fic: The Bloodied Fist of Hope (Supernatural; Sam & Dean; gen)
The Bloodied Fist of Hope
Supernatural; Sam and Dean; spoilers through 5.16; pg; 3,150 words
"I didn't stop being your brother when I left for Stanford."
Thanks to
angelgazing for all her help and handholding.
~*~
The Bloodied Fist of Hope
The leather cord unwinds itself from Dean's fingers and for a second, the amulet dangles over the trash can. Sam freezes. Dean drops the amulet into the garbage and walks out.
Sam watches him, listening for the roar of the engine, the squeal of tires pulling away, and thinks, there's a first time for everything.
He takes the amulet out of the trash and tucks it into his pocket. He tells himself Dean will want it back eventually.
*
They don't separate. Sam won't leave and Dean can't. Though for the first time--or maybe not; what the hell does Sam know about it?--he thinks Dean wants to.
*
"Those fuckers killed us," Dean says. "You're damn right I wanna get some payback." He knocks back a shot, and Sam knows if he has another one (not if, when, and Sam hopes Michael or whoever is in charge of bringing them back these days is giving Dean's liver a thorough cleansing or it's possible he'll drink himself to death before the big dance finally gets underway), he'll pass from belligerent to maudlin.
Sam tips his head at the bartender, who pours the next shot. Sam shakes his head and refuses to feel bad about it.
Dean misunderstands. It's what they do these days. "What, you don't wanna? You gonna turn the other cheek now, Sammy?"
"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," Sam quotes, and Dean's face wrinkles in disgust.
"Fuck that noise. Didn't you hear the news, Sam? God don't give a rat's ass about us anymore. Vengeance is mine now, bitches, saith Dean Winchester." He slams the shot glass down on the bar hard enough to make the rim chip, small shards of glass spraying like shrapnel across the polished zinc surface.
"We're alive," Sam says, drinking his own shot and closing his eyes as it burns its way down his throat. "Let it go."
"So now you're the kinder, gentler Sam? You're not gonna avenge my death at the hands of those assholes?"
"Yeah, 'cause that went so well last time." Sam can't keep the bitterness out of his tone, and maybe that's what penetrates Dean's angry, alcoholic haze. His face softens, and Sam can't help but hope that maybe this time, Dean will actually talk to him. Listen to him. Believe in him.
Dean shakes his head and stands. "I gotta take a piss."
Sam orders another shot. He knows hope is a sucker bet, but it's all he's got right now.
*
Sam finds the amulet in the pocket of his less-holey jeans on laundry day. Not that he ever forgot it was there, but now he slips it around his neck and tucks it in under his shirt, close to his skin, the way he wore it when Dean was in hell. He tells himself the situation is better now than it was then, because he and Dean are together, and he's sure that they'll find some way to stop the world from ending.
He's surprised to find he actually believes it.
*
Sam stumbles over the words, not meant to be spoken by human tongues, and waits.
He hears the sudden rustle of wings, shivers, though there's no breeze.
"You're a lot like him, you know."
Sam doesn't know why he was expecting to hear his father's voice, but that isn't it. He turns and sees an old man with grizzled hair clipped in a buzzcut, the pink of his scalp shining through, his olive-skinned face lined with wrinkles.
"Like who?"
"Lucifer. How did you know you weren't calling him here instead?"
"I'm not an idiot."
"That remains to be seen." The old man's tone is wry, familiar. Distracting.
"Who are you wearing?"
"Why did you call me here?"
"Answer my question."
"Show some respect, Sam." Michael puts a hand over his heart. "Grandpa Winchester isn't surprised. You remind him of your father."
Sam grits his teeth and forces back the flood of emotion threatening to swamp him. "Take me instead of Dean."
Michael laughs. "That's a good one."
"Take me, and we can kill Lucifer now, before he's at full strength, and it will all be over. Isn't that what you want? But leave Dean out of it."
"What makes you think you can hold me?"
"Are you really that much stronger than Lucifer?"
Something dark flashes across Michael's face; Sam wants to call it fear, but it's gone too fast to tell. "You have no idea."
"Then let's get this show on the road."
Michael shakes his head. "Go home, Sam. You don't want Dean to wake up and find you've sneaked out again, do you?"
Sam takes a deep breath, clenches his fists tight enough that his nails are digging half-moons into his palms. "I'm offering you a workable solution. Why won't you take it?"
"You're tainted by Azazel's blood."
"Nobody's perfect," Sam says, but Michael's already gone. "Asshole."
He adds find Grandpa Winchester to his mental to-do list, and hightails it back to the motel.
*
Sam heads into the self-help section of the library. He ignores the shelves devoted to twelve-step programs, and doesn't have to pretend to be embarrassed when he asks the librarian for help.
There's no book called How to Convince Your Brother You Love Him When the Apocalypse Is at Hand, but Sam finds a couple of pieces of advice he thinks might be useful in dealing with Dean.
Dean comes to find him about half an hour later, and Sam hides the books on communication strategies under a stack of romance novels.
Dean glances down at the cover of the one on top, all Fabio hair and heaving bosoms, and opens his mouth to speak. Sam's chest goes tight with hope. He can feel the amulet pressing into his skin.
But all Dean says is, "Let's go. We're burning daylight."
*
Sam slides into the booth across from Dean and says, "I didn't stop being your brother when I left for Stanford."
Dean looks up at him, startled expression melting into anger. "We are not doing this here."
Sam ignores him, has to keep going with the speech before he totally loses his nerve, because if Dean has his way, they'll never do it anywhere and that doesn't work for Sam, and more importantly, it doesn't work for the world. "I realize that a lot of the decisions I've made have hurt you, and I'm sorry about that. I am. And I'm going to try to do better, to think more about the ramifications of my actions, and how they affect you." Dean gets up so fast he bangs his thighs against the edge of the table, which, Sam knows from experience, hurts. He doesn't stop talking, though. "But I can't regret trying to be an adult. To be the man you raised me to be."
He follows Dean out of the booth, sending the surprised hostess a tight smile and bracing himself for Dean's anger.
Dean whirls on him once they're in the parking lot.
"Did you think I wouldn't make a scene in public, Sam? I'm not some girl you're ditching for this year's model."
"Dean, please."
"Fine, Sam. You're a grownup. We're both grownups, and we've got an apocalypse to stop. I'm not interested in being psychoanalyzed by you, okay? I get enough of that shit from the angels and the demons. So can you just quit trying to make me talk about it?" Dean's voice slides from anger to desperation at the end of his speech, and Sam feels something break a little more inside him. He doesn't want to be melodramatic about it or anything, but he thinks it might be his heart.
*
Lucifer's a constant presence in his dreams, showing him all the terrible things happening all over the world--zombies overrunning towns unequipped to deal with them, demons tearing out the throats of office workers, mass graves of children who died bloody and alone under the wings of the Angel of Death.
"It can all stop," he says, "if you say yes."
Sam wakes up in a cold sweat, unable to breathe, and Dean is already up, the same haunted look in his eyes. The laptop is open, and Sam sees the confirmation of all the things Lucifer's shown him, and more. Dean looks washed out, exhausted, in the blue light of the computer screen, even his freckles faded to shadows of themselves.
Sam reaches out, puts a hand on Dean's shoulder, and squeezes. Dean doesn't relax, but he doesn't shrug Sam off. Baby steps, Sam thinks. We'll get there in the end.
He chooses not to think about how little time they have, and how permanent the end might be.
*
He and Dean sit up at night, researching, hunting, drinking, anything to keep the nightmares away. Sam reads mythology and tracks down half-forgotten legends about angels and Armageddon. Dean broods and drinks, and Sam can see their father in him more clearly than he ever has before. He's given up trying to talk about anything but the latest hunt or strategy, or the occasional argument about whose turn it is to drive or whether they can afford to stop at a motel.
Other hunters have gone back to avoiding them now, word from on high (in the literal sense, which Sam finds morbidly funny) making them off-limits.
There's a grim sameness to their days, and Sam remembers why he wanted to leave in the first place. This is no life for anyone.
*
They're too late to save a family from ghouls in Alpharetta, and they both take vicious satisfaction in blowing the ghouls' heads off, getting drunk and getting into a bar brawl afterwards.
Sam's lip is split and stinging, and Dean's going to have a shiner the size of a dinner plate in the morning, but it felt good to work together, to fight back-to-back, the way they used to.
Sam touches the amulet under his shirt, making sure it's still there. Dean glances over and Sam gives him a small smile. Warmth flares in his chest when Dean grins back.
*
Gabriel appears in the backseat of the car when they're twelve hours into the twenty-eight hour drive between Atlanta and Ogden.
"Hello, boys."
"Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you right now," Sam says, turning to glare over his shoulder. Dean's hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel.
"I can give you at least two," Gabriel answers. "One, you can't. Puny humans." He smirks and Sam wants to punch it off his face. "And two, I can help you." He leans back and pulls a Twix out of his pocket. He doesn't offer to share.
Sam looks at Dean, who shrugs a shoulder. "It's not like he can make things worse."
"Did you really just say that?" Sam asks. "Do you really think that was a smart thing to say?"
Dean shrugs again. "When you're in shit as deep as we are, does it really matter if someone lays a few more shovelfuls on top?"
"That's the kind of can-do attitude I love to hear from humanity's so-called saviors. You're making me feel great about the decision to hook up with you yahoos."
"Shut up," Sam says.
"Start talking," Dean says.
Gabriel does.
*
They're sitting at a bar in Toledo, eating buffalo wings for dinner, when Sam sees the crawl across the bottom of the television screen: "Forty-one dead in a riot in Port Huron."
He waves the bartender over. "Hey, man, can you turn that up?"
"We got family there," Dean supplies when the bartender looks like he's going to argue. It doesn't matter--they're too late to catch the news story, but back at the motel, they turn on the TV and computer until they can piece it all together.
"Shit, shit, shit," Dean says, shoving his clothes into his duffel. "It's started. We're too late."
It's a little over an hour away (less, with Dean driving), but the roads are already blockaded and they get detoured onto city streets. Sam knows it doesn't matter. Everybody in Port Huron is either dead or infected by now.
He ignores the sick roil in his belly when they drive past the welcome to Detroit sign.
Dean pulls over--the streets are packed with cars and people--and they load up on weapons, even though they know all the knives and guns (and are those grenades? Sam takes the ones Dean hands him and puts them in his jacket pockets, biting his lip to keep from smiling stupidly) in the world won't help them in this fight. The solid weight of them is comforting.
*
Sam comes to on the cracked asphalt of a basketball court with Lucifer standing over him. He scrambles to his feet and scans the area, but Dean's nowhere in sight.
"It's time, Sam."
"No."
"Sam."
"No."
"Let me in."
"No." Sam knows how this game is played. He's a past master of it. "Quit asking me."
"It's your destiny."
Sam feels a laugh bubble up, but he swallows it down. "You know, if you've seen Star Wars often enough to quote it, you should know that it doesn't end well for the bad guys."
"You're very amusing, Sam. I like that." Lucifer smiles. It's not pretty. "Together, we can rule the universe."
"My answer is no and it will always be no."
Lucifer shakes his head, that hangdog look so familiar from Sam's dreams appearing on his bruised and peeling face. "This is not over."
Sam sets his jaw and raises his chin, but before he can say anything, Dean says, "I think it is." He stretches out a hand, and lightning crackles from it. Lucifer avoids the strike easily, and this time Sam can't stop the laugh, because seriously? Seriously? The archangels are cribbing from Star Wars?
"Michael," Lucifer says. "It's been too long, brother."
"It feels like I've waited forever for this day."
"Now would be a good time to say yes, Sam."
"No." Sam puts himself between them, chin raised defiantly. He remembers Dean stepping between him and Dad on more than one occasion, and he plants his feet and squares his shoulders.
Dean--no, Michael; there's nothing of Dean in those green eyes, that familiar face--smiles at him. "Look at you, so impatient for the fight." Michael looks past him to Lucifer. "Did you know he offered himself to me? So eager to get rid of you."
"Really, Sam? I'm a little hurt, not to mention disappointed." Lucifer sounds sad, but he always sounds sad. Sam wants to tell him to butch up and get over his emo already. The thought makes him smile grimly. "If you're not going to say yes, get out of the way now, Sam."
Michael nods. "I'll deal with you when I'm done with Lucifer."
"No," Sam says. It's a good thing he's had so much practice saying it, because he's saying it a lot lately. "If you're going to do this, if you're going to end the world, then I think you should start with me." He swallows hard, looks over at Michael. "I started it, after all."
"He knows I'll just revive you again," Lucifer says. "He never did like having to do things twice."
"Not if he scatters my atoms to the four corners of the universe." Sam knows he's got a flair for the melodramatic--Dad and Dean used to call him on it when he was a teenager--but the angels make him look downright understated. "It's too dangerous to keep me around."
Michael tilts his head as if he's thinking, his body completely still in a way Dean never is.
"I know I've made some bad choices, done some bad things," Sam says, "and if it will save the world, I'm okay with dying. And you can make sure Dean doesn't remember it, right? I think we both know he's sacrificed enough. I don't want him to have to live with that, too."
"As ridiculously touching as this is, we have some unfinished business to attend to," Lucifer says.
Michael raises a hand and shuts him up.
"Dean's my big brother. And I know you know what that means, to be a big brother. It's why you're here, right? Cleaning up your dad's mess, looking after your little brothers?
"Dean took care of me when I was little--hell, who am I kidding? He's still taking care of me, even now. He's doing this because he can't not take care of people. And this was the only choice he had left." Sam reaches under the collar of his shirt, pulls the amulet off. "I want him to have this back. I know he thinks it doesn't mean anything, but it means something to me. I gave it to him when he was the whole world to me, and that hasn't changed."
He lets the cord unwind, lets the amulet dangle as he holds it out to Michael. Something in Michael's eyes shifts, and Sam knows he's looking at Dean.
"Sammy?"
Sam swallows hard. "Yeah, Dean?"
"Killing you wasn't part of the plan, dumbass. Only you would go off-script during freaking Armageddon." Dean reaches out and takes the amulet. "Gimme that." He puts it on and smoothes it down over his t-shirt.
"I was just keeping it warm for you."
"I know."
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
Sam takes two steps forward and pulls Dean into a tight, rough hug. The true miracle of the day is that not only does Dean let him, Dean hugs him back.
Lightning strikes the ground nearby, and a singed and rumpled Gabriel tumbles out of nowhere. "Uh, guys, apocalypse, remember?"
They break apart, and despite the shine in his eyes, Dean's all business. He pulls out Michael's sword and stalks towards Lucifer. "I'm gonna enjoy ganking you, you sorry-ass fucker."
"Michael's still in there, right?" Sam asks Gabriel.
"Oh, yeah," Gabriel says, "and boy, is he pissed."
The fight doesn't last long. Lucifer isn't at full strength without Sam, and he doesn't stand a chance against the combined fury of Michael the archangel and Dean Winchester. The basketball court is a smoking crater by the time they're done, but Lucifer's gone.
Dean stands alone in the smoke for a few minutes, head cocked like he's having a conversation with someone only he can see, and then he calls out, "Sammy, close your eyes."
The bright light paints the backs of Sam's eyelids orange, and he feels the breeze stirred by great wings beating.
Dean grabs him, and they spend a little more time hugging than either would like to admit.
"I think we just saved the world," Dean says.
"I think you did."
Dean touches the amulet, which shines brightly against the drab olive of his t-shirt. "We did."
Sam smiles. He can accept that.
end
~*~
Note: Title and cut-text from "Envoi" by Elizabeth Garrett
~*~
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~*~
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Supernatural; Sam and Dean; spoilers through 5.16; pg; 3,150 words
"I didn't stop being your brother when I left for Stanford."
Thanks to
angelgazing for all her help and handholding.
~*~
The Bloodied Fist of Hope
The leather cord unwinds itself from Dean's fingers and for a second, the amulet dangles over the trash can. Sam freezes. Dean drops the amulet into the garbage and walks out.
Sam watches him, listening for the roar of the engine, the squeal of tires pulling away, and thinks, there's a first time for everything.
He takes the amulet out of the trash and tucks it into his pocket. He tells himself Dean will want it back eventually.
*
They don't separate. Sam won't leave and Dean can't. Though for the first time--or maybe not; what the hell does Sam know about it?--he thinks Dean wants to.
*
"Those fuckers killed us," Dean says. "You're damn right I wanna get some payback." He knocks back a shot, and Sam knows if he has another one (not if, when, and Sam hopes Michael or whoever is in charge of bringing them back these days is giving Dean's liver a thorough cleansing or it's possible he'll drink himself to death before the big dance finally gets underway), he'll pass from belligerent to maudlin.
Sam tips his head at the bartender, who pours the next shot. Sam shakes his head and refuses to feel bad about it.
Dean misunderstands. It's what they do these days. "What, you don't wanna? You gonna turn the other cheek now, Sammy?"
"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," Sam quotes, and Dean's face wrinkles in disgust.
"Fuck that noise. Didn't you hear the news, Sam? God don't give a rat's ass about us anymore. Vengeance is mine now, bitches, saith Dean Winchester." He slams the shot glass down on the bar hard enough to make the rim chip, small shards of glass spraying like shrapnel across the polished zinc surface.
"We're alive," Sam says, drinking his own shot and closing his eyes as it burns its way down his throat. "Let it go."
"So now you're the kinder, gentler Sam? You're not gonna avenge my death at the hands of those assholes?"
"Yeah, 'cause that went so well last time." Sam can't keep the bitterness out of his tone, and maybe that's what penetrates Dean's angry, alcoholic haze. His face softens, and Sam can't help but hope that maybe this time, Dean will actually talk to him. Listen to him. Believe in him.
Dean shakes his head and stands. "I gotta take a piss."
Sam orders another shot. He knows hope is a sucker bet, but it's all he's got right now.
*
Sam finds the amulet in the pocket of his less-holey jeans on laundry day. Not that he ever forgot it was there, but now he slips it around his neck and tucks it in under his shirt, close to his skin, the way he wore it when Dean was in hell. He tells himself the situation is better now than it was then, because he and Dean are together, and he's sure that they'll find some way to stop the world from ending.
He's surprised to find he actually believes it.
*
Sam stumbles over the words, not meant to be spoken by human tongues, and waits.
He hears the sudden rustle of wings, shivers, though there's no breeze.
"You're a lot like him, you know."
Sam doesn't know why he was expecting to hear his father's voice, but that isn't it. He turns and sees an old man with grizzled hair clipped in a buzzcut, the pink of his scalp shining through, his olive-skinned face lined with wrinkles.
"Like who?"
"Lucifer. How did you know you weren't calling him here instead?"
"I'm not an idiot."
"That remains to be seen." The old man's tone is wry, familiar. Distracting.
"Who are you wearing?"
"Why did you call me here?"
"Answer my question."
"Show some respect, Sam." Michael puts a hand over his heart. "Grandpa Winchester isn't surprised. You remind him of your father."
Sam grits his teeth and forces back the flood of emotion threatening to swamp him. "Take me instead of Dean."
Michael laughs. "That's a good one."
"Take me, and we can kill Lucifer now, before he's at full strength, and it will all be over. Isn't that what you want? But leave Dean out of it."
"What makes you think you can hold me?"
"Are you really that much stronger than Lucifer?"
Something dark flashes across Michael's face; Sam wants to call it fear, but it's gone too fast to tell. "You have no idea."
"Then let's get this show on the road."
Michael shakes his head. "Go home, Sam. You don't want Dean to wake up and find you've sneaked out again, do you?"
Sam takes a deep breath, clenches his fists tight enough that his nails are digging half-moons into his palms. "I'm offering you a workable solution. Why won't you take it?"
"You're tainted by Azazel's blood."
"Nobody's perfect," Sam says, but Michael's already gone. "Asshole."
He adds find Grandpa Winchester to his mental to-do list, and hightails it back to the motel.
*
Sam heads into the self-help section of the library. He ignores the shelves devoted to twelve-step programs, and doesn't have to pretend to be embarrassed when he asks the librarian for help.
There's no book called How to Convince Your Brother You Love Him When the Apocalypse Is at Hand, but Sam finds a couple of pieces of advice he thinks might be useful in dealing with Dean.
Dean comes to find him about half an hour later, and Sam hides the books on communication strategies under a stack of romance novels.
Dean glances down at the cover of the one on top, all Fabio hair and heaving bosoms, and opens his mouth to speak. Sam's chest goes tight with hope. He can feel the amulet pressing into his skin.
But all Dean says is, "Let's go. We're burning daylight."
*
Sam slides into the booth across from Dean and says, "I didn't stop being your brother when I left for Stanford."
Dean looks up at him, startled expression melting into anger. "We are not doing this here."
Sam ignores him, has to keep going with the speech before he totally loses his nerve, because if Dean has his way, they'll never do it anywhere and that doesn't work for Sam, and more importantly, it doesn't work for the world. "I realize that a lot of the decisions I've made have hurt you, and I'm sorry about that. I am. And I'm going to try to do better, to think more about the ramifications of my actions, and how they affect you." Dean gets up so fast he bangs his thighs against the edge of the table, which, Sam knows from experience, hurts. He doesn't stop talking, though. "But I can't regret trying to be an adult. To be the man you raised me to be."
He follows Dean out of the booth, sending the surprised hostess a tight smile and bracing himself for Dean's anger.
Dean whirls on him once they're in the parking lot.
"Did you think I wouldn't make a scene in public, Sam? I'm not some girl you're ditching for this year's model."
"Dean, please."
"Fine, Sam. You're a grownup. We're both grownups, and we've got an apocalypse to stop. I'm not interested in being psychoanalyzed by you, okay? I get enough of that shit from the angels and the demons. So can you just quit trying to make me talk about it?" Dean's voice slides from anger to desperation at the end of his speech, and Sam feels something break a little more inside him. He doesn't want to be melodramatic about it or anything, but he thinks it might be his heart.
*
Lucifer's a constant presence in his dreams, showing him all the terrible things happening all over the world--zombies overrunning towns unequipped to deal with them, demons tearing out the throats of office workers, mass graves of children who died bloody and alone under the wings of the Angel of Death.
"It can all stop," he says, "if you say yes."
Sam wakes up in a cold sweat, unable to breathe, and Dean is already up, the same haunted look in his eyes. The laptop is open, and Sam sees the confirmation of all the things Lucifer's shown him, and more. Dean looks washed out, exhausted, in the blue light of the computer screen, even his freckles faded to shadows of themselves.
Sam reaches out, puts a hand on Dean's shoulder, and squeezes. Dean doesn't relax, but he doesn't shrug Sam off. Baby steps, Sam thinks. We'll get there in the end.
He chooses not to think about how little time they have, and how permanent the end might be.
*
He and Dean sit up at night, researching, hunting, drinking, anything to keep the nightmares away. Sam reads mythology and tracks down half-forgotten legends about angels and Armageddon. Dean broods and drinks, and Sam can see their father in him more clearly than he ever has before. He's given up trying to talk about anything but the latest hunt or strategy, or the occasional argument about whose turn it is to drive or whether they can afford to stop at a motel.
Other hunters have gone back to avoiding them now, word from on high (in the literal sense, which Sam finds morbidly funny) making them off-limits.
There's a grim sameness to their days, and Sam remembers why he wanted to leave in the first place. This is no life for anyone.
*
They're too late to save a family from ghouls in Alpharetta, and they both take vicious satisfaction in blowing the ghouls' heads off, getting drunk and getting into a bar brawl afterwards.
Sam's lip is split and stinging, and Dean's going to have a shiner the size of a dinner plate in the morning, but it felt good to work together, to fight back-to-back, the way they used to.
Sam touches the amulet under his shirt, making sure it's still there. Dean glances over and Sam gives him a small smile. Warmth flares in his chest when Dean grins back.
*
Gabriel appears in the backseat of the car when they're twelve hours into the twenty-eight hour drive between Atlanta and Ogden.
"Hello, boys."
"Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you right now," Sam says, turning to glare over his shoulder. Dean's hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel.
"I can give you at least two," Gabriel answers. "One, you can't. Puny humans." He smirks and Sam wants to punch it off his face. "And two, I can help you." He leans back and pulls a Twix out of his pocket. He doesn't offer to share.
Sam looks at Dean, who shrugs a shoulder. "It's not like he can make things worse."
"Did you really just say that?" Sam asks. "Do you really think that was a smart thing to say?"
Dean shrugs again. "When you're in shit as deep as we are, does it really matter if someone lays a few more shovelfuls on top?"
"That's the kind of can-do attitude I love to hear from humanity's so-called saviors. You're making me feel great about the decision to hook up with you yahoos."
"Shut up," Sam says.
"Start talking," Dean says.
Gabriel does.
*
They're sitting at a bar in Toledo, eating buffalo wings for dinner, when Sam sees the crawl across the bottom of the television screen: "Forty-one dead in a riot in Port Huron."
He waves the bartender over. "Hey, man, can you turn that up?"
"We got family there," Dean supplies when the bartender looks like he's going to argue. It doesn't matter--they're too late to catch the news story, but back at the motel, they turn on the TV and computer until they can piece it all together.
"Shit, shit, shit," Dean says, shoving his clothes into his duffel. "It's started. We're too late."
It's a little over an hour away (less, with Dean driving), but the roads are already blockaded and they get detoured onto city streets. Sam knows it doesn't matter. Everybody in Port Huron is either dead or infected by now.
He ignores the sick roil in his belly when they drive past the welcome to Detroit sign.
Dean pulls over--the streets are packed with cars and people--and they load up on weapons, even though they know all the knives and guns (and are those grenades? Sam takes the ones Dean hands him and puts them in his jacket pockets, biting his lip to keep from smiling stupidly) in the world won't help them in this fight. The solid weight of them is comforting.
*
Sam comes to on the cracked asphalt of a basketball court with Lucifer standing over him. He scrambles to his feet and scans the area, but Dean's nowhere in sight.
"It's time, Sam."
"No."
"Sam."
"No."
"Let me in."
"No." Sam knows how this game is played. He's a past master of it. "Quit asking me."
"It's your destiny."
Sam feels a laugh bubble up, but he swallows it down. "You know, if you've seen Star Wars often enough to quote it, you should know that it doesn't end well for the bad guys."
"You're very amusing, Sam. I like that." Lucifer smiles. It's not pretty. "Together, we can rule the universe."
"My answer is no and it will always be no."
Lucifer shakes his head, that hangdog look so familiar from Sam's dreams appearing on his bruised and peeling face. "This is not over."
Sam sets his jaw and raises his chin, but before he can say anything, Dean says, "I think it is." He stretches out a hand, and lightning crackles from it. Lucifer avoids the strike easily, and this time Sam can't stop the laugh, because seriously? Seriously? The archangels are cribbing from Star Wars?
"Michael," Lucifer says. "It's been too long, brother."
"It feels like I've waited forever for this day."
"Now would be a good time to say yes, Sam."
"No." Sam puts himself between them, chin raised defiantly. He remembers Dean stepping between him and Dad on more than one occasion, and he plants his feet and squares his shoulders.
Dean--no, Michael; there's nothing of Dean in those green eyes, that familiar face--smiles at him. "Look at you, so impatient for the fight." Michael looks past him to Lucifer. "Did you know he offered himself to me? So eager to get rid of you."
"Really, Sam? I'm a little hurt, not to mention disappointed." Lucifer sounds sad, but he always sounds sad. Sam wants to tell him to butch up and get over his emo already. The thought makes him smile grimly. "If you're not going to say yes, get out of the way now, Sam."
Michael nods. "I'll deal with you when I'm done with Lucifer."
"No," Sam says. It's a good thing he's had so much practice saying it, because he's saying it a lot lately. "If you're going to do this, if you're going to end the world, then I think you should start with me." He swallows hard, looks over at Michael. "I started it, after all."
"He knows I'll just revive you again," Lucifer says. "He never did like having to do things twice."
"Not if he scatters my atoms to the four corners of the universe." Sam knows he's got a flair for the melodramatic--Dad and Dean used to call him on it when he was a teenager--but the angels make him look downright understated. "It's too dangerous to keep me around."
Michael tilts his head as if he's thinking, his body completely still in a way Dean never is.
"I know I've made some bad choices, done some bad things," Sam says, "and if it will save the world, I'm okay with dying. And you can make sure Dean doesn't remember it, right? I think we both know he's sacrificed enough. I don't want him to have to live with that, too."
"As ridiculously touching as this is, we have some unfinished business to attend to," Lucifer says.
Michael raises a hand and shuts him up.
"Dean's my big brother. And I know you know what that means, to be a big brother. It's why you're here, right? Cleaning up your dad's mess, looking after your little brothers?
"Dean took care of me when I was little--hell, who am I kidding? He's still taking care of me, even now. He's doing this because he can't not take care of people. And this was the only choice he had left." Sam reaches under the collar of his shirt, pulls the amulet off. "I want him to have this back. I know he thinks it doesn't mean anything, but it means something to me. I gave it to him when he was the whole world to me, and that hasn't changed."
He lets the cord unwind, lets the amulet dangle as he holds it out to Michael. Something in Michael's eyes shifts, and Sam knows he's looking at Dean.
"Sammy?"
Sam swallows hard. "Yeah, Dean?"
"Killing you wasn't part of the plan, dumbass. Only you would go off-script during freaking Armageddon." Dean reaches out and takes the amulet. "Gimme that." He puts it on and smoothes it down over his t-shirt.
"I was just keeping it warm for you."
"I know."
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
Sam takes two steps forward and pulls Dean into a tight, rough hug. The true miracle of the day is that not only does Dean let him, Dean hugs him back.
Lightning strikes the ground nearby, and a singed and rumpled Gabriel tumbles out of nowhere. "Uh, guys, apocalypse, remember?"
They break apart, and despite the shine in his eyes, Dean's all business. He pulls out Michael's sword and stalks towards Lucifer. "I'm gonna enjoy ganking you, you sorry-ass fucker."
"Michael's still in there, right?" Sam asks Gabriel.
"Oh, yeah," Gabriel says, "and boy, is he pissed."
The fight doesn't last long. Lucifer isn't at full strength without Sam, and he doesn't stand a chance against the combined fury of Michael the archangel and Dean Winchester. The basketball court is a smoking crater by the time they're done, but Lucifer's gone.
Dean stands alone in the smoke for a few minutes, head cocked like he's having a conversation with someone only he can see, and then he calls out, "Sammy, close your eyes."
The bright light paints the backs of Sam's eyelids orange, and he feels the breeze stirred by great wings beating.
Dean grabs him, and they spend a little more time hugging than either would like to admit.
"I think we just saved the world," Dean says.
"I think you did."
Dean touches the amulet, which shines brightly against the drab olive of his t-shirt. "We did."
Sam smiles. He can accept that.
end
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Note: Title and cut-text from "Envoi" by Elizabeth Garrett
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