the only solid thing he has to remember that that wasn't always the case.
He shakes his head. "Please, no."
Castiel and the rest of his kind just stare in one big huddled mass of expectation until Dean grudgingly pulls the leather cord over his head and hands it over. "Fine," he says, dropping it into Castiel's outstretched palm.
"How can that be a galaxy?" Sam asks. "It's tiny."
"Humans ask the strangest questions," says someone behind Castiel. A woman with long, red hair and big, wide eyes. "It's a very big galaxy once you're inside it."
"No, that's just a piece of junk I found somewhere and gave to Dean for Christmas."
"Your mother gave it to you to hide when she realized there was an azazel on her trail. She was one of us, once. She fell-became human-so she could hide the galaxy where no demon could find it. Our minds are connected, you see. If they'd read one of us, they would have found it immediately." Castiel frowns. "I'm afraid falling makes for foolish behavior, however. She got sidetracked on her quest. Fell in love, had children. Forgot what she once was until the moment before her death. She hid the galaxy within you, Sam, but you pulled it out of yourself so you could give it to your brother. This is very favorable, or we might have had to physically extract it."
Sam shakes his head. "It's just a necklace. I found it on the floor. I was a kid."
"Yes, and now you have grown up. And you have saved your mother's race. We will go back to Edonia and the power the azazels came to Earth searching for will expire. Their evil will be easier to contain."
"Who are you people?" Dean asks.
"We are the seraphim," Castiel replies.
"Angels," says Sam.
Castiel turns to give him a long, assessing look. Finally he nods. "Yes, we are what your race call angels."
Sam huffs out a sad little laugh. "I used to pray to you."
"And we heard your prayers," the angel replies. "We have not been at our most powerful while we were in hiding here on Earth, but we tried to do our best for you."
"What did you ever do for me?" Sam asks. He looks down at his feet. "Our mom got killed. Our dad got killed. Our lives were a nightmare. All because you brought that stupid amulet here to hide among us, because, what-human lives just didn't mean as much to you?"
"We came in search of aid from the Men in Black. We did not realize how close on our tail the azazels were. We did not have time to make proper contact with the authorities, so we had to improvise. We brought much strife to your planet, and to you and your brother especially. We are sorry for that, Sam Winchester."
Sam winces at the name like it's an insult, and Dean knows that's his fault.
"So tell me again," Sam says, raising his head and giving Castiel a rebellious glare. "What did you do for me?"
"We sent you a guardian when you were most in need."
Sam's eyebrows draw together, but then the crowd shifts, making space for someone to come forward. Dean sees a curly head of blonde hair, and he recognizes Jess as she steps forward.
"Hello, Sam," she says, giving him a warm smile.
Sam shakes his head. "No, Jess. Not you too." He runs his fingers through his hair in agitation. "Was there anybody who didn't lie to me?"
Jess walks right up to Sam and takes his hand, and the calming effect she has on him is instantaneous.
"You're different," he says, sounding a little scared of her, but not making any move to pull away.
She nods slowly. "I've had my grace restored. I fell, like your mother fell, during our time together. I was severed from my people. I gave up everything I knew to watch over you. It was painful, Sam, and lonely at first, but I don't regret it. I would do it again a thousand times to be your friend. I've never had anything like what you taught me, and I won't forget it." She leans forward, pressing a motherly kiss to Sam's forehead that makes Sam start crying again.
"You're saying goodbye," he says. "You're leaving."
"I wish I didn't have to," she answers sadly. "We can't stay here now that we have a way home. This is not our planet."
"Please stay, Jess. You're all I have now."
Jess shakes her head, spares Dean the briefest of glances before her attention is on Sam again. "That's not true," she says. She gives Sam a watery smile and brushes a thumb on his cheek. "Don't be a little bitch, okay?"
Sam laughs through a choked sob, and she hugs him. "Sorry I was a shitty guardian angel. Thanks for saving my life."
"I love you," he tells her. "I'll miss you."
She smiles. "And I love you. But I know you'll be taken care of." She looks up at Dean again, and this time her expression is a threat. You'd better take care of him, and Dean wants to tell her he would if Sam would let him, but he doesn't think Sam ever will again.
Castiel steps forward and puts a hand on her shoulder. "We have to go."
She nods. Within seconds, there's a loud sound, as if a thousand wings are flapping inside at once, and then everyone is gone except Dean, Sam, J, and the smoking body of a dead demon on the floor.
"I guess that's technically a job well done," J says awkwardly.
Dean steps forward. "Sam, let me-"
"I don't want you to ever talk to me again," he says, and the worst part about it is that losing Jess has drained him of his anger. Now he just sounds shaken and confused and betrayed. "Please, Dean. Just leave me alone."
J watches Sam walk out and then he looks up at Dean. "You wanna talk about it?"
"Never." Dean sighs. "And yeah, I know. You told me so."
_______________________________________________________________
Dean has a pretty miserable month after that, and that's putting it mildly. Not that he doesn't deserve it. He respects Sam's distance and doesn't try talking to his brother again, and Sam doesn't talk to him, either.
Until one day when he does.
"That was a really shitty thing you did, you know."
Dean looks over and sees Sam, still dressed head to toe in black. "I thought you'd go back to Stanford," he says, more to himself than to Sam. A part of him thinks maybe he's just hallucinating this Sam anyway. He is pretty drunk, and it wouldn't be the first time.
"Stanford is kind of ruined for me," Sam replies.
Dean doesn't even know how to begin to apologize for that. Ruining Stanford is the least of his sins. "Was surprised when I heard you were gonna stay with the MiB."
"It's what I'm good at, right? What's that awful line Dad always used to drum into us? Saving people, hunting things."
Dean thinks maybe he's supposed to smile at that, but he can't manage it. Instead he fiddles his fingers and looks out at the still water in front of them. It's Central Park in late autumn, and Dean expected to be alone in this cold. If he had expected anyone to join him, Sam still would have been the last person on the list. "How'd you find me here?"
"I'm a good stalker," Sam jokes. He's quiet for a while, and finally he gives a more honest answer. "I guess I know you pretty well."
"Guess so." Dean kicks the ground. "I heard about your partner. That you, uh, had to-I'm sorry. I can't imagine how hard that was for you."
"You can't?" Sam says incredulously. "I hear you've done it quite a few times."
There's no missing the bite in his tone, but Dean doesn't have the energy to muster up any venom of his own. "Yeah, but no one's ever done it to me."
"I knew on our second day working together that he would have to be Neuralyzed. He was a great guy, Andy, and smart as all hell. But, uh, not cut from the right cloth for this kind of work."
Dean nods; he knows the type.
"I knew the second day that it would have to happen, but I kept lying to myself. Putting it off. One more day, and he'll get it together. I just-I wanted so desperately not to have to do that to him."
"In this job, Sam, it's something you'll have to do a lot."
"I know," he says. "To civilians. People who accidentally saw something that'll just fuck 'em up. Doing it to an agent seemed-I almost got him killed, though. Because I wouldn't Neuralyze him, he was out in the field when he shouldn't have been." Sam licks his lips and quickly changes the subject. "I hear you're working without a partner."
Dean shrugs.
"Against the rules," Sam tells him, as if Dean doesn't know. "O told me she tried to cut you off until you found someone you could work with, but you kept finding your own cases and throwing yourself into the job anyway. She wanted me to talk to you about it."
"Is that why you're here?" Dean asks. "Because O told you I needed some sense talked into me?"
"No," Sam replies. "Well, and yes. Not because she told me to. But because I know what you're trying to do."
Dean reaches into his jacket for his flask, unscrews the top, and raises it to his lips. "Oh, yeah? What's that?"
"You know why that rule exists, Dean. You know it's not safe to hunt alone. Dad drilled that into us when we were still kids."
"Yeah, so?"
"So you're trying to get yourself killed."
"What do you care if I am, Sam?" Dean tries to take another sip of whiskey, but Sam grabs the flask out of his hand and throws it as far as he can. Dean watches it fly, then turns to Sam with a mix of anger and confusion that can't hold a candle next to how furious Sam looks.
"You don't understand why I was upset with you," Sam says.
"Of course I understand," Dean insists. "I can't undo it. If I could, I would, okay? You don't know how sorry I am, but it's done."
"No, you don't understand. You can't. You took my brother from me, Dean. You took my brother and you left me all alone and now you're trying to do it again."
"You hate me," Dean reminds him. "You never wanted to talk to me again. What reason do I have to keep going?"
"You can't be that stupid." Sam shakes his head. "I hate what you did. And a part of me hates you for it-maybe I always will. But not the better part of me. Never more of me than the part that loves you. You don't get to die on me."
"I can't keep living like this," he says, running a hand over the back of his neck.
Sam is quiet, thoughtful for a long time, and Dean looks over at him, trying not to blink, because this may be the last time his brother ever gets this close to him again.
Finally Sam takes a long breath and lets it out slowly. "I understand why you did what you did."
"You do?"
"I don't forgive you for it. I'm never going to forgive you for it. But I understand why you thought it was best. Why you thought you had to go on lying once you'd done it." Sam frowns, then shrugs it off. "I wish you never had, but you said it yourself. We can't change it."
Dean licks his lips, trying not to let himself get too hopeful. "So what's that mean for us?"
"It means I think we can move past it. I think I can move past it, and if you can stop hating yourself and promise me you'll lose the sorry, suicidal drunk routine…we're better together, Dean. No partner they assign me at HQ is gonna fit as well as you do. We save more lives together than we could with anyone else. Dad made sure of that."
"So that's it. You wanna work together again. Pretend nothing ever happened."
"No, never that. I think we need to always remember that this happened. But you're not the only one who spent the last month wanting to die."
"Sammy," Dean says, reaching out to cover his brother's hand with his own.
Sam gives him a weak smile. "Can we do Sam for now?"
Dean nods, trying to pull his hand away, because he thinks that's what Sam probably wants. But Sam holds onto him, even as he looks away. "I met Jess two days after you Neuralyzed me. I guess that wasn't a coincidence. And it didn't make me stop being lonely or forget-really forget-that you weren't there. But it helped a little." He laughs uncomfortably. "I guess I kept waiting for something like that to happen this time, because I wanted to stay mad at you, I really did."
"But?"
"But I don’t want to lose you because I'm too stubborn to talk to you when the reason I'm so pissed to begin with is that I lost you. A wise woman once told me not to be a little bitch, so this is my olive branch."
Dean laughs unexpectedly at that, and Sam finally gives him a smile that looks at least halfway genuine.
"We should get back to work, then," Dean says, reaching into his suit jacket.
"Don't do it," Sam begs. Dean smirks and keeps right on reaching for his glasses. He puts them on, and Sam groans. "It's 10 p.m. What kind of douche wears sunglasses outside at 10 p.m.?"
"Men in Black douches," Dean replies.
"Point," Sam admits, fishing out his own pair and putting them on. He turns to look at Dean. "Let's hunt some alien scum?"
Dean grins. "The family business."
The End.
PART THREE
"Blastulas are even worse than Vermax," Dean complains as they make their way to their fourth motel room in as many days. It feels just like their childhood and not in a good way, either. For all he teases Sam for being out of shape, Dean forgets sometimes just how attached he's gotten to having an apartment of his own with a nice, soft bed to come home to. "I fucking hate those things."
"I stink in places I didn’t know were on me," Sam replies. "Very educational hunt all around."
Dean starts a snort of a laugh, but he ends up coughing and choking as soon as he gets a good whiff of himself.
"Rock, paper, scissors for first shower?" Sam suggests.
Dean rolls his eyes and waves Sam toward the bathroom. "Just leave me some hot water or I will murder you."
Sam looks overwhelmingly grateful for the shower, but he doesn't stick around to thank Dean. Probably, he's correctly surmised that he should get in the bathroom with the door locked before Dean changes his mind.
Sam takes about twenty minutes before he comes out into the room, towel wrapped around his hips. Twenty minutes in the shower would normally be a hell of a luxury for a Winchester, but they just fought a damn Blastula, so, considering, Sam clearly did make an effort to get in and out before the hot water was all gone.
"There's gotta be some secret to removing that goo that's easier than scraping off your first four layers of skin, right?" Sam jokes.
Dean grins as he makes his way to the bathroom. "If there is, I have yet to discover it. Good thing this motel so considerately provided towels made of sandpaper, right?"
"Oh, yeah," Sam agrees. "I feel pampered."
He turns around and takes his towel off, probably assuming Dean will be too busy getting to the shower to linger for the show. But Dean gets a look at his brother's California-tanned skin, the perfect curve of his ass, and well-defined thighs, and it's like he can't fucking move for half a minute.
Sam digs into his bag for boxers and a t shirt, but he turns and finds Dean staring before he puts them on. His eyes meet Dean's, dark dark hazel, and he doesn't say a goddamn word.
It's been nearly a week since Dean put his foot down about fucking, and every day's been a constant test. Not that Sam is pushing-Sam respects his boundaries in the most frustrating ways possible.
Because he's there, like he hasn't been in years, making the same shitty jokes and bitchy faces and fucked if Dean's walls aren't crumbling every moment he spends remembering how good it is just to be by his brother. Sam doesn't have to try to get his attention.
It's like Sam is fifteen all over again, driving Dean crazy just by existing. They're in close quarters like they always used to be, the physicality of the job sending them home every day with their blood pumping. And there are moments like this-always moments like this, where one of them is changing or they get too damn close and it's like the tension is so thick they'll both choke.
"You were gonna shower," Sam finally says after a good, long time.
Dean feels his cheeks flush, so he nods and goes into the bathroom, stripping quickly. If he thought he could fit a quick orgasm in, he'd jerk off, but he's too filthy and he knows there's only so much hot water left before he'll be stuck in a freezing shower trying to get rid of all the grime.
So by the time he gets out he's only more turned on than when he went in.
He can see the lump of his brother lying in the farthest bed, and he knows he should ignore it. God, he knows. He knew back when Sam was just a teenager, too, and that didn't stop him.
Dean's feet carry him without any input from his brain. He finds himself standing over Sam's bed, his fingers reaching out to run through the ends of Sam's hair. He doesn't think Sam is really asleep, and as soon as his fingertips make contact, Sam's eyes spring open.
He looks up at Dean from down there on the bed, and Dean loses himself for a moment. He's back, back so many years ago, when he used to come home to find Sam like this after a hunt. He'd shake Sam lightly to wake him, let Sam see that he was home and safe, and sometimes, times like now, Sam would blink his sleepy eyes open and rise up onto his elbows.
He doesn't say a word. Dean doesn't either, not until Sam's mouth is wrapped around the head of his dick, when he tangles his hand in Sam's long hair and pushes his brother to take him, whispering Sammy.
Sam still gets off on letting Dean ride him, and Dean always loved that he would give up control like this, too tired to coordinate the blowjob but too hungry to go on sleeping without Dean's come on his tongue. He doesn't fuck roughly, just leads Sam slow and smooth along the length of his dick until it's too damn good and Sam is too fucking beautiful and willing underneath him.
"Gonna come," Dean warns him.
Sam hums contentedly. He expects it when Dean shoves himself in just a little deeper, likes it when Dean holds him there, and the filthy smile he gives Dean when he pulls off, come still shining at the corners of his lips, is nearly enough to make Dean lose it all over again.
"Dean," Sam whispers, pulling him forward. Dean lets himself be led, tumbles onto the mattress with his brother. Fuck whether this is a good idea. Fuck whatever happens next. Sam's mouth presses against the side of Dean's neck, and he doesn't say 'I told you so.' He just holds onto Dean like he never doubted this would happen enough to bother feeling smug about it now. Like this was inevitable, which it was, and it always has been.
Dean slips under the blanket and immediately has his hands on Sam, grabbing at all that smooth flesh he's been missing for years. He nearly lets out a sob as he pulls Sam in closer, closer, too close, so that they're pressed up so tight it hurts more than it feels good. Sam clings back just as forcefully, his mouth meeting Dean's with greedy licks and possessive bites.
"Tell me what you want," Dean says after they've made out for what seems like hours. "You want to fuck me? Fuck me anyway you need."
Sam takes his hand and moves it slowly down his body, past the line of his boxers, which he quickly kicks away under the covers. "Touch me," he begs. "I just want your hands on me. In me. I want you to touch me until you're hard again. Because I need you to fuck me. Please Dean. Please."
"You sure?" Dean asks. "I think it'll be a while, Sam."
Sam laughs like the question delights him, turning his face so it's pressed into Dean's shoulder. "If you spend the rest of your life with your fingers inside of me, I'd consider that time well spent."
Dean laughs. "Fair enough."
They have to break for lube, so Dean stumbles out of bed and back in the space of a minute, uncapping the tube he stashed in his duffel and letting the gel dribble over his fingers. He isn't worried about not opening Sam up enough-knowing the slow, lazy way his brother likes to be tortured and toyed with, Sam's gonna be good and ready to take him once Dean has recovered from that blowjob. But he loves the slick sensation, the way it allows three of his fingers to tease into Sam at once.
Sam looks so goddamn good with his eyes shut tight as he fights to keep still, resisting the urge to touch his cock or thrust on Dean's fingers. Sam's always had a thing for stringing himself out until he can't stand it, and Dean's never going to outgrow the urge to watch his brother gradually fall apart.
Once he's got Sam on the hook, he puts his mouth to work, driving Sam crazy with teases of his lips all along his brother's jaw and neck until Sam is damn near whining. He doesn't ask for release, though. Dean's never understood how Sam could stand this. Dean likes to come-fast and often-but Sam makes an art out of drawing things out.
He's hard again faster than he could have thought possible.
He shifts a little, so his fingers are stabbing into Sam at a more insistent angle and his body is nearly on top of Sam's. Sam gets the message immediately, his hand moving between them to curl around Dean's erection.
"Got a big hard cock for me now?" Sam says, his voice raw and honey sweet. "Please, please, let me have it. Oh god, Dean. Let me have it."
He begs like only a little brother can-like everything he could want is supposed to be his, and that calls to Dean the same as it did when all Sam wanted was the last bowl of cereal. He spoiled Sam then, and he's damn well gonna spoil Sam now.
"Yeah, baby," Dean whispers, feeling around for the lube with the hand that isn't knuckle-deep in Sam. "I can do that for you."
Once his dick is wet, he slides home inside of Sam, panting as he remembers the too-good heat and tightness of this. He hasn't been with a guy other than Sam, not ever. It would have felt too much like trying to substitute for something Dean's always known is irreplaceable.
Sam is still at first, letting Dean establish a rhythm before trying to match it. By the time Sam does start rolling his hips, though, it's perfect, everything about them that works. Sam knows instinctively when to pull back, when to push forward. His breathless hitches get drowned out by Dean's grunts, but Dean knows that just means Sam's too strung out to make a sound, and that's how he likes it.
He kisses his brother gentler once they're going-neither of them urgent to reach climax. Sam's too patient, and Dean came so recently that he knows he'll be able to give his brother just the kind of unending ride that Sam needs.
They fuck so long Sam comes without ever touching his dick, just from the friction of their bodies when they meet and the pleasure of Dean's cock deep inside of him, bringing every thrust home. Dean doesn't last much longer than that, not after Sam cries out his name like it hurts him.
When he finishes coming, he tries to pull back, out of his brother so they can clean up and get to bed. But Sam just wraps his whole body around Dean, arms and legs clinging so tight Dean can't get out.
"Stay," Sam whispers. "Stay right there until tomorrow."
Dean huffs a laugh into Sam's hair, shifting his hips a little. "It's not gonna feel so good for either of us in the morning."
"I don't care," Sam replies. His finger is dragging a long, horizontal line on Dean's back, just between his shoulder blades. "I only feel complete with you inside of me like this. It's like I only remember who I am because you're a part of me." He laughs at himself, turning his face away from Dean's. "How fucked up is that?"
Pretty fucked up, Dean thinks, wishing he could stop the voice in the back of his head from asking just how bad things are gonna be when Sam finds out why he feels that way.
He doesn't answer out loud. Instead, Dean kisses Sam; he's not sure when the kissing turns into sleeping.
_______________________________________________________________
Dean drops two thick files onto the desk in front of Sam. "So what do you think," he asks. "Charnucks gone wild, or little green symbiots?"
"I think my ass is sore, that's what I think," Sam grumbles. "And this coffee tastes like shit."
"You know, everyone agrees about the coffee and yet no one does anything about it." Dean plops down in the chair opposite his brother and grins. "Got any thoughts on the cases that aren't about your ass? Because I think it's pretty cut-and-dry how that happened."
"It's too hot in here," Sam whines, pulling at his tie. "These stupid suits aren't good for anything but taking off."
"Well, then, I can figure out a way to fix it," Dean replies, waggling his eyebrows.
Sam laughs, but he still looks pretty beat, and he's got his cranky bitch voice all keyed up when he responds. "First of all, we're at work, so no. Second, I think if I have another orgasm this week, my dick is officially going to fall off, so definitely no. And to conclude…we should probably think about killing some aliens or something before we get fired."
"I'm all for killing aliens if you wanna tell me which of these two excellent cases I found you want to work on." He sits and watches Sam as Sam makes absolutely no move to look at either of the files in front of him. Finally, Dean can't help laughing at him. "Are you sex hungover? Am I that good?"
"We haven't slept for more than three hours at a time in like…" Sam stops, making a face like he's thinking back, and then he shakes his head, deeply ashamed by whatever he's discovered. "Basically not since we started fucking."
"In the morning it's complain complain complain, but when I'm trying to tuck in for a good night's rest it's 'oh, please, I love your big cock so much.'"
"I don't talk in falsetto, asswipe," Sam says, throwing a pen at him. It misses, which is actually kind of pathetic.
"Gonna get one of us killed throwing like that on the job," Dean tells him as he turns around to try locating the pen in the room. "Maybe we should pass on the charnucks and the symbiots and take an early weekend? That way we might, theoretically, have enough time for sleep and sex."
"You're a real problem solver," Sam murmurs into the hand that he's using to prop up his head.
"I don't like to brag too much," Dean says. Sam just gives him a weak glare, so Dean smiles, kicking him supportively under the table. "Hey, why don't I talk to O about getting us some time off and you head home and get started on napping? I'll even pick up food on the way, so you don't have to leave the bed again until Monday if you don't want."
Unsurprisingly, Sam doesn't need much convincing.
_______________________________________________________________
About an hour later, Dean gets home with two bags full of delicious, greasy carryout only to find his apartment an overturned mess with no Sam in sight.
He thinks at first it's just a robbery, which would explain why everything seems to have been riffled through. It could explain Sam not being home, too-Sam would have gone directly to the police to report something like this. But Sam would have called Dean, and Dean isn't really all that surprised when he finds a small pile of sulfur by his bedroom window.
There's only one kind of alien that leaves sulfur behind. He immediately finds his phone and dials J, and the phone hardly rings before there's an answer. "This is J."
"J, it's D. I think an azazel has Sam."
J whistles. "I can't leave you alone for five minutes without one of you putting your foot in it, huh?"
"It has Sam," Dean repeats, this time nearly growling. "The thing that killed both my parents has my brother."
"Alright," J says. "Point taken. Any clue where it might have taken him?"
"How the fuck am I supposed to know?" Dean shouts. "I get home and my place is in shambles and all I find is a pile of goddamned sulfur. I don't have clues and I don't have time."
"You need to calm down and think here, D, 'cause I can't pull your brother out of my ass."
Dean takes a deep breath and thinks back on everything he knows about azazels. He remembers what Sam told him about the Yellow Eye that tried to kill Jess and, fuck, that is really not convenient. "There's, uh, one that tried to get him at Stanford. It wanted something from him or his girlfriend. He didn't know what. It might have taken Sam back to Stanford to get it? My apartment looks like it already searched here."
"Okay," J says, irritatingly calm. "That's a start."
"California is all the way across the country and even flying there it'll be hours, what if the thing kills Sam?"
"Forget that. We have time travel. You think no one at MiB has figured out something as simple as transporting?"
Even in his current state of distress, Dean has to stop to take that in. "You have what and what?"
"Right. It's amazing the things you learn when you become a senior agent. Just, uh, meet me at headquarters in fifteen."
Dean is there in ten. J is already waiting by the entrance in order to spend as much of their walking time brainstorming as possible. "If we can figure out what the thing wants and why it thinks Sam has it, that might be a good start in how to stop the rest of them once we kill this one. Any ideas at all?"
"No," Dean answers instantly. He spent the whole drive over here thinking this over, and he's got nothing. "He doesn't remember anything, J. And if it's from before the Neuralyzing-I still don't know what it could be."
"Before," J replies, like the word has given him an idea. He chews it over for a few minutes. "Before, before, before," he says, pacing to and fro until he gives Dean a worried look. "Man, if it's that far back and Sam doesn't remember, it could be anywhere."
"What could be anywhere?"
"The galaxy," J replies. "That's gotta be what it wants. The YEDs have been trying to break into Edonia for billions of years."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Dean says. "And I feel like I should have some idea what you're talking about."
"No time," J tells him, giving him a quick slap on the back. "You need to get to your brother and fast, because this azazel is not messing around. You kill it, then bring Sam back and we'll worry about the galaxy later. There will be more of them-they're not gonna give up on this-but for now what you need to do is save your brother before the YED that has him realizes he lost that damn galaxy."
"What are you-?"
"How many guns do you have on you?"
"Uh," Dean thinks. "Two?"
"Either of them level 7 or above?"
"I've got a level 9 laser Colt?"
"Good!" J says. "Use that. I'll try to muster up some backup."
Before Dean knows what's what, J claps him on the back and in the blink of an eye, he finds that he's in Sam's old apartment in Palo Alto instead of at Men in Black headquarters in Manhattan.
Sam is pushed up against a wall, his eyes scared but his expression defiant. Standing in front of him is a blonde guy Dean vaguely remembers seeing Sam talking to years ago, before he even joined the Men in Black.
"For the last time," the douche is saying. "Where is the galaxy?"
"I don't know," Sam says. "And if I knew, I wouldn't tell you."
"Okay, I'm tired of this. I know you hid it here somewhere. You didn't take it to New York with you. Did you give it to pretty Jess? Because if you tell me where she put it, maybe I won't make her death go on too long."
Sam shakes his head. "Please," he says. "Brady, if you're in there. You can fight this."
"Brady never existed, you dumb fuck. It was me the whole time. And you have no idea how obnoxious it was pretending to like you all those years, just waiting for one goddamn slip about where you put it. I'm tired of doing this the nice way."
"For the last time: I don't know what you're looking for. I don't know, okay? I don't know anything."
Dean takes the Colt out and levels it, aiming for the demon's head. Somehow it senses him, and before Dean gets a chance to fire off a shot, the gun is pulled out of his hand and Dean is flying across the room, right into a wall.
"Dean!" he hears Sam cry. "Please. Leave him alone."
Brady laughs. "I've got a good bargaining chip now, don't I? Tell me where the galaxy is and I'll let big brother live. I've got nothing against him, even if he did just try to shoot me."
"Big…brother?" Sam asks, looking from Brady to Dean.
The azazel's eyes are trained on Dean, so he sees them turn the pale, sickly yellow when he realizes Sam genuinely didn’t know.
"Your memory's been wiped?" He turns back to look at Sam, a big nasty grin taking over his face. "Someone tried to clean you right up, huh? No wonder you weren't caving to all my fun torture methods."
Dean feels the azazel's grip on him loosening, but whatever relief that might have brought dies as soon as he figures out why.
"I'm gonna do you a favor, Sammy. I'm gonna give you your memory back. And once you've got that, I'm gonna read your mind and you'll tell me where the goddamn galaxy is whether you want to or not."
He turns to look at Dean again, his smile getting even bigger as he clearly reads out the horror in Dean's expression. "Bet you didn't know azazels could pull handy tricks like that, did you, Dean? It's hard, I admit, I'll have to focus most of my strength, but I think it'll be worth it. I bet Sammy's gonna learn all kinds of fun stuff about his…partner."
"Dean," Sam asks, looking at Dean imploringly. "Dean what is he-?"
The demon cuts him off there, and Dean fights as hard as he can against the invisible hold on him, trying to break free, to kill that demon before it can give Sam his memory back. He knew it would have to happen eventually, but not like this. Sam's not supposed to find out from the thing that took their lives.
"No," he manages to shout out just as the demon begins to glow and Sam cries out, his face scrunching up like he's in terrible agony and a thin stream of blood beginning to drip from his nose. "Please no."
The demon laughs, getting more into what he's doing as Sam begins to cry, looking from Dean to the demon like he can't decide who he's mad at.
"Dean," Sam whispers brokenly, and then the demon stops everything-its hold on Dean disappears entirely and Sam collapses to the floor, still crying. Dean doesn't let anything else stop him, he pounces on the Colt just as the demon turns on him and yells, "You have it!"
He waits for the demon to start running for him, apparently too determined to get whatever it thinks Dean has to remember the gun he'd taken from Dean earlier. He waits until the demon is too close to miss, right in his line, and then raises his hand and shoots.
It's a beautiful hit, sinking the azazel right between the eyes. It falls to its knees, orange life force flickering dramatically under the alien's skin until finally it dies.
Around them, the building begins to shake, lights flickering on and off and a loud sound of static filling the room, but Dean hardly notices the chaos. He's too busy running to his brother's side.
"Sammy," he says, wrapping an arm around Sam's shoulder. "Are you okay?"
Sam shoves him roughly, which only makes him fall back. "Don't touch me," he says, crawling away even further from Dean. "Don't you fucking touch me."
"Sam, let me-"
"What, explain?" he asks, his hand clutching at his chest like he expects his heart to fall out any moment. "Fuck you. Fuck you. How could you?"
"They can plant false memories, too," Dean says. "If they think it'll hurt you."
"Don't lie to me more, Dean! What could hurt me more than the truth?" Sam asks. He shakes his head. "I can't believe that excuse just because I want to. I know-I know you did exactly what I remember you doing. That's the worst part. Fuck, I know you did it. How could you do it?"
"I just wanted you to be happy, Sammy," he says.
Sam stumbles to his feet. "My name is S. Don't you ever fucking call me anything else."
"Sam, c'mon." Dean stands, too, trying to reach out to his brother.
"Sam who, Dean?" Sam asks, shoving his hand away. "The one you killed? That Sam? The one you left at school with no memories of how he got there? Do you know what that was like for me?"
"No," he admits.
"No. No you don't. You sonofabitch." Sam grabs Dean by the collar of his suit and before Dean even sees it coming, he feels a fault line of pain spread across his jaw from where Sam's fist connects with it. Sam punches him again, and again, and again, and Dean lets him. He doesn't fight back. How could he fight back?
Sam stops hitting him, but it doesn't get any better as far as Dean's concerned. He shakes Dean instead, standing right in front of him so Dean has to come face-to-face with how much he hurt his brother. "How could you do that to me, Dean? How?"
"Excuse us," says someone in a bland, businesslike tone.
Dean's getting the pulp beat out of him, and even he can tell that it's almost funny to hear someone cut into the moment so politely.
Sam drops Dean's shirt where he was holding him up, taking several steps back and looking like he's just come out of a spell. He stares down at his hand, knuckles covered in a mix of his own blood and Dean's, and Dean knows Sam hadn't meant to take the fight as far as he had.
Sam looks up from his hands to the corner of the room where the voice had interrupted them from, and Dean follows his gaze. Inexplicably, there's a huge group of people there-maybe thirty or forty, all crowded together, wearing matching gray suits and bored expressions.
"Who-who the hell are you?" Sam asks them.
"It's cool," Dean hears a familiar voice, and J pops out of nowhere, just like these people had.
He's dressed in the usual black suit, but Dean doesn't assume the obvious, that this new group is the backup he'd promised. For one, their suits are too light to be from the Men in Black, and Dean would have to recognize at least one of them. It's not exactly a big agency.
"These are the good guys," J tells him. Then he looks from Sam to Dean and back again, probably summing up the situation. "Annnnd…this is bad timing."
Dean huffs out a laugh, and Sam sends him a glare.
There's a man in front of the crowd; he's the only one wearing a tan trench coat instead of a suit. He steps forward, and when he speaks, Dean recognizes that he's the one who interrupted earlier.
"I am Castiel," the man says, his blue eyes looking from Sam to Dean with a weirdly fond expression. "I am sorry to interrupt, but I believe one of you has our galaxy."
Sam rolls his eyes. "Look, I'll tell you the same thing I told the demon. I don't have any galaxy."
"That is because you gave it to him," he says, looking to Dean. "We understand that you have grown rather attached to it, but I am afraid we'll need it back."
Sam gives Dean a confused look, and Dean shrugs. "I don't know what they're talking about, either."
"It would appear to be a piece of jewelry to your human eyes. An amulet of some kind."
Dean's hand immediately goes to his chest, to the familiar bump of his amulet under his shirt. They can't take this now. Sam hates him. It's the only solid thing he has to remember that that wasn't always the case.
He shakes his head. "Please, no."
Castiel and the rest of his kind just stare in one big huddled mass of expectation until Dean grudgingly pulls the leather cord over his head and hands it over. "Fine," he says, dropping it into Castiel's outstretched palm.
"How can that be a galaxy?" Sam asks. "It's tiny."
"Humans ask the strangest questions," says someone behind Castiel. A woman with long, red hair and big, wide eyes. "It's a very big galaxy once you're inside it."
"No, that's just a piece of junk I found somewhere and gave to Dean for Christmas."
"Your mother gave it to you to hide when she realized there was an azazel on her trail. She was one of us, once. She fell-became human-so she could hide the galaxy where no demon could find it. Our minds are connected, you see. If they'd read one of us, they would have found it immediately." Castiel frowns. "I'm afraid falling makes for foolish behavior, however. She got sidetracked on her quest. Fell in love, had children. Forgot what she once was until the moment before her death. She hid the galaxy within you, Sam, but you pulled it out of yourself so you could give it to your brother. This is very favorable, or we might have had to physically extract it."
Sam shakes his head. "It's just a necklace. I found it on the floor. I was a kid."
"Yes, and now you have grown up. And you have saved your mother's race. We will go back to Edonia and the power the azazels came to Earth searching for will expire. Their evil will be easier to contain."
"Who are you people?" Dean asks.
"We are the seraphim," Castiel replies.
"Angels," says Sam.
Castiel turns to give him a long, assessing look. Finally he nods. "Yes, we are what your race call angels."
Sam huffs out a sad little laugh. "I used to pray to you."
"And we heard your prayers," the angel replies. "We have not been at our most powerful while we were in hiding here on Earth, but we tried to do our best for you."
"What did you ever do for me?" Sam asks. He looks down at his feet. "Our mom got killed. Our dad got killed. Our lives were a nightmare. All because you brought that stupid amulet here to hide among us, because, what-human lives just didn't mean as much to you?"
"We came in search of aid from the Men in Black. We did not realize how close on our tail the azazels were. We did not have time to make proper contact with the authorities, so we had to improvise. We brought much strife to your planet, and to you and your brother especially. We are sorry for that, Sam Winchester."
Sam winces at the name like it's an insult, and Dean knows that's his fault.
"So tell me again," Sam says, raising his head and giving Castiel a rebellious glare. "What did you do for me?"
"We sent you a guardian when you were most in need."
Sam's eyebrows draw together, but then the crowd shifts, making space for someone to come forward. Dean sees a curly head of blonde hair, and he recognizes Jess as she steps forward.
"Hello, Sam," she says, giving him a warm smile.
Sam shakes his head. "No, Jess. Not you too." He runs his fingers through his hair in agitation. "Was there anybody who didn't lie to me?"
Jess walks right up to Sam and takes his hand, and the calming effect she has on him is instantaneous.
"You're different," he says, sounding a little scared of her, but not making any move to pull away.
She nods slowly. "I've had my grace restored. I fell, like your mother fell, during our time together. I was severed from my people. I gave up everything I knew to watch over you. It was painful, Sam, and lonely at first, but I don't regret it. I would do it again a thousand times to be your friend. I've never had anything like what you taught me, and I won't forget it." She leans forward, pressing a motherly kiss to Sam's forehead that makes Sam start crying again.
"You're saying goodbye," he says. "You're leaving."
"I wish I didn't have to," she answers sadly. "We can't stay here now that we have a way home. This is not our planet."
"Please stay, Jess. You're all I have now."
Jess shakes her head, spares Dean the briefest of glances before her attention is on Sam again. "That's not true," she says. She gives Sam a watery smile and brushes a thumb on his cheek. "Don't be a little bitch, okay?"
Sam laughs through a choked sob, and she hugs him. "Sorry I was a shitty guardian angel. Thanks for saving my life."
"I love you," he tells her. "I'll miss you."
She smiles. "And I love you. But I know you'll be taken care of." She looks up at Dean again, and this time her expression is a threat. You'd better take care of him, and Dean wants to tell her he would if Sam would let him, but he doesn't think Sam ever will again.
Castiel steps forward and puts a hand on her shoulder. "We have to go."
She nods. Within seconds, there's a loud sound, as if a thousand wings are flapping inside at once, and then everyone is gone except Dean, Sam, J, and the smoking body of a dead demon on the floor.
"I guess that's technically a job well done," J says awkwardly.
Dean steps forward. "Sam, let me-"
"I don't want you to ever talk to me again," he says, and the worst part about it is that losing Jess has drained him of his anger. Now he just sounds shaken and confused and betrayed. "Please, Dean. Just leave me alone."
J watches Sam walk out and then he looks up at Dean. "You wanna talk about it?"
"Never." Dean sighs. "And yeah, I know. You told me so."
_______________________________________________________________
Dean has a pretty miserable month after that, and that's putting it mildly. Not that he doesn't deserve it. He respects Sam's distance and doesn't try talking to his brother again, and Sam doesn't talk to him, either.
Until one day when he does.
"That was a really shitty thing you did, you know."
Dean looks over and sees Sam, still dressed head to toe in black. "I thought you'd go back to Stanford," he says, more to himself than to Sam. A part of him thinks maybe he's just hallucinating this Sam anyway. He is pretty drunk, and it wouldn't be the first time.
"Stanford is kind of ruined for me," Sam replies.
Dean doesn't even know how to begin to apologize for that. Ruining Stanford is the least of his sins. "Was surprised when I heard you were gonna stay with the MiB."
"It's what I'm good at, right? What's that awful line Dad always used to drum into us? Saving people, hunting things."
Dean thinks maybe he's supposed to smile at that, but he can't manage it. Instead he fiddles his fingers and looks out at the still water in front of them. It's Central Park in late autumn, and Dean expected to be alone in this cold. If he had expected anyone to join him, Sam still would have been the last person on the list. "How'd you find me here?"
"I'm a good stalker," Sam jokes. He's quiet for a while, and finally he gives a more honest answer. "I guess I know you pretty well."
"Guess so." Dean kicks the ground. "I heard about your partner. That you, uh, had to-I'm sorry. I can't imagine how hard that was for you."
"You can't?" Sam says incredulously. "I hear you've done it quite a few times."
There's no missing the bite in his tone, but Dean doesn't have the energy to muster up any venom of his own. "Yeah, but no one's ever done it to me."
"I knew on our second day working together that he would have to be Neuralyzed. He was a great guy, Andy, and smart as all hell. But, uh, not cut from the right cloth for this kind of work."
Dean nods; he knows the type.
"I knew the second day that it would have to happen, but I kept lying to myself. Putting it off. One more day, and he'll get it together. I just-I wanted so desperately not to have to do that to him."
"In this job, Sam, it's something you'll have to do a lot."
"I know," he says. "To civilians. People who accidentally saw something that'll just fuck 'em up. Doing it to an agent seemed-I almost got him killed, though. Because I wouldn't Neuralyze him, he was out in the field when he shouldn't have been." Sam licks his lips and quickly changes the subject. "I hear you're working without a partner."
Dean shrugs.
"Against the rules," Sam tells him, as if Dean doesn't know. "O told me she tried to cut you off until you found someone you could work with, but you kept finding your own cases and throwing yourself into the job anyway. She wanted me to talk to you about it."
"Is that why you're here?" Dean asks. "Because O told you I needed some sense talked into me?"
"No," Sam replies. "Well, and yes. Not because she told me to. But because I know what you're trying to do."
Dean reaches into his jacket for his flask, unscrews the top, and raises it to his lips. "Oh, yeah? What's that?"
"You know why that rule exists, Dean. You know it's not safe to hunt alone. Dad drilled that into us when we were still kids."
"Yeah, so?"
"So you're trying to get yourself killed."
"What do you care if I am, Sam?" Dean tries to take another sip of whiskey, but Sam grabs the flask out of his hand and throws it as far as he can. Dean watches it fly, then turns to Sam with a mix of anger and confusion that can't hold a candle next to how furious Sam looks.
"You don't understand why I was upset with you," Sam says.
"Of course I understand," Dean insists. "I can't undo it. If I could, I would, okay? You don't know how sorry I am, but it's done."
"No, you don't understand. You can't. You took my brother from me, Dean. You took my brother and you left me all alone and now you're trying to do it again."
"You hate me," Dean reminds him. "You never wanted to talk to me again. What reason do I have to keep going?"
"You can't be that stupid." Sam shakes his head. "I hate what you did. And a part of me hates you for it-maybe I always will. But not the better part of me. Never more of me than the part that loves you. You don't get to die on me."
"I can't keep living like this," he says, running a hand over the back of his neck.
Sam is quiet, thoughtful for a long time, and Dean looks over at him, trying not to blink, because this may be the last time his brother ever gets this close to him again.
Finally Sam takes a long breath and lets it out slowly. "I understand why you did what you did."
"You do?"
"I don't forgive you for it. I'm never going to forgive you for it. But I understand why you thought it was best. Why you thought you had to go on lying once you'd done it." Sam frowns, then shrugs it off. "I wish you never had, but you said it yourself. We can't change it."
Dean licks his lips, trying not to let himself get too hopeful. "So what's that mean for us?"
"It means I think we can move past it. I think I can move past it, and if you can stop hating yourself and promise me you'll lose the sorry, suicidal drunk routine…we're better together, Dean. No partner they assign me at HQ is gonna fit as well as you do. We save more lives together than we could with anyone else. Dad made sure of that."
"So that's it. You wanna work together again. Pretend nothing ever happened."
"No, never that. I think we need to always remember that this happened. But you're not the only one who spent the last month wanting to die."
"Sammy," Dean says, reaching out to cover his brother's hand with his own.
Sam gives him a weak smile. "Can we do Sam for now?"
Dean nods, trying to pull his hand away, because he thinks that's what Sam probably wants. But Sam holds onto him, even as he looks away. "I met Jess two days after you Neuralyzed me. I guess that wasn't a coincidence. And it didn't make me stop being lonely or forget-really forget-that you weren't there. But it helped a little." He laughs uncomfortably. "I guess I kept waiting for something like that to happen this time, because I wanted to stay mad at you, I really did."
"But?"
"But I don’t want to lose you because I'm too stubborn to talk to you when the reason I'm so pissed to begin with is that I lost you. A wise woman once told me not to be a little bitch, so this is my olive branch."
Dean laughs unexpectedly at that, and Sam finally gives him a smile that looks at least halfway genuine.
"We should get back to work, then," Dean says, reaching into his suit jacket.
"Don't do it," Sam begs. Dean smirks and keeps right on reaching for his glasses. He puts them on, and Sam groans. "It's 10 p.m. What kind of douche wears sunglasses outside at 10 p.m.?"
"Men in Black douches," Dean replies.
"Point," Sam admits, fishing out his own pair and putting them on. He turns to look at Dean. "Let's hunt some alien scum?"
Dean grins. "The family business."
The End.