original by maygra
Remix Title: Wuxing (Five Goings) (2/2)
Remix Author: poisontaster
Original Story: Elementum Res. Progressus
Original Author: maygra
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Warnings: Language, sex, m/m incest, violence, torture, mentions of rape.
AN: Whereas Western thought developed the idea of elements as substances, and Indian thought as emanations, Chinese philosophy conceived of the five elements, or Wu Xing, as dynamic states of change.
WATER GENERATES WOOD
It's dark here.
It's always dark here. Sam doesn't know how long he's been in this darkness; no way to tell without sun or watch to mark the passage of time. It feels like it's been forever, but it may have only been a day, a moment. It could be that there is no time at all and (if) when Dean comes for him, he may emerge into his remembered sunlight and find a hundred years has gone by and all the things he knew are gone.
Because Dean is coming. Dean will come for him.
Dean always does.
An arm-a hand-both whiter than ivory, than alabaster, snakes around him to stroke cold down his naked chest. Long, vile black nails, almost sharp enough to cut and bleed him, toy with his skin. He shudders and retreats from the surface of his body since he can't evade her, trapped between her body and the balcony wall.
"Why will you not eat, Samuel?" she asks in a voice like poisoned honey.
The first time she took him to her bed, he threw himself off this same balcony. Not out of horror, really, but more out of a sense of hopelessness, afraid that if Dean comes-and he will-Sam will only be betraying him to the same fate or near enough as to make no difference.
"Because I'm not hungry," he lies and his stomach grumbles, showing it for the lie it is. But he will not eat her food. He will not drink her water or wine, though he feels like he could crumble into salt with thirst. Dean may laugh at him for being the research geek, but he knows his myths and legends-better now since the Wild Hunt tried to take Dean from him.
"And if I ask you why you do not drink, I suppose you will tell me you're not thirsty either?" One fingernail circles his navel, fascinating to her as she has none of her own. The things that live in her hair rustle and shift.
He didn't die of the fall, of course. He doesn't know if it's even possible to die here. He suspects not; nothing he's tried has worked. He remembers the endless span of time where she let him sweat and whimper his pain, all of his bones broken, while she sat and giggled, bathing in it like Jess would once bask in the sun.
"That's right," he says blandly. He'd like to be different about it, more defiant, more like Dean. He was in the beginning, when this was new-how long? How long ago was it? How long has it been?-angrier, disobedient, but now the memories of past agonies churn in the acid of his stomach and all he can manage is this passive noncompliance.
"Look at me, Samuel."
In this, she can compel him. He turns, fighting it the whole way. Doing what they do, with the injuries they've suffered over the years, Sam used to think he had some small understanding of pain but he doesn't understand pain like this, pain as an art form, drawn out and calculated, exquisite and studied.
To his eyes she is beautiful enough to take his breath away. An icy and aloof perfection, but perfection nonetheless, rendered in almost pure shades of black (eyes, hair, what wisps of clothing she bothers with) and white, except for the blood darkness of her lips and the half-colors of her jewels. In the darkness between blinks, however, or when he dares close his eyes, he sees her how he thinks she must really be--squat, enormous and terrible with too many teeth and limbs and flat, withered dugs that leak and stain her stretched belly.
When she rapes him, it's with his eyes wide open, because the illusion is better.
"He's not coming."
He is. He will. Dean will come.
"You're alone here. Friendless."
Not for long. Not forever.
"Except for me."
Fuck you. Fuck you, you demon whore.
"And you are so very...unkind to me." She pouts, looking eerily like a negative of Jess, then tosses her hair back over her white shoulders. The creatures in her hair gibber and squeak and the strands shift and move long after she is still. "Am I not sweet?"
"My brother will come for me," Sam says steadily, though inside, steady is the furthest from how he feels.
She presses closer, driving him back so he is against the stone, balcony railing digging into his kidney and his shoulders leaning out over the drop. The air is very cold against his naked shoulder blades and he is conscious of the space between them, where a knife or arrow could easily go. "You mean your lover, do you not?" she asks, dragging dry lips up his skin from ribs to neck while he shudders in horror at her touch. Her tongue licks into the hollow of his neck. "Filthy boy. Is he so much better than I, then?" Her fingers work the pins that hold his loincloth onto his hips and the fabric whispers down around his feet. Sam's belly sucks in, trying to meet his spine and he wishes he could do the same with his cock as she fondles him slowly with cold, strong fingers. Eyes darker than his worst sins smile into his, delighted by his horror, his revulsion, by the way his body stirs and rises even though he wills it not to.
Shuddering, afraid, he can't help it when the word tears out of him: "Don't."
Her smile widens. She nips his jaw with teeth too sharp to be human. He doesn't bleed. He never bleeds, no matter what she does to him. "I could look like him, if you prefer."
Her face, her body, blurs and thickens and then, as if he's blinked-which he knows he hasn't, though his eyes are aching with the need to do so-a familiar face is smirking up into his, crooked nosed, freckled and impish.
"Don't," he says again and he knows he's playing her game, satiating her with his terror, but the thought of Dean, of Dean doing the things to him that she does, unnerves and unmans him to a point that he doesn't care. He doesn't care if he begs. "Please. Please, don't."
Her smile-and it is hers, making a travesty of Dean's face-gets wider still and she bends to lick and kiss over his skin, sliding down until he/she/it is on her knees, one hand lightly encircling his cock and her eyes shining happily up at him.
Sam's fingers dig into the stone behind him until he feels some of the nails bend and shatter; his teeth bite down on both his tongue and his scream as she takes him into the strangely-cold wetness of her mouth. Her compulsion is still on him and he can't look away.
Suddenly, light blooms on his right, orange and sun-bright, unfurling like a tiger-lily and it's followed by the violent concussion of things blowing up and falling apart. The balcony-the whole palace-shakes and he and the Demon Queen are flung sideways.
"Dean," he whispers.
The Queen hisses and when he looks at her, she is again in her female seeming, kneeling, in contrast to his sprawl. "No," she grits through clenched teeth and tight lips. A second explosion answers her and Sam hears something-many somethings-screaming.
Sam doesn't even think about it, he pushes to his feet and runs.
The she-demon screams behind him, drowned quickly in the thunder of more explosions, a whole chain of them like a string of firecrackers. The hallway trembles around him and dust and other, viler things cascade over him. He shakes the worst of it away and keeps running, knowing he's fucked if the Queen catches him. She shrieks again and then he can hear her behind him, enormous and thudding, gaining speed like a juggernaut.
Sam races down the hallway fast as he's ever done anything in his life, his bare feet slipping on the slick stone. At the end of the hall is a doorway out to the open air and he comes out to the head of a stair, the stone pushing the breath out of his belly as he crashes into it. Stairs in either direction; he chooses right arbitrarily trying hard not to outrace his precarious balance as he leaps down three and four at a time. Something fast and flying snatches viciously at his hair; he bats it away, unseeing. "Dean?" he shouts. "Dean?" Please God, let it be Dean.
The courtyard is full of monsters, all of them running, both with and without purpose. From above him, Sam hears the Queen shriek yet again and his heart hammers in his chest.
"Sam? Sam?"
And that voice. God in Heaven and the whole choir of angels, that voice, calling him, screaming his name, searching for him.
Thank God. Thank you. "Here!" Sam yells, his voice breaking. "Dean! I'm here!"
Another detonation, this one close; over his head the stone rockets outward like cannonballs and flaming debris rains down on him, searing his naked skin. Sam ducks and weaves the best he can, half-blinded by smoke and his ears ringing. He keeps screaming, though, "Here! I'm here! Dean!"
Until Dean is suddenly grabbing him by the bicep and swinging him in a tight circle, into an even tighter embrace. Sam's arms go around his brother so tightly Dean grunts and they jerk in tandem with the recoil as Dean fires his shotgun past Sam to take out something behind him that Sam can't see with his face buried in Dean's hair.
That's about all they have time for, though, as Dean pulls back and looks carefully into Sam's eyes. "You all right?" Dean asks gruffly and presses a .38 into Sam's hand.
Sam nods and wipes his face with his elbow. "Just smoke," he says. There's a demon behind Dean on his left, Sam raises the .38 and is deeply satisfied when its head disappears in a spray of ichor and charcoal smoke.
"Did you eat anything? Drink anything."
Sam shakes his head.
"That's my boy." Dean ruffles his hair briefly. "Gotta go," Dean says, shrugging out of his jacket and throwing it around Sam's shoulders. "Before our back up backs out on us." As Sam shrugs into the coat, and though Dean's not looking at him, Dean's hands linger, touching Sam's face, Sam's hair, fingering across his neck until he finds Sam's carotid and then letting his finger ride the pulse. He turns for a second and his fingers curve around Sam's neck, warm and real. "I'll get you out of here," he says and there's no doubt in his voice. "Okay?"
"Yeah," Sam says. He's shaking and his legs feel weak, but there's no way Dean can carry him out of here and that means he's got to stay on his feet. He can do this. He's getting out of here. Dean said so.
"C'mon, Sammy," Dean says. He turns and blows another demon to hell...or wherever they go when they die here, die for real. "You and me."
Sam buttons up Dean's coat-familiar and with the scent and heat of Dean's body-over his nakedness and nods.
Dean leads him through the crumbling palace and Sam worries about the Demon Queen in between bullets and absurd, tearful joy every time Dean bumps his shoulder or thigh with his own or guides him past some piece of rubble or flaming death, hand on Sam's shoulder, the small of his back, his arm.
At what's left of the palace gates, two other men meet them, both thin and sort of seedy looking. The blond has a British accent and the dark one looks vaguely Asian. Dean introduces them both as John and they both sneer at each other. "Don't ask," Dean mouths with a shake of his head. Sam leans against a pillar, shakier than ever and trembling, his feet cut up to hamburger by their flight and yet not bleeding. Dean is yelling at the two Johns, something about gates and runes.
Sam feels himself fading out, really close to just pitching head first and fainting. However long he's been here, the lack of food and water have left him weak and his whole body hurts, fuchsia with cold. Dean and the Johns seem very far away and Sam can't scrape his voice out of his chest to say anything, warn them. He wavers, cold and sweating, supporting palm sliding on the slick stone and then suddenly Her hand is around his throat, choking off the last of his breath. It doesn't feel even remotely human and he's glad he can't see the rest of her. The chittering in her hair seems angry and sullen.
"You have not been a very good guest, Samuel." Her voice is the same, smooth and quietly dulcet, right against his ear as he flails weakly for air. "Is this how you repay my hospitality?"
"Yo. Bitch."
Sam struggles to turn his head sideways at the sound of Dean's voice. He can sort of see Dean, holding...not a gun but something small that twinkles silvery on a shining chain. Whatever it is, it makes the Queen's claw tighten around his neck and she howls, a horrible, echoing ululation that rips into him and turns him deaf to all other sounds.
And then she is dissolving, turning to gritty, foul smoke that rushes past him, towards Dean. The moment her grip on him is gone, Sam collapses, too weak to even put out a hand to catch himself.
Dean is with him again suddenly and he thinks maybe he blacked out for a moment. Dean pulls him up, rubbing his face carefully with the sleeve of his flannel and looking worriedly into Sam's eyes. "Just a little further, Sammy, I promise. You still with me?"
Sam nods, though he doesn't know if he can really make it even 'a little further'. "How...?" He doesn't have the strength or breath to finish the question, even if he knew how.
Dean holds up his hand. The chain is wrapped around his fingers and dangling from it is what looks like a fancy perfume bottle of pink glass or really thin shell, banded in metals of different colors in some pattern. Inside, something rattles and behind it, he thinks he can hear the Queen's shrieks of rage and outrage like distant squeaking. "Spirit trap," Dean says briefly. "Only works against demons of this realm." He twists and looks over his shoulder. "John!"
The faux-Asian John looks up and Dean tosses the bottle to him. John fields it one handed and Blond John mutters something about American show-offs. Dean turns back to Sam, gentle as he gathers Sam up and close. "We're almost out of here," Dean murmurs, combing his fingers through Sam's tangled hair. "Almost out."
Sam nods tiredly. Though he can't wait to be rid of this demon-haunted wasteland and see the sun and breathe real air again, a part of him thinks he could be content to stay like this, his head bowed to Dean's shoulder and his lanky body compacted up so Dean's arms can fit around as much of him as possible.
You came. I knew you would. I knew you'd come.
"Dean!" British John yells and Dean bunches and heaves, tugging Sam with him. The other John grabs Sam by his arm and Sam flinches and half-screams, suddenly flooded with choking panic. He tries to burrow into Dean's side, Dean's arm snaking around him to steady them both. John backs off fast and Dean says, unnecessarily, "I got him."
"Yeah," John says dryly, "He ain't heavy, he's your brother. Got it."
Sam recognizes-knows-he's being crazy but the thought of anyone but Dean touching him... He can't. He can't.
"Okay," Dean says. "It's okay, Sam. I'm right here. We're gonna do this old school, okay? I'm going to give you a piggy back ride."
"'Kay," Sam manages from his dry throat.
"You're going to have to hold your breath when we go through," Dean tells him, still in that same calm, patient voice. Sam sort of wants to snap at him, tell Dean he's not a fucking baby, but it is soothing at the same time and he doesn't want Dean to stop talking to him so he shuts up and lets himself be manhandled onto Dean's bent back. Dean grunts. "Jesus, Sammy, you're going on a fucking diet when we get back, for serious."
Yes, Dean, okay. Whatever you want. Just get me out. Just...I want out.
"We're going to come out in water," Dean continues, oblivious, "so don't freak out, okay? I got you. I won't let anything happen to you."
"Okay," Sam says again and then they're following the Johns through the shattered gates that lead out into the wastelands beyond.
Except...
Except they never reach the other side of the gates. The minute Dean steps into/across the threshold, Sam feels something all across his skin like a clammy membrane of plastic, vaguely unpleasant and he can't see or hear a damn thing. He tries to tighten his arms and legs around Dean's solid, warm body but there's no sense of movement. And then, as Dean promised, they're suddenly in water.
Sam fights the reflexive urge to inhale, fights harder not to strangle and crush Dean as his brother tows him to the surface. He tries to help, doesn't know how good at it he is. He can feel the sun's rays even through the water, piercing his paled skin like spears and that's when it hits him that this is really real. That he is out and he is free and he is with Dean again. They break the surface and Sam shouts aloud. Because he can.
When they reach the shore, the Johns reach to haul them up, dripping, out onto the thick grass of the bank, and Sam is so exhausted and so stupidly overjoyed, he can't feel afraid of their hands on his skin. When the demon Queen took him, it was winter, cold and bitter, the grass brittle and crackling underfoot. She'd dragged him under the ice and he can't remember the last time he was really, truly warm. Now it's verdant and sweet with the wild promise of flower and summer. Sam curls into a small ball overwhelmed with the need to cry, long choking sobs of exhaustion and relief and gratitude and fear. He presses his face into the warmed soil and shudders, only bare inches from doing just that. He wouldn't even care if Dean teased him.
After a moment, Dean comes and wraps himself around Sam, one arm pulling Sam tight against him and his face pressed into the sopping tangles at the nape of Sam's neck. Sam makes a noise, soft and inarticulate. "We're done here," Dean says to the Johns, sort of, almost, not-quite rocking Sam-slightly enough that either one of them can deny it, anyway. "Blow."
"We're even, Winchester," Dark John says, his voice pinched and oddly angry.
Dean hesitates and Sam thinks about how much Dean hates to give up leverage, even the slightest bit. Then his arm tightens around Sam again, almost painful and he says, "Yeah. We're even, Constantine. Both of you."
Sam listens to the swish of the Johns' feet through the grass, the mutter of some quiet-voiced argument that sounds old and familiar to them both. When they're gone, Dean says quietly, "I have clean clothes in the car."
Sam nods, that thick sense of too much still pressing his vocal cords flat.
Dean is silent then and they lay there, the daylight beating down so strongly that he sees orange across his closed eyelids. It feels almost like food, seeping through his skin. After a while, Sam feels strong enough, steady enough to turn over slowly, so he's facing his brother. Their legs tangle and they work and shift and sidle to be as close as humanly possible, touch as much as they can.
Finally, with Sam's face buried in his neck and his hand curved around Sam's nape, Dean ventures, "You can cry if you want to, Sammy."
And if that's all he was waiting for, Sam feels his chest rip and tear under the force of his first sob. Not because he's sad. Because he's happy; so happy it feels like he's deranged with it. Because he's here and Dean's here, alive and free. He held on and his faith was rewarded.
"It's okay," Dean whispers, and it is. It really really is.
WOOD GENERATES FIRE
Sleeping with Sam isn't an easy proposition at the best of times. First of all? He's enormous. Have you seen the kid? Second of all, all that room that he's trying not to take up when he's awake? Yeah, no such problems when he's out of it. Sam sprawls. And going back to that whole enormous thing, when he sprawls, there's not a whole lot of room left for anyone else, especially another someone who's not so small himself.
The compromise is that Sam does a lot of his sprawling over Dean, but that's a lot of nights of waking up with your kid brother slowly choking you to death with his arm across your windpipe, or damn near losing a kidney-or a ball-to his knifelike and bony knee. Let's not even get into his cold ass feet. And he won't sleep in socks, oh no. "I like you better," he'll say in that sleepy, dazed voice, eyes only half-lidded and that goofy smile on his lips.
Then there's the noises. Bad enough when Dean's balls deep and Sam's moaning and hollering loud enough to get them arrested (though it is kinda hot, that he can get Sam all riled up like that). But he talks in his sleep, muttering nonsense that he seems to wait until his lips are pressed right up against your ear to tell you. He makes little sounds, whimpering, like someone's hurting him-or fucking him, because those noises are actually a lot alike-and sometimes Sam wakes up and is all over him... Getting off topic, here.
The point is, sleeping with Sam takes some adjustment. Hell, sleeping with anyone does, because it's been years since he's even done that and Sam was a lot smaller then. And then came the visions, which are inconvenient and worrisome, but rare enough that Dean did his grumbling, held Sam a little closer while Sam did his freaking out and then either got up and started packing or went back to sleep. The point is that it's manageable.
But ever since he took Sam back from that evil, shitsucking demon bitch that stole him, Sam's been a mess. Half the time Sam's afraid to close his eyes, staying up for days at a time, and when he finally does pass out because he's too exhausted to do anything else, he thrashes and flails through bad dreams that have Dean waking him up after a couple hours anyway because anything has to be better than whatever's making him make those hurt noises that sound nothing like sex noises and those agonized pleas of, "Don't. Please. Please, don't."
He feels angry, which is an emotion he's always been able to work with, but he also feels helpless and he's never done helpless well. And now this.
Sam opens his eyes. "East. Still east," he says, the first words from his mouth. Then he blinks and his eyes seem to focus. "Did you sleep at all?"
"Some," Dean lies, because Sam doesn't need to know and doesn't need to feel shitty about how many hours Dean's watching over him while Sam catches what sleep he can. Sam snorts, though, and Dean knows Sam doesn't believe him. "You got any better idea what we're looking for?"
When in doubt, change the subject. It's a philosophy.
Sam shakes his head and looks down, lids and eyelashes hiding his eyes. "No. Just...just that same feeling of pull." Sam touches his navel lightly. "Right here."
"You know I don't like this, right?"
Sam nods, his eyes still averted. "I know. But...I really don't think it's bad."
It's Dean's turn to snort. "That would be a switch."
"It feels different, Dean. It feels...I don't know." Sam's hand moves from his belly to Dean's, stroking his thumb over Dean's navel a lot like he was just touching his own. The skin there ripples and Dean shivers because Sam's really weird about sex right now too and Dean's horny as all fuck. Dean doesn't know what the demon did to Sam, because Sam just out and out refuses to talk about it-and wasn't that a switch too?-but he can guess some of it, just from Sam's new fucked up reactions. He's trying to be a good brother-a good man-about it, but he also misses fucking something other than his good right hand. And that just makes him angrier and more frustrated. He doesn't know what John's going to do with that little bottle of demon but Dean hopes he makes that bitch suffer a long fucking time and twice on Sunday.
"Well, we're going, right?" Dean says and Sam nods a second time.
"Yeah." Then Sam's fingers are straying lower, into the thickness of Dean's pubic hair and Dean's belly sucks in, his breath coming fast and shallow. Sam looks up, through those long, girly lashes. "Dean...can we...?"
Dean inhales sharply and sort of like a gasp when Sam grasps his cock. Sam's touch is light and sort of tentative, but even so, Dean can feel every drop of blood in his body rushing there. "Uh...yeah, Sam. Yeah. We can do whatever you want."
Sam shifts so he can bring his other arm up, rub his thumb hard over Dean's bottom lip. Calluses catch on dry skin. "I want to fuck you," he says. He sounds like he expects Dean to argue about it but Dean just reaches behind and off the side of the bed to fish the tube of lube out of their bag and hands it to Sam. They've never done that before but that doesn't really matter.
"Yeah, Sam," Dean says again. "Whatever you want."
Sam's a little rough with him, a little clumsy and it hurts some at first. Dean fists his hands in the sheet, curls up his toes and wonders what the fuck all the fuss is about. But then Sam plants a hand on Dean's pelvis and pulls him up and back and tilts his hips and angles across that spot and Dean thinks: oh.
And it's not great. But Dean can see how it could be great, sees how this is something he wouldn't mind doing again when Sam's a little more outside his own head. Sam's hips piston against him and Dean thinks he's going to have Sam's pelvic bones reprinted in bruises across his ass. Dean braces one arm against the headboard and strokes himself in counterpoint to the burn-thrust of Sam inside him, looping signal waves of pleasure-pressure that have him coming long before Sam's done. Sam guides him down to the mattress and Dean lies boneless and sated and open while Sam fucks himself in Dean to his own orgasm. After, he lays sprawled on Dean, still mostly inside, and falls asleep kissing apologies into Dean's sweating skin. It's not the most comfortable Dean's ever been in his life, for sure, but Sam seems to sleep without dreams and that's what counts.
Another week of this-Sam's dream-visions, nightmares and hard and heavy fucking with Dean on the bottom-finds them somewhere in Missouri, digging in a field that's no more distinguishable from any other field Dean's ever seen.
"Are you sure this is it?" Dean asks after several hours of hard digging. He shoots the spade into the damp-thick dirt and wipes his forehead with the back of his arm, doubtless just spreading the dirt around some.
Sam nods. He's become more and more nonverbal the closer they've gotten and Dean's tried to take that in stride too, because he knows Sam is messed up and if he can't do a damn thing to fix it, maybe Sam will figure out how to fix himself.
Dean sighs and picks up the spade again, breaking the dirt for Sam to shovel away. After a couple more minutes, he scrapes across something that sounds like wood. He and Sam both drop to their knees and start sweeping through the softened soil until they uncover wooden, half-rotted box just about as long as Sam is tall.
Inside, nestled in a swaddle of what looks like velvet is a sword, what Dean would call a herkin' big-ass sword and Sam would probably primly call a broadsword if he were talking. The hilt is damn near as long as Dean's forearm, smooth, sinuous silver unbroken by any sort of ornamentation. The blade is similarly plain, double-edged and unrusted, looking wicked as hell. Dean doesn't like it.
"This?" he asks. "This hunk of junk is what we came all this way for? I hate to break it to you, Sammy, but neither one of us is named Ghost Dog and we're not down for the Way of the samurai."
"This isn't a samurai sword," Sam says absently, chewing on the pad of his thumb.
Dean rolls his eyes. "Missing the point here, Sam. What are we supposed to do with this?"
"I don't know."
Sam reaches for it and all the bad feeling that's been grumbling in the back of Dean's mind suddenly comes surging up like he's going to puke. He says, "Sam, don't!" and tries to knock Sam's hand away, but he's not fast enough.
Sam's fingers close around the hilt and he starts to lift the sword out but it's too heavy to do one-handed so it just kind of tips up slightly. There's no bolt of lightning or anything and Dean starts to feel a little stupid about it when Sam says unsteadily, "Um...Dean?"
Light explodes from the sword in a soundless detonation, blinding Dean and flinging him back like a giant hand planted in his chest and pushed. For a minute, Dean can only lie stunned and breathless, blinking stupidly up into a cloudless blue sky. Then he thinks Sam, and it's enough to get him moving again, rolling over on his side and then his hands and knees. He wonders how you kill a sword. He wonders how close the nearest forge is. "Sam?"
He sounds wheezy and weak and he clears his throat to try again when a voice says, "No forge of man would do you any good, Dean Winchester. Else there would be no need to hide this blade away. No fires here are strong enough to unmake the metals of Heaven."
"Heaven?" Dean squints sunblind through the bleached out brightness, glad that his mouth hasn't ever really needed the blessing of his brain to keep working. "Think highly of yourself for a RenFaire prop." He thinks he can see Sam like a spot of shadow and he gathers his limbs for a tackle.
"Your fears are unfounded," the voice says again. "Your brother is unharmed."
"Who said I was afraid?" Deans says, even as the supernova of light dims suddenly, leaving the day dim and strangely dull in comparison. Dean blinks afterimages from his watering eyes and sees Sam.
Sam's pose is vaguely like that of a crucifixion, arms out to the side and his feet only barely on the ground, more than two inches of open space between his heels and the mixed grass and dirt of the field. His back is arched and his face is turned up to the sky. Muted light pours from his eyes and Dean thinks, absurdly, of Cyclops from the X-men. There's more light behind Sam, rippling and somehow thick, and it takes Dean a moment to realize its wings, gigantic and shifting in ways he doesn't entirely understand, sometimes translucently visible and other times just a heat shimmer.
"Sam!" He tries to push himself up to his feet but finds himself stuck in his kneeling pose. He can't feel any kind of force holding him in place; it's just like the ability to move is just not there, his brain untethered and unable to command his flesh. "Sam!"
"Your brother is well. Be calm," the voice says and Dean watches his brother's lips move and realizes the voice is coming from Sam, not the sword. "This is a great honor and bestowed to very few."
"Yeah, well neither one of us asked for this so-called honor, so why don't you let us go, we'll rebury you for the next set of suckers and we can all go our separate ways, huh?" Dean hates that his voice is shaking, but his vocal cords seem to be the only part of him that will move.
"You are wrong, Dean Winchester. Your brother did ask for this, else he would not have been called."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"The sword only calls those that can hear its song; if your brother followed its melody here, then it is because a part of him wants the absolution the sword can offer."
"A part of me wants to be a millionaire who hangs around the Playboy Mansion, but I'm still here, right?" Dean says, grunting as he struggles to break whatever it is that holds him like this. "You can't listen to Sam; kid doesn't know what the fuck he wants."
Sam's head tips down and Dean sees his face full on. Sam's eyes are completely obscured by the light that pours from the sockets, as if his body is only the shell for a small sun. "So much pain," the voice says through Sam's mouth and he wants to rip whatever it is out of Sam by the short and curlies, make it stop using Sam, stop talking through him like Sam's not even in there anymore. "So much pain and sorrow for such a young thing."
"Sammy," he says, ignoring the thing inside Sam to speak directly to his brother. "Sammy. You can't..." His voice breaks; he gathers up the pieces and forges on, damned if he's going to let this Heavenly cocksucker have his brother without a fight. "You can't go, Sam. You can't just...give up like this."
"Why?" It-because he won't, can't think of it as Sam-asks. It sounds genuinely curious. "Why should he stay as he is, fragile and friable and so terribly afraid? There is great power in him, great goodness he can bring into the world as the sword's avatar. He can make your world better. Is that not what you fight for?" Its wings shift and spread, flicking brightness into his eyes like tiny daggers, but Dean refuses to look away, afraid if he does, Sam will truly be gone forever.
"Not like that," Dean says, willing his voice to reach Sam, who is-must be-trapped in his own body. "We fight as humans. It's our flesh and blood. Not...not mystical bullshit. We don't take the easy way out. We don't...it wouldn't count if it was easy. We pay. Someone always has to pay. But not...not with our humanity. You don't just give that up. You don't just give that away."
Dean doesn't even know if he's making any sense, doesn't really care if it keeps Sam here for even a few seconds longer. "Please Sam. Please don't go. Don't let...don't let it turn you into this. You can fight it. I know you can. You're a Winchester, right? We've faced down worse than this. Don't go. You don't have to go."
"Why?" And this time, Dean imagines he can hear the tinge of Sam's voice half-buried in the voice of the Other. It blinks and for a moment, Dean thinks he can see familiar hazel-green. Just for a moment. "Why should he stay? What is there here for him, this world that has caused him so much pain? What has this world to offer him but more of the same? What here is worth refusing the gift he's being offered?"
"Me." Dean's chest feels too tight and his skin too small, feeling Sam slip away from him, seeing himself and the long empty years ahead of him without Sam in them. "I'm here. I need him. I...he's everything I have. I need him to stay. I need him to... I just need him. He's mine and I'm his and I need him." Dean takes a breath, strangled and hurtful. "Please, Sam. I wasn't kidding when I said I can't do this without you. That I don't want to. I went to Hell, Sam. I'll come to Heaven too, if I have to. I can't..." His body bends then, curling in on itself, fingers digging into the dirt until he thinks the bones might break. "Wherever you are, I'll come. I'll find you. So make it easy on your big brother. Just don't go. Stay here, okay? Just...stay. I'm begging you."
"Dean," Sam says and there's a hand on his shoulder, and then two. "Dean."
WUXING (FIVE GOINGS)
Begin at the beginning.
This is a beginning.
-end-
Remix Author: poisontaster
Original Story: Elementum Res. Progressus
Original Author: maygra
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Warnings: Language, sex, m/m incest, violence, torture, mentions of rape.
AN: Whereas Western thought developed the idea of elements as substances, and Indian thought as emanations, Chinese philosophy conceived of the five elements, or Wu Xing, as dynamic states of change.
WATER GENERATES WOOD
It's dark here.
It's always dark here. Sam doesn't know how long he's been in this darkness; no way to tell without sun or watch to mark the passage of time. It feels like it's been forever, but it may have only been a day, a moment. It could be that there is no time at all and (if) when Dean comes for him, he may emerge into his remembered sunlight and find a hundred years has gone by and all the things he knew are gone.
Because Dean is coming. Dean will come for him.
Dean always does.
An arm-a hand-both whiter than ivory, than alabaster, snakes around him to stroke cold down his naked chest. Long, vile black nails, almost sharp enough to cut and bleed him, toy with his skin. He shudders and retreats from the surface of his body since he can't evade her, trapped between her body and the balcony wall.
"Why will you not eat, Samuel?" she asks in a voice like poisoned honey.
The first time she took him to her bed, he threw himself off this same balcony. Not out of horror, really, but more out of a sense of hopelessness, afraid that if Dean comes-and he will-Sam will only be betraying him to the same fate or near enough as to make no difference.
"Because I'm not hungry," he lies and his stomach grumbles, showing it for the lie it is. But he will not eat her food. He will not drink her water or wine, though he feels like he could crumble into salt with thirst. Dean may laugh at him for being the research geek, but he knows his myths and legends-better now since the Wild Hunt tried to take Dean from him.
"And if I ask you why you do not drink, I suppose you will tell me you're not thirsty either?" One fingernail circles his navel, fascinating to her as she has none of her own. The things that live in her hair rustle and shift.
He didn't die of the fall, of course. He doesn't know if it's even possible to die here. He suspects not; nothing he's tried has worked. He remembers the endless span of time where she let him sweat and whimper his pain, all of his bones broken, while she sat and giggled, bathing in it like Jess would once bask in the sun.
"That's right," he says blandly. He'd like to be different about it, more defiant, more like Dean. He was in the beginning, when this was new-how long? How long ago was it? How long has it been?-angrier, disobedient, but now the memories of past agonies churn in the acid of his stomach and all he can manage is this passive noncompliance.
"Look at me, Samuel."
In this, she can compel him. He turns, fighting it the whole way. Doing what they do, with the injuries they've suffered over the years, Sam used to think he had some small understanding of pain but he doesn't understand pain like this, pain as an art form, drawn out and calculated, exquisite and studied.
To his eyes she is beautiful enough to take his breath away. An icy and aloof perfection, but perfection nonetheless, rendered in almost pure shades of black (eyes, hair, what wisps of clothing she bothers with) and white, except for the blood darkness of her lips and the half-colors of her jewels. In the darkness between blinks, however, or when he dares close his eyes, he sees her how he thinks she must really be--squat, enormous and terrible with too many teeth and limbs and flat, withered dugs that leak and stain her stretched belly.
When she rapes him, it's with his eyes wide open, because the illusion is better.
"He's not coming."
He is. He will. Dean will come.
"You're alone here. Friendless."
Not for long. Not forever.
"Except for me."
Fuck you. Fuck you, you demon whore.
"And you are so very...unkind to me." She pouts, looking eerily like a negative of Jess, then tosses her hair back over her white shoulders. The creatures in her hair gibber and squeak and the strands shift and move long after she is still. "Am I not sweet?"
"My brother will come for me," Sam says steadily, though inside, steady is the furthest from how he feels.
She presses closer, driving him back so he is against the stone, balcony railing digging into his kidney and his shoulders leaning out over the drop. The air is very cold against his naked shoulder blades and he is conscious of the space between them, where a knife or arrow could easily go. "You mean your lover, do you not?" she asks, dragging dry lips up his skin from ribs to neck while he shudders in horror at her touch. Her tongue licks into the hollow of his neck. "Filthy boy. Is he so much better than I, then?" Her fingers work the pins that hold his loincloth onto his hips and the fabric whispers down around his feet. Sam's belly sucks in, trying to meet his spine and he wishes he could do the same with his cock as she fondles him slowly with cold, strong fingers. Eyes darker than his worst sins smile into his, delighted by his horror, his revulsion, by the way his body stirs and rises even though he wills it not to.
Shuddering, afraid, he can't help it when the word tears out of him: "Don't."
Her smile widens. She nips his jaw with teeth too sharp to be human. He doesn't bleed. He never bleeds, no matter what she does to him. "I could look like him, if you prefer."
Her face, her body, blurs and thickens and then, as if he's blinked-which he knows he hasn't, though his eyes are aching with the need to do so-a familiar face is smirking up into his, crooked nosed, freckled and impish.
"Don't," he says again and he knows he's playing her game, satiating her with his terror, but the thought of Dean, of Dean doing the things to him that she does, unnerves and unmans him to a point that he doesn't care. He doesn't care if he begs. "Please. Please, don't."
Her smile-and it is hers, making a travesty of Dean's face-gets wider still and she bends to lick and kiss over his skin, sliding down until he/she/it is on her knees, one hand lightly encircling his cock and her eyes shining happily up at him.
Sam's fingers dig into the stone behind him until he feels some of the nails bend and shatter; his teeth bite down on both his tongue and his scream as she takes him into the strangely-cold wetness of her mouth. Her compulsion is still on him and he can't look away.
Suddenly, light blooms on his right, orange and sun-bright, unfurling like a tiger-lily and it's followed by the violent concussion of things blowing up and falling apart. The balcony-the whole palace-shakes and he and the Demon Queen are flung sideways.
"Dean," he whispers.
The Queen hisses and when he looks at her, she is again in her female seeming, kneeling, in contrast to his sprawl. "No," she grits through clenched teeth and tight lips. A second explosion answers her and Sam hears something-many somethings-screaming.
Sam doesn't even think about it, he pushes to his feet and runs.
The she-demon screams behind him, drowned quickly in the thunder of more explosions, a whole chain of them like a string of firecrackers. The hallway trembles around him and dust and other, viler things cascade over him. He shakes the worst of it away and keeps running, knowing he's fucked if the Queen catches him. She shrieks again and then he can hear her behind him, enormous and thudding, gaining speed like a juggernaut.
Sam races down the hallway fast as he's ever done anything in his life, his bare feet slipping on the slick stone. At the end of the hall is a doorway out to the open air and he comes out to the head of a stair, the stone pushing the breath out of his belly as he crashes into it. Stairs in either direction; he chooses right arbitrarily trying hard not to outrace his precarious balance as he leaps down three and four at a time. Something fast and flying snatches viciously at his hair; he bats it away, unseeing. "Dean?" he shouts. "Dean?" Please God, let it be Dean.
The courtyard is full of monsters, all of them running, both with and without purpose. From above him, Sam hears the Queen shriek yet again and his heart hammers in his chest.
"Sam? Sam?"
And that voice. God in Heaven and the whole choir of angels, that voice, calling him, screaming his name, searching for him.
Thank God. Thank you. "Here!" Sam yells, his voice breaking. "Dean! I'm here!"
Another detonation, this one close; over his head the stone rockets outward like cannonballs and flaming debris rains down on him, searing his naked skin. Sam ducks and weaves the best he can, half-blinded by smoke and his ears ringing. He keeps screaming, though, "Here! I'm here! Dean!"
Until Dean is suddenly grabbing him by the bicep and swinging him in a tight circle, into an even tighter embrace. Sam's arms go around his brother so tightly Dean grunts and they jerk in tandem with the recoil as Dean fires his shotgun past Sam to take out something behind him that Sam can't see with his face buried in Dean's hair.
That's about all they have time for, though, as Dean pulls back and looks carefully into Sam's eyes. "You all right?" Dean asks gruffly and presses a .38 into Sam's hand.
Sam nods and wipes his face with his elbow. "Just smoke," he says. There's a demon behind Dean on his left, Sam raises the .38 and is deeply satisfied when its head disappears in a spray of ichor and charcoal smoke.
"Did you eat anything? Drink anything."
Sam shakes his head.
"That's my boy." Dean ruffles his hair briefly. "Gotta go," Dean says, shrugging out of his jacket and throwing it around Sam's shoulders. "Before our back up backs out on us." As Sam shrugs into the coat, and though Dean's not looking at him, Dean's hands linger, touching Sam's face, Sam's hair, fingering across his neck until he finds Sam's carotid and then letting his finger ride the pulse. He turns for a second and his fingers curve around Sam's neck, warm and real. "I'll get you out of here," he says and there's no doubt in his voice. "Okay?"
"Yeah," Sam says. He's shaking and his legs feel weak, but there's no way Dean can carry him out of here and that means he's got to stay on his feet. He can do this. He's getting out of here. Dean said so.
"C'mon, Sammy," Dean says. He turns and blows another demon to hell...or wherever they go when they die here, die for real. "You and me."
Sam buttons up Dean's coat-familiar and with the scent and heat of Dean's body-over his nakedness and nods.
Dean leads him through the crumbling palace and Sam worries about the Demon Queen in between bullets and absurd, tearful joy every time Dean bumps his shoulder or thigh with his own or guides him past some piece of rubble or flaming death, hand on Sam's shoulder, the small of his back, his arm.
At what's left of the palace gates, two other men meet them, both thin and sort of seedy looking. The blond has a British accent and the dark one looks vaguely Asian. Dean introduces them both as John and they both sneer at each other. "Don't ask," Dean mouths with a shake of his head. Sam leans against a pillar, shakier than ever and trembling, his feet cut up to hamburger by their flight and yet not bleeding. Dean is yelling at the two Johns, something about gates and runes.
Sam feels himself fading out, really close to just pitching head first and fainting. However long he's been here, the lack of food and water have left him weak and his whole body hurts, fuchsia with cold. Dean and the Johns seem very far away and Sam can't scrape his voice out of his chest to say anything, warn them. He wavers, cold and sweating, supporting palm sliding on the slick stone and then suddenly Her hand is around his throat, choking off the last of his breath. It doesn't feel even remotely human and he's glad he can't see the rest of her. The chittering in her hair seems angry and sullen.
"You have not been a very good guest, Samuel." Her voice is the same, smooth and quietly dulcet, right against his ear as he flails weakly for air. "Is this how you repay my hospitality?"
"Yo. Bitch."
Sam struggles to turn his head sideways at the sound of Dean's voice. He can sort of see Dean, holding...not a gun but something small that twinkles silvery on a shining chain. Whatever it is, it makes the Queen's claw tighten around his neck and she howls, a horrible, echoing ululation that rips into him and turns him deaf to all other sounds.
And then she is dissolving, turning to gritty, foul smoke that rushes past him, towards Dean. The moment her grip on him is gone, Sam collapses, too weak to even put out a hand to catch himself.
Dean is with him again suddenly and he thinks maybe he blacked out for a moment. Dean pulls him up, rubbing his face carefully with the sleeve of his flannel and looking worriedly into Sam's eyes. "Just a little further, Sammy, I promise. You still with me?"
Sam nods, though he doesn't know if he can really make it even 'a little further'. "How...?" He doesn't have the strength or breath to finish the question, even if he knew how.
Dean holds up his hand. The chain is wrapped around his fingers and dangling from it is what looks like a fancy perfume bottle of pink glass or really thin shell, banded in metals of different colors in some pattern. Inside, something rattles and behind it, he thinks he can hear the Queen's shrieks of rage and outrage like distant squeaking. "Spirit trap," Dean says briefly. "Only works against demons of this realm." He twists and looks over his shoulder. "John!"
The faux-Asian John looks up and Dean tosses the bottle to him. John fields it one handed and Blond John mutters something about American show-offs. Dean turns back to Sam, gentle as he gathers Sam up and close. "We're almost out of here," Dean murmurs, combing his fingers through Sam's tangled hair. "Almost out."
Sam nods tiredly. Though he can't wait to be rid of this demon-haunted wasteland and see the sun and breathe real air again, a part of him thinks he could be content to stay like this, his head bowed to Dean's shoulder and his lanky body compacted up so Dean's arms can fit around as much of him as possible.
You came. I knew you would. I knew you'd come.
"Dean!" British John yells and Dean bunches and heaves, tugging Sam with him. The other John grabs Sam by his arm and Sam flinches and half-screams, suddenly flooded with choking panic. He tries to burrow into Dean's side, Dean's arm snaking around him to steady them both. John backs off fast and Dean says, unnecessarily, "I got him."
"Yeah," John says dryly, "He ain't heavy, he's your brother. Got it."
Sam recognizes-knows-he's being crazy but the thought of anyone but Dean touching him... He can't. He can't.
"Okay," Dean says. "It's okay, Sam. I'm right here. We're gonna do this old school, okay? I'm going to give you a piggy back ride."
"'Kay," Sam manages from his dry throat.
"You're going to have to hold your breath when we go through," Dean tells him, still in that same calm, patient voice. Sam sort of wants to snap at him, tell Dean he's not a fucking baby, but it is soothing at the same time and he doesn't want Dean to stop talking to him so he shuts up and lets himself be manhandled onto Dean's bent back. Dean grunts. "Jesus, Sammy, you're going on a fucking diet when we get back, for serious."
Yes, Dean, okay. Whatever you want. Just get me out. Just...I want out.
"We're going to come out in water," Dean continues, oblivious, "so don't freak out, okay? I got you. I won't let anything happen to you."
"Okay," Sam says again and then they're following the Johns through the shattered gates that lead out into the wastelands beyond.
Except...
Except they never reach the other side of the gates. The minute Dean steps into/across the threshold, Sam feels something all across his skin like a clammy membrane of plastic, vaguely unpleasant and he can't see or hear a damn thing. He tries to tighten his arms and legs around Dean's solid, warm body but there's no sense of movement. And then, as Dean promised, they're suddenly in water.
Sam fights the reflexive urge to inhale, fights harder not to strangle and crush Dean as his brother tows him to the surface. He tries to help, doesn't know how good at it he is. He can feel the sun's rays even through the water, piercing his paled skin like spears and that's when it hits him that this is really real. That he is out and he is free and he is with Dean again. They break the surface and Sam shouts aloud. Because he can.
When they reach the shore, the Johns reach to haul them up, dripping, out onto the thick grass of the bank, and Sam is so exhausted and so stupidly overjoyed, he can't feel afraid of their hands on his skin. When the demon Queen took him, it was winter, cold and bitter, the grass brittle and crackling underfoot. She'd dragged him under the ice and he can't remember the last time he was really, truly warm. Now it's verdant and sweet with the wild promise of flower and summer. Sam curls into a small ball overwhelmed with the need to cry, long choking sobs of exhaustion and relief and gratitude and fear. He presses his face into the warmed soil and shudders, only bare inches from doing just that. He wouldn't even care if Dean teased him.
After a moment, Dean comes and wraps himself around Sam, one arm pulling Sam tight against him and his face pressed into the sopping tangles at the nape of Sam's neck. Sam makes a noise, soft and inarticulate. "We're done here," Dean says to the Johns, sort of, almost, not-quite rocking Sam-slightly enough that either one of them can deny it, anyway. "Blow."
"We're even, Winchester," Dark John says, his voice pinched and oddly angry.
Dean hesitates and Sam thinks about how much Dean hates to give up leverage, even the slightest bit. Then his arm tightens around Sam again, almost painful and he says, "Yeah. We're even, Constantine. Both of you."
Sam listens to the swish of the Johns' feet through the grass, the mutter of some quiet-voiced argument that sounds old and familiar to them both. When they're gone, Dean says quietly, "I have clean clothes in the car."
Sam nods, that thick sense of too much still pressing his vocal cords flat.
Dean is silent then and they lay there, the daylight beating down so strongly that he sees orange across his closed eyelids. It feels almost like food, seeping through his skin. After a while, Sam feels strong enough, steady enough to turn over slowly, so he's facing his brother. Their legs tangle and they work and shift and sidle to be as close as humanly possible, touch as much as they can.
Finally, with Sam's face buried in his neck and his hand curved around Sam's nape, Dean ventures, "You can cry if you want to, Sammy."
And if that's all he was waiting for, Sam feels his chest rip and tear under the force of his first sob. Not because he's sad. Because he's happy; so happy it feels like he's deranged with it. Because he's here and Dean's here, alive and free. He held on and his faith was rewarded.
"It's okay," Dean whispers, and it is. It really really is.
WOOD GENERATES FIRE
Sleeping with Sam isn't an easy proposition at the best of times. First of all? He's enormous. Have you seen the kid? Second of all, all that room that he's trying not to take up when he's awake? Yeah, no such problems when he's out of it. Sam sprawls. And going back to that whole enormous thing, when he sprawls, there's not a whole lot of room left for anyone else, especially another someone who's not so small himself.
The compromise is that Sam does a lot of his sprawling over Dean, but that's a lot of nights of waking up with your kid brother slowly choking you to death with his arm across your windpipe, or damn near losing a kidney-or a ball-to his knifelike and bony knee. Let's not even get into his cold ass feet. And he won't sleep in socks, oh no. "I like you better," he'll say in that sleepy, dazed voice, eyes only half-lidded and that goofy smile on his lips.
Then there's the noises. Bad enough when Dean's balls deep and Sam's moaning and hollering loud enough to get them arrested (though it is kinda hot, that he can get Sam all riled up like that). But he talks in his sleep, muttering nonsense that he seems to wait until his lips are pressed right up against your ear to tell you. He makes little sounds, whimpering, like someone's hurting him-or fucking him, because those noises are actually a lot alike-and sometimes Sam wakes up and is all over him... Getting off topic, here.
The point is, sleeping with Sam takes some adjustment. Hell, sleeping with anyone does, because it's been years since he's even done that and Sam was a lot smaller then. And then came the visions, which are inconvenient and worrisome, but rare enough that Dean did his grumbling, held Sam a little closer while Sam did his freaking out and then either got up and started packing or went back to sleep. The point is that it's manageable.
But ever since he took Sam back from that evil, shitsucking demon bitch that stole him, Sam's been a mess. Half the time Sam's afraid to close his eyes, staying up for days at a time, and when he finally does pass out because he's too exhausted to do anything else, he thrashes and flails through bad dreams that have Dean waking him up after a couple hours anyway because anything has to be better than whatever's making him make those hurt noises that sound nothing like sex noises and those agonized pleas of, "Don't. Please. Please, don't."
He feels angry, which is an emotion he's always been able to work with, but he also feels helpless and he's never done helpless well. And now this.
Sam opens his eyes. "East. Still east," he says, the first words from his mouth. Then he blinks and his eyes seem to focus. "Did you sleep at all?"
"Some," Dean lies, because Sam doesn't need to know and doesn't need to feel shitty about how many hours Dean's watching over him while Sam catches what sleep he can. Sam snorts, though, and Dean knows Sam doesn't believe him. "You got any better idea what we're looking for?"
When in doubt, change the subject. It's a philosophy.
Sam shakes his head and looks down, lids and eyelashes hiding his eyes. "No. Just...just that same feeling of pull." Sam touches his navel lightly. "Right here."
"You know I don't like this, right?"
Sam nods, his eyes still averted. "I know. But...I really don't think it's bad."
It's Dean's turn to snort. "That would be a switch."
"It feels different, Dean. It feels...I don't know." Sam's hand moves from his belly to Dean's, stroking his thumb over Dean's navel a lot like he was just touching his own. The skin there ripples and Dean shivers because Sam's really weird about sex right now too and Dean's horny as all fuck. Dean doesn't know what the demon did to Sam, because Sam just out and out refuses to talk about it-and wasn't that a switch too?-but he can guess some of it, just from Sam's new fucked up reactions. He's trying to be a good brother-a good man-about it, but he also misses fucking something other than his good right hand. And that just makes him angrier and more frustrated. He doesn't know what John's going to do with that little bottle of demon but Dean hopes he makes that bitch suffer a long fucking time and twice on Sunday.
"Well, we're going, right?" Dean says and Sam nods a second time.
"Yeah." Then Sam's fingers are straying lower, into the thickness of Dean's pubic hair and Dean's belly sucks in, his breath coming fast and shallow. Sam looks up, through those long, girly lashes. "Dean...can we...?"
Dean inhales sharply and sort of like a gasp when Sam grasps his cock. Sam's touch is light and sort of tentative, but even so, Dean can feel every drop of blood in his body rushing there. "Uh...yeah, Sam. Yeah. We can do whatever you want."
Sam shifts so he can bring his other arm up, rub his thumb hard over Dean's bottom lip. Calluses catch on dry skin. "I want to fuck you," he says. He sounds like he expects Dean to argue about it but Dean just reaches behind and off the side of the bed to fish the tube of lube out of their bag and hands it to Sam. They've never done that before but that doesn't really matter.
"Yeah, Sam," Dean says again. "Whatever you want."
Sam's a little rough with him, a little clumsy and it hurts some at first. Dean fists his hands in the sheet, curls up his toes and wonders what the fuck all the fuss is about. But then Sam plants a hand on Dean's pelvis and pulls him up and back and tilts his hips and angles across that spot and Dean thinks: oh.
And it's not great. But Dean can see how it could be great, sees how this is something he wouldn't mind doing again when Sam's a little more outside his own head. Sam's hips piston against him and Dean thinks he's going to have Sam's pelvic bones reprinted in bruises across his ass. Dean braces one arm against the headboard and strokes himself in counterpoint to the burn-thrust of Sam inside him, looping signal waves of pleasure-pressure that have him coming long before Sam's done. Sam guides him down to the mattress and Dean lies boneless and sated and open while Sam fucks himself in Dean to his own orgasm. After, he lays sprawled on Dean, still mostly inside, and falls asleep kissing apologies into Dean's sweating skin. It's not the most comfortable Dean's ever been in his life, for sure, but Sam seems to sleep without dreams and that's what counts.
Another week of this-Sam's dream-visions, nightmares and hard and heavy fucking with Dean on the bottom-finds them somewhere in Missouri, digging in a field that's no more distinguishable from any other field Dean's ever seen.
"Are you sure this is it?" Dean asks after several hours of hard digging. He shoots the spade into the damp-thick dirt and wipes his forehead with the back of his arm, doubtless just spreading the dirt around some.
Sam nods. He's become more and more nonverbal the closer they've gotten and Dean's tried to take that in stride too, because he knows Sam is messed up and if he can't do a damn thing to fix it, maybe Sam will figure out how to fix himself.
Dean sighs and picks up the spade again, breaking the dirt for Sam to shovel away. After a couple more minutes, he scrapes across something that sounds like wood. He and Sam both drop to their knees and start sweeping through the softened soil until they uncover wooden, half-rotted box just about as long as Sam is tall.
Inside, nestled in a swaddle of what looks like velvet is a sword, what Dean would call a herkin' big-ass sword and Sam would probably primly call a broadsword if he were talking. The hilt is damn near as long as Dean's forearm, smooth, sinuous silver unbroken by any sort of ornamentation. The blade is similarly plain, double-edged and unrusted, looking wicked as hell. Dean doesn't like it.
"This?" he asks. "This hunk of junk is what we came all this way for? I hate to break it to you, Sammy, but neither one of us is named Ghost Dog and we're not down for the Way of the samurai."
"This isn't a samurai sword," Sam says absently, chewing on the pad of his thumb.
Dean rolls his eyes. "Missing the point here, Sam. What are we supposed to do with this?"
"I don't know."
Sam reaches for it and all the bad feeling that's been grumbling in the back of Dean's mind suddenly comes surging up like he's going to puke. He says, "Sam, don't!" and tries to knock Sam's hand away, but he's not fast enough.
Sam's fingers close around the hilt and he starts to lift the sword out but it's too heavy to do one-handed so it just kind of tips up slightly. There's no bolt of lightning or anything and Dean starts to feel a little stupid about it when Sam says unsteadily, "Um...Dean?"
Light explodes from the sword in a soundless detonation, blinding Dean and flinging him back like a giant hand planted in his chest and pushed. For a minute, Dean can only lie stunned and breathless, blinking stupidly up into a cloudless blue sky. Then he thinks Sam, and it's enough to get him moving again, rolling over on his side and then his hands and knees. He wonders how you kill a sword. He wonders how close the nearest forge is. "Sam?"
He sounds wheezy and weak and he clears his throat to try again when a voice says, "No forge of man would do you any good, Dean Winchester. Else there would be no need to hide this blade away. No fires here are strong enough to unmake the metals of Heaven."
"Heaven?" Dean squints sunblind through the bleached out brightness, glad that his mouth hasn't ever really needed the blessing of his brain to keep working. "Think highly of yourself for a RenFaire prop." He thinks he can see Sam like a spot of shadow and he gathers his limbs for a tackle.
"Your fears are unfounded," the voice says again. "Your brother is unharmed."
"Who said I was afraid?" Deans says, even as the supernova of light dims suddenly, leaving the day dim and strangely dull in comparison. Dean blinks afterimages from his watering eyes and sees Sam.
Sam's pose is vaguely like that of a crucifixion, arms out to the side and his feet only barely on the ground, more than two inches of open space between his heels and the mixed grass and dirt of the field. His back is arched and his face is turned up to the sky. Muted light pours from his eyes and Dean thinks, absurdly, of Cyclops from the X-men. There's more light behind Sam, rippling and somehow thick, and it takes Dean a moment to realize its wings, gigantic and shifting in ways he doesn't entirely understand, sometimes translucently visible and other times just a heat shimmer.
"Sam!" He tries to push himself up to his feet but finds himself stuck in his kneeling pose. He can't feel any kind of force holding him in place; it's just like the ability to move is just not there, his brain untethered and unable to command his flesh. "Sam!"
"Your brother is well. Be calm," the voice says and Dean watches his brother's lips move and realizes the voice is coming from Sam, not the sword. "This is a great honor and bestowed to very few."
"Yeah, well neither one of us asked for this so-called honor, so why don't you let us go, we'll rebury you for the next set of suckers and we can all go our separate ways, huh?" Dean hates that his voice is shaking, but his vocal cords seem to be the only part of him that will move.
"You are wrong, Dean Winchester. Your brother did ask for this, else he would not have been called."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"The sword only calls those that can hear its song; if your brother followed its melody here, then it is because a part of him wants the absolution the sword can offer."
"A part of me wants to be a millionaire who hangs around the Playboy Mansion, but I'm still here, right?" Dean says, grunting as he struggles to break whatever it is that holds him like this. "You can't listen to Sam; kid doesn't know what the fuck he wants."
Sam's head tips down and Dean sees his face full on. Sam's eyes are completely obscured by the light that pours from the sockets, as if his body is only the shell for a small sun. "So much pain," the voice says through Sam's mouth and he wants to rip whatever it is out of Sam by the short and curlies, make it stop using Sam, stop talking through him like Sam's not even in there anymore. "So much pain and sorrow for such a young thing."
"Sammy," he says, ignoring the thing inside Sam to speak directly to his brother. "Sammy. You can't..." His voice breaks; he gathers up the pieces and forges on, damned if he's going to let this Heavenly cocksucker have his brother without a fight. "You can't go, Sam. You can't just...give up like this."
"Why?" It-because he won't, can't think of it as Sam-asks. It sounds genuinely curious. "Why should he stay as he is, fragile and friable and so terribly afraid? There is great power in him, great goodness he can bring into the world as the sword's avatar. He can make your world better. Is that not what you fight for?" Its wings shift and spread, flicking brightness into his eyes like tiny daggers, but Dean refuses to look away, afraid if he does, Sam will truly be gone forever.
"Not like that," Dean says, willing his voice to reach Sam, who is-must be-trapped in his own body. "We fight as humans. It's our flesh and blood. Not...not mystical bullshit. We don't take the easy way out. We don't...it wouldn't count if it was easy. We pay. Someone always has to pay. But not...not with our humanity. You don't just give that up. You don't just give that away."
Dean doesn't even know if he's making any sense, doesn't really care if it keeps Sam here for even a few seconds longer. "Please Sam. Please don't go. Don't let...don't let it turn you into this. You can fight it. I know you can. You're a Winchester, right? We've faced down worse than this. Don't go. You don't have to go."
"Why?" And this time, Dean imagines he can hear the tinge of Sam's voice half-buried in the voice of the Other. It blinks and for a moment, Dean thinks he can see familiar hazel-green. Just for a moment. "Why should he stay? What is there here for him, this world that has caused him so much pain? What has this world to offer him but more of the same? What here is worth refusing the gift he's being offered?"
"Me." Dean's chest feels too tight and his skin too small, feeling Sam slip away from him, seeing himself and the long empty years ahead of him without Sam in them. "I'm here. I need him. I...he's everything I have. I need him to stay. I need him to... I just need him. He's mine and I'm his and I need him." Dean takes a breath, strangled and hurtful. "Please, Sam. I wasn't kidding when I said I can't do this without you. That I don't want to. I went to Hell, Sam. I'll come to Heaven too, if I have to. I can't..." His body bends then, curling in on itself, fingers digging into the dirt until he thinks the bones might break. "Wherever you are, I'll come. I'll find you. So make it easy on your big brother. Just don't go. Stay here, okay? Just...stay. I'm begging you."
"Dean," Sam says and there's a hand on his shoulder, and then two. "Dean."
WUXING (FIVE GOINGS)
Begin at the beginning.
This is a beginning.
-end-