New SPN story: Amidst the Wars of Elements
Amidst the Wars of Elements
7,452 words, PG, Sam/Dean
Notes: This story contains spoilers for season three, particularly the season finale. Huge thanks to my beta readers, luzdeestrellas and audrarose, for talking me down off the ledge and for their incredibly helpful betas. This is for tvm - happy birthday, honey. :)
Amidst The Wars of Elements
By Destina
Dean hurts everywhere; there's a constant throb of pain drumming under his skin. When he opens his eyes, bright sunshine slants gentle warmth across his face.
He doesn't recognize the room, but the only thing that matters is that Sam is there, in a chair beside the bed, head in his hands. His t-shirt is wrinkled, his hair wild and messy, as if he hasn't combed it in days.
"Sam," he croaks. It's all he can do to say his brother's name, and he can never make the word convey everything he needs Sam to hear.
Sam startles. He lifts his head and stares at Dean with wide, hopeful eyes. "Dean," he says, shock in his voice. "You're awake."
Hello, captain obvious, Dean thinks, but it's too many words, so he only nods. Sam reaches out a hand, touches Dean's where it rests on the blue and white quilt. "It's...you've been...it's been so long," Sam says, and in the spaces between the words, Dean hears fear. He knows that kind of fear; he's known it a hundred times, can see Sam's closed eyes, Sam's limp body in his arms, and a pang of sympathy chokes him.
"'M'okay," he says, more message than observation.
Sam scoots the chair forward and leans across the bed, watching Dean carefully. "How do you feel?"
"Like shit," Dean says, amazed his voice is working at all with his throat so dry. Sam picks up a cup on the bedside table and holds against Dean's chest, patiently waiting while Dean takes a few tentative sips from the straw.
His skin burns, but Sam is stroking his hand and with every touch, the hurt is ebbing away, leaving a dull ache behind.
He closes his eyes again and tries to center himself, but there's a gaping blank hole where his most recent memories ought to be. He doesn't know where they are, how he got here; why Sam looks like he's been awake for days, or why every bone in his body protests when he lifts his shoulders to sit up.
Sam presses him down, a firm hand on his chest. "No, Dean. It's too soon."
"Sam," Dean says, but Sam shakes his head. Tears spill over and track down Sam's face, but Dean can't look away, because it seems like he hasn't seen Sam in a hundred years. Sam is as familiar as Dean's own bones and breath, and yet not; his face is sharper, the angles and planes harder, but what Dean sees in Sam's eyes, he remembers. It's everything; it's his world, and it's worth enduring any amount of pain.
"Rest now," Sam says. "Are you hungry?"
"Starved," Dean whispers.
Sam grins, his smile as bright as his tears. "I'll make some soup."
"Cooking?" Even with half a voice, Dean gives the idea the scorn it deserves.
Sam's grin broadens. "Shut up," he answers, and the rhythm of their lives together snaps back into place.
Dean eats three cups of the chicken soup Sam brings him, slurps up the noodles and downs a few glasses of water on the side, and then he burrows down in the pillows and closes his eyes, no pretense of trying to stay awake. The bed gives way to Sam's weight as Sam curls up on top of the quilt beside him, much like Dean had once curled beside Sam when he was just a little boy, scared of the dark and still in need of his big brother.
Sam brushes gentle fingers across his face, and then slips them into Dean's hair, petting him. Dean huffs, not really a protest; it feels good, and he's so very tired.
His mind wanders across the questions he hasn't asked, but it's too much effort to remember everything, and the dull pain in his bones makes him weary, so he surrenders to Sam's mother-hen routine. Only for now; he'll give Sam hell about it, later. Sam keeps biting his lip in that way he has of trying to ward off big tears, and Dean's pretty sure it's because of him, but the sun is warm and the bed is comfortable, and he feels safe. He's okay, and soon Sam will be okay, too.
He sleeps for what seems like a million years.
Sometime later he jerks awake and he rolls over, anticipating an enemy who isn't there. The ghostly remnants of his dreams burst apart in the sunbeams cutting across the bed. He blinks, then stretches out the morning aches. Most of the pain is gone now, but the fog around his memory remains; he's stiff, but nothing a cup of coffee can't cure.
The room he's in looks like something out of a romance novel, brass bed and billowing white curtains, blue sky beyond just begging for a wayward bird to complete the picture. His lips twist up in a smirk. One more thing to give Sam hell about.
"Bout time," Sam says from the doorway. His t-shirt is frayed across the collar, his jeans ripped at the knees. He watches Dean with a small smile as he sips coffee from a chipped yellow mug. The mug's too small for Sam, like most everything else in the world, and his big hands swallow it up. "Thought your lazy ass was going to sleep forever."
Dean scratches his belly, lets himself fall back on the soft pillows that smell of warm comfort, and sweet fresh air, and maybe just a hint of cinnamon toast. A slow, genuine smile works itself up from somewhere around the fringes of his heart, manifests open and unpreventable on his face. "I feel good," he says, swinging his legs down. "Better, anyway."
Sam turns his head and nods toward the open window. "Ready to take a look at the place?"
"Where are we?" Dean's toes touch the wooden floor, and he tests his weight, pushing up from the bed. Sam is there in a heartbeat, one hand on Dean's shoulder, steadying him. Dean's tempted to give him a good hard shove, but he thinks he might fall down right after him, so he lets Sam balance him.
"Middle of nowhere," Sam says. "Someplace where no one will find us. Bobby helped me find it."
"Was I hurt?" Dean asks. He's still searching the vacant spaces of his mind, looking for the memory that precedes his pain, but there's nothing. "Was it a hunt?"
"Yeah," Sam says. "You...you were hurt."
Dean's legs are a little shaky. He searches his mind for details, but nothing comes. "Damn," he says softly.
"Give it time," Sam says. He pats Dean on the shoulder, but doesn't let go; he's right there as Dean makes a few tentative steps toward the window and glances out at the rolling green fields.
"A farm?" he says, raising an eyebrow at Sam. "You brought us to a farm?"
"Not exactly. Um." Sam gets one of those goofy not-exactly-contrite expressions on his face and looks down at his feet.
Dean rolls his eyes. "But no cows, right?" He rubs at his skin, smoothing away lingering chills. His knees stop trying to buckle and get with the program, too. "Fuckin' cows. Flies everywhere."
Sam grins, a smile so full of tentative joy Dean can't pull his gaze away. "No cows."
Dean wants to see everything, so Sam helps him through the living room and out onto the porch. Boards snap and creak beneath his bare feet, announcing their presence as if to welcome him.
In the morning sunshine, an emerald lawn stretches out before them, tufted with dead grass and dandelion patches, and spotted with random clumps of purple and yellow flowers. Uneven blue paint covers the house, white peeking through here and there as if the painter couldn't make up his mind which color looked best, and a ramshackle fence runs the length of the yard, gaping post-holes in desperate need of attention.
"It needs a lot of work," Sam says.
Dean can see places where loose boards need nailing, and the gutters are drooping down from the roof's-edge. With a hammer and a ladder, he could start squaring things away in no time flat.
Plus there's a swing, and it'll be just right for a nap, later.
"Nothin's perfect, Sammy," he says. He takes the cup from Sam's hand and tastes the hot bitter coffee, still leaning on Sam's side for support. "But it has potential."
**
For the next day or so, Dean sleeps more than he's awake, and he eats everything Sam brings him without complaint--soup, toast, even tea--and ignores his stomach when it snarls for more, as if it doesn't believe more is coming down the hatch soon. He dozes and wakes, and always Sam is there, reading by the bed, or fussing around the room.
"Don't you ever sleep?" Dean asks him in a mock-irritable tone, though he doesn't really want Sam to leave. There's comfort in having him there; when he's out of the room, Dean gets antsy.
"Later," Sam says, and goes on rolling socks and flipping underwear into neatly folded squares.
When Sam isn't doing busywork, he's touching Dean, as if he's afraid Dean might disappear. Sometimes, Dean wakes to find Sam beside him, an arm thrown over his stomach and Sam's face smashed into Dean's shoulder. It never fails to make Dean smile, and he sleeps without dreaming when Sam's warm weight is there, the soft rise and fall of his breathing the most soothing thing Dean can imagine.
Dean finally manages to stay awake an entire morning and spends most of it bitching at Sam about deliciously petty and unimportant things, but he's weaker than he can ever remember being, even after that long-ago heart attack.
He showers before lunch, warm water soothing the shakes out of his knees and shoulder, and explores the scars across his body, silvery trails of raised skin that tell a story he's not sure he wants to remember.
"You're still healing," Sam tells him, as he towel-dries Dean's hair over Dean's protests.
"From what?" Dean asks, and Sam's hands go still.
"What do you actually remember?"
Dean considers the question. So much of it is a blur. One minute they'd been laying down dust against Lilith's hellhound, and then...then what? Dean tastes bile at the back of his throat, remembering how it had been, both him and Sam pinned and helpless, all hope lost. And the next...the next, the hound was on him, and then darkness.
In the darkness, he'd heard Sam calling him. It had taken a while to recognize the words, though Sam's voice was like the beat of his own heart.
Dean frowns. He remembers Sam's arms around him, a closed circle of warmth, and Sam whispering to him about going home, about time to heal; he'd told Dean he had a place, that they'd be safe. Every word had wound its way inside Dean, penetrated down to his bones.
His memory is a little hazy on the rest of the details between Sam calling his name, and waking up here in this place.
"I remember Lilith," he says. He scratches at his earlobe. "And the hellhound. Not much after that."
Sam ruffles his hair, the same as Dean used to ruffle Sam's when they were kids, and tosses the towel in his face. "Doesn't matter. The rest will come back."
A knot forms in the pit of Dean's stomach.
Sam picks up the towels in the bathroom, and Dean watches. He's always watching, but rarely doing, and it weighs on him. He wants to do something with his hands--the house is crying out for some attention. He wants to be useful. But he's tired again, and Sam is manhandling him into bed, paying no attention to Dean's grumpy noises.
He makes up his mind to ask Sam for all the details, later. After a nap.
"You take care of my baby while I was gone?" he asks, when Sam tosses the covers over him.
Sam just sighs, like the question is too ridiculous even to merit a response, and Dean smiles into the pillow.
**
Two days later, Dean's strength is almost back to normal levels, and Sam stops playing nursemaid. Dean feels awesome. He feels like his old self again, and there's plenty to do, if this is going to be their home. No point in wasting any more time.
Leaves clog the gutter, packed in solid like red and orange crayons melted into clumps. Dean stands on a ladder and rains them down on Sam, who ducks and dodges and shakes the ladder like he really would toss Dean off. Dean laughs and shimmies up on the roof. "Nice try, Sammy," he shouts.
"Jerk," Sam shouts back. He fusses around below, stomping across the porch like he has no time for Dean's goofing around, which makes Dean grin.
Dean sits down on the shingled roof and dusts his hands off on his jeans. Out to the horizon in all directions, nothing but flat green land, broken in places by brown fields and bumps that must have been houses and barns. Dean figures their nearest neighbor is five, six miles away. That suits him just fine. He isn't quite sure where they are, but that's all right. He's content to be isolated. Just him and Sammy; that's all he really needs, and he's not sure he's up to more than that. Not yet. He keeps meaning to ask, but it can wait. He's in no hurry.
He sprawls back on the warm roof, hands under his head, and lets the heat soak up into his back. There's a raging blue sky overhead, so mellow he can absorb it just by sitting still beneath it. He closes his eyes so the sunlight will turn his eyelids pink, and dozes there until Sam's head pops up over the edge of the roof like some kind of demented gopher.
"Don't sleep up here. You'll fall off," Sam says, scowling.
"Yes, mother," Dean says. He kicks his boot heel out at Sam's face, a 'go away' gesture; Sam rolls his eyes and disappears back down the ladder. Dean sighs and follows him.
He busies himself for a few hours mixing paint - "Blue," Sam orders firmly, and Dean goes along with it, since he doesn't actually care what the hell color the house is - and searches the shed for primer and turpentine.
In the evening, the breeze picks up a chill as the sun disappears slowly down into the green fields. Dean sits in the swing and watches stars glimmering above the horizon. "Man, I love this time of year," he says. "Been a while since we've been in one place long enough to see the seasons change."
They swing gently in silence a while, listening to crickets chirp, as the late summer wind shivers the trees into autumn out back. Dean tilts his face up, sniffs the air. "It smell like rain to you?" he asks.
Sam turns his head to the right, looking out into the darkness for a very long time. "Maybe," he says softly. Then, "Yeah. I think so."
"Awesome. I love rain."
"Can't paint if it rains," Sam says.
"Guess there's no big rush, right?"
Sam looks up at the sky. The stars twinkle back their secret messages, like conspirators.
**
In the morning, Dean makes toast in the kitchen in rhythm to the gentle patter of rain on the roof. He had some trouble finding things in the kitchen; stuff doesn't seem to be organized according to any system he would use, but then again - Sam has always been an obsessive freak about organizing stuff, and Dean wouldn't be surprised to find labels on the doors.
Dean opens the cabinets, counting neatly stacked glasses and plates and canisters like tiny victories, each one a testimony to second chances.
When the coffee is almost done, he makes his way down the narrow hallway to Sam's bedroom. The door is half-open, wide enough for Dean to see Sam inside, sprawled under white sheets with ridiculous lime-green flowers. He smirks, but the smile fades slowly as Sam snuffles and turns over. He looks so young, hair flopping in his face, but there are dark circles under his eyes, and he looks exhausted even in his sleep. There are new scars on Sam's shoulder, or if not new, at least marks Dean can't remember seeing before--ugly jagged rows of tooth marks across the pale skin, and curving scars, the kind knives might make. The sight of them makes Dean shudder, makes him cold.
He shakes it off, because whatever had Sam in its clutches, he's free of it now. "Sammy," he says quietly. "Coffee's on."
Sam stirs, shoves an arm under his pillow, and grunts as if the idea of waking up is painful to face.
Dean grins and pulls the door closed. If ever anyone deserves to sleep in, Sam does.
Outside, the sun peeks through the drifting storm clouds as if determined to shine, but the rain still trickles down in a fine mist. Dean steps off the porch and tilts his face up to the sky, soaking up every drop into his skin. He's dry, parched, as if he's been too long outside on a hot day. He looks around, trying to figure out the lay of the land, and then he sees it: a double-sized garage, around back of the house.
She is there, waiting.
"Baby," he says, a lump in his throat so hard he can barely swallow around it. He puts his hands on her, reverent; a thin coat of road dust covers her, and he knows Sam hasn't wiped her down properly while Dean's been gone. He touches her, draws his hands across her contours, feeling for scratches too fine to be seen by the naked eye. She gleams wherever his hands cross her skin, and as he smoothes away the grime, he sees her finish is still intact. "You look good," he whispers, and presses his face to the hood.
He wipes away the moisture that falls on her; he knows she doesn't mind, but it's not good for the paint.
In the trunk, he finds his old car kit: six cloths for washing and buffing, and all the other supplies. All the cloths smell of Woolite; Sam has been washing them. Good thing, or Dean might have to beat his ass. He takes the old, worn-soft motel towel he'd cut in two once upon a time and folds it twice lengthwise, then begins wiping the Impala down, rubbing in slow circles until all the grime is gone.
"Better?" he asks her. But she doesn't answer; there's only one way for her to answer.
Dean eases open her door and slides behind the wheel, turns her over. She purrs to life, an eager thrum: let's get on the road. The invitation rumbles into his blood and calls out memories of long nights barreling down dark roads, his anchor the yellow lines in the middle of the road and the blaring of classic rock from the cassette deck.
A shadow catches his eye. Dean turns to see Sam standing in the double doors, framed by the shifting darkness of the sky.
"Knew you two would find each other," Sam says.
Dean nods, looks down at his hands, then back at Sam. When he trusts himself to speak, he says, "What do you say? Want to take a ride?"
Sam grins. "Hell, yeah."
They turn out of the driveway with Dean at the wheel, down a long dirt road and out onto a paved two-way street. Dean puts the pedal to the floor and shouts his joy as she leaps to his command and drops rubber on the road, as if they'd never been apart. Sam slouches down in the passenger seat and watches Dean, open and without looking away, like he's starved for the sight of him. Dean lets him look; he understands the feeling, Sam there beside him, and his baby running the roads like she's young again.
Together, the three of them dodge raindrops and stomp puddles, just because they can.
Dean has no idea where they're going, but he makes a rough square on the backroads and finds his way home again without any trouble. Sam's pawing through the tape cache by the time they pull in, insisting to Dean that Ratt is still not 'great art' and that there is only so much crap rock he can listen to before his ears start to bleed.
It's so much like old times, Dean's heart hurts, just a little.
He parks inside the garage and pops the door. "That's more like it," he says.
Sam's smiling, but he looks tired again, as if he's been doing hard labor all day. Dean closes the door and gives his baby a pat on the roof. "Come on, I'll make some lunch."
"Oh, you're all heart," Sam says. "What, Fritos and fried bologna?"
"Ha ha, comedy boy." Dean slings his arm up over Sam's shoulders. "Grilled cheese and tomato soup. Please tell me we have tomato soup."
"Duh," Sam says, blinking slowly. "Of course."
**
Dean loses track of days; there's so much to do, and he's busy all the time. Even so, the place is a little lonely. Not that he'll mention it to Sam, but he's curious about the neighbors, all the unseen inhabitants of the places around them. They haven't been into town yet, either. Sam appears to have laid in all the supplies they'll need to survive a couple apocalypses and a few demon wars, and Dean's grateful, but he still misses the road.
Not enough to bitch about it to Sam, though, because for the first time since Dean can really remember, Sam seems...thoroughly happy. There's an ease about him, and even though he's tired all the time, his smiles are huge and frequent. He watches Dean a lot, gives him stealth hugs intermittently even though Dean shoves him away, and those smiles break through at the craziest times, when Dean's bitching him out or complaining about things that used to make Sam cranky. Now Sam can't seem to get enough, and it's contagious.
Dean likes Sam this way. He's pretty sure he can put up with a lack of chicks and cheeseburgers for a little while longer, if it means Sam keeps smiling.
In the mornings, he stretches on the porch and then he sets out for his daily run. He's put most of the training he used to do aside; too tired, still too weak for hand-to-hand, and Sam purses his lips in disapproval when Dean talks about it. But running he can do, even if he does have to stop every quarter mile or so at first, hands on his knees, gulping air.
Sometimes Sam joins him, and the pace is easier to set when Sam's pounding along at his side, racing ahead every so often just to piss him off. The runs get longer, Dean's stamina improving with every mile they cover, and he looks forward to them in a way he never did before.
Evenings, they watch mindless TV, old reruns mostly, and bicker in ways that make Dean unaccountably happy. Sam reads an endless succession of tattered paperback books, and sometimes they fall asleep in the living room, Dean on the couch, Sam taking up half the floor in front of the TV.
Dean's half-asleep on the couch one evening, paint speckles dotted across his knuckles, when it dawns on him that he hasn't seen Sam use a cell phone, or check his email, and the phone on the wall in the kitchen hasn't ever made a sound. Bobby hasn't called, either.
That knot curls in the pit of his stomach again, and he can't wash it down with beer.
"Hey," Dean says finally, when the knot starts to ache. "You heard from anyone? Any of those college friends of yours, or anything?"
"Not really," Sam answers. A strange expression crosses his face. "You know I don't hear from them much anymore. Why?"
Dean shrugs. "Just wondering." He goes back to watching an old episode of Taxi, his third beer open on the coffee table before him.
It's another hour before Sam stirs, gets up, takes his coffee cup to the kitchen. On his way back, he pulls a tablet of paper out of the desk, and roots around for a pen. Dean watches him through half-closed eyes as Sam curls up in the armchair and writes for a long time, flipping pages every few minutes.
Dean waits it out for a while, but hey, he needs to hit the head, so he peeks over Sam's shoulder on his way to the bathroom, curious to see what the hell has Sam so busy. He catches just a glimpse of symbols and text before Sam rips out the page and crumples it up.
"Research?" Dean asks, a little put out that Sam won't share. "You got us a hunt or something?"
"Something like that," Sam says. But he doesn't elaborate, and he makes Dean feel as though he shouldn't ask.
So he carries on down the hall, stung, but he lets it go, because he doesn't know what else to do.
When he gets back, Sam is out on the porch, and Dean can see the crumpled paper in his hand as Sam stares out at the night. Dean sits down slowly on the couch and drinks his beer, and in a little while, Sam comes back in, pale as a ghost.
Dean's not wired to let it go. Not where Sam is concerned.
"Sammy," he says, but Sam just shakes his head, the universal signal for 'nothing.' It's a Dean-trigger as old as Sam is, and twice as annoying. "Sam. What's going on?"
"Leave it alone," Sam says. "Please. Please, Dean." He backs up a step before Dean can even get up and then he's out of reach. He goes down the hall, closes his bedroom door, leaving Dean frowning after him.
Dean doesn't sleep much that night. Instead he sits and watches the closed door, and tries to assemble the pieces of a puzzle that just won't go together.
**
Dean's underneath the porch the next day, patching rotted boards, when he hears the crunch of someone walking down the gravel drive. He scrambles sideways and sticks his head out, only to see Bobby limping down the road. He stares, not quite sure Bobby is real, as Bobby opens the gate and walks right on into the yard like he owns the place.
"Damn," Dean breathes, grinning so hard his face splits near in two. "Look what the cat dragged in."
The crack of the screen door sounds above, and Sam bounds down the porch stairs. "Bobby," he calls, and catches Bobby up in a huge hug. Bobby rolls his eyes, but he's grinning, too. Dean wriggles out from under the stairs and stands up, brushing most of the dirt off, before he heads over for a hug of his own.
Bobby's thinner than Dean remembers. There's a fresh bruise on his face, some recent cuts too, and there are some new scars twisting across his face, but his eyes are still warm and kind. "You're sure as hell a sight for sore eyes, boy," Bobby says, banging him on the back so hard Dean thinks his ribs are rattling.
"I wasn't sure," Sam says softly. "If you would come."
Bobby meets Sam's eyes, and a long look passes between them. "Are you kidding me?" Bobby says. "All I needed was an invitation. I just wasn't sure if..." He trails off, glancing at Dean. "It sure as hell wasn't an easy trip, I'll tell you that much."
"I know," Sam says. Dean looks from one to the other, on uneven ground, and there's a whole conversation he's missing. Irritation flares, but Bobby is here, and he can put the rest of it aside.
"Where the hell's your ride, Bobby?" Dean asks.
Bobby shrugs and clears his throat. After a long moment, he says, "Broke down back up the road a ways. Won't take much time to fix it, but I figured I'd do that on the way out. After I caught up with you boys and maybe wet my whistle."
Sam claps a hand on Bobby's shoulder. "I really appreciate you coming, anyway. Come on in for some coffee."
"Coffee, huh?" Bobby says gruffly.
Dean nudges Sam with an elbow. "Guess we could cough up something stronger, yeah?"
They sit at the kitchen table while Sam pours some whiskey, and before Dean can catch himself, he's asking questions - what's Bobby been hunting, any news about the demons, what the hell is going on with Lilith - and Bobby answers them all easily, telling tales about recent hunts like he's been dying to share. Sam brings out half the blueberry pie from the day before, and they chow down like none of them have eaten in days.
Dean breaks up his pie crust with a fork and stares at Bobby, his heart half bursting out of his chest, while he catalogs every familiar thing about him: the mixed grey-brown of his beard, now greyer than it once was; the deep grooves beneath his eyes, now cut across with fresh scars; the lipped-over grin he gives up when he hears about Dean's mishap with the riding mower.
"Hey, not everybody grew up wrangling one of those monsters," Dean protests.
"Sure, kid," Bobby says, his lip twitching. "You can kill a hundred different kinds of hellspawn and survive damn near anything they throw at you, but you can't ride a mower?"
"Bobby."
Dean jerks his head sideways, because Sam's voice is so deep, and carries a note of warning. Sam's glowering at Bobby in a way that makes Dean cold, and he doesn't stop even when he sees Dean staring.
"Anyways," Bobby says, as though he hadn't been interrupted, "the place is looking good."
A short silence falls, while Dean looks from Bobby to Sam, and Bobby and Sam mostly look at their hands.
"You hear anything from anybody? Ellen? How about Jo?" Dean tosses back the rest of his whisky and gets up to retrieve the coffeepot and some cups, but he doesn't miss the split-second look that passes between Sam and Bobby. He's onto them.
"Nope," Bobby says. "Not really. Haven't heard from Ellen since..."
"Since that last hunt in Montana, right?" Sam cuts in smoothly.
"Uh, yeah. That was probably the last time. Ellen's off busy finding a new place of her own. Jo..." Bobby clears his throat. "Well, you know, she's a hunter in her own right now. No time for the likes of us."
"Right." Dean nods and looks a little more closely at the fresh bruise under Bobby's eye; seems like he's taken a punch in the last few hours. A hard punch. That eye is going to be black by the next morning.
There's still blood welling in one of the cuts on Bobby's neck.
Dean looks down into his coffee as if he'll be able to see the answers in its black depths. It declines to reveal a single bit of information.
They chat a few hours more, until the sun sets and the evening chill creeps into the room. It's family and home and everything Dean has been missing; some part of him relaxes, finally, easing into the spaces of this new home and settling in.
He catches Sam smiling at him, and he shakes his head, pretending not to know what Sam's smiling at.
Bobby pushes back from the table and adjusts his cap. "Well, boys, I've got to be going. It's a long way back."
"Can we give you a hand with-" Dean begins, but Bobby waves him off.
"No need, son. You think I don't know my way around an engine?"
"Okay, okay," Dean says, hands thrown up in the air. He knows when not to push it with Bobby, but it makes him smile all the same.
"Bobby," Sam says, his voice full of gravel. He hugs Bobby a long time, and Bobby pats him awkwardly on the back. "Thanks. I...thanks. For everything."
"You bet." Bobby glances at Dean, and there are tears in his eyes. "It was all worth it."
Dean puts his arms around Bobby and accepts the bear hug Bobby gives him, because he has a crazy idea maybe he won't see Bobby again for a long, long time.
"You be good to each other," Bobby says, in a voice that breaks and puts itself back together in pieces.
"Yeah, always," Dean says, eyes drawn to his brother's. The thread of connection is there, the unspoken understanding that they are taking care of each other; not just Dean watching over Sam, but something much deeper and more reciprocal, now.
They stand on the porch and watch Bobby until he's out of sight, and suddenly the night seems too dark, the air too chill. Dean shivers. "Guess fall's really here."
Sam nods absently, still gazing out at the road as if he can still see Bobby out there somewhere.
Dean sighs and goes back into the house. He's cold; his bones feel like they're rattling inside his skin. The fireplace in the living room is set up for a fire, though neither of them has started one so far. Dean hopes like hell the thing was ready to go, because he's craving warmth. He crouches down and checks the flue, then stuffs newspaper around the logs, reaches for the matches and strikes it on the first try.
It flares to life--hard, acrid smell of sulpher--a flash of memory--pain.
Dean's bones are liquid; he's blind. Heat everywhere; laughter from a thousand voices, darkness all around him and the fire penetrates his skin, burning down deep into him where he can't soothe it, can't stop it, can only endure it. Hooks ripping into him, tearing him into a thousand pieces. He screams, but there's no sound; still, he screams as if his brother's name can protect him, if only he can make Sam hear.
Sam, Sam, Sam--
Sammy--
Strong arms around him, pulling him back from the fire, and Sam's voice, his lips next to Dean's ear. "Dean. Oh, god, Dean. They don't have you. They don't have you. Can you hear me? They won't get you, Dean. They will never fucking have you again."
Dean snaps back to himself, sprawled on the clean floor of their little house, Sam's arms around him. "Sam," he whispers, and Sam nods and rocks him, face buried against Dean's neck.
"I'm here," he says hoarsely, his words a promise against Dean's skin, as if he could weave armor around them both with the sound alone. "You're safe," he whispers. "Safe, here, with me."
"Safe," Dean says, tears choking him in the wake of terror. He fists Sam's shirt, not ashamed, and Sam wraps himself tighter around Dean, cradling him.
"None of those fuckers can touch you while you're with me," Sam whispers, and then, "Dean." The sound of his name, Sam's voice, grounds Dean, and the memory of pain subsides.
Dean begins to believe again; hard floor underneath them, place of peace Sam has found for them, and somehow Sam is between him and the night. He sinks down into it, and Sam says his name over and over, soft words that lull Dean into quiet, cool darkness.
**
Dean wakes in the deepest part of the night and tumbles out of bed without a weapon. He reaches for the knife he's forgotten to put there, the knife he hadn't remembered at all until that moment.
"Jesus," he murmurs, and sits down hard on the floor, bits and pieces of memory assaulting him. He's starting to have an idea of why he can't remember much, why Sam won't tell him. Why Bobby was bloody and torn when he walked in their front door.
He lurches up from the floor and leans on the bed for a moment, then he's out into the hall, giving Sam's closed door barely a glance. Like a homing beacon, he zeroes in on the Impala, slides behind her wheel, and then he's off into the dark, straight out on a road to nowhere.
No telling how long he drives. He goes and goes, his heart kicking faster and faster against his ribs, until finally he's gasping for breath. He jerks the car over to the shoulder and throws it into park, then steps out onto the gravel road. The headlights barely penetrate the dark here. He steps forward, and forward again, smothering in the dark, and two feet away from the car he's swallowed by it, alone in the night.
Eyes closed, he listens, and they call to him, the low vicious rasp of his name like acid on the healed scars. He hunches over, one knee hitting the ground hard.
Dean. Deaaaaaaan. You can't hide forever. You know where you belong.
If he put out his hand, he's sure he'd be able to touch the darkness. And maybe, what's on the other side. He makes a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh, and pitches over backwards, because he can't get up; his bones are too heavy. Sprawled there on the ground, he scoots away on elbows and ass, but the dark comes closer.
"Dean."
His shoulder bumps the left front tire and he leans heavily on it, turns his head toward the sound of Sam's voice.
Sam is walking down the middle of the road. There's no light, not even a moon, no streetlights, but he can see Sam clearly, as if he's illuminated from the inside out, the one spot of light in the utter blackness surrounding him. The way he moves raises the hair on the back of Dean's neck; he stares, transfixed, until Sam comes close enough for him to see Sam's eyes.
His ghostly white eyes, luminous, opaque.
Tears streak down Dean's face.
By the time Sam reaches him, all the pain has left Dean's body, and Sam's eyes are normal-hazel and filled with sadness. He crouches down beside Dean, rests a hand on his knee. "Dean. Where were you trying to go?"
"It was all for nothing, wasn't it," Dean says softly.
Sam tenses. "Don't ask me to explain." His voice wavers, exhaustion or emotion, Dean can't tell. "Not now."
Dean reaches up, brushes Sam's hair out of his face, and he can see the walls around Sam crack, just wide enough for him to push through the way he used to, once upon a time. Sam turns his face into Dean's touch, closes his eyes, and Dean realizes he's trembling.
He reaches out a hand to his brother, lets Sam pull him to his feet, and because he can't help it, he leans into Sam for a moment, soaking up some of that light. Sam rests his cheek on the top of Dean's head, and the hitch in his breathing might be a sob; Dean's not going to look up and embarrass Sam by noticing.
Sam drives them back. Dean leans his head on the window and looks at the darkness. When the house comes into view, Dean's overwhelmed with a rush of home and safe and love, and then he doesn't dare look at Sam for fear it will all show on his face.
"Come on," Sam says, climbing out of the car. He waits in the driveway for Dean, who comes slowly up beside him, and together they climb the porch stairs, shoulder to shoulder.
Sam sits down in the porch swing, his eyes turned toward some far-away point in the darkness Dean can't see.
"You haven't ever asked," Sam says, his voice low. For the first time, Dean hears the thrum of power threaded through it, still Sam but something more.
"Figured you'd get around to telling me eventually," he says mildly.
"Liar," Sam says, but there's a small smile behind the accusation.
Dean climbs into the porch swing and sits beside Sam, silent in the dark, aware of his brother in a visceral way he hasn't been before.
Together they stare out into the night, Dean holding vigil for everything Sam was, everything Sam has given up. The knot in his stomach coalesces, becomes sadness.
"I didn't stop her in time." Sam's voice sounds raw, rubbed bare. "We tried everything. I don't know...if you remember, but...we did everything we knew how to do, and it just...she took you. I watched you die." Sam turns to him then. "You should understand better than anybody how it feels. What it was like, after."
Dean nods. The urge to stop Sam from saying the rest is so strong, he has to clench his hands into fists.
"I told Bobby what I had planned, and he said it was crazy to come in after you, but I knew one way or the other, I would find you."
Dean's strung tight, so tense he thinks he might break open and shatter on Sam's next words.
"And I did." Sam's eyes are full of those bright unshed tears; triumph or tragedy, Dean isn't sure which, yet.
He wants to ask -- what is this place, Sammy? Where did we end up? But the answer's already clear; beyond this world Sam has made for them, there's only darkness, and all darkness is the same. Here they're safe; here they are together, for as long as Sam can make it last.
Sam seems to have made up his mind to pay the cost, and Dean's come to the end of that road. No deals left to make for Sam; nothing to bargain with. He's failed, and Sam has had to give everything. Alive or dead, it's all the same. All the options are bad, and none of them are the safe, long life Dean wanted for Sam.
But they're Winchesters, and sacrifice is just what they do.
Sam seems to have run out of words, and Dean's not sure what to ask. So he scoots closer to Sam, throws an arm around Sam's shoulders, and Sam shifts and settles against him, rests his face in the curve of Dean's neck.
"We can have this," Sam says, fierce.
Dean's eyes flutter closed. He shivers, bows his head, and Sam noses into him, presses gentle kisses against the frantic beat of his heart. It always did belong to Sam, so no surprise it's trying to jump out of his body to get closer.
"Sam," he says roughly.
Sam cups Dean's face with one hand, turns him; their lips touch, and Dean forgets to feel sorry, or guilty. None of that matters now. He can only offer everything he has, all he has left to give, to the only thing he's ever wanted. He gives in to the want he's carried within him, and Sam absorbs it, returns it, kisses him until Dean's hands are buried in Sam's hair and their lips are wet and swollen, until they're pressed together, as if it's always been this way, inevitable. They fall deeper and deeper into each other until the darkness recedes, until sunrise begins to throw its warmth over the horizon, and then they break apart, awkwardly.
Sam ducks his head and grins, cocky. Not like Sam hasn't earned that grin, but Dean hasn't quite wrapped his mind around it all yet. He still has questions, and eventually, they're going to need asking.
"Sammy," Dean says. The pink-orange of the sunrise casts a soft glow over everything. "Will we have to leave here?"
"No. Never." Sam sounds so sure.
Dean wants to believe him.
Dean braces his boots on the porch rail and pushes off, rocking the swing back and forth. "So. Where'd you hide the guns?"
Sam fixes him with a long look, measuring, hard to read. "You're not ready for that. And I'm not...I'm not sure there's any point. There might not be a way out."
Dean shrugs. "Maybe not yet. But there's work to do, Sammy."
"They need cleaning," Sam says, dubious.
"You never could meet my standards."
Sam smiles and nods up at the morning sky, the light falling all around them and pushing back the dark. "I think I did all right."
They watch the sun come up all the way, braced against each other, as it was always meant to be. When Dean's legs grow too tired, Sam pushes the swing in an endless gentle motion, and they drift in the sunshine, content.
End
April-May, 2008
But thou shall flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the wars of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
- Joseph Addison
Additional notes: When I started writing this a couple months ago, it had a slightly different slant to it, which I changed in the more recent drafts. I was completely unspoiled for the finale, so I had no idea that it was going to work out so perfectly as a coda for 3x16. I was writing my own fix, and didn't know it. *g*
7,452 words, PG, Sam/Dean
Notes: This story contains spoilers for season three, particularly the season finale. Huge thanks to my beta readers, luzdeestrellas and audrarose, for talking me down off the ledge and for their incredibly helpful betas. This is for tvm - happy birthday, honey. :)
Amidst The Wars of Elements
By Destina
Dean hurts everywhere; there's a constant throb of pain drumming under his skin. When he opens his eyes, bright sunshine slants gentle warmth across his face.
He doesn't recognize the room, but the only thing that matters is that Sam is there, in a chair beside the bed, head in his hands. His t-shirt is wrinkled, his hair wild and messy, as if he hasn't combed it in days.
"Sam," he croaks. It's all he can do to say his brother's name, and he can never make the word convey everything he needs Sam to hear.
Sam startles. He lifts his head and stares at Dean with wide, hopeful eyes. "Dean," he says, shock in his voice. "You're awake."
Hello, captain obvious, Dean thinks, but it's too many words, so he only nods. Sam reaches out a hand, touches Dean's where it rests on the blue and white quilt. "It's...you've been...it's been so long," Sam says, and in the spaces between the words, Dean hears fear. He knows that kind of fear; he's known it a hundred times, can see Sam's closed eyes, Sam's limp body in his arms, and a pang of sympathy chokes him.
"'M'okay," he says, more message than observation.
Sam scoots the chair forward and leans across the bed, watching Dean carefully. "How do you feel?"
"Like shit," Dean says, amazed his voice is working at all with his throat so dry. Sam picks up a cup on the bedside table and holds against Dean's chest, patiently waiting while Dean takes a few tentative sips from the straw.
His skin burns, but Sam is stroking his hand and with every touch, the hurt is ebbing away, leaving a dull ache behind.
He closes his eyes again and tries to center himself, but there's a gaping blank hole where his most recent memories ought to be. He doesn't know where they are, how he got here; why Sam looks like he's been awake for days, or why every bone in his body protests when he lifts his shoulders to sit up.
Sam presses him down, a firm hand on his chest. "No, Dean. It's too soon."
"Sam," Dean says, but Sam shakes his head. Tears spill over and track down Sam's face, but Dean can't look away, because it seems like he hasn't seen Sam in a hundred years. Sam is as familiar as Dean's own bones and breath, and yet not; his face is sharper, the angles and planes harder, but what Dean sees in Sam's eyes, he remembers. It's everything; it's his world, and it's worth enduring any amount of pain.
"Rest now," Sam says. "Are you hungry?"
"Starved," Dean whispers.
Sam grins, his smile as bright as his tears. "I'll make some soup."
"Cooking?" Even with half a voice, Dean gives the idea the scorn it deserves.
Sam's grin broadens. "Shut up," he answers, and the rhythm of their lives together snaps back into place.
Dean eats three cups of the chicken soup Sam brings him, slurps up the noodles and downs a few glasses of water on the side, and then he burrows down in the pillows and closes his eyes, no pretense of trying to stay awake. The bed gives way to Sam's weight as Sam curls up on top of the quilt beside him, much like Dean had once curled beside Sam when he was just a little boy, scared of the dark and still in need of his big brother.
Sam brushes gentle fingers across his face, and then slips them into Dean's hair, petting him. Dean huffs, not really a protest; it feels good, and he's so very tired.
His mind wanders across the questions he hasn't asked, but it's too much effort to remember everything, and the dull pain in his bones makes him weary, so he surrenders to Sam's mother-hen routine. Only for now; he'll give Sam hell about it, later. Sam keeps biting his lip in that way he has of trying to ward off big tears, and Dean's pretty sure it's because of him, but the sun is warm and the bed is comfortable, and he feels safe. He's okay, and soon Sam will be okay, too.
He sleeps for what seems like a million years.
Sometime later he jerks awake and he rolls over, anticipating an enemy who isn't there. The ghostly remnants of his dreams burst apart in the sunbeams cutting across the bed. He blinks, then stretches out the morning aches. Most of the pain is gone now, but the fog around his memory remains; he's stiff, but nothing a cup of coffee can't cure.
The room he's in looks like something out of a romance novel, brass bed and billowing white curtains, blue sky beyond just begging for a wayward bird to complete the picture. His lips twist up in a smirk. One more thing to give Sam hell about.
"Bout time," Sam says from the doorway. His t-shirt is frayed across the collar, his jeans ripped at the knees. He watches Dean with a small smile as he sips coffee from a chipped yellow mug. The mug's too small for Sam, like most everything else in the world, and his big hands swallow it up. "Thought your lazy ass was going to sleep forever."
Dean scratches his belly, lets himself fall back on the soft pillows that smell of warm comfort, and sweet fresh air, and maybe just a hint of cinnamon toast. A slow, genuine smile works itself up from somewhere around the fringes of his heart, manifests open and unpreventable on his face. "I feel good," he says, swinging his legs down. "Better, anyway."
Sam turns his head and nods toward the open window. "Ready to take a look at the place?"
"Where are we?" Dean's toes touch the wooden floor, and he tests his weight, pushing up from the bed. Sam is there in a heartbeat, one hand on Dean's shoulder, steadying him. Dean's tempted to give him a good hard shove, but he thinks he might fall down right after him, so he lets Sam balance him.
"Middle of nowhere," Sam says. "Someplace where no one will find us. Bobby helped me find it."
"Was I hurt?" Dean asks. He's still searching the vacant spaces of his mind, looking for the memory that precedes his pain, but there's nothing. "Was it a hunt?"
"Yeah," Sam says. "You...you were hurt."
Dean's legs are a little shaky. He searches his mind for details, but nothing comes. "Damn," he says softly.
"Give it time," Sam says. He pats Dean on the shoulder, but doesn't let go; he's right there as Dean makes a few tentative steps toward the window and glances out at the rolling green fields.
"A farm?" he says, raising an eyebrow at Sam. "You brought us to a farm?"
"Not exactly. Um." Sam gets one of those goofy not-exactly-contrite expressions on his face and looks down at his feet.
Dean rolls his eyes. "But no cows, right?" He rubs at his skin, smoothing away lingering chills. His knees stop trying to buckle and get with the program, too. "Fuckin' cows. Flies everywhere."
Sam grins, a smile so full of tentative joy Dean can't pull his gaze away. "No cows."
Dean wants to see everything, so Sam helps him through the living room and out onto the porch. Boards snap and creak beneath his bare feet, announcing their presence as if to welcome him.
In the morning sunshine, an emerald lawn stretches out before them, tufted with dead grass and dandelion patches, and spotted with random clumps of purple and yellow flowers. Uneven blue paint covers the house, white peeking through here and there as if the painter couldn't make up his mind which color looked best, and a ramshackle fence runs the length of the yard, gaping post-holes in desperate need of attention.
"It needs a lot of work," Sam says.
Dean can see places where loose boards need nailing, and the gutters are drooping down from the roof's-edge. With a hammer and a ladder, he could start squaring things away in no time flat.
Plus there's a swing, and it'll be just right for a nap, later.
"Nothin's perfect, Sammy," he says. He takes the cup from Sam's hand and tastes the hot bitter coffee, still leaning on Sam's side for support. "But it has potential."
**
For the next day or so, Dean sleeps more than he's awake, and he eats everything Sam brings him without complaint--soup, toast, even tea--and ignores his stomach when it snarls for more, as if it doesn't believe more is coming down the hatch soon. He dozes and wakes, and always Sam is there, reading by the bed, or fussing around the room.
"Don't you ever sleep?" Dean asks him in a mock-irritable tone, though he doesn't really want Sam to leave. There's comfort in having him there; when he's out of the room, Dean gets antsy.
"Later," Sam says, and goes on rolling socks and flipping underwear into neatly folded squares.
When Sam isn't doing busywork, he's touching Dean, as if he's afraid Dean might disappear. Sometimes, Dean wakes to find Sam beside him, an arm thrown over his stomach and Sam's face smashed into Dean's shoulder. It never fails to make Dean smile, and he sleeps without dreaming when Sam's warm weight is there, the soft rise and fall of his breathing the most soothing thing Dean can imagine.
Dean finally manages to stay awake an entire morning and spends most of it bitching at Sam about deliciously petty and unimportant things, but he's weaker than he can ever remember being, even after that long-ago heart attack.
He showers before lunch, warm water soothing the shakes out of his knees and shoulder, and explores the scars across his body, silvery trails of raised skin that tell a story he's not sure he wants to remember.
"You're still healing," Sam tells him, as he towel-dries Dean's hair over Dean's protests.
"From what?" Dean asks, and Sam's hands go still.
"What do you actually remember?"
Dean considers the question. So much of it is a blur. One minute they'd been laying down dust against Lilith's hellhound, and then...then what? Dean tastes bile at the back of his throat, remembering how it had been, both him and Sam pinned and helpless, all hope lost. And the next...the next, the hound was on him, and then darkness.
In the darkness, he'd heard Sam calling him. It had taken a while to recognize the words, though Sam's voice was like the beat of his own heart.
Dean frowns. He remembers Sam's arms around him, a closed circle of warmth, and Sam whispering to him about going home, about time to heal; he'd told Dean he had a place, that they'd be safe. Every word had wound its way inside Dean, penetrated down to his bones.
His memory is a little hazy on the rest of the details between Sam calling his name, and waking up here in this place.
"I remember Lilith," he says. He scratches at his earlobe. "And the hellhound. Not much after that."
Sam ruffles his hair, the same as Dean used to ruffle Sam's when they were kids, and tosses the towel in his face. "Doesn't matter. The rest will come back."
A knot forms in the pit of Dean's stomach.
Sam picks up the towels in the bathroom, and Dean watches. He's always watching, but rarely doing, and it weighs on him. He wants to do something with his hands--the house is crying out for some attention. He wants to be useful. But he's tired again, and Sam is manhandling him into bed, paying no attention to Dean's grumpy noises.
He makes up his mind to ask Sam for all the details, later. After a nap.
"You take care of my baby while I was gone?" he asks, when Sam tosses the covers over him.
Sam just sighs, like the question is too ridiculous even to merit a response, and Dean smiles into the pillow.
**
Two days later, Dean's strength is almost back to normal levels, and Sam stops playing nursemaid. Dean feels awesome. He feels like his old self again, and there's plenty to do, if this is going to be their home. No point in wasting any more time.
Leaves clog the gutter, packed in solid like red and orange crayons melted into clumps. Dean stands on a ladder and rains them down on Sam, who ducks and dodges and shakes the ladder like he really would toss Dean off. Dean laughs and shimmies up on the roof. "Nice try, Sammy," he shouts.
"Jerk," Sam shouts back. He fusses around below, stomping across the porch like he has no time for Dean's goofing around, which makes Dean grin.
Dean sits down on the shingled roof and dusts his hands off on his jeans. Out to the horizon in all directions, nothing but flat green land, broken in places by brown fields and bumps that must have been houses and barns. Dean figures their nearest neighbor is five, six miles away. That suits him just fine. He isn't quite sure where they are, but that's all right. He's content to be isolated. Just him and Sammy; that's all he really needs, and he's not sure he's up to more than that. Not yet. He keeps meaning to ask, but it can wait. He's in no hurry.
He sprawls back on the warm roof, hands under his head, and lets the heat soak up into his back. There's a raging blue sky overhead, so mellow he can absorb it just by sitting still beneath it. He closes his eyes so the sunlight will turn his eyelids pink, and dozes there until Sam's head pops up over the edge of the roof like some kind of demented gopher.
"Don't sleep up here. You'll fall off," Sam says, scowling.
"Yes, mother," Dean says. He kicks his boot heel out at Sam's face, a 'go away' gesture; Sam rolls his eyes and disappears back down the ladder. Dean sighs and follows him.
He busies himself for a few hours mixing paint - "Blue," Sam orders firmly, and Dean goes along with it, since he doesn't actually care what the hell color the house is - and searches the shed for primer and turpentine.
In the evening, the breeze picks up a chill as the sun disappears slowly down into the green fields. Dean sits in the swing and watches stars glimmering above the horizon. "Man, I love this time of year," he says. "Been a while since we've been in one place long enough to see the seasons change."
They swing gently in silence a while, listening to crickets chirp, as the late summer wind shivers the trees into autumn out back. Dean tilts his face up, sniffs the air. "It smell like rain to you?" he asks.
Sam turns his head to the right, looking out into the darkness for a very long time. "Maybe," he says softly. Then, "Yeah. I think so."
"Awesome. I love rain."
"Can't paint if it rains," Sam says.
"Guess there's no big rush, right?"
Sam looks up at the sky. The stars twinkle back their secret messages, like conspirators.
**
In the morning, Dean makes toast in the kitchen in rhythm to the gentle patter of rain on the roof. He had some trouble finding things in the kitchen; stuff doesn't seem to be organized according to any system he would use, but then again - Sam has always been an obsessive freak about organizing stuff, and Dean wouldn't be surprised to find labels on the doors.
Dean opens the cabinets, counting neatly stacked glasses and plates and canisters like tiny victories, each one a testimony to second chances.
When the coffee is almost done, he makes his way down the narrow hallway to Sam's bedroom. The door is half-open, wide enough for Dean to see Sam inside, sprawled under white sheets with ridiculous lime-green flowers. He smirks, but the smile fades slowly as Sam snuffles and turns over. He looks so young, hair flopping in his face, but there are dark circles under his eyes, and he looks exhausted even in his sleep. There are new scars on Sam's shoulder, or if not new, at least marks Dean can't remember seeing before--ugly jagged rows of tooth marks across the pale skin, and curving scars, the kind knives might make. The sight of them makes Dean shudder, makes him cold.
He shakes it off, because whatever had Sam in its clutches, he's free of it now. "Sammy," he says quietly. "Coffee's on."
Sam stirs, shoves an arm under his pillow, and grunts as if the idea of waking up is painful to face.
Dean grins and pulls the door closed. If ever anyone deserves to sleep in, Sam does.
Outside, the sun peeks through the drifting storm clouds as if determined to shine, but the rain still trickles down in a fine mist. Dean steps off the porch and tilts his face up to the sky, soaking up every drop into his skin. He's dry, parched, as if he's been too long outside on a hot day. He looks around, trying to figure out the lay of the land, and then he sees it: a double-sized garage, around back of the house.
She is there, waiting.
"Baby," he says, a lump in his throat so hard he can barely swallow around it. He puts his hands on her, reverent; a thin coat of road dust covers her, and he knows Sam hasn't wiped her down properly while Dean's been gone. He touches her, draws his hands across her contours, feeling for scratches too fine to be seen by the naked eye. She gleams wherever his hands cross her skin, and as he smoothes away the grime, he sees her finish is still intact. "You look good," he whispers, and presses his face to the hood.
He wipes away the moisture that falls on her; he knows she doesn't mind, but it's not good for the paint.
In the trunk, he finds his old car kit: six cloths for washing and buffing, and all the other supplies. All the cloths smell of Woolite; Sam has been washing them. Good thing, or Dean might have to beat his ass. He takes the old, worn-soft motel towel he'd cut in two once upon a time and folds it twice lengthwise, then begins wiping the Impala down, rubbing in slow circles until all the grime is gone.
"Better?" he asks her. But she doesn't answer; there's only one way for her to answer.
Dean eases open her door and slides behind the wheel, turns her over. She purrs to life, an eager thrum: let's get on the road. The invitation rumbles into his blood and calls out memories of long nights barreling down dark roads, his anchor the yellow lines in the middle of the road and the blaring of classic rock from the cassette deck.
A shadow catches his eye. Dean turns to see Sam standing in the double doors, framed by the shifting darkness of the sky.
"Knew you two would find each other," Sam says.
Dean nods, looks down at his hands, then back at Sam. When he trusts himself to speak, he says, "What do you say? Want to take a ride?"
Sam grins. "Hell, yeah."
They turn out of the driveway with Dean at the wheel, down a long dirt road and out onto a paved two-way street. Dean puts the pedal to the floor and shouts his joy as she leaps to his command and drops rubber on the road, as if they'd never been apart. Sam slouches down in the passenger seat and watches Dean, open and without looking away, like he's starved for the sight of him. Dean lets him look; he understands the feeling, Sam there beside him, and his baby running the roads like she's young again.
Together, the three of them dodge raindrops and stomp puddles, just because they can.
Dean has no idea where they're going, but he makes a rough square on the backroads and finds his way home again without any trouble. Sam's pawing through the tape cache by the time they pull in, insisting to Dean that Ratt is still not 'great art' and that there is only so much crap rock he can listen to before his ears start to bleed.
It's so much like old times, Dean's heart hurts, just a little.
He parks inside the garage and pops the door. "That's more like it," he says.
Sam's smiling, but he looks tired again, as if he's been doing hard labor all day. Dean closes the door and gives his baby a pat on the roof. "Come on, I'll make some lunch."
"Oh, you're all heart," Sam says. "What, Fritos and fried bologna?"
"Ha ha, comedy boy." Dean slings his arm up over Sam's shoulders. "Grilled cheese and tomato soup. Please tell me we have tomato soup."
"Duh," Sam says, blinking slowly. "Of course."
**
Dean loses track of days; there's so much to do, and he's busy all the time. Even so, the place is a little lonely. Not that he'll mention it to Sam, but he's curious about the neighbors, all the unseen inhabitants of the places around them. They haven't been into town yet, either. Sam appears to have laid in all the supplies they'll need to survive a couple apocalypses and a few demon wars, and Dean's grateful, but he still misses the road.
Not enough to bitch about it to Sam, though, because for the first time since Dean can really remember, Sam seems...thoroughly happy. There's an ease about him, and even though he's tired all the time, his smiles are huge and frequent. He watches Dean a lot, gives him stealth hugs intermittently even though Dean shoves him away, and those smiles break through at the craziest times, when Dean's bitching him out or complaining about things that used to make Sam cranky. Now Sam can't seem to get enough, and it's contagious.
Dean likes Sam this way. He's pretty sure he can put up with a lack of chicks and cheeseburgers for a little while longer, if it means Sam keeps smiling.
In the mornings, he stretches on the porch and then he sets out for his daily run. He's put most of the training he used to do aside; too tired, still too weak for hand-to-hand, and Sam purses his lips in disapproval when Dean talks about it. But running he can do, even if he does have to stop every quarter mile or so at first, hands on his knees, gulping air.
Sometimes Sam joins him, and the pace is easier to set when Sam's pounding along at his side, racing ahead every so often just to piss him off. The runs get longer, Dean's stamina improving with every mile they cover, and he looks forward to them in a way he never did before.
Evenings, they watch mindless TV, old reruns mostly, and bicker in ways that make Dean unaccountably happy. Sam reads an endless succession of tattered paperback books, and sometimes they fall asleep in the living room, Dean on the couch, Sam taking up half the floor in front of the TV.
Dean's half-asleep on the couch one evening, paint speckles dotted across his knuckles, when it dawns on him that he hasn't seen Sam use a cell phone, or check his email, and the phone on the wall in the kitchen hasn't ever made a sound. Bobby hasn't called, either.
That knot curls in the pit of his stomach again, and he can't wash it down with beer.
"Hey," Dean says finally, when the knot starts to ache. "You heard from anyone? Any of those college friends of yours, or anything?"
"Not really," Sam answers. A strange expression crosses his face. "You know I don't hear from them much anymore. Why?"
Dean shrugs. "Just wondering." He goes back to watching an old episode of Taxi, his third beer open on the coffee table before him.
It's another hour before Sam stirs, gets up, takes his coffee cup to the kitchen. On his way back, he pulls a tablet of paper out of the desk, and roots around for a pen. Dean watches him through half-closed eyes as Sam curls up in the armchair and writes for a long time, flipping pages every few minutes.
Dean waits it out for a while, but hey, he needs to hit the head, so he peeks over Sam's shoulder on his way to the bathroom, curious to see what the hell has Sam so busy. He catches just a glimpse of symbols and text before Sam rips out the page and crumples it up.
"Research?" Dean asks, a little put out that Sam won't share. "You got us a hunt or something?"
"Something like that," Sam says. But he doesn't elaborate, and he makes Dean feel as though he shouldn't ask.
So he carries on down the hall, stung, but he lets it go, because he doesn't know what else to do.
When he gets back, Sam is out on the porch, and Dean can see the crumpled paper in his hand as Sam stares out at the night. Dean sits down slowly on the couch and drinks his beer, and in a little while, Sam comes back in, pale as a ghost.
Dean's not wired to let it go. Not where Sam is concerned.
"Sammy," he says, but Sam just shakes his head, the universal signal for 'nothing.' It's a Dean-trigger as old as Sam is, and twice as annoying. "Sam. What's going on?"
"Leave it alone," Sam says. "Please. Please, Dean." He backs up a step before Dean can even get up and then he's out of reach. He goes down the hall, closes his bedroom door, leaving Dean frowning after him.
Dean doesn't sleep much that night. Instead he sits and watches the closed door, and tries to assemble the pieces of a puzzle that just won't go together.
**
Dean's underneath the porch the next day, patching rotted boards, when he hears the crunch of someone walking down the gravel drive. He scrambles sideways and sticks his head out, only to see Bobby limping down the road. He stares, not quite sure Bobby is real, as Bobby opens the gate and walks right on into the yard like he owns the place.
"Damn," Dean breathes, grinning so hard his face splits near in two. "Look what the cat dragged in."
The crack of the screen door sounds above, and Sam bounds down the porch stairs. "Bobby," he calls, and catches Bobby up in a huge hug. Bobby rolls his eyes, but he's grinning, too. Dean wriggles out from under the stairs and stands up, brushing most of the dirt off, before he heads over for a hug of his own.
Bobby's thinner than Dean remembers. There's a fresh bruise on his face, some recent cuts too, and there are some new scars twisting across his face, but his eyes are still warm and kind. "You're sure as hell a sight for sore eyes, boy," Bobby says, banging him on the back so hard Dean thinks his ribs are rattling.
"I wasn't sure," Sam says softly. "If you would come."
Bobby meets Sam's eyes, and a long look passes between them. "Are you kidding me?" Bobby says. "All I needed was an invitation. I just wasn't sure if..." He trails off, glancing at Dean. "It sure as hell wasn't an easy trip, I'll tell you that much."
"I know," Sam says. Dean looks from one to the other, on uneven ground, and there's a whole conversation he's missing. Irritation flares, but Bobby is here, and he can put the rest of it aside.
"Where the hell's your ride, Bobby?" Dean asks.
Bobby shrugs and clears his throat. After a long moment, he says, "Broke down back up the road a ways. Won't take much time to fix it, but I figured I'd do that on the way out. After I caught up with you boys and maybe wet my whistle."
Sam claps a hand on Bobby's shoulder. "I really appreciate you coming, anyway. Come on in for some coffee."
"Coffee, huh?" Bobby says gruffly.
Dean nudges Sam with an elbow. "Guess we could cough up something stronger, yeah?"
They sit at the kitchen table while Sam pours some whiskey, and before Dean can catch himself, he's asking questions - what's Bobby been hunting, any news about the demons, what the hell is going on with Lilith - and Bobby answers them all easily, telling tales about recent hunts like he's been dying to share. Sam brings out half the blueberry pie from the day before, and they chow down like none of them have eaten in days.
Dean breaks up his pie crust with a fork and stares at Bobby, his heart half bursting out of his chest, while he catalogs every familiar thing about him: the mixed grey-brown of his beard, now greyer than it once was; the deep grooves beneath his eyes, now cut across with fresh scars; the lipped-over grin he gives up when he hears about Dean's mishap with the riding mower.
"Hey, not everybody grew up wrangling one of those monsters," Dean protests.
"Sure, kid," Bobby says, his lip twitching. "You can kill a hundred different kinds of hellspawn and survive damn near anything they throw at you, but you can't ride a mower?"
"Bobby."
Dean jerks his head sideways, because Sam's voice is so deep, and carries a note of warning. Sam's glowering at Bobby in a way that makes Dean cold, and he doesn't stop even when he sees Dean staring.
"Anyways," Bobby says, as though he hadn't been interrupted, "the place is looking good."
A short silence falls, while Dean looks from Bobby to Sam, and Bobby and Sam mostly look at their hands.
"You hear anything from anybody? Ellen? How about Jo?" Dean tosses back the rest of his whisky and gets up to retrieve the coffeepot and some cups, but he doesn't miss the split-second look that passes between Sam and Bobby. He's onto them.
"Nope," Bobby says. "Not really. Haven't heard from Ellen since..."
"Since that last hunt in Montana, right?" Sam cuts in smoothly.
"Uh, yeah. That was probably the last time. Ellen's off busy finding a new place of her own. Jo..." Bobby clears his throat. "Well, you know, she's a hunter in her own right now. No time for the likes of us."
"Right." Dean nods and looks a little more closely at the fresh bruise under Bobby's eye; seems like he's taken a punch in the last few hours. A hard punch. That eye is going to be black by the next morning.
There's still blood welling in one of the cuts on Bobby's neck.
Dean looks down into his coffee as if he'll be able to see the answers in its black depths. It declines to reveal a single bit of information.
They chat a few hours more, until the sun sets and the evening chill creeps into the room. It's family and home and everything Dean has been missing; some part of him relaxes, finally, easing into the spaces of this new home and settling in.
He catches Sam smiling at him, and he shakes his head, pretending not to know what Sam's smiling at.
Bobby pushes back from the table and adjusts his cap. "Well, boys, I've got to be going. It's a long way back."
"Can we give you a hand with-" Dean begins, but Bobby waves him off.
"No need, son. You think I don't know my way around an engine?"
"Okay, okay," Dean says, hands thrown up in the air. He knows when not to push it with Bobby, but it makes him smile all the same.
"Bobby," Sam says, his voice full of gravel. He hugs Bobby a long time, and Bobby pats him awkwardly on the back. "Thanks. I...thanks. For everything."
"You bet." Bobby glances at Dean, and there are tears in his eyes. "It was all worth it."
Dean puts his arms around Bobby and accepts the bear hug Bobby gives him, because he has a crazy idea maybe he won't see Bobby again for a long, long time.
"You be good to each other," Bobby says, in a voice that breaks and puts itself back together in pieces.
"Yeah, always," Dean says, eyes drawn to his brother's. The thread of connection is there, the unspoken understanding that they are taking care of each other; not just Dean watching over Sam, but something much deeper and more reciprocal, now.
They stand on the porch and watch Bobby until he's out of sight, and suddenly the night seems too dark, the air too chill. Dean shivers. "Guess fall's really here."
Sam nods absently, still gazing out at the road as if he can still see Bobby out there somewhere.
Dean sighs and goes back into the house. He's cold; his bones feel like they're rattling inside his skin. The fireplace in the living room is set up for a fire, though neither of them has started one so far. Dean hopes like hell the thing was ready to go, because he's craving warmth. He crouches down and checks the flue, then stuffs newspaper around the logs, reaches for the matches and strikes it on the first try.
It flares to life--hard, acrid smell of sulpher--a flash of memory--pain.
Dean's bones are liquid; he's blind. Heat everywhere; laughter from a thousand voices, darkness all around him and the fire penetrates his skin, burning down deep into him where he can't soothe it, can't stop it, can only endure it. Hooks ripping into him, tearing him into a thousand pieces. He screams, but there's no sound; still, he screams as if his brother's name can protect him, if only he can make Sam hear.
Sam, Sam, Sam--
Sammy--
Strong arms around him, pulling him back from the fire, and Sam's voice, his lips next to Dean's ear. "Dean. Oh, god, Dean. They don't have you. They don't have you. Can you hear me? They won't get you, Dean. They will never fucking have you again."
Dean snaps back to himself, sprawled on the clean floor of their little house, Sam's arms around him. "Sam," he whispers, and Sam nods and rocks him, face buried against Dean's neck.
"I'm here," he says hoarsely, his words a promise against Dean's skin, as if he could weave armor around them both with the sound alone. "You're safe," he whispers. "Safe, here, with me."
"Safe," Dean says, tears choking him in the wake of terror. He fists Sam's shirt, not ashamed, and Sam wraps himself tighter around Dean, cradling him.
"None of those fuckers can touch you while you're with me," Sam whispers, and then, "Dean." The sound of his name, Sam's voice, grounds Dean, and the memory of pain subsides.
Dean begins to believe again; hard floor underneath them, place of peace Sam has found for them, and somehow Sam is between him and the night. He sinks down into it, and Sam says his name over and over, soft words that lull Dean into quiet, cool darkness.
**
Dean wakes in the deepest part of the night and tumbles out of bed without a weapon. He reaches for the knife he's forgotten to put there, the knife he hadn't remembered at all until that moment.
"Jesus," he murmurs, and sits down hard on the floor, bits and pieces of memory assaulting him. He's starting to have an idea of why he can't remember much, why Sam won't tell him. Why Bobby was bloody and torn when he walked in their front door.
He lurches up from the floor and leans on the bed for a moment, then he's out into the hall, giving Sam's closed door barely a glance. Like a homing beacon, he zeroes in on the Impala, slides behind her wheel, and then he's off into the dark, straight out on a road to nowhere.
No telling how long he drives. He goes and goes, his heart kicking faster and faster against his ribs, until finally he's gasping for breath. He jerks the car over to the shoulder and throws it into park, then steps out onto the gravel road. The headlights barely penetrate the dark here. He steps forward, and forward again, smothering in the dark, and two feet away from the car he's swallowed by it, alone in the night.
Eyes closed, he listens, and they call to him, the low vicious rasp of his name like acid on the healed scars. He hunches over, one knee hitting the ground hard.
Dean. Deaaaaaaan. You can't hide forever. You know where you belong.
If he put out his hand, he's sure he'd be able to touch the darkness. And maybe, what's on the other side. He makes a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh, and pitches over backwards, because he can't get up; his bones are too heavy. Sprawled there on the ground, he scoots away on elbows and ass, but the dark comes closer.
"Dean."
His shoulder bumps the left front tire and he leans heavily on it, turns his head toward the sound of Sam's voice.
Sam is walking down the middle of the road. There's no light, not even a moon, no streetlights, but he can see Sam clearly, as if he's illuminated from the inside out, the one spot of light in the utter blackness surrounding him. The way he moves raises the hair on the back of Dean's neck; he stares, transfixed, until Sam comes close enough for him to see Sam's eyes.
His ghostly white eyes, luminous, opaque.
Tears streak down Dean's face.
By the time Sam reaches him, all the pain has left Dean's body, and Sam's eyes are normal-hazel and filled with sadness. He crouches down beside Dean, rests a hand on his knee. "Dean. Where were you trying to go?"
"It was all for nothing, wasn't it," Dean says softly.
Sam tenses. "Don't ask me to explain." His voice wavers, exhaustion or emotion, Dean can't tell. "Not now."
Dean reaches up, brushes Sam's hair out of his face, and he can see the walls around Sam crack, just wide enough for him to push through the way he used to, once upon a time. Sam turns his face into Dean's touch, closes his eyes, and Dean realizes he's trembling.
He reaches out a hand to his brother, lets Sam pull him to his feet, and because he can't help it, he leans into Sam for a moment, soaking up some of that light. Sam rests his cheek on the top of Dean's head, and the hitch in his breathing might be a sob; Dean's not going to look up and embarrass Sam by noticing.
Sam drives them back. Dean leans his head on the window and looks at the darkness. When the house comes into view, Dean's overwhelmed with a rush of home and safe and love, and then he doesn't dare look at Sam for fear it will all show on his face.
"Come on," Sam says, climbing out of the car. He waits in the driveway for Dean, who comes slowly up beside him, and together they climb the porch stairs, shoulder to shoulder.
Sam sits down in the porch swing, his eyes turned toward some far-away point in the darkness Dean can't see.
"You haven't ever asked," Sam says, his voice low. For the first time, Dean hears the thrum of power threaded through it, still Sam but something more.
"Figured you'd get around to telling me eventually," he says mildly.
"Liar," Sam says, but there's a small smile behind the accusation.
Dean climbs into the porch swing and sits beside Sam, silent in the dark, aware of his brother in a visceral way he hasn't been before.
Together they stare out into the night, Dean holding vigil for everything Sam was, everything Sam has given up. The knot in his stomach coalesces, becomes sadness.
"I didn't stop her in time." Sam's voice sounds raw, rubbed bare. "We tried everything. I don't know...if you remember, but...we did everything we knew how to do, and it just...she took you. I watched you die." Sam turns to him then. "You should understand better than anybody how it feels. What it was like, after."
Dean nods. The urge to stop Sam from saying the rest is so strong, he has to clench his hands into fists.
"I told Bobby what I had planned, and he said it was crazy to come in after you, but I knew one way or the other, I would find you."
Dean's strung tight, so tense he thinks he might break open and shatter on Sam's next words.
"And I did." Sam's eyes are full of those bright unshed tears; triumph or tragedy, Dean isn't sure which, yet.
He wants to ask -- what is this place, Sammy? Where did we end up? But the answer's already clear; beyond this world Sam has made for them, there's only darkness, and all darkness is the same. Here they're safe; here they are together, for as long as Sam can make it last.
Sam seems to have made up his mind to pay the cost, and Dean's come to the end of that road. No deals left to make for Sam; nothing to bargain with. He's failed, and Sam has had to give everything. Alive or dead, it's all the same. All the options are bad, and none of them are the safe, long life Dean wanted for Sam.
But they're Winchesters, and sacrifice is just what they do.
Sam seems to have run out of words, and Dean's not sure what to ask. So he scoots closer to Sam, throws an arm around Sam's shoulders, and Sam shifts and settles against him, rests his face in the curve of Dean's neck.
"We can have this," Sam says, fierce.
Dean's eyes flutter closed. He shivers, bows his head, and Sam noses into him, presses gentle kisses against the frantic beat of his heart. It always did belong to Sam, so no surprise it's trying to jump out of his body to get closer.
"Sam," he says roughly.
Sam cups Dean's face with one hand, turns him; their lips touch, and Dean forgets to feel sorry, or guilty. None of that matters now. He can only offer everything he has, all he has left to give, to the only thing he's ever wanted. He gives in to the want he's carried within him, and Sam absorbs it, returns it, kisses him until Dean's hands are buried in Sam's hair and their lips are wet and swollen, until they're pressed together, as if it's always been this way, inevitable. They fall deeper and deeper into each other until the darkness recedes, until sunrise begins to throw its warmth over the horizon, and then they break apart, awkwardly.
Sam ducks his head and grins, cocky. Not like Sam hasn't earned that grin, but Dean hasn't quite wrapped his mind around it all yet. He still has questions, and eventually, they're going to need asking.
"Sammy," Dean says. The pink-orange of the sunrise casts a soft glow over everything. "Will we have to leave here?"
"No. Never." Sam sounds so sure.
Dean wants to believe him.
Dean braces his boots on the porch rail and pushes off, rocking the swing back and forth. "So. Where'd you hide the guns?"
Sam fixes him with a long look, measuring, hard to read. "You're not ready for that. And I'm not...I'm not sure there's any point. There might not be a way out."
Dean shrugs. "Maybe not yet. But there's work to do, Sammy."
"They need cleaning," Sam says, dubious.
"You never could meet my standards."
Sam smiles and nods up at the morning sky, the light falling all around them and pushing back the dark. "I think I did all right."
They watch the sun come up all the way, braced against each other, as it was always meant to be. When Dean's legs grow too tired, Sam pushes the swing in an endless gentle motion, and they drift in the sunshine, content.
End
April-May, 2008
But thou shall flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the wars of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
- Joseph Addison
Additional notes: When I started writing this a couple months ago, it had a slightly different slant to it, which I changed in the more recent drafts. I was completely unspoiled for the finale, so I had no idea that it was going to work out so perfectly as a coda for 3x16. I was writing my own fix, and didn't know it. *g*