Men Enough to Face the Darkness
Today
“They don’t believe you, do they?” Dean asks, climbing the Wall. Sam, already on top and looking outwards, doesn’t answer. “Sam,” Dean says, unspoken plea in his voice, and that makes Sam turn, give Dean a half-smile that says more than Sam has the past two years. “Sam, they need you here. The other psychics at this camp just aren’t strong enough to hold it without you.” Sam shakes his head, They are. They can be, and Dean sighs, wraps his arm around Sam’s waist and leans in, feeling safer than he has a right to be when Sam’s arm lays heavy and real on his shoulders, pulls him in tight, fingers tracing out words and apologies both. I can’t just leave them out there to die¸ his fingers say, and Dean exhales, nods. “I know. But if we’re going to-” and Sam’s hold tightens, tries to cut him off, but Dean shakes his head. “No, Sam. If you’re going after them, I am too.” Sam’s jaw clenches, but he doesn’t refuse Dean in the myriad number of ways he communicates without his voice, just stands there and watches the sand outside of the camp shift, eat itself, die, be reborn.
--
An hour later, they’re walking down from the rise and the Wall and watchtowers, Dean in front, Sam one step behind and to the right. Soldiers carrying rifles loaded with silver, rock salt, and Holy Water salute Dean, while the officers salute Sam and both groups watch as the Winchesters walk out of the Zone and into the camp.
The village is a hodge-podge of tents, adobe buildings, and lean-tos built of scrap everything, the people as varied as this little outpost in the middle of the desert, some drenched in holy objects, some bustling around with learned efficiency, some with the same bruised expression that Sam wears now. “The convoy’s leaving this afternoon,” Dean says, and watches as Sam’s eyes flick to the edge of their little village, count the jeeps and note who’s on them. Dean sees the moment Sam realizes that Jana’s loading up with the soldiers by the way Sam pauses, body bending in, sees the way Sam seems to take a step in the convoy’s direction without moving. “She’ll be all right,” Dean says. “You’ve taught her enough,” and Sam shakes his head, It’s never enough. Dean doesn’t say anything to that; can’t, because they’ve lost three over the past six months, lost them to the madness on the other side of the Wall, and as much as he likes Jana, he’d rather it be her going west to Rancherías with the convoy than his brother.
Jana looks up and her eyes unerringly pierce in their direction, and, not for the first time, Dean watches as his brother talks in a way that, despite his catalogues and histories, Dean can’t reach. Sam and Jana stare at each other, and Dean watches as several of the other psychics move through the camp and stand between them, forming an oval with Sam at one end and Jana at the other, and it seems as if the camp stills, quiets, watches. The hair on Dean’s arms stands straight up but he ignores it, focused on his brother, and when Sam finally turns away, eyes dark and clouded, Dean’s there, helping Sam to their tent, to bed.
--
He misses it here, in bed, most of all. The fingers reciting poetry on his back, the slow blink of Sam’s eyes a litany of prayers and curses, the rise and fall of Sam’s chest beneath him, these are all languages Dean can speak, understand, but Dean misses hearing it spilling from Sam’s lips. As he licks a trail up Sam’s neck, rolls his hips and buries himself deeper in Sam, he remembers how it sounded before, his breath and Sam’s running together, the way their names, hissed or whispered or screamed, became one, the groans and cries and whimpers. Now, Sam arches beneath him, mouth open, as he comes, and it’s silent, all around him.
He’d go mad if Sam wasn’t halfway there already.
--
Dean wakes up alone, always alone, one hand wrapped around a gun under the pillow, the other resting on the warm spot on the coarse sheets Sam left with his body and mind. Dean doesn’t know how Sam does it, because he’s probably been gone for hours by now, standing up on the Wall and staring off into the Shiftlands.
He cleans up as best he can and then ducks out of their tent, eyes catching the color of the sunrise and the fleeing night, the flurry of action near the canteen, the way the pair of soldiers at the civilian edge of the Zone look as if they’ve been waiting for him. That, more than anything, drives Dean across the camp, and he notes with rising worry the way the two soldiers relax when he’s near. “Dean,” one of them says, and Dean interrupts, asks, “Is he all right?” The soldiers exchange glances, just long enough that Dean can look up and see Sam standing on the Wall, looking out over the sand. “He came earlier than we expected, and he’s been standing up there with this, this stuff on his face,” and Dean starts running up the rise, because using any tools of the Sight, this close to the Shiftlands, is only a measure of the last resort.
Sam’s motionless when Dean gets to his brother’s side, standing still, hands tucked under crossed arms, and Dean wonders for a half-hysterical moment if Sam’s even breathing. Sam must pick up on that because he shudders and opens his eyes and they’re completely white, no color. Dean doesn’t see that, doesn’t care, as he wipes the drips of oil from under Sam’s eyes, thumb tracing cheekbones that have grown more prominent overnight. I’m all right, Sam’s fingers say, curling into Dean’s offered hand, holding tight and revealing the lie and Sam turns his eyes to the west and waits, watches. Dean does, too.
It’s another hour before Sam moves and the action and repercussions are immediate. Dean’s been studying the sand patterns, but not so intently that he misses the way Sam stiffens and parts his lips. “What is it?” Dean asks, quiet, and Sam doesn’t answer except to send a whip-line of power out along the Wall. Dean wants to warn Sam that they aren’t meant to do things like that in the Zone, but then Sam throws his head back and lets out a wordless, soundless howl. This is how Sam speaks desperation and Dean swallows, mouth dry and throat choking, as the sand in the Shiftlands catches on fire, burning out with every second that Sam’s cry lasts, and the other psychics are running up the hill to their position now. Sam falls to his knees and lets out silent sobs, and Dean understands when Javier, Sam’s second, drops to his knees and cries as well.
Leaving Sam to his mourning, Dean goes down the hill. The commanding officer, a colonel, approaches, question, in his eyes, and Dean looks up at Sam before he says, “Jana.” The colonel, following that look, says, “She didn’t make it. Fine. What about the rest of the convoy?” Dean shakes his head, “She walked into the Shiftlands, gave herself to it. That decision needs a sacrifice,” and the colonel swears in Zone patois before stomping off.
--
Sam stays up on the Wall all day, getting back to his feet when the sun’s overhead and painting everything red. Dean brings up lunch and when he goes back that evening, after working with the soldiers all afternoon, he replaces the untouched tray with another, one lingering touch on Sam’s back as he leaves his brother alone again, silent. Three hours later, he carries the full dinner tray back to the canteen. As he stands at the entrance to their tent, Dean looks over the camp with an appraising eye, then turns his attention in the direction of the Wall. The sky above the Shiftlands is blooming reds and yellows, the colors twisting across a cloudless sky. Sam stands silhouetted in the light, one figure against the curse, and Dean’s no psychic but he gets one sudden surge of foreboding and goes inside the tent, worry and fear sinking into his bones.
--
He wakes up, the feel of fingers gliding over his face, and when Dean opens his eyes, he can’t see a thing. There’s movement and then his eyes focus as his mind tells him that it’s Sam, that he’s awake now, and then his mind shuts down when Sam’s lips move against his neck. Dean.
Sam taught Jana himself, since she arrived a year ago. Dean laughs at himself for falling into the same trap as everyone else, thinking that Sam’s infallible, but here, in the dark of their tent, Sam sleeping uneasily next to him, he knows that’s not true. His brother’s getting skinnier, by the day, it seems, the skin under Sam’s eyes looking less like bruises and more like black hollows that match Sam’s jutting hipbones and the knobs of bones poking out through thin skin. Sam doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep, and wants to go into the Shiftlands in search of people his visions have shown him.
Dean doesn’t know if it’s a true vision or a tool of the Shift, something to lure Sam in because it seems to understand Sam as instinctively as Sam understands it, but he’ll go. The Shift will need a sacrifice if it’s calling Sam, and Dean’ll be damned if he lets anyone else be that for his brother, just like he’ll be damned if he lets Sam do this, whatever it is, alone. And if there are people, well. Dean Winchester won’t leave them there, in the Shiftlands, any longer than he has to.
Yesterday
The trees all over the southern hemisphere, all over the parts of the world left safe from the Shift, are burnt. Trees and every depiction, every image of the Sephiroth, every book or text or treatise on kabbalah. No one has mercy for the tool of their own destruction and reports come up to Santa Margarita of burnings and lynchings, entire communities of scholars and believers, and Dean holds Sam tighter with every tale of rope and pyre, as if his grasp is enough to ward his brother.
No one looks at Sam, though, not Sam and not his students. The reality on the Wall, in the Zone, is different than the cities farther south, and they’ve never once left the village. People here understand or they leave, or they die. There is no other choice.
--
The mambo is nice, which makes Dean trust her even less. “You wish to know,” she says, and Dean wants to leave, but Sam says, “Yes,” and steps forward. She smiles, and Sam tilts his head as his face drains of color, eyes intent on something Dean can’t see. Sam’s pale, his body sways, and Dean steps forward into the hand of the mambo. “The guédé speak to him, chile. Let him listen,” and Dean’s heart stops when Sam takes a step away, leans toward a place Dean can’t follow. The mambo’s eyes are trained on Sam, hawk-bright and piercing, Dean’s senses are going off, and Sam’s hair is moving, as if unseen spirits are ruffling their fingers through the long strands.
Dean hates this, hates his brother’s gift at times like this, and just when he thinks that, the mambo whispers, “You’ll reconsider, chile. A wind’s gonna be a-coming, and what your brother sees in his soul, that’s all that’s gonna be saving you both.” He looks at her, scowls, and is ready to kill her and that crazy prophetic tone of hers, despite the shivers running up and down his arms, when Sam blinks and turns back to face him. “Irish Bayou,” he says, and thanks the mambo.
Dean can’t get away fast enough, has had enough of voodoo and mysticism, but for three weeks, until they get out of Louisiana, Sam gets these looks every so often, and Dean knows that however loud he talks, Sam’s still hearing something else.
--
The Wall goes up, at first a pile of random objects stretching out east to west, a clear line demarcating ‘here and no farther.’ They lay bricks next, tear up the village buildings and, when those run out, ship more in, and Sam mixes his blood and a steady stream of silently mouthed prayers into the mortar. Dean watches as Sam burns himself up, skin pale even in the sun, but glowing as if lit from within, and the soldiers see that Sam’s on their side, sacrificing himself for their common safety. He knows Sam doesn’t see this, just like he knows he isn’t meant to, but he leaves Sam with the bricklayers and masons one morning to go back to their tent, and the sheets have been cleaned, the bed made. A few of the soldiers nod when he comes back to collect Sam for the afternoon siesta, and Sam lies on his back and stares at the roof of their tent.
Dean dozes off, he’s not sure when, woken by Sam moving, sitting up, looking purposeful. “Sam?” Dean asks, and Sam shakes his head, just a sliver of movement, but Dean’s already learning this language without words. The shake means It’s nothing to worry about, and the little tilt of Sam’s head either means I’m hungry, which would be a miracle at this point, or Someone’s coming. From the way Sam’s putting on shoes and a t-shirt, Dean doesn’t think it’s someone coming to their tent. He dresses as well, follows Sam out to the jeep depot and stops at the edge of the parking lot while Sam keeps moving. There’s only one soldier driving, the rest of the small group, six or seven, are all civilians, all female, two children and one teenager among the group. Sam pauses, then walks to a woman with white hair, and Dean watches as the woman speaks to Sam, who doesn’t say anything back but somehow satisfies the woman, who summons the others over. Dean walks over and the woman looks at him and smiles.
“They say he is a good man,” she says to Dean, Sam and the teenage girl involved in some sort of staring contest. “These are my girls. He can train them, so they can help like he does,” and Dean’s eyes flick over the others. “They’re all psychic?” he asks, disbelief coloring his voice. The woman laughs and says, “More will come. They say he shines.” Dean looks at Sam, who returns the look and shrugs. “Teach them,” the woman says, looking at both of them. “They’ll help and someday, if they are enough, you can stop what’s happening.” Dean sees Sam turn and gaze north, sees the way all of the other women do the same thing, and he sighs.
The next day, Dean teaches them the words of the prayers and they bleed into the mortar while Sam looks on, eyes turning darker with every drop of blood that falls into the mix.
--
“And what was the lesson about?” Jim asks over dinner. Dean looks at Sam, who stares back, calm and placid, unlike normal, eyes burning, like they do after a lesson Sam gets, usually in a much different way than the teacher, any of the teachers, intended. Dean mutters something about war and strategy, fidgeting as he passes the corn, because he’d rather be outside, hands taking apart guns or up to the elbows in the Impala’s engine. Jim sighs and looks at Sam, asks, “And Sam? What was the lesson about?” Dean looks at his brother again, and he’s not sure why his heart skips a beat when Sam, nine years old, says, “The ethics of sacrifice.”
By the time he can breathe again, Jim’s looking at Sam the way their dad looks at Dean, proud and somewhat disbelieving. When Dean goes upstairs an hour after Sam, Sam’s still reading, trying to puzzle through one of Socrates’ dialogues on ethics in the original. It looks like he’s going cross-eyed, it looks like he has the mother of all headaches, and Sam hates Greek as much as he loves Latin, so why he’s focused, captivated, is beyond Dean. Beyond him, but it terrifies him, and he’s almost glad that Sam has a nightmare a few hours later and crawls into Dean’s bed after he wakes up shaking.
--
Once, in the night, while he’s still learning the silent languages Sam speaks in, Dean asks, “Do you think Dad would have wanted to see this? How it ended?” Sam looks at him, eyes a steady glide from Devil’s Trap to brother-lover-Dean, and arches an eyebrow, pushes hair out of his eyes and leaves a trail of chalk-dust on his forehead. Dean can’t decipher the look, so he leans forward and wipes the dust off with a spit-slick thumb, tracing Sam’s cheekbone after the chalk’s gone, following the line of bone from ear to jaw. “The ones we knew, the people who didn’t get out in time,” Dean says, forcing Sam to look at him by holding Sam’s chin in a grasp hard enough to leave bruises, “was it quick?”
There is no room between them for lies, but Sam doesn’t try; he doesn’t answer and goes back to the Trap, which is answer enough for Dean. “Fuck,” Dean says, and goes outside to vomit. The Shiftlands sparkle, false water, false hope.
--
The colonel watches Dean watch Sam. Sometimes he talks about Argentina, sometimes Britain, and once, not long after the first psychic jumps over the Wall, his wife. Sam stands high on the Wall and stares north without blinking, Dean stands down the rise and stares at Sam, and the colonel says, “At times, I’m glad she didn’t have to witness this. There are other times I wish she was here with me.” Dean says nothing, and they stand in silence for a long while, the sky over the Shiftlands changing from red to orange. “Sam has been on the Wall since well before sunrise. Take him back and feed him,” the colonel says, and although Dean’s not under the colonel’s command, doesn’t need to follow orders, he goes up the rise, on to the Wall, and leads Sam back to their tent. He tells Sam what the colonel said, and Sam smiles, curls up into Dean and sleeps.
--
“Bobby says they’ve heard things about the Israelis,” Dean murmurs, and Sam looks up through his bangs, slides his lips off of Dean’s cock and says, “Tell me you’re not talking politics while I’m trying to get you ready to fuck me.” Dean laughs, says, “Get back to work, then, and stop fucking around,” but Sam doesn’t. “Why are you worried?” Sam asks, stretching, shifting his knees, and Dean says, “I’m not. It’s just, if what Bobby’s heard is right,” before Sam does that, that thing with his teeth, and all thoughts of suicidal Kabbalists flee his mind. Sam does it again and Dean groans before he slides to the floor, to Sam.
When they’re done, sticky and panting, blissed out and fucked out, high on each other, Sam pokes Dean in the ribs. “Next time, you asshole, pull me up. I’m gonna have permanent carpet burn at this rate.” Dean laughs and they get to bed, and sleep is light and warm and found with bodies pressed together, hands tangled together, breath mingling.
Lacuna
The wind shifts, miasma, hot, so very hot, shifting and making the Shift louder, noises and screams and low, throaty murmurs, just coming across the Wall, over the Zone, through the camp and into your ears, never ending streams of red and orange and heat, so hot, crawling over your skin, under your clothes, burrowing into you and it’s so tempting, rushing wind and noise, so much noise, noise that comes from you, pours up your throat and hits a lump that moves closer to your mouth with every day, and it’s there, in all of you, and you can see it in them, like it is in you, moving closer and closer to noise, to hearing, to the madness the Shiftlands hold and caress and covet, the madness in you, in all of them, the madness that courts you in glimmers of the phantasmal, in howls of wind across still sand, in loneliness and emptiness and never-death.
It’s worse when you sleep.
Worse, worse, worse; shrill sounds like glass breaking and grinding and dusting itself, sand on the wind, motion in the air, in your head, it's all in your head, hot and wet and blood and death and it's all in your head, in your head, in your head, in your head.
It drives all of you mad, some faster than others, some deeper than others. It seems to know you, wants to know you better. It’s taking it’s time with you, sinking roots in deep, and in the night, you sleep and dream, and don’t know where you begin and it ends, psychotic symbiosis but which one of you is the host and which one the parasite, you don’t know. Sometimes the only thing you know is Him, part of you and not, like the Shift, one on each side. Sometimes you’re close enough to Him to remember ‘Dean’ and ‘brother’ and ‘love.’ Sometimes you’re too close to the Shift to know anything except that He exists and you’re connected to Him enough to stay, enough to try and stay, enough to try and resist for one more day the siren-song of the Shift that calls for you, never ceasing.
Part Two