SpN: Come The Night, 28/29
7/8/12 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roxyTitle: Come The Night, 28/29
Author: roxy
Pairings/Characters: Sam/Dean, Dean/Angel
Rating:NC-17
Word Count: 5221
Spoilers: oblique reference to events in s5
Summary: this is an AU treatment of season five, where Sam doesn't escape his fate and Boy King means just that. Dean once again enters hell to save his brother—not entirely voluntarily. When he returns to the world, everything's changed. He's lost Sam, the new world is difficult to navigate, and he finds himself saddled with an angry young man who elects himself to be Dean's guide.
Notes/Warnings: rape, dubious consent, extreme power imbalance.
It gets worse before it gets better.
one ~ two~ three ~ four ~ five ~six
seven ~ eight ~ nine ~ ten ~ eleven ~ twelve
thirteen~fourteen~fifteen~sixteen~seventeen
eighteen~ ninteen~twenty~twenty-one~twenty-two
twenty-three~twenty-four ~ twenty-five ~ twenty-six
twenty-seven
icon by xswaniconsx
"That's your problem, Dean; you're always so fucking ungrateful. You've been a pain in my ass all my life, you know that? You’re a fucking annoying bitch and—you’re a bitch.
Air comes rushing back and it hurts like a bitch, like sucking in sand. His nose and mouth feel like he's scrubbed his face over a rug. "Fuck."
Breathing in little sips of air, It takes him a moment to figure out what's going on, and when he does, he's not really disappointed, he's not much of anything…just more of the same then. The ice in Sam's heart thaws a bit and then refreezes, and Dean's the one who pays for it, every time.
His eyes roll, taking in the room, expecting, hoping, to be alone. But no, Sam's there, watching Dean come back to life. He's sprawled in a chair pulled up bedside, feet planted wide, his arms crossed, his body language screams impatience. It's dark now in the room, it's hard to get a precise read on Sam, the way his face is shadowed. Dean wonders how long he's been out of it…. He wonders if Sam's been sitting there the whole time, and why.
When Sam reaches out to him, Dean flinches so violently he almost falls off the bed. Sam pushes the chair back and walks out of the room without a word. Dean just watches him go.
~o0o~
Sam is driving him nuts, Dean sure wasn't bullshitting him about that. This constant thaw and freeze is making Dean doubt everything, making him fear everything. He figures Sam's not bothering to keep his eggs from scrambling anymore because shit is getting weird—weirder. He's seeing things that aren’t possible to see, and hearing voices that were stilled years and years ago. Like, he hears Bobby sometimes and it sounds like he's in the next room cussing him out over something. He hears his dad's voice, heavy with disappointment, right in his ear, like Dad's leaning on his shoulder and whispering to him. Once, Dean swears he hears Pastor Jim standing outside the bathroom door, asking him if he's ready to come home now.
Sure he is—he's been ready for eons, but when he pulls the door open, no one's there. It unsettles him that he heard the voice and that he'd forgotten Jim's been dead since before everything went to shit.
At least it doesn't scare him anymore. It's even become entertaining, in a way—breaks up the endless trickle of time. He walks past the French doors and sees Angel standing outside them, shaking his head. He opens the curtains in the bedroom and through the window, sees Castiel trudging past the fire-falls, wading through miles of red dust. Cas raises his hand and tries to get Dean's attention, but Dean refuses to look. Because it's not real. He knows none of it's real, and he knows that because if it was real, Dad, Bobby—either one of them—would have shot him for being a monster and for fucking his brother. Pastor Jim would have read an exorcism on him. And maybe shot him for fucking his brother.
Dean just swims through the days, watching what happens when his brain unravels like he's watching a movie. He watches the red dust outside spread and spread until it's piling against the French doors like snowdrifts. Unexpectedly, the drifting dust jumpstarts a memory for him—of Sam and him living in a hunter's cabin in upstate New York while they waited for Dad to come back from a hunt. It's so weirdly bright, so clear, that it practically blindsides him. He sees it—hell, he lives it again—how it was good because they'd had plenty of food and fuel and nothing but time. For a while they were just like normal kids….
He comes awake flat on his back in front of the doors. He licks his lips and tastes blood, he's got a pounding fuckin' headache but he's grinning…with the oddest feeling that he won something.
It's been a while since the night that Sam tried to kill him, long enough that Dean can sleep the night through again. But there comes a night, a dream, something that has Dean jerking awake, breath trapped in his throat and an anxious feeling…the fear that someone's in the room with him, too close. He's scrabbling backwards up the bed, slamming back against the headboard, trying to keep away from whatever it was. But there's nothing there. He's alone. Or he is now—there's a note from Sam propped up on the nightstand, telling him to get ready, to get dressed, and there are clothes on the bed, and shoes neatly lined up on the floor.
Figuring there's really no point not to, he dresses in the clothes left for him, walks out to the kitchen to see what oddball shit he can scavenge for breakfast this morning, and gets a hell of a shock. There's actual food in the kitchen—hot food, in take-out bags, from a diner whose name he recognizes. He rips the bag open and tears through the food, moaning through mouthfuls of bagel and egg and cheese, spraying crumbs and sucking steaming gulps of perfect hot coffee, trying to swallow it all past the hot lump in his throat. He's just sucking the grease off his fingers and eyeing the few crumbs in the bag when there's an impatient banging at the door.
Dean approaches the door slowly, carefully. He hasn’t got a damn thing to protect himself with except the plastic lid from the cup. He clutches it and feels kind of stupid, but it's better than going empty handed like a lamb to the slaughter—whatever. He just feels better with it and grips it like a throwing star before opening the door. He steels himself for the worse—
Throws open the door and at first, he doesn't see anything, but "Drama queen," he hears, and looks down.
The demon wearing the curly-haired blond with the big eyes, the one who'd brought him back to Sam when he'd gone for a walk, lets himself into Sam's apartment like he owns it, which tells Dean that whatever happens next is by Sam's wish. Dean's ready as he can be, waiting for whatever's coming, knowing it could be anything, anything at all. A voice whispers in his ear whatever happens you deserve. I hope it hurts It sounds like his dad but it's just the loud-mouth crazy in his head. And he can't be too crazy since he knows that. He smirks at the demon. "What the fuck do you want, Goldilocks?"
The demon rolls its eyes and says, "He wants you to come with me, so—come with me." The demon spins on his heel and walks back out the door, not even waiting to see if Dean is going to obey—why should he? Everyone obeys Sam's word. Dean catches up with him at the elevators; curiosity and fear creep under the tough-guy cloak he's trying to pull around himself. He hesitantly asks, "Where…where are we going?"
The kid points upwards. "The command center—the Hotel."
Upstairs. Out of the basement. Into the world. Dean chews on the edge of his thumb. His hand skitters over his hair, down the back of his neck, he's so fucking tense and nervous he can barely keep his legs still. Afraid to go out and going crazy from being locked in—buckets of fuckin' crazy, thanks a fuckin' lot, Sammy….
"He says you have an hour in the garden today. I'm supposed to watch you. Thanks for that, by the way."
The kid seems sincere, like he's actually thankful and actually thanking Dean, so Dean nods. "No problem."
Dean's still not certain that what's going to happen next is going to be a good thing. Fuck, a demon just thanked him—that usually not a good thing. And Dean remembers seeing a broadcast from that rose garden. He remembers dead things hanging from the iron fence surrounding the gardens…
When the doors open at last on sun-bright hallways, he flinches back from the avalanche of light, the flood of smells. It smells like a summer afternoon after a flash down-pour. Gets under his skin and in his sinuses and makes him shiver but it's good. He takes a slow step forward and then another and then another, and then the demon is shoving him out into the hall with an impatient snarl. "C'mon, will ya—we only got an hour, so snap it the fuck up. Not like I don’t wanna be out there too, you know."
Dean throws the demon a look but picks up the pace and then, they're in the garden, the one Dean remembers seeing—the one he first saw Sam in. The roses are in full bloom, clinging to the walls, rambling over the fence—shrubs erupt with thick, fat blooms in a riot of colors. The air slips over his skin like fond touch; the sky is a clear robin's-egg blue, cloudless and over-whelming now after being trapped under a flat red-black sky for what feels like way too long.
He turns in slow, slow circles, just—being. Feeling. Sun-warmed grass and the scent of roses, the faint scent of soil, live, living soil, not the throat drying dead dust down below. It's alive, everything's alive and it makes him feel whole.
The demon is bent over, poking at a beetle with a stick, poking and poking until the stick pierces the carapace. Pins it to the dirt with a little satisfied sigh. He glances up and catches Dean looking. "What?"
"Nothing, nothing…" Dean walks around the garden, catching glimpses of staff, human staff, who look terrified if they catch his eye, and quickly move out of sight. Dean sighs and heads for a bench in an alcove formed of shrubs. He sits there, still and quiet, sniffing the thick, heady scent of the roses…he has no idea how long he's there before the weight of a hand on his arm startles him awake.
"So. Rested?"
Dean swallows and wills his heart to a steadier beat. "Yeah…thanks."
Sam smiles. "Okay. Ready to go home?" Four little words and they crash through Dean's brain like a fucking train wreck—he freezes, fear and common sense collapsing under the load of a sudden hot, roiling rage.
"Home? The fuck? That freak show in your fuckin' 'basement' will never be my home, all it is, is a fucking prison, a torture chamber you hold the goddamn key to—" he shouts, then curses himself for a fucking fool who never knows when to. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
Sam scowls, his eyes flash black. "See?" he hisses. "That's your problem Dean; you're always so fucking ungrateful. You've been a pain in my ass all my life, you know that? You’re a fucking annoying bitch and—you’re a bitch. Bitch."
"I…I think that's my line," Dean says and it feels close to the stupidest thing he's ever done, in the top ten at least, right up there with running at a werewolf with nothing but a silver letter opener as a weapon, like staring down the YED with a gun they weren't a hundred per cent sure of, like…facing down Luce on a Sunday morning in a gas station parking lot with just a gung-ho attitude and a worthless knife.
Sam stares at him for a long, long time, long enough for Dean's heart beat to triple time. He lays his hand on Dean's thigh and Dean waits for it but…Sam just strokes once, light and smooth, and takes his hand away. He says, "You're right…that is your line." His voice is smooth, calm and possibly just the littlest bit amused. "But we have to go now. Maybe…another day you can stay longer, but now it's, it's, ah…dangerous." He turns abruptly and walks away, towards the rear of the hotel, tells the demon to take Dean back to the basement.
Dean's starting to get that whatever going on in the world involves Sam in a different kind of way. Sam's gone longer and longer, the broadcasts are shriller all the time…the basement is full of activity, all day, all night. When Sam does appear, he glares at Dean like what's happening is his fault, and Dean is beginning to think…maybe it is.
He's thinking that he's upset a delicate balance, that maybe he's pushed the scales toward—disaster, victory, it's hard to tell.
Sam hasn't hurt him in weeks, he thinks, wonders why and what it means….
~o0o~
So, of course the very next night, Sam crashes through the apartment door and Dean has a moment to kick himself for being stupid enough to question good times before he's diving for the floor, scrabbling to get under one of the couches. He has a giddy, desperate hope that if he moves fast enough, he might make it to a closet, barricade himself but Sam is tearing him out from under the couch. He flips Dean and he's pushing him, herding him with painful jabs from hands and knees and elbows. He's howling, smacking and shoving Dean to the bed and then pushing his way in right after him, burrowing under the blankets and into Dean.
As soon as Sam's under the blankets, it hits Dean—the stink—smoke and blood and worse. Dean gags when Sam hooks his arms around him and pulls him close. Heaves when Sam rolls right on top of him, wraps his arms around him so Dean can't get away from the god awful stink. Sam's skin is greasy where it’s not sticky, slick in some places and thickly tacky in others and the smell, the smell…like the inside of a gutted animal rotting in a dumpster in the summer, like buckets of old blood…Dean struggles to breathe and not heave and holds on, tightens whenever Sam moves because some instinct tells him this is important and not to let go because it might mean his life. Maybe not just his.
Sam starts shaking, slight tremors that roll over him like waves. "God, god. Everything would be so much better if you were dead," he sobs, and Dean freezes. He doesn't stop soothing Sam though, his hands are on automatic pilot, stroking down the long, tight length of his brother's back, skating over knots of muscle and dragging across his sticky shirt.
"S'okay, Sam, okay, I'll…whatever you want," Dean says and squeezes his eyes shut. Kind of wishes that at some point, one of his miraculous fucking rebirths had failed. Bet there were lots of days that Buffy felt like this, he thinks, and chuckles weakly.
"You think it's funny I want you dead?" Sam growls into Dean's collarbone, and Dean can't believe that he's feeling just a tiny bit, mildly turned-on under the fear. Sam lifts his head and says, "How can you laugh? How can you hold me? What the fuck is wrong with you?" he shouts.
"I'm. Fuck, I'm your brother, I've been taking care of you your whole life. What am I supposed to do?"
"Hate me," Sam screams. "Everything I've done, to you, the world—hate me, hate me!"
Dean lets go of Sam, eases his way off the bed. If Sam decides he's going to kill him, it doesn't matter where he is. He tells Sam the truth. "Fuck yeah, I hate you and I'm so afraid of you sometimes I piss myself when you just pop up out of nowhere. When you're here, I spend the whole time waiting for you to kill me, when you're not, I wonder where you are, are you hurt, are you okay—you don't even have to tell me I'm nuts. You made me that way. You made me worse than that and I hate your fuckin' guts."
"Dean…" Sam rumbles, warning in his yellow eyes, his voice.
"Hey, you asked me, I'm telling you. I'm afraid of you but fuck, I love you. Damn it, I love you and I know inside you, there's the Sam I love, the Sam I gave my life for. I'd do it again if it would fix you, I'd die for you over and over. I love you."
The blankets become fine cotton dust, dipping and whirling like dust devils across the floor. Sam rips the pillows off the bed and flings them. They explode in the air, showering tiny flaming bits of cotton and feathers everywhere. Dean thinks for one insane second that it’s actually kind of funny, and if he makes it through the next ten minutes, he's going to take the time to laugh his ass off over it…or not, he thinks when Sam screams like a kid being stabbed, "Shut up, shut up! You don't love me, you love that—that thing in me."
"You stupid fuck—that thing is you, always was. Of course I loved him, because he was—is you."
Sam drops his head, "Stop. Just stop, stop it…" he mutters, he grabs huge handfuls of his hair and yanks hard again and again and Dean backs away a few steps, wincing. Because it looks painful, and because it's different, and different probably means a lot of pain was about to come his way. But Sam doesn't move, he just rocks on the edge of the bed, mumbling. "Nonono…" over and over. He lifts his eyes to Dean and they're bright red, ruby marbles tracking nothing. "You say I'm killing you, what about what you're doing to me? I have to stop you. I don't want to but I have to make it stop."
"So do it." Dean stands against the wall, naked and helpless but so fucking done with crying, with everything. He closes his eyes and waits.
When he opens them again he's alone.
~o0o~
Dean wanders out into the hall—no one's there. He gazes towards the elevators and wonders what Sam would do if he took off again. He sees nothing but hears a buzz like a swarm of bees in the distance, or a hundred hundred flies, the buzzing's louder and louder and louder until it's too much to take. He runs back into the apartment, slams the door shut, throws himself on a couch and screams when he turns his head and there's Sam, sitting like he's been there all along.
"There's no one left," Sam says, as if Dean hadn't just screamed like a chick in a slasher movie. "Just the Duke, and I…and I gave the Duke the world." He chokes out what he probably means to be a laugh. "I gave it all away, just to keep America," he says, like it's significant and glares at Dean like he's being purposely obtuse when Dean just sits there. Dean has no idea what the fuck Sam wants, or what he means so he pretty much says the first thing that comes to his mind.
"Canada? You gave Canada and South America away?"
Sam tilts his head, staring at Dean like he's a puzzle with a few pieces missing. A little frown twists his mouth, he says, "What? No. What are you— I kept—oh, all right. I kept the Americas—what difference does it make?"
Dean shrugs. "Just wanted to know. So…this Duke got all of the rest of the world?"
"No, just…a lot of the world is kind of…in disrepair."
Dean sways like the floor's dropped out from under his feet."Disrepair…?" He doesn't think he's got the strength to know, but he has to ask. "Why?"
"Dean! Because I'm busy. It's harder without the other monarchs. There's no one out there to ally with and it's all me having to hold legions back and deal with fucking Cro—the fucking Duke. I'm—I'm tired. I'm just tired. Always looking behind my back. Worrying, fighting, I get so fucking tired. I don't want to do this; I wish I didn't have to. I wish things would run themselves."
"That's…that's probably not going to happen."
"Shut up. I know that." Sam sighs and shuffles a little lower on the couch, his long, long legs bumping Dean's. "Don’t you have anything to eat here?"
"Something to eat? No, you dick. There's some Kool-Aid packs and a bag of salt-water taffy, asshole. You won't feed me. Except that sandwich the other day. That was decent, thanks."
"Oh. Sure. No problem. You know you don’t really have to eat in the basement? Or…anything. Nothing feels real down here. I do, and I do, but nothing ever feels real. Only when I…when it's…." Sam stumbles to silence and pulls away from Dean at the same moment Dean moves his leg away from Sam's. "You…"
"Yeah, gotcha—torturing me makes you feel alive." Dean figures he's pushing it, considering the way things are going for Sam, but he wasn't kidding—he's done running from Sam. Running never helped anyway.
"That's not…I don’t mean…" Sam shakes his head, eyes fixed to the floor. "It's more than that. Fuck. Just—" he jumps up and shouts, "Just leave me alone!"
He barrels through the apartment door, slams it to so hard it vibrates in the frame. Dean yells after him, "I didn’t ask you to come here! No one's forcing you to come back here!" He's pissed off, furious and he's scared, just like always but there's this weird echo in his head, a niggling little thought scratching at the back of his brain. He stops and lets it skitter around until it unfolds into a memory of teen Sam, slamming his way out of the front door of one of the many places they'd squatted in—and holy fuck.
Okay, Dean thinks, okay, and lets it build, the tiniest, thinnest, whisper of hope. Afraid to let it grow too much but fuck if he hadn't spent the better part of a year facing down tantrums just like that…hell, most of his fucking life. That, that was something he could deal with.
~o0o~
Three fun-sized bags of Cheetos, half a bag of licorice and five cups of black instant coffee later, Sam comes creeping in, and of course it has to be at night. Dean wakes up like a gunshot's gone off next to his ear. Dad would be proud of how alert he is, not a single cobweb of sleep in his mind. Sam is hovering over him, his eyes reflecting the glow of the TV screen. Dean's neck aches from falling asleep with his head on the unforgiving chrome arm of the couch. Sam licks his lips and draws out the heavy, serrated knife…Dean hasn't seen it since the gas station and he's surprised Sam has it. Must have sent his minions all over the Earth looking for it. Personally, Dean thinks using Ruby's knife is overkill…but maybe Sam does need it to permanently kill Dean. Dean knows he's been in the basement a long time, a lot of shit has happened to him—who knows if he's really human anymore?
Sam moves fast as a snake and Dean grunts—there's a bright pain in his palm and the smack of the hilt hitting his skin in his ears. "Wha—"
Sam says, "Here, this will kill me, I'm not an angel and this will kill me."
"Yeah well, you're not a demon either, Sam." Dean's at least…sixty per cent sure he's not.
"Don’t be stupid, Dean," Sam says. "Do it. I want you to. God, just give me this one fucking thing."
"Go away Sam, just—go away."
Sam backs away from the couch but he leaves the knife balanced on the arm. "Keep it. You will, you know. You will kill me before this is all over, and—I want you to. Remember that,"
Sam returns with a thoughtful look and takeout from a Chinese place. He gets one foot in the door before Dean throws the knife. It sings past Sam's ear and buries itself almost to the hilt in the wall. Sam glances at it, and then back at Dean, eyebrows pulled together. He looks surprised for a moment, then a dull, expectant hurt flashes over his face before it smoothes into a blank mask. "You missed."
"You're a fucking asshole," Dean snaps.
And Sam collapses. Deflates. The bag falls out of his hand and he goes to his knees and slowly, slowly, curls into a ball. He's quiet at first, Dean thinks he's just sitting there, but when he sits next to him, Sam's mouth is open and Dean realizes, the sound Sam's trying to make is too high pitched at first to be heard, and then it breaks and it’s horrible, an endless keening that shatters into hopeless sobbing. Sam cries and screams and hatred pours out, all directed at himself…Dean holds him, can't keep his own tears from falling. It goes on and on until Sam finally just passes out.
It's the first time Dean's seen him truly, completely unconscious. Sam's spread across his lap, little gasps of air puffing against Dean's twitching fingers. The way he's sprawled across Dean's legs leaves his throat exposed. It's long, thin—the throat he'd liked to cover in kisses and teasing bites when they were young and Sam was Sammy, the kid who loved him. Dean's fingers trace the pale line and the sharp curve of his jaw. He remembers Sam doing the same to him, opening his flesh with a razor sharp fingernail, and laughing…Dean cups Sam's cheek and feels him breathe, tangles his fingers in Sam's hair and tries to think. What's next? Who was going to wake up here in his lap?
His eyes track across the room, up to the knife buried to the hilt in the wall. He could do it. Sam's out of it, out so hard a tornado could whip through the room right now and Sam'd never wake up. He'd never even know and maybe then, without Sam to hold the door shut, the angels could come back and be…well, less dickish and more helpful. Fuck, they couldn't do any worse than what Sam and that duke guy and the others had done to the world. They owed him and his brother, damn it.
He eases Sam to his side on the rug, gets up and pulls the knife free, balances it in his hand. When he turns around, Sam's eyes are on him, narrow slits in an expressionless face. He's motionless where Dean left him on the floor, watches Dean come at him. His expression never changes, his eyes never move from Dean. Dean stops, his toes nearly touching Sam's foot. "Get in the bed," he says and steps over Sam, drops the knife on the nightstand.
Sam nods and gets up, drags his clothes off and slides onto the mattress; Dean follows, yanking what's left of the bed linens off the floor. Dropping onto the mattress next to Sam, he spreads the sheets over them both and gathers Sam up again. "Go to sleep Sam," he says, and Sam does.
29
Author: roxy
Pairings/Characters: Sam/Dean, Dean/Angel
Rating:NC-17
Word Count: 5221
Spoilers: oblique reference to events in s5
Summary: this is an AU treatment of season five, where Sam doesn't escape his fate and Boy King means just that. Dean once again enters hell to save his brother—not entirely voluntarily. When he returns to the world, everything's changed. He's lost Sam, the new world is difficult to navigate, and he finds himself saddled with an angry young man who elects himself to be Dean's guide.
Notes/Warnings: rape, dubious consent, extreme power imbalance.
It gets worse before it gets better.
one ~ two~ three ~ four ~ five ~six
seven ~ eight ~ nine ~ ten ~ eleven ~ twelve
thirteen~fourteen~fifteen~sixteen~seventeen
eighteen~ ninteen~twenty~twenty-one~twenty-two
twenty-three~twenty-four ~ twenty-five ~ twenty-six
twenty-seven
icon by xswaniconsx
Air comes rushing back and it hurts like a bitch, like sucking in sand. His nose and mouth feel like he's scrubbed his face over a rug. "Fuck."
Breathing in little sips of air, It takes him a moment to figure out what's going on, and when he does, he's not really disappointed, he's not much of anything…just more of the same then. The ice in Sam's heart thaws a bit and then refreezes, and Dean's the one who pays for it, every time.
His eyes roll, taking in the room, expecting, hoping, to be alone. But no, Sam's there, watching Dean come back to life. He's sprawled in a chair pulled up bedside, feet planted wide, his arms crossed, his body language screams impatience. It's dark now in the room, it's hard to get a precise read on Sam, the way his face is shadowed. Dean wonders how long he's been out of it…. He wonders if Sam's been sitting there the whole time, and why.
When Sam reaches out to him, Dean flinches so violently he almost falls off the bed. Sam pushes the chair back and walks out of the room without a word. Dean just watches him go.
Sam is driving him nuts, Dean sure wasn't bullshitting him about that. This constant thaw and freeze is making Dean doubt everything, making him fear everything. He figures Sam's not bothering to keep his eggs from scrambling anymore because shit is getting weird—weirder. He's seeing things that aren’t possible to see, and hearing voices that were stilled years and years ago. Like, he hears Bobby sometimes and it sounds like he's in the next room cussing him out over something. He hears his dad's voice, heavy with disappointment, right in his ear, like Dad's leaning on his shoulder and whispering to him. Once, Dean swears he hears Pastor Jim standing outside the bathroom door, asking him if he's ready to come home now.
Sure he is—he's been ready for eons, but when he pulls the door open, no one's there. It unsettles him that he heard the voice and that he'd forgotten Jim's been dead since before everything went to shit.
At least it doesn't scare him anymore. It's even become entertaining, in a way—breaks up the endless trickle of time. He walks past the French doors and sees Angel standing outside them, shaking his head. He opens the curtains in the bedroom and through the window, sees Castiel trudging past the fire-falls, wading through miles of red dust. Cas raises his hand and tries to get Dean's attention, but Dean refuses to look. Because it's not real. He knows none of it's real, and he knows that because if it was real, Dad, Bobby—either one of them—would have shot him for being a monster and for fucking his brother. Pastor Jim would have read an exorcism on him. And maybe shot him for fucking his brother.
Dean just swims through the days, watching what happens when his brain unravels like he's watching a movie. He watches the red dust outside spread and spread until it's piling against the French doors like snowdrifts. Unexpectedly, the drifting dust jumpstarts a memory for him—of Sam and him living in a hunter's cabin in upstate New York while they waited for Dad to come back from a hunt. It's so weirdly bright, so clear, that it practically blindsides him. He sees it—hell, he lives it again—how it was good because they'd had plenty of food and fuel and nothing but time. For a while they were just like normal kids….
He comes awake flat on his back in front of the doors. He licks his lips and tastes blood, he's got a pounding fuckin' headache but he's grinning…with the oddest feeling that he won something.
It's been a while since the night that Sam tried to kill him, long enough that Dean can sleep the night through again. But there comes a night, a dream, something that has Dean jerking awake, breath trapped in his throat and an anxious feeling…the fear that someone's in the room with him, too close. He's scrabbling backwards up the bed, slamming back against the headboard, trying to keep away from whatever it was. But there's nothing there. He's alone. Or he is now—there's a note from Sam propped up on the nightstand, telling him to get ready, to get dressed, and there are clothes on the bed, and shoes neatly lined up on the floor.
Figuring there's really no point not to, he dresses in the clothes left for him, walks out to the kitchen to see what oddball shit he can scavenge for breakfast this morning, and gets a hell of a shock. There's actual food in the kitchen—hot food, in take-out bags, from a diner whose name he recognizes. He rips the bag open and tears through the food, moaning through mouthfuls of bagel and egg and cheese, spraying crumbs and sucking steaming gulps of perfect hot coffee, trying to swallow it all past the hot lump in his throat. He's just sucking the grease off his fingers and eyeing the few crumbs in the bag when there's an impatient banging at the door.
Dean approaches the door slowly, carefully. He hasn’t got a damn thing to protect himself with except the plastic lid from the cup. He clutches it and feels kind of stupid, but it's better than going empty handed like a lamb to the slaughter—whatever. He just feels better with it and grips it like a throwing star before opening the door. He steels himself for the worse—
Throws open the door and at first, he doesn't see anything, but "Drama queen," he hears, and looks down.
The demon wearing the curly-haired blond with the big eyes, the one who'd brought him back to Sam when he'd gone for a walk, lets himself into Sam's apartment like he owns it, which tells Dean that whatever happens next is by Sam's wish. Dean's ready as he can be, waiting for whatever's coming, knowing it could be anything, anything at all. A voice whispers in his ear whatever happens you deserve. I hope it hurts It sounds like his dad but it's just the loud-mouth crazy in his head. And he can't be too crazy since he knows that. He smirks at the demon. "What the fuck do you want, Goldilocks?"
The demon rolls its eyes and says, "He wants you to come with me, so—come with me." The demon spins on his heel and walks back out the door, not even waiting to see if Dean is going to obey—why should he? Everyone obeys Sam's word. Dean catches up with him at the elevators; curiosity and fear creep under the tough-guy cloak he's trying to pull around himself. He hesitantly asks, "Where…where are we going?"
The kid points upwards. "The command center—the Hotel."
Upstairs. Out of the basement. Into the world. Dean chews on the edge of his thumb. His hand skitters over his hair, down the back of his neck, he's so fucking tense and nervous he can barely keep his legs still. Afraid to go out and going crazy from being locked in—buckets of fuckin' crazy, thanks a fuckin' lot, Sammy….
"He says you have an hour in the garden today. I'm supposed to watch you. Thanks for that, by the way."
The kid seems sincere, like he's actually thankful and actually thanking Dean, so Dean nods. "No problem."
Dean's still not certain that what's going to happen next is going to be a good thing. Fuck, a demon just thanked him—that usually not a good thing. And Dean remembers seeing a broadcast from that rose garden. He remembers dead things hanging from the iron fence surrounding the gardens…
When the doors open at last on sun-bright hallways, he flinches back from the avalanche of light, the flood of smells. It smells like a summer afternoon after a flash down-pour. Gets under his skin and in his sinuses and makes him shiver but it's good. He takes a slow step forward and then another and then another, and then the demon is shoving him out into the hall with an impatient snarl. "C'mon, will ya—we only got an hour, so snap it the fuck up. Not like I don’t wanna be out there too, you know."
Dean throws the demon a look but picks up the pace and then, they're in the garden, the one Dean remembers seeing—the one he first saw Sam in. The roses are in full bloom, clinging to the walls, rambling over the fence—shrubs erupt with thick, fat blooms in a riot of colors. The air slips over his skin like fond touch; the sky is a clear robin's-egg blue, cloudless and over-whelming now after being trapped under a flat red-black sky for what feels like way too long.
He turns in slow, slow circles, just—being. Feeling. Sun-warmed grass and the scent of roses, the faint scent of soil, live, living soil, not the throat drying dead dust down below. It's alive, everything's alive and it makes him feel whole.
The demon is bent over, poking at a beetle with a stick, poking and poking until the stick pierces the carapace. Pins it to the dirt with a little satisfied sigh. He glances up and catches Dean looking. "What?"
"Nothing, nothing…" Dean walks around the garden, catching glimpses of staff, human staff, who look terrified if they catch his eye, and quickly move out of sight. Dean sighs and heads for a bench in an alcove formed of shrubs. He sits there, still and quiet, sniffing the thick, heady scent of the roses…he has no idea how long he's there before the weight of a hand on his arm startles him awake.
"So. Rested?"
Dean swallows and wills his heart to a steadier beat. "Yeah…thanks."
Sam smiles. "Okay. Ready to go home?" Four little words and they crash through Dean's brain like a fucking train wreck—he freezes, fear and common sense collapsing under the load of a sudden hot, roiling rage.
"Home? The fuck? That freak show in your fuckin' 'basement' will never be my home, all it is, is a fucking prison, a torture chamber you hold the goddamn key to—" he shouts, then curses himself for a fucking fool who never knows when to. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
Sam scowls, his eyes flash black. "See?" he hisses. "That's your problem Dean; you're always so fucking ungrateful. You've been a pain in my ass all my life, you know that? You’re a fucking annoying bitch and—you’re a bitch. Bitch."
"I…I think that's my line," Dean says and it feels close to the stupidest thing he's ever done, in the top ten at least, right up there with running at a werewolf with nothing but a silver letter opener as a weapon, like staring down the YED with a gun they weren't a hundred per cent sure of, like…facing down Luce on a Sunday morning in a gas station parking lot with just a gung-ho attitude and a worthless knife.
Sam stares at him for a long, long time, long enough for Dean's heart beat to triple time. He lays his hand on Dean's thigh and Dean waits for it but…Sam just strokes once, light and smooth, and takes his hand away. He says, "You're right…that is your line." His voice is smooth, calm and possibly just the littlest bit amused. "But we have to go now. Maybe…another day you can stay longer, but now it's, it's, ah…dangerous." He turns abruptly and walks away, towards the rear of the hotel, tells the demon to take Dean back to the basement.
Dean's starting to get that whatever going on in the world involves Sam in a different kind of way. Sam's gone longer and longer, the broadcasts are shriller all the time…the basement is full of activity, all day, all night. When Sam does appear, he glares at Dean like what's happening is his fault, and Dean is beginning to think…maybe it is.
He's thinking that he's upset a delicate balance, that maybe he's pushed the scales toward—disaster, victory, it's hard to tell.
Sam hasn't hurt him in weeks, he thinks, wonders why and what it means….
So, of course the very next night, Sam crashes through the apartment door and Dean has a moment to kick himself for being stupid enough to question good times before he's diving for the floor, scrabbling to get under one of the couches. He has a giddy, desperate hope that if he moves fast enough, he might make it to a closet, barricade himself but Sam is tearing him out from under the couch. He flips Dean and he's pushing him, herding him with painful jabs from hands and knees and elbows. He's howling, smacking and shoving Dean to the bed and then pushing his way in right after him, burrowing under the blankets and into Dean.
As soon as Sam's under the blankets, it hits Dean—the stink—smoke and blood and worse. Dean gags when Sam hooks his arms around him and pulls him close. Heaves when Sam rolls right on top of him, wraps his arms around him so Dean can't get away from the god awful stink. Sam's skin is greasy where it’s not sticky, slick in some places and thickly tacky in others and the smell, the smell…like the inside of a gutted animal rotting in a dumpster in the summer, like buckets of old blood…Dean struggles to breathe and not heave and holds on, tightens whenever Sam moves because some instinct tells him this is important and not to let go because it might mean his life. Maybe not just his.
Sam starts shaking, slight tremors that roll over him like waves. "God, god. Everything would be so much better if you were dead," he sobs, and Dean freezes. He doesn't stop soothing Sam though, his hands are on automatic pilot, stroking down the long, tight length of his brother's back, skating over knots of muscle and dragging across his sticky shirt.
"S'okay, Sam, okay, I'll…whatever you want," Dean says and squeezes his eyes shut. Kind of wishes that at some point, one of his miraculous fucking rebirths had failed. Bet there were lots of days that Buffy felt like this, he thinks, and chuckles weakly.
"You think it's funny I want you dead?" Sam growls into Dean's collarbone, and Dean can't believe that he's feeling just a tiny bit, mildly turned-on under the fear. Sam lifts his head and says, "How can you laugh? How can you hold me? What the fuck is wrong with you?" he shouts.
"I'm. Fuck, I'm your brother, I've been taking care of you your whole life. What am I supposed to do?"
"Hate me," Sam screams. "Everything I've done, to you, the world—hate me, hate me!"
Dean lets go of Sam, eases his way off the bed. If Sam decides he's going to kill him, it doesn't matter where he is. He tells Sam the truth. "Fuck yeah, I hate you and I'm so afraid of you sometimes I piss myself when you just pop up out of nowhere. When you're here, I spend the whole time waiting for you to kill me, when you're not, I wonder where you are, are you hurt, are you okay—you don't even have to tell me I'm nuts. You made me that way. You made me worse than that and I hate your fuckin' guts."
"Dean…" Sam rumbles, warning in his yellow eyes, his voice.
"Hey, you asked me, I'm telling you. I'm afraid of you but fuck, I love you. Damn it, I love you and I know inside you, there's the Sam I love, the Sam I gave my life for. I'd do it again if it would fix you, I'd die for you over and over. I love you."
The blankets become fine cotton dust, dipping and whirling like dust devils across the floor. Sam rips the pillows off the bed and flings them. They explode in the air, showering tiny flaming bits of cotton and feathers everywhere. Dean thinks for one insane second that it’s actually kind of funny, and if he makes it through the next ten minutes, he's going to take the time to laugh his ass off over it…or not, he thinks when Sam screams like a kid being stabbed, "Shut up, shut up! You don't love me, you love that—that thing in me."
"You stupid fuck—that thing is you, always was. Of course I loved him, because he was—is you."
Sam drops his head, "Stop. Just stop, stop it…" he mutters, he grabs huge handfuls of his hair and yanks hard again and again and Dean backs away a few steps, wincing. Because it looks painful, and because it's different, and different probably means a lot of pain was about to come his way. But Sam doesn't move, he just rocks on the edge of the bed, mumbling. "Nonono…" over and over. He lifts his eyes to Dean and they're bright red, ruby marbles tracking nothing. "You say I'm killing you, what about what you're doing to me? I have to stop you. I don't want to but I have to make it stop."
"So do it." Dean stands against the wall, naked and helpless but so fucking done with crying, with everything. He closes his eyes and waits.
When he opens them again he's alone.
Dean wanders out into the hall—no one's there. He gazes towards the elevators and wonders what Sam would do if he took off again. He sees nothing but hears a buzz like a swarm of bees in the distance, or a hundred hundred flies, the buzzing's louder and louder and louder until it's too much to take. He runs back into the apartment, slams the door shut, throws himself on a couch and screams when he turns his head and there's Sam, sitting like he's been there all along.
"There's no one left," Sam says, as if Dean hadn't just screamed like a chick in a slasher movie. "Just the Duke, and I…and I gave the Duke the world." He chokes out what he probably means to be a laugh. "I gave it all away, just to keep America," he says, like it's significant and glares at Dean like he's being purposely obtuse when Dean just sits there. Dean has no idea what the fuck Sam wants, or what he means so he pretty much says the first thing that comes to his mind.
"Canada? You gave Canada and South America away?"
Sam tilts his head, staring at Dean like he's a puzzle with a few pieces missing. A little frown twists his mouth, he says, "What? No. What are you— I kept—oh, all right. I kept the Americas—what difference does it make?"
Dean shrugs. "Just wanted to know. So…this Duke got all of the rest of the world?"
"No, just…a lot of the world is kind of…in disrepair."
Dean sways like the floor's dropped out from under his feet."Disrepair…?" He doesn't think he's got the strength to know, but he has to ask. "Why?"
"Dean! Because I'm busy. It's harder without the other monarchs. There's no one out there to ally with and it's all me having to hold legions back and deal with fucking Cro—the fucking Duke. I'm—I'm tired. I'm just tired. Always looking behind my back. Worrying, fighting, I get so fucking tired. I don't want to do this; I wish I didn't have to. I wish things would run themselves."
"That's…that's probably not going to happen."
"Shut up. I know that." Sam sighs and shuffles a little lower on the couch, his long, long legs bumping Dean's. "Don’t you have anything to eat here?"
"Something to eat? No, you dick. There's some Kool-Aid packs and a bag of salt-water taffy, asshole. You won't feed me. Except that sandwich the other day. That was decent, thanks."
"Oh. Sure. No problem. You know you don’t really have to eat in the basement? Or…anything. Nothing feels real down here. I do, and I do, but nothing ever feels real. Only when I…when it's…." Sam stumbles to silence and pulls away from Dean at the same moment Dean moves his leg away from Sam's. "You…"
"Yeah, gotcha—torturing me makes you feel alive." Dean figures he's pushing it, considering the way things are going for Sam, but he wasn't kidding—he's done running from Sam. Running never helped anyway.
"That's not…I don’t mean…" Sam shakes his head, eyes fixed to the floor. "It's more than that. Fuck. Just—" he jumps up and shouts, "Just leave me alone!"
He barrels through the apartment door, slams it to so hard it vibrates in the frame. Dean yells after him, "I didn’t ask you to come here! No one's forcing you to come back here!" He's pissed off, furious and he's scared, just like always but there's this weird echo in his head, a niggling little thought scratching at the back of his brain. He stops and lets it skitter around until it unfolds into a memory of teen Sam, slamming his way out of the front door of one of the many places they'd squatted in—and holy fuck.
Okay, Dean thinks, okay, and lets it build, the tiniest, thinnest, whisper of hope. Afraid to let it grow too much but fuck if he hadn't spent the better part of a year facing down tantrums just like that…hell, most of his fucking life. That, that was something he could deal with.
Three fun-sized bags of Cheetos, half a bag of licorice and five cups of black instant coffee later, Sam comes creeping in, and of course it has to be at night. Dean wakes up like a gunshot's gone off next to his ear. Dad would be proud of how alert he is, not a single cobweb of sleep in his mind. Sam is hovering over him, his eyes reflecting the glow of the TV screen. Dean's neck aches from falling asleep with his head on the unforgiving chrome arm of the couch. Sam licks his lips and draws out the heavy, serrated knife…Dean hasn't seen it since the gas station and he's surprised Sam has it. Must have sent his minions all over the Earth looking for it. Personally, Dean thinks using Ruby's knife is overkill…but maybe Sam does need it to permanently kill Dean. Dean knows he's been in the basement a long time, a lot of shit has happened to him—who knows if he's really human anymore?
Sam moves fast as a snake and Dean grunts—there's a bright pain in his palm and the smack of the hilt hitting his skin in his ears. "Wha—"
Sam says, "Here, this will kill me, I'm not an angel and this will kill me."
"Yeah well, you're not a demon either, Sam." Dean's at least…sixty per cent sure he's not.
"Don’t be stupid, Dean," Sam says. "Do it. I want you to. God, just give me this one fucking thing."
"Go away Sam, just—go away."
Sam backs away from the couch but he leaves the knife balanced on the arm. "Keep it. You will, you know. You will kill me before this is all over, and—I want you to. Remember that,"
Sam returns with a thoughtful look and takeout from a Chinese place. He gets one foot in the door before Dean throws the knife. It sings past Sam's ear and buries itself almost to the hilt in the wall. Sam glances at it, and then back at Dean, eyebrows pulled together. He looks surprised for a moment, then a dull, expectant hurt flashes over his face before it smoothes into a blank mask. "You missed."
"You're a fucking asshole," Dean snaps.
And Sam collapses. Deflates. The bag falls out of his hand and he goes to his knees and slowly, slowly, curls into a ball. He's quiet at first, Dean thinks he's just sitting there, but when he sits next to him, Sam's mouth is open and Dean realizes, the sound Sam's trying to make is too high pitched at first to be heard, and then it breaks and it’s horrible, an endless keening that shatters into hopeless sobbing. Sam cries and screams and hatred pours out, all directed at himself…Dean holds him, can't keep his own tears from falling. It goes on and on until Sam finally just passes out.
It's the first time Dean's seen him truly, completely unconscious. Sam's spread across his lap, little gasps of air puffing against Dean's twitching fingers. The way he's sprawled across Dean's legs leaves his throat exposed. It's long, thin—the throat he'd liked to cover in kisses and teasing bites when they were young and Sam was Sammy, the kid who loved him. Dean's fingers trace the pale line and the sharp curve of his jaw. He remembers Sam doing the same to him, opening his flesh with a razor sharp fingernail, and laughing…Dean cups Sam's cheek and feels him breathe, tangles his fingers in Sam's hair and tries to think. What's next? Who was going to wake up here in his lap?
His eyes track across the room, up to the knife buried to the hilt in the wall. He could do it. Sam's out of it, out so hard a tornado could whip through the room right now and Sam'd never wake up. He'd never even know and maybe then, without Sam to hold the door shut, the angels could come back and be…well, less dickish and more helpful. Fuck, they couldn't do any worse than what Sam and that duke guy and the others had done to the world. They owed him and his brother, damn it.
He eases Sam to his side on the rug, gets up and pulls the knife free, balances it in his hand. When he turns around, Sam's eyes are on him, narrow slits in an expressionless face. He's motionless where Dean left him on the floor, watches Dean come at him. His expression never changes, his eyes never move from Dean. Dean stops, his toes nearly touching Sam's foot. "Get in the bed," he says and steps over Sam, drops the knife on the nightstand.
Sam nods and gets up, drags his clothes off and slides onto the mattress; Dean follows, yanking what's left of the bed linens off the floor. Dropping onto the mattress next to Sam, he spreads the sheets over them both and gathers Sam up again. "Go to sleep Sam," he says, and Sam does.
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