Fic: Repo Men: The Upside-Down Apocalypse 2/?
This fic is the flashback/followup/presickle/longfic spawn of REPO MEN. READ REPO MEN HERE.
Repo Men: The Upside-Down Apocalypse
Author: tahirire
Rating: R
Wordcount: 2,996 (This chapter)
Beta: blacklid
Genre: Gen. Angst. H/C.
Spoilers: Goes a/u from 3.16, but there will be spoilers for all aired episodes.
Warnings: My generic major character death fic list. This fic contains dark imagery, excessive gore, language, violence, torture, memories of torture, and gleeful pretzelfication of canon, WIP.
Chapter One: Hell
Chapter Two: The Book
Dean wakes up in a farmhouse that looks like it should have been condemned years ago on a trundle bed frame covered with sleeping bags. Vivid green ivy crawls in through the windows, and the sun shines brightly outside.
The last thing he remembers is the pull of the Void and the darkness of Hell, the screams of the damned and the cutting pride of Alastair’s cold smile. He sits up slowly, rolling his shoulders and swinging his feet to the floor.
Everything smells like mold and vegetation. Small currents of fresh air wend their way through gaps in the wall’s peeling wooden boards, bringing in the sweet scent of tall grasses and trees.
Nothing smells like blood or feels like danger. The only sound he hears is the chatter of a pair of squirrels outside, no doubt arguing over the rights to a stash of nuts.
Dean grips the metal edge of the bed frame to keep his hands from shaking.
He can’t be back. He can’t be.
A full length mirror stands on the room’s opposing wall, cracked neatly into two triangular shards. Dean rises to his feet and stands in front of it, not very shocked to see a total stranger standing in front of him, dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans.
Dean hasn’t seen his own reflection in over a lifetime.
The two halves of the mirror split him into starkly contrasting pieces. He feels his lips twist into a soft leer at the irony. If a mirror really does reflect the soul, then his is cursed.
On the right side of the mirror is Dean Winchester, a man he barely remembers; a man who sacrificed everything for his family and didn’t live to tell the tale. There are no marks, no scars, and no regrets in the face of that man. Dean tries him on like a warrior tests armor, trying to see if he would be a good fit.
He frowns. The pieces of Dean Winchester are too loose, awkward, as if he was stretched beyond recognition and tossed aside like hand-me-downs. The pieces no longer fit, but he can’t discard them entirely. He folds them away for later, when he can re-examine them more closely.
On the left side of the mirror is a denizen of Hell, branded soul-deep by a demon, with an angry red handprint and five perfect rugged claw-mark scars around the edges to prove it.
That man feels too tight, restricting, and there is a rolling darkness inside of him that makes Dean shudder with a loathing that goes deeper than the brand. The Disciple’s armor is smothering, suffocating; but there is power there as well, and security stemming from decades of familiarity and use.
“Welcome back.”
Instincts kick in, and Dean doesn’t have time to decide which of the two warrior’s instincts they are before he is already moving to defend himself.
A swift elbow strike to the mirror sends the piece on the right crashing to the floor, and Dean grabs a piece of his human half’s reflection and brandishes it at the monster daring to wear his brother’s face like so much second-hand Armani.
“Stay away from me,” he says. Dimly he registers that his voice is smooth and whole and speaking doesn’t hurt, even after so many years of silence and screams.
Sam’s outline hovers in the shadows of the door frame, taking up the majority of the space. He’s bigger than Dean remembers, and his voice is rougher, darker than before. He doesn’t move to enter the room, but he doesn’t back away from the threat either; instead he laughs, a short hollow sound.
“Dean, it’s me,” he says, voice lilting up on the last syllable like he’s expecting the statement to be more ironic than comforting.
Dean circles, angling for a better view. The voice coming from the darkened hallway is infuriatingly calm, and there are no familiar tones in it to help Dean tell if the words are lies. He retracts his previous warning.
“Step into the light.”
The figure complies, moving silently across the splintered boards. Sam’s face comes into view, and Dean feels himself lock up.
Sam’s hands and face are bright pink, scrubbed almost to the point of rawness, but the neckline of his t-shirt is a dark rust color, and smudges to match adorn the sides of his jeans where he must have wiped his hands. His eyes are dark and sunken in, and he swallows twice, like he can’t get any moisture into his throat. Sam’s shoulders slump a little at the edges but his back is straight, like he’s daring Dean to call him out.
“I know what you’re looking for, Dean. Go ahead and look.” Sam circles an index finger around his face. “I’m not a demon,” he adds, flashing a bitter, chilling smile.
Dean grips the shard of glass more tightly, and a small streak of red wells up from his palm. It starts to drip across his fingers, and Sam shifts in response.
“I said stay away,” Dean snaps, taking another step back.
Sam takes a step forward. “I know what you saw, Dean. Go ahead. Fucking kill me like you promised.” He spreads his arms wide in challenge. “Go ahead!”
A surge of recognition blows through the half of him that remembers, and his human side threatens to buckle under the strength of it. Dean clings to the Disciple’s armor, hiding in its solidity and strength. He shakes his head. Something isn’t right.
“No.”
Sam strikes then, and Dean Winchester readies a warning to stop, don’t come any closer, it’s not safe at the same time the Disciple readies himself to kill. Dean freezes, unable to choose one voice over the other.
Sam catches Dean’s outstretched wrist in a painful twisting motion and the glass falls, shattering like the final shards of ice from the Void across the weatherworn floor.
Dean stares at his brother. There is no second skin beneath Sam’s own, no reek of sulfur and ash, no burn to the touch of his hand. His aura is dark and tinged with blood, but inside …
The first piece of Dean Winchester falls into place, fitting like it was never removed.
“Sammy?”
The impassive iron curtains in Sam’s eyes flicker and weaken. He blinks, and suddenly he looks just like Dean remembered.
Relief creeps in at the edges of Sam’s face. His fingers loosen on Dean’s wrist.
“Welcome back.”
Dean searches back in time for his last earthly memory. He remembers Sam screaming and the taste of his own blood in his mouth as his chest was ripped to shreds. He remembers gurgling uselessly in protest at the glowing eyes of the hellhounds, and a bright flash of light.
He remembers, distantly, calling Sam’s name after he was dragged under, and then clinging to the hope that Sam was still alive, and then just remembering that there was someone that he used to call for, but not who that someone was, or why.
Dean shakes his head, but he doesn’t pull his hand away. Sam’s presence tugs at him like gravity, anchoring him as he tries to sort out which memories go where.
“They told me you were dead,” Dean remembers, “I thought … “
Then suddenly there is no more space, and Dean is in Sam’s arms, and Sam is hanging on to him tight enough to steal Dean’s air away.
Sam seems solid and alive in Dean’s arms, but Dean remembers how many times they showed Sam to him in Hell; how many times he fell for this only to end up watching Sam get ripped apart, powerless to stop it.
Sam’s grip is like iron and Dean wonders if Sam is thinking the same thoughts, sharing a similar fear - that Dean might vanish into thin air and leave him alone. Dean’s throat tightens and he blinks back a threatening wash of tears.
Sam pulls free abruptly, but he holds on to Dean’s shoulders with both hands, a small smile on his face as he nods his affirmation, seemingly satisfied that Dean is real. His fingertips tremble against Dean’s shirt, and his skin is dull and grey.
A fresh memory rushes to the forefront, and Dean remembers the blood-soaked grass, the bodies, and Sam’s shattered laughter. He feels power in the air, and a thickened cloak of magic cast by invisible sigils and wards that only a Disciple could sense.
Dean releases Sam and pushes him away, his building despair turning into an empty laugh.
“Sammy, damn it. What did you do?”
Sam almost seems to crumble at the question. The fleeting joy fades from his eyes and he looks tired, old beyond his years. He drops down onto the trundle bed and places his head in his hands. Dean catches a glimpse of thin white scars running longways up both of Sam’s arms.
Dean’s heart picks up speed, and the thump of his pulse seems loud in the still, warded space.
“Sam.” His voice seems stretched thin, shaky. “What did you do?”
Sam reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the book Dean had seen in his brother’s bloodstained hands.
Sam holds the book out, and Dean takes it warily. The red leather binding is clean and soft. On the cover is a blackened seal; a dragon and a snake locked into a circle, each one trying to eat the other. He tries to place where he’s seen it before, back when he was alive, but his growing unease is making the memory slippery.
Sam is watching him closely now. Worry and doubt are evident all over his face, and tension radiates from the rest of him as he grips the metal frame of the bed like he’s trying to keep his hands from shaking.
“You don’t remember?” Sam asks, his voice thickening with pain.
I can read the formula for you. Immortality … forever young, never die …
Dean’s mouth goes dry. “You… No. Tell me you didn’t go to Benton.”
Sam flinches, but then his eyes go hard and he gives a sharp nod as if he’s been preparing this argument for months. He rubs his temples, distracted.
“I couldn’t leave you down there, Dean. I tried to, but … things have changed. You have no idea what was coming for you,” Sam says flatly. “Hate me all you want, but it was the only way.”
Dean’s nails etch deep ridges into the leather cover. He opens the book, turning the fragile pages roughly. In between the lines of ancient text, new ink markings on each page denote Sam’s precise handwriting.
I can’t do it. I would rather go to Hell.
Dean glances back at the remaining half of the mirror and sees his reflection, this time taking in his physical state. His body seems to be in perfect condition. Doc Benton’s withered, patchwork face smiles a rotten smile in his mind. Dean runs his fingers over the thin fabric of his T-shirt, noting a clear absence of any kind of claw marks or ridges.
Sam follows Dean’s gaze and answers his unspoken question in the same quiet tone he uses to convey bad news to victims, sincerity mixed with apologetic frankness.
“It’s mostly yours. I only had to reconstruct the inside.”
Dean looks at Sam’s reflection, crouching behind him like a shadow. He seems diminished and yet still somehow twice the hunter Dean remembers. There is a kind of hardness to Sam’s bearing that has nothing to do with scars. It’s the look of a man who has grown accustomed to being a killer.
Dean knows it because he feels it in himself.
Dean’s mind shies away from recalling his time spent on the rack and focuses instead on the important fact at hand: that it takes years of a special kind of torture to get a Winchester to turn into that kind of machine. He studies his brother, trying to see the full extent of the toll that his time away has taken on Sam.
Sam, the one he was trying to save.
Sam, who had walked into Hell wielding white fire and a power like Dean had never seen.
“You were actually there. You pulled me out.” Dean tries the phrase out, testing it for implausibility.
Sam’s reflection folds its long fingers together and presses its clasped hands to its lips. Sam’s eyes break away, and he closes them. “Yeah.”
“How long was I gone?”
Sam sniffs, tilting his head up towards the ceiling and pinching his nose.
“Just over a year,” comes the muffled reply. “I’m sorry, man. It never should have taken me this long.”
Dean blinks. There is no way this is Doc Benton’s method, not after a year, not in Dean’s own body.
“Over a year? How did you -what’s wrong with you?”
Sam takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. His eyes open again and he simply looks at Dean, waiting for him to solve the puzzle on his own. He looks exhausted, like he’s working off a serious bender.
Or a bitch of a migraine.
I’m telling you, you can save your brother. And I can show you how.
Dean had shoved the mental picture of the night before out of his mind, but now it came rushing back.
Sam covered in blood and surrounded by corpses. Sam with thick liquid dripping from his lips, his chin, his fingertips. Sam with black eyes and broken, wild laughter.
Something in Dean’s stomach lurches violently and he throws the book, letting it fall loudly to the floor.
That’s all this is, man - Ruby’s just jerking your chain down the road. You know what it’s paved with and you know where it’s going.
“Dean?”
Dean’s chest aches and he feels too constricted, too walled-in. He needs air, he needs to get away, go somewhere, anywhere.
The tightness triggers his gag reflex and he gasps, holding his gut and heading for the door.
Sam is on his feet instantly, and he crosses the space between them, reaching for Dean’s elbow to steady him, but Dean pulls away.
“No,” he snaps. “Get away from me.”
Sam flinches again, but he drops his hand and holds himself very still, pleading with just his eyes. “Dean, please, just let me expl-“
“There’s nothing to explain. You promised me, Sam. You promised.”
All of the remaining color drains out of Sam’s face, but he sets his jaw and glares at Dean, defiant.
“Yeah, I did! I promised to keep fighting, and this was how. And I was wrong, alright? I was wrong, and I …”
Sam staggers, reaching for the wall to steady himself. He runs his right sleeve under his nose and the light plaid pattern comes away bloody. Sam stares at the bright red stain with obvious frustration.
“Shit,” he mumbles, slumping against the wall and starting a slow slide to the floor.
“Sam?” Dean fumbles to climb over his anger and fear and get to his brother.
Dean crouches in front of Sam just in time to see Sam’s head loll off to one side. More memories rush through the open gate and Dean sees Sam limp in his arms, feels the cold mud soak through the knees of his jeans as he kneels in the rain, screaming threats into the impassive night sky.
“Sammy?”
Dean shakes him roughly, jostling his head against the wall with a loud thump. Sam’s eyes flutter open, and he chuckles at the look on Dean’s face. Dean wants to punch him for it until Sam slurs, “S’okay, Dean. Let me die, doesn’t matter. Told him, you know. Told him I’d kill myself first. Never took. Pointless.”
Dean doesn’t understand but he grunts, “Don’t say that,” as he pulls Sam bodily from the floor because he can’t think of a situation where Sam saying that kind of thing would ever be alright. He manhandles Sam over and flops him down into the sleeping bags.
With Sam half conscious, the shaking he was trying to hide is more evident, and when Dean brushes his hair back to dab the blood off of his face, Sam’s skin is burning up.
Sam turns his face into the pillow. “Thirsty,” he groans, and Sam pours so much disgust into the word that Dean doesn’t know what to say.
“I’ll get you some water.”
Dean moves to leave, but Sam’s hand clamps down around his wrist. “No. Leave it.” Dean sees the scars again, this time with new insight.
Told him I’d kill myself first. Never took.
“Sam?” Dean shakes his wrist, jiggling Sam’s arm. “Sam.”
“Mmmhm?”
“Who did you tell? Who made you …“ The room spins a little. “… Why did you…”
No. He wouldn’t. Not Sam.
“Where did you get these?” Dean runs his thumb over one angry white line.
Sam pulls his arm free and burrows deeper into the pile of sleeping bags, slipping away. He whispers something Dean can’t make out.
Dean leans down and tilts his ear closer. “What?”
“Read the book,” Sam sighs, and then he’s gone.
Dean tucks the sleeping bag up firmly around his shivering brother and runs a hand through his hair. He tries to process Sam’s words, but they don’t add up.
Let me die, doesn’t matter.
Dean’s eyes fall on the book, lying open and face down on the floor. It’s thicker than he remembers, and he recalls seeing Sam’s notes inside. The thought of picking up that book fills him with revulsion, but he has to know what he’s dealing with.
He retrieves it and settles in against the wall by the bed, trying to focus on the words and listen to Sam breathe at the same time.
Soon he is lost in the pages, and Sam is just another player in the story he reads - a story about the end of the world.
Chapter three: Burn the Ships
Repo Men: The Upside-Down Apocalypse
Author: tahirire
Rating: R
Wordcount: 2,996 (This chapter)
Beta: blacklid
Genre: Gen. Angst. H/C.
Spoilers: Goes a/u from 3.16, but there will be spoilers for all aired episodes.
Warnings: My generic major character death fic list. This fic contains dark imagery, excessive gore, language, violence, torture, memories of torture, and gleeful pretzelfication of canon, WIP.
Chapter One: Hell
Chapter Two: The Book
Dean wakes up in a farmhouse that looks like it should have been condemned years ago on a trundle bed frame covered with sleeping bags. Vivid green ivy crawls in through the windows, and the sun shines brightly outside.
The last thing he remembers is the pull of the Void and the darkness of Hell, the screams of the damned and the cutting pride of Alastair’s cold smile. He sits up slowly, rolling his shoulders and swinging his feet to the floor.
Everything smells like mold and vegetation. Small currents of fresh air wend their way through gaps in the wall’s peeling wooden boards, bringing in the sweet scent of tall grasses and trees.
Nothing smells like blood or feels like danger. The only sound he hears is the chatter of a pair of squirrels outside, no doubt arguing over the rights to a stash of nuts.
Dean grips the metal edge of the bed frame to keep his hands from shaking.
He can’t be back. He can’t be.
A full length mirror stands on the room’s opposing wall, cracked neatly into two triangular shards. Dean rises to his feet and stands in front of it, not very shocked to see a total stranger standing in front of him, dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans.
Dean hasn’t seen his own reflection in over a lifetime.
The two halves of the mirror split him into starkly contrasting pieces. He feels his lips twist into a soft leer at the irony. If a mirror really does reflect the soul, then his is cursed.
On the right side of the mirror is Dean Winchester, a man he barely remembers; a man who sacrificed everything for his family and didn’t live to tell the tale. There are no marks, no scars, and no regrets in the face of that man. Dean tries him on like a warrior tests armor, trying to see if he would be a good fit.
He frowns. The pieces of Dean Winchester are too loose, awkward, as if he was stretched beyond recognition and tossed aside like hand-me-downs. The pieces no longer fit, but he can’t discard them entirely. He folds them away for later, when he can re-examine them more closely.
On the left side of the mirror is a denizen of Hell, branded soul-deep by a demon, with an angry red handprint and five perfect rugged claw-mark scars around the edges to prove it.
That man feels too tight, restricting, and there is a rolling darkness inside of him that makes Dean shudder with a loathing that goes deeper than the brand. The Disciple’s armor is smothering, suffocating; but there is power there as well, and security stemming from decades of familiarity and use.
“Welcome back.”
Instincts kick in, and Dean doesn’t have time to decide which of the two warrior’s instincts they are before he is already moving to defend himself.
A swift elbow strike to the mirror sends the piece on the right crashing to the floor, and Dean grabs a piece of his human half’s reflection and brandishes it at the monster daring to wear his brother’s face like so much second-hand Armani.
“Stay away from me,” he says. Dimly he registers that his voice is smooth and whole and speaking doesn’t hurt, even after so many years of silence and screams.
Sam’s outline hovers in the shadows of the door frame, taking up the majority of the space. He’s bigger than Dean remembers, and his voice is rougher, darker than before. He doesn’t move to enter the room, but he doesn’t back away from the threat either; instead he laughs, a short hollow sound.
“Dean, it’s me,” he says, voice lilting up on the last syllable like he’s expecting the statement to be more ironic than comforting.
Dean circles, angling for a better view. The voice coming from the darkened hallway is infuriatingly calm, and there are no familiar tones in it to help Dean tell if the words are lies. He retracts his previous warning.
“Step into the light.”
The figure complies, moving silently across the splintered boards. Sam’s face comes into view, and Dean feels himself lock up.
Sam’s hands and face are bright pink, scrubbed almost to the point of rawness, but the neckline of his t-shirt is a dark rust color, and smudges to match adorn the sides of his jeans where he must have wiped his hands. His eyes are dark and sunken in, and he swallows twice, like he can’t get any moisture into his throat. Sam’s shoulders slump a little at the edges but his back is straight, like he’s daring Dean to call him out.
“I know what you’re looking for, Dean. Go ahead and look.” Sam circles an index finger around his face. “I’m not a demon,” he adds, flashing a bitter, chilling smile.
Dean grips the shard of glass more tightly, and a small streak of red wells up from his palm. It starts to drip across his fingers, and Sam shifts in response.
“I said stay away,” Dean snaps, taking another step back.
Sam takes a step forward. “I know what you saw, Dean. Go ahead. Fucking kill me like you promised.” He spreads his arms wide in challenge. “Go ahead!”
A surge of recognition blows through the half of him that remembers, and his human side threatens to buckle under the strength of it. Dean clings to the Disciple’s armor, hiding in its solidity and strength. He shakes his head. Something isn’t right.
“No.”
Sam strikes then, and Dean Winchester readies a warning to stop, don’t come any closer, it’s not safe at the same time the Disciple readies himself to kill. Dean freezes, unable to choose one voice over the other.
Sam catches Dean’s outstretched wrist in a painful twisting motion and the glass falls, shattering like the final shards of ice from the Void across the weatherworn floor.
Dean stares at his brother. There is no second skin beneath Sam’s own, no reek of sulfur and ash, no burn to the touch of his hand. His aura is dark and tinged with blood, but inside …
The first piece of Dean Winchester falls into place, fitting like it was never removed.
“Sammy?”
The impassive iron curtains in Sam’s eyes flicker and weaken. He blinks, and suddenly he looks just like Dean remembered.
Relief creeps in at the edges of Sam’s face. His fingers loosen on Dean’s wrist.
“Welcome back.”
Dean searches back in time for his last earthly memory. He remembers Sam screaming and the taste of his own blood in his mouth as his chest was ripped to shreds. He remembers gurgling uselessly in protest at the glowing eyes of the hellhounds, and a bright flash of light.
He remembers, distantly, calling Sam’s name after he was dragged under, and then clinging to the hope that Sam was still alive, and then just remembering that there was someone that he used to call for, but not who that someone was, or why.
Dean shakes his head, but he doesn’t pull his hand away. Sam’s presence tugs at him like gravity, anchoring him as he tries to sort out which memories go where.
“They told me you were dead,” Dean remembers, “I thought … “
Then suddenly there is no more space, and Dean is in Sam’s arms, and Sam is hanging on to him tight enough to steal Dean’s air away.
Sam seems solid and alive in Dean’s arms, but Dean remembers how many times they showed Sam to him in Hell; how many times he fell for this only to end up watching Sam get ripped apart, powerless to stop it.
Sam’s grip is like iron and Dean wonders if Sam is thinking the same thoughts, sharing a similar fear - that Dean might vanish into thin air and leave him alone. Dean’s throat tightens and he blinks back a threatening wash of tears.
Sam pulls free abruptly, but he holds on to Dean’s shoulders with both hands, a small smile on his face as he nods his affirmation, seemingly satisfied that Dean is real. His fingertips tremble against Dean’s shirt, and his skin is dull and grey.
A fresh memory rushes to the forefront, and Dean remembers the blood-soaked grass, the bodies, and Sam’s shattered laughter. He feels power in the air, and a thickened cloak of magic cast by invisible sigils and wards that only a Disciple could sense.
Dean releases Sam and pushes him away, his building despair turning into an empty laugh.
“Sammy, damn it. What did you do?”
Sam almost seems to crumble at the question. The fleeting joy fades from his eyes and he looks tired, old beyond his years. He drops down onto the trundle bed and places his head in his hands. Dean catches a glimpse of thin white scars running longways up both of Sam’s arms.
Dean’s heart picks up speed, and the thump of his pulse seems loud in the still, warded space.
“Sam.” His voice seems stretched thin, shaky. “What did you do?”
Sam reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the book Dean had seen in his brother’s bloodstained hands.
Sam holds the book out, and Dean takes it warily. The red leather binding is clean and soft. On the cover is a blackened seal; a dragon and a snake locked into a circle, each one trying to eat the other. He tries to place where he’s seen it before, back when he was alive, but his growing unease is making the memory slippery.
Sam is watching him closely now. Worry and doubt are evident all over his face, and tension radiates from the rest of him as he grips the metal frame of the bed like he’s trying to keep his hands from shaking.
“You don’t remember?” Sam asks, his voice thickening with pain.
I can read the formula for you. Immortality … forever young, never die …
Dean’s mouth goes dry. “You… No. Tell me you didn’t go to Benton.”
Sam flinches, but then his eyes go hard and he gives a sharp nod as if he’s been preparing this argument for months. He rubs his temples, distracted.
“I couldn’t leave you down there, Dean. I tried to, but … things have changed. You have no idea what was coming for you,” Sam says flatly. “Hate me all you want, but it was the only way.”
Dean’s nails etch deep ridges into the leather cover. He opens the book, turning the fragile pages roughly. In between the lines of ancient text, new ink markings on each page denote Sam’s precise handwriting.
I can’t do it. I would rather go to Hell.
Dean glances back at the remaining half of the mirror and sees his reflection, this time taking in his physical state. His body seems to be in perfect condition. Doc Benton’s withered, patchwork face smiles a rotten smile in his mind. Dean runs his fingers over the thin fabric of his T-shirt, noting a clear absence of any kind of claw marks or ridges.
Sam follows Dean’s gaze and answers his unspoken question in the same quiet tone he uses to convey bad news to victims, sincerity mixed with apologetic frankness.
“It’s mostly yours. I only had to reconstruct the inside.”
Dean looks at Sam’s reflection, crouching behind him like a shadow. He seems diminished and yet still somehow twice the hunter Dean remembers. There is a kind of hardness to Sam’s bearing that has nothing to do with scars. It’s the look of a man who has grown accustomed to being a killer.
Dean knows it because he feels it in himself.
Dean’s mind shies away from recalling his time spent on the rack and focuses instead on the important fact at hand: that it takes years of a special kind of torture to get a Winchester to turn into that kind of machine. He studies his brother, trying to see the full extent of the toll that his time away has taken on Sam.
Sam, the one he was trying to save.
Sam, who had walked into Hell wielding white fire and a power like Dean had never seen.
“You were actually there. You pulled me out.” Dean tries the phrase out, testing it for implausibility.
Sam’s reflection folds its long fingers together and presses its clasped hands to its lips. Sam’s eyes break away, and he closes them. “Yeah.”
“How long was I gone?”
Sam sniffs, tilting his head up towards the ceiling and pinching his nose.
“Just over a year,” comes the muffled reply. “I’m sorry, man. It never should have taken me this long.”
Dean blinks. There is no way this is Doc Benton’s method, not after a year, not in Dean’s own body.
“Over a year? How did you -what’s wrong with you?”
Sam takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. His eyes open again and he simply looks at Dean, waiting for him to solve the puzzle on his own. He looks exhausted, like he’s working off a serious bender.
Or a bitch of a migraine.
I’m telling you, you can save your brother. And I can show you how.
Dean had shoved the mental picture of the night before out of his mind, but now it came rushing back.
Sam covered in blood and surrounded by corpses. Sam with thick liquid dripping from his lips, his chin, his fingertips. Sam with black eyes and broken, wild laughter.
Something in Dean’s stomach lurches violently and he throws the book, letting it fall loudly to the floor.
That’s all this is, man - Ruby’s just jerking your chain down the road. You know what it’s paved with and you know where it’s going.
“Dean?”
Dean’s chest aches and he feels too constricted, too walled-in. He needs air, he needs to get away, go somewhere, anywhere.
The tightness triggers his gag reflex and he gasps, holding his gut and heading for the door.
Sam is on his feet instantly, and he crosses the space between them, reaching for Dean’s elbow to steady him, but Dean pulls away.
“No,” he snaps. “Get away from me.”
Sam flinches again, but he drops his hand and holds himself very still, pleading with just his eyes. “Dean, please, just let me expl-“
“There’s nothing to explain. You promised me, Sam. You promised.”
All of the remaining color drains out of Sam’s face, but he sets his jaw and glares at Dean, defiant.
“Yeah, I did! I promised to keep fighting, and this was how. And I was wrong, alright? I was wrong, and I …”
Sam staggers, reaching for the wall to steady himself. He runs his right sleeve under his nose and the light plaid pattern comes away bloody. Sam stares at the bright red stain with obvious frustration.
“Shit,” he mumbles, slumping against the wall and starting a slow slide to the floor.
“Sam?” Dean fumbles to climb over his anger and fear and get to his brother.
Dean crouches in front of Sam just in time to see Sam’s head loll off to one side. More memories rush through the open gate and Dean sees Sam limp in his arms, feels the cold mud soak through the knees of his jeans as he kneels in the rain, screaming threats into the impassive night sky.
“Sammy?”
Dean shakes him roughly, jostling his head against the wall with a loud thump. Sam’s eyes flutter open, and he chuckles at the look on Dean’s face. Dean wants to punch him for it until Sam slurs, “S’okay, Dean. Let me die, doesn’t matter. Told him, you know. Told him I’d kill myself first. Never took. Pointless.”
Dean doesn’t understand but he grunts, “Don’t say that,” as he pulls Sam bodily from the floor because he can’t think of a situation where Sam saying that kind of thing would ever be alright. He manhandles Sam over and flops him down into the sleeping bags.
With Sam half conscious, the shaking he was trying to hide is more evident, and when Dean brushes his hair back to dab the blood off of his face, Sam’s skin is burning up.
Sam turns his face into the pillow. “Thirsty,” he groans, and Sam pours so much disgust into the word that Dean doesn’t know what to say.
“I’ll get you some water.”
Dean moves to leave, but Sam’s hand clamps down around his wrist. “No. Leave it.” Dean sees the scars again, this time with new insight.
Told him I’d kill myself first. Never took.
“Sam?” Dean shakes his wrist, jiggling Sam’s arm. “Sam.”
“Mmmhm?”
“Who did you tell? Who made you …“ The room spins a little. “… Why did you…”
No. He wouldn’t. Not Sam.
“Where did you get these?” Dean runs his thumb over one angry white line.
Sam pulls his arm free and burrows deeper into the pile of sleeping bags, slipping away. He whispers something Dean can’t make out.
Dean leans down and tilts his ear closer. “What?”
“Read the book,” Sam sighs, and then he’s gone.
Dean tucks the sleeping bag up firmly around his shivering brother and runs a hand through his hair. He tries to process Sam’s words, but they don’t add up.
Let me die, doesn’t matter.
Dean’s eyes fall on the book, lying open and face down on the floor. It’s thicker than he remembers, and he recalls seeing Sam’s notes inside. The thought of picking up that book fills him with revulsion, but he has to know what he’s dealing with.
He retrieves it and settles in against the wall by the bed, trying to focus on the words and listen to Sam breathe at the same time.
Soon he is lost in the pages, and Sam is just another player in the story he reads - a story about the end of the world.
Chapter three: Burn the Ships