Big Bang story: Winter, part 2
See master post for notes.
Winter, Part One
2008
Seven days of being cooped up had Dean prowling the cabin and every part of the mountain within a day's walking distance. He stayed away longer every day, until finally he was coming back well after dark with whatever he'd shot for dinner, mostly rabbits. Sam thought maybe he was holding off on killing bigger game for Sam's sake, because Sam had never been much for skinning and cleaning, but he wasn't eating much anyway. Dean noticed, but he didn't say anything. He just watched Sam's plate, and watched Sam, and that knowing look weighed on Sam more than any words could have.
"You remember how Dad used to pour whiskey over everything as it cooked?" Dean asked one night, as something small and tough blackened over the fire. "For flavor, he said."
Sam wrinkled his face at the memory of it. "The rabbit tasted like mouthwash."
"Yeah." Dean there watching the fire, his back to Sam. Half of his body was in shadow, the other half golden.
Slowly, Sam pushed his chair back and went to Dean, who turned his face slightly in Sam's direction, as if to be sure he was really there. Sam put his hand on Dean's shoulder and leaned in to him, sighing in unison with Dean's exhaled breath. Dean put both hands on the mantel, bracing himself.
"Sam," he said, in a voice as rough and raw as the unfinished wood beneath his hands.
There were unasked questions in the silence behind Sam's name; Dean's breath hitched when Sam stepped closer, when Sam whispered, "Dean," in response.
There was nowhere to go. Nowhere else Sam wanted to go, anyway.
Sam could feel the flash point approaching, a slow crackle of heat and electricity like a distant storm. Soon enough, Dean was going to ask him again why they were staying, what made Sam trust his gut as he did, and Sam was going to have to offer him something to hold onto. First, Sam would have to unravel the mass of complicated feelings thrumming through him; Dean deserved unvarnished truth, but Sam's motives were complicated, and he was still unsure.
Dean pulled away, turning toward the table in one fluid motion and grabbing his coat. "I'm...going to check the traps," he said, not once meeting Sam's eyes, and then he was out the door, flashlight in hand.
Sam's entire body felt too hot, like he'd developed a fever under his skin.
In those hours when Dean went out into the woods, Sam seized the chance to focus all his efforts on forcing his mind into its dark places, embracing the power lurking there. He could feel its pull, the soft seduction of it, and every time he reached for it, it was easier to find. He was cautious with it, and envisioned steel bars around it, caged back there in his mind until he knew how to properly control it. He wondered how he'd be able to tell if he crossed the line, became like Ava or Jake - if Dean could tell what he was up to because Sam was changing in ways he couldn't hide. If that was what had Dean staring at him by firelight each evening.
He fell asleep alone, wrapped up in his doubts and confusion.
The next morning, Dean was gone before Sam even woke, his side of the bed stone cold. Sam rubbed his eyes and went to the window; sunlight sparkled on patchy snow, but no sign of Dean, just tracks leading away into the woods. There was coffee in the pot over the fire, and a leftover biscuit. Sam smiled. It took a lot to get Dean to cook now that they were grown and Sam didn't need taking care of. And the biscuits were not bad.
He reached for it and froze in mid-motion, aware of the pain coming just before it hit, like a last-minute warning, a rattle inside his head that couldn't be mistaken for anything else.
"Forgive me, Sam."
This time, it's the cool woods in spring, gentle sunshine all around him, and there are no demons, no one dying, no fear or pain. The voice is familiar - it's the voice at Sam's shoulder, the voice he heard in Hell.
When he turns to look, Dad is standing there. Sam frowns. "You're not my father."
The man smiles, but only a tiny amount - as if smiling is not his customary expression - and says, "No. I assumed a form you might find comforting. The demon blood makes it very difficult for me to access your dreams. I had no choice but to send you the visions."
Sam backs up, fear flooding his body. "How do you know about the demon blood?" He stares at the stranger wearing his father's visage. "The last thing to impersonate my father is the same thing that did that to me."
"I'm not Azazel, Sam. Dean killed him. He is truly dead."
"How can I be sure?"
"I don't have time to try and persuade you. Perhaps it will help if I don't resemble John Winchester." The thing shifts, until it's more an indistinct blur, like a watercolor splashed and running down the canvas. When it's done, it's not his father anymore. It's an ordinary man, someone Sam could have passed on the street. Sam is silent, though doubt runs cold through him. The man sighs. "There's not much time, Sam. Listen to me very carefully. Certain events are in motion. Dean is fated to die. You may not be able to stop it from happening."
"No," Sam says. He starts to turn away, but the man is suddenly there, too close, and there's the sensation again, the air beating against him, deep pressure in his ears, like falling too quickly from the sky.
"The demon called Lilith wants something particular from you, Sam, and she knows she can hold your brother hostage in hell until you agree to play your part."
"Play my part in what?"
"War is coming. Seals will be broken, and a series of foretold events will come to pass in a very disappointing fashion." The man's shape shifts again. He seems close, and far away, and his eyes are very blue. "What you need to understand right now is that to change the outcome, you have to learn to control your powers, and you must not allow any demon to offer you assistance."
"Ruby," Sam says, and the man inclines his head.
"Yes. The demon calling herself Ruby. If you believe nothing else, Sam, this one thing you already understand somewhere inside yourself. To turn to her for aid is to lose who you are. You only need someone to remind you of it."
The sick feeling in Sam's gut is familiar, a mass of twisted guilt and desperation, and there's shame, too - shame that this thing, whatever it is, knows he's thought about asking Ruby to help him learn. He bows his head, unable to look even a stranger in the eye.
"Sam," the man says, and the way he speaks Sam's name is the way a friend might. "The use of your powers is forbidden, but I've come to believe...this is the only way. You must act, and you must do so quickly. You remember what I've shown you?"
The vision comes to Sam then, as strong as the first time: Dean, a bloody burnt wreck of himself, and the beating of wings at Sam's shoulder. "You," Sam says, as a thrill of awe flashes through him. "You are with me, there."
"Yes." The man tilts his head and stares at Sam. "It may be that you can become powerful enough to avert Dean's fate, as you plan. Or it may be that you cannot, and so you must follow him into Hell."
"I don't know if I'm strong enough. If I can ever be strong enough."
The man's expression becomes intense, determined. "You may indeed be the Boy King and an abomination, Sam, but that doesn't mean you're destined to be King of Hell, or that all who follow you must be demons. But for your brother's sake, you must learn to lay waste to evil. You have free will to choose, and the power to defeat Lilith. Stay true to the path."
"How can I?" Sam asks, a world of questions contained in three words. "Who are you?"
"Someone who knows you, Sam. Your prayers don't go into the darkness." The man touches him then, and it's brilliance and beauty and hope, sun without words flowing into Sam's bones and filling all his hollow, fearful places with light. "I know you can find the way, Sam. Dean needs you to find the way."
He's beginning to fade, now, out of Sam's sight, and darkness falls across Sam like thunder, the summer gone and snow smothering him in a blanket of cold. "No," he shouts, but it's too late; he's drowning in a cold pool, and there's no warmth, and Dean - Dean is gone - Dean is packing the car, and he's so angry, he's driving away, he's leaving Sam there, and it's too late -
Sam was vaguely aware of a crashing noise, and Dean's voice - "Sam, what-" before he shouted Dean's name, meant only to keep him, not let him go, alive alive alive, and the need slammed out of him on a fist of desperation, seeking its intended target.
The pain reached for him, pulled him under, into darkness.
When he woke, his face was half-buried in the pillow, and he was shivering. A blanket was tucked in around him, but he was still dressed. He twisted over and sat up, and found Dean sitting in a chair beside the bed, feet up on the edge, watching him.
"What's going on, Sam?" He spoke so softly that all the hair on Sam's neck rose. Sam pushed the blanket away, momentary confusion giving way to a deeper sense of wrong. He couldn't remember what he'd been doing earlier. Dean had gone out, like he always did, and he'd...he'd...
Slowly, he met Dean's eyes, saw nothing but cool assessment there. "Did I pass out?" he asked.
Dean sat forward in the chair and deliberately put one foot on the floor, then the other. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, and said, "What do you remember?"
"I..." Sam pulled his shirt away from his body; the shivering had passed and now he was burning up again. "You left, and I..."
"You what?"
Sam looked blankly at the expression Dean was trying to bury under all that smooth calm, and in an instant he put a name to it: fear. He pushed the pillow aside and lurched up from the bed, and Dean was there to steady him, but he got a hand around Dean's arm and shoved him away. "What did I do?" he asked, stumbling back against the wall.
Dean's hands fell to his sides, and he stood there a long moment where irrational fear gripped Sam - that he was leaving, that something had happened he couldn't control - and then Dean reached down to the hem of his shirt, pulled it up over his head. He turned his back to Sam and there, on his shoulders and the right side of his ribs, were fresh bruises. Not hands, but something larger. Irregular patterns, like stones, like hard objects. Like he'd been slammed into the ground.
The floodgate opened and all the missing moments poured back into Sam's head: the meadow, the darkness, and...the bizarre, lucid vision. And Dean was gone, Dean was leaving. Sam had understood then, knew Dean had reached a breaking point, was going to leave, and Sam had to stop him. "It was a vision," he said, unable to look away from the marks on Dean's skin. Marks he had caused, by throwing his brother to the ground, even though he hadn't known he was causing harm. He'd only wanted him to stay.
I'm sorry, he thought, and wasn't sure which thing he was sorry for, what apology Dean should accept. "Dean, I...I didn't..."
"Cut the crap," Dean said, shoving the shirt back over his head with quick, jerky motions. He turned to Sam and said, "I knew you were up to something, but I never thought you'd fucking lie about it." Not after everything we've been through, Sam heard, as clearly as if Dean had said it out loud, and it startled him that he couldn't tell if he was really reading Dean, or if he was just filling in the spaces like always. A tiny kernel of panic clenched hold inside him. "Please, please tell me you did not do that on purpose."
"No," Sam said quickly, but something in his expression, or his eyes, made Dean's frown deepen. "No, Dean - I wanted you to stay. I wouldn't. I...the vision...something forced it out of me. "
Oh wouldn't you, Dean's expression said, but he adjusted his shirt without a word. He just looked at Sam with a disappointment and hurt Sam hadn't seen since they were kids, and then he nodded. "Whatever, man."
"Dean," Sam said, and stopped. He took a deep, shaky breath. "I've been trying to figure out how to do stuff. You know. With my mind."
"Sam," Dean started, but Sam cut him off.
"No, listen. I think that's the key. The whole reason I'm having these visions. So I can take control of my own destiny. So I can save..." He swallowed hard. "There has to be a way."
"This isn't it," Dean said. He backed up and picked the big book up from the table, the one full of apocalyptic prophecies that made Sam's eyes water. "Every vision you have is related to that yellow-eyed bastard, Sam. What makes you think he's not tricking you now? Come on. You're smarter than this."
"You always do this," Sam said. "You try not to hear me so you don't have to do it my way."
"Yeah, well, there's a reason for that," Dean said. He tossed the book at Sam, hard enough to catch him in the chest, forcing a grunt of air out of him as he caught it. "Your way is dangerous. And stupid. Not to mention wrong."
"What makes you so fucking sure?" Sam threw the book on the floor. "God, Dean, you think I didn't tell you because I wanted to lie to you? This is a conversation we can't have. Aren't having. This is what I'm going to do. There is no discussion."
"Really," Dean said, his jaw working. Then the sea change happened, and his face was smooth, all the betrayal and hurt locked away behind calm eyes like it had never been there at all. "Good. You do that. You stay here and you fucking kill yourself trying to be exactly what he wanted you to be." He stepped closer, cupped Sam's jaw with his fingers, hard enough to bruise. "You think I haven't seen the blood? All over your sleeve, the ground, the goddamned pillow in the morning? You really do think I'm stupid, don't you." He pushed Sam's face away with disgust.
"I don't, Dean." Sam stepped closer just as Dean moved away. It took him a moment to realize Dean was already reaching for his pack, was stuffing random shit into it, knives and cans of food, haphazard crap that wouldn't help him at all. "Dean, please. You have to trust me." Dean stilled in mid-motion, one hand around a can of Spam, another around the dead-as-a-doornail police radio laying on the table. Sam pressed his advantage and moved closer, until their shoulders were touching. He reached out a tentative hand to touch Dean, to anchor him, fingertips brushing against the pulse point at Dean's wrist.
The tension in Dean's body ratcheted up a notch, until Sam could feel the decision vibrating through him: stay, or go. "I don't know what's in your head, man," Dean said, in a low voice. "You're making decisions that don't include me, and that's not how this works."
"And you've always been so great at thinking things over and consulting me, instead of giving away your soul," Sam said, a desperate little smile making its way onto his face. But it had the opposite effect on Dean, who stepped back, out of Sam's reach.
"You drag my ass up here for no reason you can tell me, and then you tell me you're going to go darkside if I die. And then you do start the process without any input from me." He squared his shoulders, looked Sam in the eye. "Either we're in this together or we aren't."
"I'm not trying to push you out of it," Sam answered.
"Then tell me. Tell me why you think you can make one bit of difference. Tell me what you're bleeding over this for, if you don't want to go down this mountain. Tell me all of it, or so help me Sam, I will leave your ass standing here and I'll drive down this goddamned mountain by myself."
"You think it's wrong, to use the powers at all, don't you?" Sam sat down on the edge of the bed. After a moment, Dean sat down beside him. "Like letting myself be part of whatever the demon had planned."
"You can't help the visions," Dean said. "That's different."
"Is it?" Sam ran the palms of his hands over his knees, over and over the frayed denim, thinking of the people he'd helped, the lives he'd saved already. "If what I can do can save someone, then it's worth it." Dean beside him was like the fever beneath his skin gone supernova; he couldn't even breathe. Softly, he added, "If it saves you."
"It's not worth the price, Sammy." Dean looked away from him. "This might be what the demon wanted all along. Play us against each other. You die, I bring you back, I can't break the deal or you die, so you use your powers to save me and it's all for nothing. You die, or go darkside, end of story. Don't you get that?"
"You don't know that. Dean, I can control it. I have so far. Until today. And you don't get to decide, anyway. It's my choice." Sam watched Dean, the profile of his face, where a muscle twitched in his clenched jaw.
"So we're back to where we started."
"No. Where we started was with me dead. Now I'm alive, and you're alive." Sam put his hand out, smoothed it over Dean's back, the soft flannel beneath his touch and the hot fresh bruises underneath, hiding from him. Dean's whole body twitched, but he didn't pull away. "But you can't save yourself. It's up to me."
"I can still save you," Dean said, turning his head to meet Sam's eyes, all his decisions laid out in what he didn't say. In answer, Sam slid his hand down Dean's back, slipped it beneath Dean's shirt and slowly pressed his fingers to Dean's skin, just the lightest touch.
"I don't need saving," Sam said softly. "Not this time."
Dean shivered suddenly, a full-body shiver, and goosebumps rose under Sam's touch. He stood up, stumbled a little when he stepped away.
Sam let his hand fall back down to the bed and made no move to follow. "Maybe I can't stop you from dying, or from going to Hell. Or maybe I can." He waited for Dean to process it, watched the tension flooding his body, tightening his shoulders, then said, "Or maybe...maybe I can come and get you, once you're there. Dean, the key is for me to be ready before you...before. If it happens after, without you to ground me..." He shook his head, helpless to find the right words.
Dean drew in a long, shaky breath and shook his head. Then he looked away from Sam again, up at the ceiling, as if he would find the answer there. "No more bullshit," he said, glancing back at Sam. "You do this, you let me help you. Train you. What the fuck ever."
"I'm not really sure...how. Or what I'm doing."
"We'll figure it out." Dean went quiet again. Sam met his gaze and held on, no flinching away from whatever he might see there. The silence between them was heavy, until Dean said, "So can you do anything cool?"
"What?" Sam tilted his head.
Dean smiled, just a little. "Can you levitate the firewood in here so we don't have to carry it? Or make it split itself?"
Sam made a noise of disbelief. "Uh, no."
Dean's grin widened briefly, then dimmed. "Any other freaky shit you should warn me about?"
"I don't know yet," Sam answered truthfully. "You know I get vibes about stuff. There's the visions, and the moving things around." He stopped, wondering if he should tell Dean the rest; he just wasn't sure. But Dean was looking at him like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, so he shrugged and said, "Maybe I can tell what you're thinking, sometimes."
"Jesus," Dean said. One hand moved up to his forehead like a shield, which made Sam burst out laughing.
"I said maybe," Sam said quickly. "Or maybe it's just because I know your stupid ass so well."
"Yeah, well," Dean said, frowning. "No fair doing that unless you warn me. Or that other thing, that thing where you make people do stuff."
Sam flashed on the moment Ellen had turned her own gun to her head, courtesy of Jake's simple command. "I can't do that," he said. "I wouldn't."
"Uh-huh," Dean said. "We'll see."
1992
Sam stood at the window and stared with wonder at the foot of fresh snow on the ground. Everything from the icicles on the trees to the snow sparkled as the sun hit it, like something out of a movie. "Dean!" he cried, hopping down from the chair he was standing on and colliding with his brother, who was trying to eat a bowl of dry cereal. "Dean, Dean, look!"
"I saw, Sammy." Dean handed a bowl down to Sam, but Sam didn't want it. He wanted to go outside and make snow angels and snowballs, and Dad was busy doing something in the woods and so it was perfect.
He turned his face up toward Dean and said, "Come on, Dean!"
At that, Dean grinned at him and messed up his hair. "Get your coat on. And the boots. And a scarf, too, or Dad'll kill me."
"Yeah!" Sam shouted, just barely handing the bowl back to Dean before its contents were upended over the bare floor. He whipped on his coat and hat and scarf in record time, and let Dean shove mittens over his hands, and then he burst out the door, tumbling off the porch to land face-first in the loose-pack snow. It smelled fresh and clean and it was crunchy and tasted like ice, and he laughed, because Dean landed on top of him a second later.
Sam squealed and tried to wriggle out from under Dean, but Dean had him pinned, one hand on the back of his head shoving him deeper into the snow, crowing "Say uncle! Say it, Sammy!"
Dean's giggle made Sam fight harder. They rolled over and over in the cold snow, Dean's arms wrapped securely around Sam's chest, until finally Sam landed a good smack to Dean's eye and toppled over forwards, laughing so hard his legs were jelly.
"Snow angels," Dean announced, mashing a handful of snow into Sam's face, then scrambling up to his feet. "Come on!"
Sam got up, covered head to toe in snow, and ran to the edge of the treeline, where there was lots of fresh snow to fall in. He stretched his arms out and fell back, landing in the snow with a poof, and began flailing, flailing, arms and legs going wide, wider, the wingspan of tiny angels. When he stopped, he sat up and said, "Help me, Dean, so I don't mess it up!"
"Just step out," Dean said, but he was already walking over to Sam, one hand outstretched. He hauled Sam to his feet and then lifted him out into the snow, and they stood together looking at Sam's angel.
Sam could almost see the halo at the top, where the sun sparkled on the snow. "Do you think it looks like Mom?" he said, holding on to Dean's hand tight, so Dean wouldn't pull away like he did sometimes when Sam asked about her.
Dean's fingers tightened around his, then relaxed. "Yeah, Sammy. Sure."
Dean sat down in the snow with Sam and made snowballs with him, packing the snow up tight in his mittens. They spent the next hour pelting each other with snow, squeaking and laughing and shouting "OW!" every so often, until Sam's skin was stinging with wind and cold and his throat hurt, because his scarf had fallen off somewhere, a green trail in the churned up white.
"You boys having fun?"
Sam stopped dead in the middle of throwing a really big snowball right at Dean's face, and looked up at his father, standing still at the edge of the clearing with his hands in his pockets. He was smiling.
And then a snowball hit Dad square in the face.
Sam turned to Dean, mouth open heart pounding. Dean was standing there, another snowball all ready to go, grinning at his dad. Sam turned back to Dad, who was wiping ice from his face.
"Like that, is it?" he asked, and then he dove aside, hands thrust deep in the snow. Moments later, a hail of snowballs went whizzing through the air at Sam and Dean, and Sam ran to Dean's side, his heart bursting because Dad was laughing, he was really laughing, and Dean was grinning, and it was perfect.
By the time the fight was over, Sam was so tired he could barely lift his arms and he was shivering, though he wasn't going to admit it, no way. Dean looped an arm around his neck and pulled him in tight to his side. "Cold, Sammy?" he asked, and Sam shook his head.
"No."
"Well, I am," Dean said. He was still grinning, so big his face looked all stretchy and weird, and it made Sam grin up at him. "Let's go in and warm up."
"Not so fast," John said, brushing ice from his coat. He put one hand on Dean's head, ruffled his hair; his hat was lost somewhere in the snow. "Get your hat and then pull down one of the rabbits. We'll need something for dinner."
"Okay, Dad."
"And take Sam with you."
The smile vanished from Dean's face. "Dad, what-"
"It's time, Dean. Take him with you, and let him help."
"Yes sir," Dean said. His face looked all pinched. Sam looked from Dean to Dad, not sure what had happened, but they weren't having fun anymore, and it was his fault somehow. "Wait here," he told Sam, and followed Dad inside.
Sam looked around and found Dean's cap buried in the snow. He shook it out and held it, waiting.
When Dean came back, he took the cap from Sam and started into the woods. "Keep up, okay Sammy?" he said, and Sam nodded.
They didn't go far. When they rounded a corner and Dean stopped, Sam opened his mouth to ask why, and then he saw them: seven rabbits, hanging upside down on long strings, far above the ground. He cried out and jumped back, and Dean sighed. "What did you think we were eating, Sam? You know how to set the traps as well as I do. Now come on."
"No," Sam said. He stared up at them, at the way they were swinging, and his throat went dry.
"Sam," Dean said. "Don't be such a little baby. They're already dead."
"I know," Sam said. He swallowed hard.
Dean shimmied up the tree trunk and grabbed one of the ropes wound around the lowest branch, then let it go. The rabbit plummeted out of the treetops and hit the ground with a smack. Sam shrank back against the tree. Dean hopped down and produced two knives from his coat, one of them the one Sam had been using the last month. "We've got to skin it, and Dad says you have to help. Take off your mittens."
The knife hilt against his hand wasn't cold; it was almost warm, because it had been in Dean's coat. Dean sat down on a fallen tree trunk and waited for Sam to sit beside him. Sam's feet felt like they were too heavy for his legs, and he dragged them all the way over.
Dean's blade was poised at the edge of the rabbit's neck, biting into the wet fur, and Sam burst into tears.
"Oh, come on," Dean said, rolling his eyes, but Sam couldn't help it. He turned his head away from Dean and tried to pull the tears back into himself, because it was stupid and Dean would think he was a crybaby, and he knew Dean wasn't hurting it, that they had to eat. He gasped, breath hitching, and dropped the knife on the ground; his hands balled into fists.
"You know what," Dean said, "go wait over there." He pointed to the trail they'd followed. "Seriously, Sammy. Go."
"No," Sam said. He swallowed again, and again, until he'd stopped the flood of tears. "No."
"Sammy." Dean's hand was on his knee. "I mean it. Go over there."
"I can help you," Sam said. "I want to."
"Tomorrow, okay? When you're ready."
Sam nodded and didn't look at Dean's eyes. He just got up on shaky legs and practically ran for the sheltering trees. He put his back to one and closed his eyes, like he expected to hear a little rabbit-scream, but he didn't hear anything but the sound of his own breathing.
It didn't take long, and Sam didn't look when Dean walked up with two canvas bags. They walked back in silence, Sam with his head down, watching Dean's feet. Dad was going to be so mad. Dean thought he was a baby. They wouldn't understand.
When Dean pushed the front door open, Dad looked up from the table and smiled. "That was fast," he said. He nodded at Sam. "How'd it go?"
"Fine," Dean said. He set both bags down at the hearth. "Sam's a pro."
"Good for you, little man," John said, smiling full-on at Sam, and Sam felt the tears welling up again. He didn't say anything, just looked at Dean, who looked back at him, no expression on his face.
He wasn't able to eat a bite of the rabbit, later, or any of the canned vegetables Dad set on his plate. "You spend too much time out there in the cold, buddy?" Dad asked him, feeling his face for fever. "You're red as a beet."
"I'm fine," Sam mumbled.
"Good, then you can do the dishes." John put on his coat and went outside into the night, and Sam finally looked up at Dean.
"I'll do it," he said softly.
"Don't-" Dean began, but Sam shook his head.
"Next time, I'll do it." He lifted his chin. "I'm not a baby."
"I know," Dean said. He pushed Sam's plate toward him. "Now eat."
"I'm sorry," Sam said. "You didn't have to lie to Dad."
Dean put his fork down and pushed his plate away, and was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Yeah, I did."
**
2008
Sam was sick of the cold and snow. Since he had reached his limit, and was actually daydreaming about hunts, he could only imagine what Dean was feeling. Not that he had to guess; Dean bitched constantly about the weather, the smoky fireplace, the food, the boredom, and everything else.
He didn't mention leaving, though, and Sam counted that as a small victory.
Visions were coming like clockwork every day, small changes to the form but never to the outcome. The pain was intense every time, but Sam was expecting it, and so it wasn't as debilitating as it had been in the beginning. That's what Sam told Dean, anyway. Secretly, he was starting to suspect that the more confident he became with his powers and the better able to use them, the easier the visions got, and the less energy they'd drain from him.
You know what to do, Sam.
Trouble was, Sam had no idea what to do. He only knew what he wanted. The two were tied together, each a part of the other: what he wanted, and what he had to do.
"Tell me what I'm thinking," Dean said every morning, a little smirk on his face as he made the coffee, and every morning Sam would roll his eyes and spout off some random girl's name, which made Dean chuckle like the joke was new.
But every so often, Sam picked up flashes of the real deal - not actual thoughts, just...vibes. Impressions, like pictures gone blurry in his mind's eye, almost like visions but without the pain: a flash of Sam as a little kid, wearing a crazy-looking green scarf; the way Sam looked in the morning before coffee, with his hair sticking up. Sometimes it was more, something deeper - a sense of Dean's isolation, or the nature of his worry, which was sometimes save those people, but mostly it was Sam help Sam.
Dean's idea of help materialized without prompting. "I made a list," Dean told him, when Sam managed to crawl out of bed a few days after they'd settled the issue of leaving. "Everything we know the special kids can do. I guess we can just go down the list and try them out." He handed Sam the pad of paper, and Sam blinked until it came into focus.
1. Telekinesis
2. Control demons
3. Control other people
4. Future visions
5. Kill by touch
6. Read minds
7. Super strength
"I think I'll skip number five," Sam said, handing it back. "On account of how I'm not murdering anything that isn't already dead."
"Lots of little furry things out there in the woods," Dean said, but he stopped when he saw the look on Sam's face. "Or not," he said, and just like that, the subject was closed.
"Hard to test out number two right now without actually summoning a demon, which we're not doing again, ever," Sam added, giving Dean a look. "And we know for sure I can do one, four and seven. Even if I can't control it yet. Technically."
"So you just need to learn to control people - I'm guessing it's a short step to bossing demons around after that - and read minds."
"And eat my spinach," Sam said, pointing at the paper.
"Right." Dean ran a hand through his hair, like he was working through a plan. "Maybe we concentrate on one of these at a time."
"You really have the patience for this?" Sam asked. "Like you said, Dean. Concentration. Not really your strong point."
"Hey!" Dean tossed the list on the table. "I can. When I have to. And clearly I have to."
"Whatever you say," Sam said. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. With one hand, he pulled the lantern to the middle of the table and eased back in the chair, staring at it. He focused all his effort on the lantern, willing it to the other end of the table.
It always took time, and it was like a battery draining, or so Sam liked to think of it; he could feel the seepage of energy, bits and pieces of him falling away in increments, until finally enough of him was sacrificed to the task and the object gave way against his will. The lantern scraped a millimeter, then two, and stopped. Sam kept staring, focused entirely on the next millimeter. It was easier when he was angry, but the whole point was to learn to do it when he was entirely calm.
Dean cleared his throat. Sam tilted his head to look at Dean, who was watching him with a peculiar look on his face. "What?"
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Training?" Sam said, raising his eyebrows. "How else did you think I'd do it?"
"I don't know. Wave your hands around or something," Dean said, and Sam grinned.
"Dude, these aren't Jedi mind tricks."
"Ha ha, very funny." Dean stood there, looking lost, and it dawned on Sam that he had no idea how to help.
"Maybe you should, um, go find something heavy for me to lift."
"Okay," Dean said. He turned to go, then turned back and said, "Did you just mind whammy me?"
"No," Sam said. "Um, no."
"Are you going to make me walk like a chicken or something?"
"No!"
"Okay." Dean stopped, turned again. "Did you just make me believe you?"
"Dean!"
Ten minutes later, Dean had rearranged part of the woodpile and thrown the Impala's spare tire on top like a cherry. Sam went outside with him and stared at it. "I'm seriously getting the Yoda vibe now," he said, and was rewarded with a grin and a laugh from Dean.
"You want to stand on your head, go for it. I'll get my phone and take pictures."
"No thanks." Sam frowned. "I can't actually lift that in my arms, Dean. It's too unstable. I don't think that'll help me figure out if I can use my strength."
"Oh, right." Dean stood there scratching his head, the world's handiest two-hundred pound weight, so Sam just reached out and-
"WHAT THE FUCK," Dean squawked, Sam's arms around his waist and his feet a good eight inches off the ground.
"Huh," Sam said, not even breathing hard. He tossed Dean maybe a foot into the air and caught him, more or less, though Dean's chin knocked into the top of his head and made him see stars.
"Put me down right now, Sam, so help me, or I will kick your fu--"
"Well, you wanted me to lift something," Sam said mildly. He set Dean down gently; Dean yanked down his shirts and tried to recoup a little dignity, while Sam grinned in his face.
"Dude, you could have warned me," Dean said.
"Yeah, but that wouldn't have been any fun." Sam scrunched his shoulders up experimentally, then released. "It wasn't any effort at all to pick you up. I might as well have been lifting air."
"Uh-huh," Dean said, eyeing Sam dubiously.
On the day Sam moved the table without so much as a squint or a grunt of effort, Dean looked up, startled, and met his eyes. That was the first time Sam actually picked up a true thought from Dean's mind, clear and true - stronger than me, he could take me now -- and it made him blush because it was without context. It would be easier for them both if there was some kind of barrier Dean could put up, for his sake. There probably was, but they didn't have time to figure it out. Better if he didn't say anything about those stray thoughts.
But he caught himself, sometimes, noticing Dean in quiet ways. He'd been watching Dean all his life, every nuance of his body language, every predictable and exasperating habit. As the weeks went by, they all began to seem new again, or maybe just subtle differences -- the way Dean stretched out on his stomach when he slept, or the way he kicked his feet up on the table when he drank his coffee in the morning.
The way he watched Sam as he was training, eyes traveling the length of Sam's body, interested, aware in ways that made Sam's breath catch.
Those moments hung suspended between them, planks on a bridge they were building from two sides of a river, and when they met in the middle, Sam had no idea what would come next.
Time seemed to fly as Sam's powers grew stronger, and the days left before Dean's deal came due began to dwindle. There were only a few weeks, now. Dean started recoiling at odd times, staring at Sam for long seconds before he answered questions.
Then came the day Dean hurled a pan across the room, narrowly missing Sam as he came in the door, and stood there pale and still when Sam said, "Dude, what the hell?"
"Nothing," Dean said, the muscle in his jaw clenched so tightly the whole right side of his face twitched, before he turned back to the remaining pan over the fire.
"Like hell," Sam said. He closed the door and stripped off his jacket, and then he was beside the fire, beside Dean, who shoved him hard enough to send a clear message. Sam gripped his left arm and hauled him to his feet, ignoring the angry flare in Dean's eyes. "What's goin' on with you?"
"Leave it alone, Sam," Dean said, shaking off Sam's hand.
"So, this deal we're in, it only goes one way? I tell you everything, and you tell me exactly nothing? I call bullshit, Dean."
Dean tugged his overshirt down and brushed it into place, looking at the floor, the fire, everywhere but at Sam. Fear radiated from him in waves so strong, Sam was surprised he didn't topple from the force of it. Finally, Dean met his eyes. "I'm...hallucinating, all right? I'm...I thought there was a demon standing there. Ugly fuckin' thing. I...threw the skillet."
"Because it's iron," Sam said, a half-hysterical laugh threatening to burst out of him at Dean's embarrassed head-scratch.
Amusement died down in an instant when Dean turned away and sat down at the table, elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. "Bobby warned me about this. He said when the time came to pay up on the deal, I'd start seeing things. He was right. Sam, I see insane shit everywhere. A couple of times, I've looked at you, and...you're not you." He raised haunted eyes. "There's not much time left. I can feel it."
"I'm almost ready," Sam said. He dropped to one knee in front of Dean, and without thinking, rested his hands over Dean's. "Dean. I'm almost ready."
Dean nodded, a half-hearted thing, and it sent a chill straight through Sam. If Dean didn't believe he could be saved, Sam would have to find enough faith for both of them.
**
1992
The tip of Sam's nose was so cold, he thought it might break right off. He lifted a hand out from under the covers, blinking sleep away, and cupped his palm over the end of his nose. It was his own fault for sleeping with his stupid face out -- that's what Dean would say.
He could hear scuffling around on the porch, and that was probably where Dean and Dad were, and that meant Dad would probably come haul him out of bed any second, no matter how cold it was in there. Sam poked one foot out of the blankets, then threw them back fast and ran for the pile of clothes Dean had laid out next to the stove the night before. He was pretty fast, but he was still shivering by the time he had on all his layers.
With one hand, he snagged a cold hard biscuit for breakfast and then hit the door running, only to stop short on the porch. Dean was sprawled in the snow at the foot of the stairs, and Dad was standing a few feet away, looking pretty impatient.
"Get up," Dad was saying. "Come at me again."
Dean didn't seem to notice Sam as he bounced up from the ground and slowly circled their dad. Sam sat down on the top stair, watching. He stuck the biscuit in his mouth and held it between his teeth while he fished down into his coat pocket for his missing gloves. Dad liked to do training early in the morning. He said it kept Dean sharp, but Sam wasn't so sure; Dean didn't seem to be all that sharp in the morning.
Dean lunged, then backed up and lunged again, landing a pretty good hit to Dad's stomach. Dad made an ooof noise, but he straightened up fast, dodging Dean's follow-up strike. He reached out lightning-quick and snatched Dean's arm, and a second later Dean was on his back again, staring up in surprise at Sam, who snorted with laughter.
"Shut up," Dean said viciously, no smile for Sam, and the laugh choked off in Sam's throat. Dean got his feet under him and scrambled up, launched like a missile toward their dad. There was sickening crack, and then Dean hit the ground again, blood flowing down his face from his nose.
"Dean," Sam said, dropping his breakfast in the snow, but Dad stopped Sam with a look.
"You stay there, son," he said, and then he looked down at Dean. "Get up. Work through it."
Dean coughed, spit blood into the snow, and on his first try, he fell back in the snow. Sam swallowed hard. "Get up, Dean," Dad said, no question it was an order.
For a second, Dean looked like he was going to throw up, but then he rolled over and got to his knees, bright red drops falling into the stirred-up, dirty snow beneath him. He wiped his face.
"Stop pulling your punches," Dad said. "You can't learn unless you go for it." Dean mumbled something in response as he stood and turned, and whatever it was, Dad didn't like it much. "That's an excuse, Dean," Dad said. "You can't hurt me. Now come at me."
Sam balled his fists up and crammed them under his thighs, knuckles pressed against the hard wood, just as Dean crashed to the ground in front of him. His eyes were squeezed shut, and his face was red.
"Damn it, Dean. You're not trying," Dad said, stepping closer.
"Yes he is," Sam said hotly. "He always tries."
"Sam," Dad said, a clear warning, at the same time Dean said, "Sammy, shut up."
Sam pressed his lips together. Dean tried harder than anybody-he was good at everything, he was a total show-off, and that meant Dad was wrong. Sam tried to make how mad he was show all over his face when he stared at Dad, but if his father noticed, he didn't say anything; he only looked at Dean, and waited for him to get up.
This time, Dean barely raised his arms; Dad knocked him easily into the snow.
Sam saw red. He flew off the stairs and toward his father, who stopped him easily with one hand on each shoulder. Sam pushed at him once, twice, and twisted away from him to go to Dean, who hadn't bothered to get up this time. "Dean," Sam said, dropping to his knees beside his brother, but his brother turned his face away and shoved Sam.
"Get away," he said.
"Dean." Dad crouched down in the snow, not close enough for either Dean or Sam to reach. "You have to learn to fight full-out, no pulling punches. It doesn't matter who you're fighting."
"Dad." Dean's voice sounded funny. "You...I can't."
"You hurt Dean," Sam shouted at his father, not even caring that he was going to make Dad mad.
But it didn't; it only made those funny lines show up around Dad's face, and he looked sad. "I didn't mean to, Sammy, but you both have to learn...you have to know, just because it's family, you don't...." Abruptly he stood up, ran a hand over his face, and turned away, walking steadily away until he rounded the corner of the cabin and was out of sight.
Sam focused his full attention on Dean, who wouldn't look at him. He threw his arms around his brother's shoulders, but Dean shoved him away again, with half the effort of before. Sam shoved him back this time, then he threw his arms around Dean once more and held on tight.
Dean didn't hug him back, but he didn't push him away.
2008
A late-season snowstorm descended in the middle of a long night, but Sam was already up, huddled down in blankets and a sleeping bag in front of the fire to keep it from dying in the middle of the night. The book open in front of him went unread. Instead, he watched Dean sleeping. It had become his frequent pastime, observing the way Dean's face relaxed in sleep. He didn't kid himself that it meant Dean had accepted anything, or was going to give in to the inevitable. But he craved those moments of peace for Dean.
Just then, Dean opened his eyes, pulled out of sleep as though he could feel Sam watching him. "Sam?" he said, voice rough with sleep. He rose up on one elbow. "Get some sleep."
"Can't," Sam said. "Too cold. Got to keep the fire up." He closed his book and shoved down the blankets, extricating himself from his cocoon. Dean watched him as he padded across the cool floor barefoot, made his way to the bed. "Scoot," he said, and Dean did, lifting the blankets for him. Sam crawled into the space Dean had just vacated, the warmth of his body to one side and the warm place he'd created beneath, and turned on his side to face Dean, the fire at his back. Sam moved closer, until there was barely an inch separating their bodies, and slung his arm over Dean's side.
He'd been watching Dean fight what was between them, struggle with it, every day they'd spent in this place; the clock would run out, and Dean wouldn't have to make the choice - or maybe he'd choose, and the clock would run out, and it would be too much to bear. But now, Dean's nose bumped against Sam's when Sam closed that gap, pressing them together, and then he tilted his head and touched his lips to Dean's.
Dean's lips parted for him, though Dean's body was coiled tight against him, fight or flee in full operation. "Dean," Sam breathed into his mouth, invoking Dean's name as his protection, offering it back in kind. Dean had been Sam's world, the whole of his heart, from almost the moment he'd been born. Dean was his to have, to save, and there was nothing else in the world that mattered. Only this. The fight went out of Dean, and he made a soft, strangled noise, one last tiny objection Sam took in and kissed away.
"Why didn't you, before?" Sam asked, breathing the question into Dean's ear.
Dean stilled in his arms, and said, "Selfish," like it was some kind of indictment against everything he was, everything Sam meant to him.
"No." Sam ran his hand under Dean's shirt, eager for any part of Dean he could touch. "You don't even know what that word means." Dean tilted his head, touched his lips to Sam's again, but gently, like he wasn't sure of Sam, like this might all slide right away from him. "No," Sam said again, and curled his fingers around Dean's neck, holding him still.
Dean sought skin under Sam's sweatshirt, his breath hitching when his fingertips traced the scar across Sam's spine, defining the path, and the message of his hands was we're almost out of time.
Sam pushed back into Dean's touch, pulled Dean close, and kissed him until Dean's lips parted for him and they were inside each other, slow, wet kisses, as if they still had all the time in the world and could cheat death and cold for as long as they were here, like this.
He tugged at Dean's shirt until Dean lifted up, let Sam have it and toss it away. Dean's skin was warm under Sam's hands, and he covered as much of it with his touch as he could, slid his hands down the hard muscles of Dean's back until he reached the edge of Dean's boxers. He reveled in the full-body shiver Dean surrendered to him, and the way Dean smiled into the kiss when Sam's breath caught. He was helpless against the force of Dean's love, and when Dean skimmed off his briefs and pushed Sam onto his back, straddling him, Sam settled his hands on Dean's hips and held on tight.
"Sam," Dean said softly, nothing more than his name, and it sounded like an answer to all Sam's questions. Dean pulled Sam's sweatshirt over his head and drew his fingertips across Sam's shoulder blades, his teasing smile dancing just out of reach until Sam's hand cupped the back of his head and pulled him in, irrevocable, right.
He wanted to see Dean, all of him, the strong lines of his body, but Dean was sliding down next to him now, shoving at Sam's briefs and sweats until Sam grabbed them and tugged them off himself. Dean's hand closed on his cock then, so sure, like he'd known all his life what Sam needed, and had only been waiting to be asked to make him whole.
Sam reached for words and found nothing, so instead he kissed Dean, breathed his urgency into Dean's parted lips, where words formed and were whispered back against Sam's mouth. Dean's hand moved, and Sam's hands traced the arch of Dean's back, coming to rest on Dean's ass, urging him to move against Sam.
They moved in unison, Dean's hips rolling forward, his hand stroking fast, and Sam cried out, head thrown back as he stopped trying to fight against the white-hot desire coiled at the base of his spine. Dean moved his mouth to Sam's throat, pressed a kiss there at his beating pulse as Sam came with a blinding rush of love and release.
Sam took a breath, two, and wrapped an arm around Dean, flipping him to his back. The ancient bed frame gave a creak of protest, then went silent when Sam pushed the covers away, exposing Dean's body, as familiar to Sam as his own. Dean was quiet, watching Sam, his fingers curling and flexing around the iron bed frame, waiting.
Hands under Dean's ass, Sam lifted Dean's body, and slid down in the bed, and closed his mouth around Dean's hard cock, pushing Dean's hips back flat to the bed when his hips bucked up, uncontrollable. Barely the touch of Sam's lips, and Dean was coming, small noises of disbelief in deep in his throat. Sam held Dean in his mouth until the last pulse, swallowed it all, then licked his spent cock while Dean watched through heavy-lidded eyes. Sam looked back at him, let him see everything.
When Sam crawled back up beside Dean, he yanked the covers up, and they lay facing one another, not even an inch of space between them. Sam put his arm gently over Dean's side, and Dean threw his over Sam, so much like when they were younger, and nothing like it at all.
Now Sam had all the words, everything he wanted to say hovering at the tip of his tongue, and none of it was necessary any longer. Dean's mouth covered his, sensuous, slow, and he let this touch speak for him, the soft exchange of breath shared like a treaty written in blood.
Dean was his, and he was Dean's, and whatever might come, this was theirs, now.
**
1992
Sam had been digging for what seemed like hours, straight down a line his father mashed in the snow with a trowel. "Six inches deep and three inches wide, son, and stick to the line," Dad said, and then took Dean off to the other side of the cabin. Probably he didn't want them talking to each other, or Dean telling Sam stories.
Bitter cold made Sam's cheeks feel frozen. He couldn't smile, and that was okay because he was still mad at Dad, anyway. He stabbed away at the frozen ground, hands clumsy in Dean's old gloves, which were a couple sizes too big for him.
"Progress requires strategy, Sammy." Dad dropped down in the snow beside him and set a wooden crate down in the snow with a grunt. "You can't keep on doing something you know isn't working. You have to try something new."
"The ground is frozen, okay?" Sam said, glaring at him.
Dad gave him a sharp look. "You watch that tone, boy."
Sam kept glaring for as long as he dared, and then he went back to banging at the dirt.
Dad sighed, and reached into the box to pull out a grey metal box, maybe eight inches long. He pushed it down into the tiny trench Sam had cleared for it, poking at the dirt to fit it secure inside, and then grabbed another box, nesting it up against the first one. Sam watched him out of the corner of his eye until Dad caught up to him.
"I'll give you a hand," Dad said.
For a little while, they dug side by side in silence. Sam wanted to know what the boxes were, and why Dad was planting them, but he was still too mad. So he just dug, and pretended he didn't mind when Dad was able to dig deeper and go faster.
After a while, Dad sat back on his heels and wiped his sweaty face. "Take a breather, son."
Sam didn't stop. He just kept poking at the dirt, even though his arms were so tired, and his face wasn't tingling anymore.
"Sam." Dad took the trowel out of his hand, but Sam didn't look at him. He wiped the back of his runny nose with Dean's glove, then felt bad about it and cleaned it off with some snow.
"Sammy. I know you're angry with me." Dad hesitated, then added, "I know you think I was mean to your brother."
"You hurt him." All it took to make Sam mad all over again was to say it out loud.
Dad looked sharp at Sam, who did his best not to let tears well up in his eyes. All he'd ever wanted was for Dad to stay home, to be there, but not like this.
"Sammy, I know you're still a little too young to understand, but - I'm building instinct in you and Dean. Teaching you how to think on your feet. If I do it right, you'll always know what to do. You'll never have to stop to think about it. It could save your life one day."
Sam didn't answer. He thought about Dean on the other side of the cabin, exiled to dig by himself, and clenched his jaw.
"Do you know what we're burying here?" Dad took another grey box out of the crate and handed it to Sam. It was heavy in Sam's hands, and whatever was inside shifted around, making shhhh sounds against the sides. "Iron boxes, full of salt. It's a full circle - a perimeter around the cabin. It'll make sure this place is secure for a long time to come. Decades, maybe."
Sam stared at the churned up snow mixed with dirt, and said, "So?"
"You-" Dad stopped, and cleared his throat. When he reached out for Sam, he did so gently, pulling Sam around so he could see Sam's face. "Listen to me, Sammy. Listen carefully. I know you don't get it, but you remember this. Everybody needs a fallback position. This cabin is yours and Dean's. You don't come back here until you have to, until you don't have anywhere else to go. And then you come here. You come here, and you remember what I taught you."
Sam stared at his father, at the deep lines at the corners of his eyes, and said, "Okay, Dad."
"Remember, Sam. And when the time comes, you know what to do." Dad let him go, and Sam pulled his scarf up, hiding most of his face from his father.
They went back to digging in silence, Dad planning for a future Sam couldn't even imagine, and Sam thinking about lunch, and whether Dean would let him have the last of the dried apples.
**
on to part three
Winter, Part One
2008
Seven days of being cooped up had Dean prowling the cabin and every part of the mountain within a day's walking distance. He stayed away longer every day, until finally he was coming back well after dark with whatever he'd shot for dinner, mostly rabbits. Sam thought maybe he was holding off on killing bigger game for Sam's sake, because Sam had never been much for skinning and cleaning, but he wasn't eating much anyway. Dean noticed, but he didn't say anything. He just watched Sam's plate, and watched Sam, and that knowing look weighed on Sam more than any words could have.
"You remember how Dad used to pour whiskey over everything as it cooked?" Dean asked one night, as something small and tough blackened over the fire. "For flavor, he said."
Sam wrinkled his face at the memory of it. "The rabbit tasted like mouthwash."
"Yeah." Dean there watching the fire, his back to Sam. Half of his body was in shadow, the other half golden.
Slowly, Sam pushed his chair back and went to Dean, who turned his face slightly in Sam's direction, as if to be sure he was really there. Sam put his hand on Dean's shoulder and leaned in to him, sighing in unison with Dean's exhaled breath. Dean put both hands on the mantel, bracing himself.
"Sam," he said, in a voice as rough and raw as the unfinished wood beneath his hands.
There were unasked questions in the silence behind Sam's name; Dean's breath hitched when Sam stepped closer, when Sam whispered, "Dean," in response.
There was nowhere to go. Nowhere else Sam wanted to go, anyway.
Sam could feel the flash point approaching, a slow crackle of heat and electricity like a distant storm. Soon enough, Dean was going to ask him again why they were staying, what made Sam trust his gut as he did, and Sam was going to have to offer him something to hold onto. First, Sam would have to unravel the mass of complicated feelings thrumming through him; Dean deserved unvarnished truth, but Sam's motives were complicated, and he was still unsure.
Dean pulled away, turning toward the table in one fluid motion and grabbing his coat. "I'm...going to check the traps," he said, not once meeting Sam's eyes, and then he was out the door, flashlight in hand.
Sam's entire body felt too hot, like he'd developed a fever under his skin.
In those hours when Dean went out into the woods, Sam seized the chance to focus all his efforts on forcing his mind into its dark places, embracing the power lurking there. He could feel its pull, the soft seduction of it, and every time he reached for it, it was easier to find. He was cautious with it, and envisioned steel bars around it, caged back there in his mind until he knew how to properly control it. He wondered how he'd be able to tell if he crossed the line, became like Ava or Jake - if Dean could tell what he was up to because Sam was changing in ways he couldn't hide. If that was what had Dean staring at him by firelight each evening.
He fell asleep alone, wrapped up in his doubts and confusion.
The next morning, Dean was gone before Sam even woke, his side of the bed stone cold. Sam rubbed his eyes and went to the window; sunlight sparkled on patchy snow, but no sign of Dean, just tracks leading away into the woods. There was coffee in the pot over the fire, and a leftover biscuit. Sam smiled. It took a lot to get Dean to cook now that they were grown and Sam didn't need taking care of. And the biscuits were not bad.
He reached for it and froze in mid-motion, aware of the pain coming just before it hit, like a last-minute warning, a rattle inside his head that couldn't be mistaken for anything else.
"Forgive me, Sam."
This time, it's the cool woods in spring, gentle sunshine all around him, and there are no demons, no one dying, no fear or pain. The voice is familiar - it's the voice at Sam's shoulder, the voice he heard in Hell.
When he turns to look, Dad is standing there. Sam frowns. "You're not my father."
The man smiles, but only a tiny amount - as if smiling is not his customary expression - and says, "No. I assumed a form you might find comforting. The demon blood makes it very difficult for me to access your dreams. I had no choice but to send you the visions."
Sam backs up, fear flooding his body. "How do you know about the demon blood?" He stares at the stranger wearing his father's visage. "The last thing to impersonate my father is the same thing that did that to me."
"I'm not Azazel, Sam. Dean killed him. He is truly dead."
"How can I be sure?"
"I don't have time to try and persuade you. Perhaps it will help if I don't resemble John Winchester." The thing shifts, until it's more an indistinct blur, like a watercolor splashed and running down the canvas. When it's done, it's not his father anymore. It's an ordinary man, someone Sam could have passed on the street. Sam is silent, though doubt runs cold through him. The man sighs. "There's not much time, Sam. Listen to me very carefully. Certain events are in motion. Dean is fated to die. You may not be able to stop it from happening."
"No," Sam says. He starts to turn away, but the man is suddenly there, too close, and there's the sensation again, the air beating against him, deep pressure in his ears, like falling too quickly from the sky.
"The demon called Lilith wants something particular from you, Sam, and she knows she can hold your brother hostage in hell until you agree to play your part."
"Play my part in what?"
"War is coming. Seals will be broken, and a series of foretold events will come to pass in a very disappointing fashion." The man's shape shifts again. He seems close, and far away, and his eyes are very blue. "What you need to understand right now is that to change the outcome, you have to learn to control your powers, and you must not allow any demon to offer you assistance."
"Ruby," Sam says, and the man inclines his head.
"Yes. The demon calling herself Ruby. If you believe nothing else, Sam, this one thing you already understand somewhere inside yourself. To turn to her for aid is to lose who you are. You only need someone to remind you of it."
The sick feeling in Sam's gut is familiar, a mass of twisted guilt and desperation, and there's shame, too - shame that this thing, whatever it is, knows he's thought about asking Ruby to help him learn. He bows his head, unable to look even a stranger in the eye.
"Sam," the man says, and the way he speaks Sam's name is the way a friend might. "The use of your powers is forbidden, but I've come to believe...this is the only way. You must act, and you must do so quickly. You remember what I've shown you?"
The vision comes to Sam then, as strong as the first time: Dean, a bloody burnt wreck of himself, and the beating of wings at Sam's shoulder. "You," Sam says, as a thrill of awe flashes through him. "You are with me, there."
"Yes." The man tilts his head and stares at Sam. "It may be that you can become powerful enough to avert Dean's fate, as you plan. Or it may be that you cannot, and so you must follow him into Hell."
"I don't know if I'm strong enough. If I can ever be strong enough."
The man's expression becomes intense, determined. "You may indeed be the Boy King and an abomination, Sam, but that doesn't mean you're destined to be King of Hell, or that all who follow you must be demons. But for your brother's sake, you must learn to lay waste to evil. You have free will to choose, and the power to defeat Lilith. Stay true to the path."
"How can I?" Sam asks, a world of questions contained in three words. "Who are you?"
"Someone who knows you, Sam. Your prayers don't go into the darkness." The man touches him then, and it's brilliance and beauty and hope, sun without words flowing into Sam's bones and filling all his hollow, fearful places with light. "I know you can find the way, Sam. Dean needs you to find the way."
He's beginning to fade, now, out of Sam's sight, and darkness falls across Sam like thunder, the summer gone and snow smothering him in a blanket of cold. "No," he shouts, but it's too late; he's drowning in a cold pool, and there's no warmth, and Dean - Dean is gone - Dean is packing the car, and he's so angry, he's driving away, he's leaving Sam there, and it's too late -
Sam was vaguely aware of a crashing noise, and Dean's voice - "Sam, what-" before he shouted Dean's name, meant only to keep him, not let him go, alive alive alive, and the need slammed out of him on a fist of desperation, seeking its intended target.
The pain reached for him, pulled him under, into darkness.
When he woke, his face was half-buried in the pillow, and he was shivering. A blanket was tucked in around him, but he was still dressed. He twisted over and sat up, and found Dean sitting in a chair beside the bed, feet up on the edge, watching him.
"What's going on, Sam?" He spoke so softly that all the hair on Sam's neck rose. Sam pushed the blanket away, momentary confusion giving way to a deeper sense of wrong. He couldn't remember what he'd been doing earlier. Dean had gone out, like he always did, and he'd...he'd...
Slowly, he met Dean's eyes, saw nothing but cool assessment there. "Did I pass out?" he asked.
Dean sat forward in the chair and deliberately put one foot on the floor, then the other. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, and said, "What do you remember?"
"I..." Sam pulled his shirt away from his body; the shivering had passed and now he was burning up again. "You left, and I..."
"You what?"
Sam looked blankly at the expression Dean was trying to bury under all that smooth calm, and in an instant he put a name to it: fear. He pushed the pillow aside and lurched up from the bed, and Dean was there to steady him, but he got a hand around Dean's arm and shoved him away. "What did I do?" he asked, stumbling back against the wall.
Dean's hands fell to his sides, and he stood there a long moment where irrational fear gripped Sam - that he was leaving, that something had happened he couldn't control - and then Dean reached down to the hem of his shirt, pulled it up over his head. He turned his back to Sam and there, on his shoulders and the right side of his ribs, were fresh bruises. Not hands, but something larger. Irregular patterns, like stones, like hard objects. Like he'd been slammed into the ground.
The floodgate opened and all the missing moments poured back into Sam's head: the meadow, the darkness, and...the bizarre, lucid vision. And Dean was gone, Dean was leaving. Sam had understood then, knew Dean had reached a breaking point, was going to leave, and Sam had to stop him. "It was a vision," he said, unable to look away from the marks on Dean's skin. Marks he had caused, by throwing his brother to the ground, even though he hadn't known he was causing harm. He'd only wanted him to stay.
I'm sorry, he thought, and wasn't sure which thing he was sorry for, what apology Dean should accept. "Dean, I...I didn't..."
"Cut the crap," Dean said, shoving the shirt back over his head with quick, jerky motions. He turned to Sam and said, "I knew you were up to something, but I never thought you'd fucking lie about it." Not after everything we've been through, Sam heard, as clearly as if Dean had said it out loud, and it startled him that he couldn't tell if he was really reading Dean, or if he was just filling in the spaces like always. A tiny kernel of panic clenched hold inside him. "Please, please tell me you did not do that on purpose."
"No," Sam said quickly, but something in his expression, or his eyes, made Dean's frown deepen. "No, Dean - I wanted you to stay. I wouldn't. I...the vision...something forced it out of me. "
Oh wouldn't you, Dean's expression said, but he adjusted his shirt without a word. He just looked at Sam with a disappointment and hurt Sam hadn't seen since they were kids, and then he nodded. "Whatever, man."
"Dean," Sam said, and stopped. He took a deep, shaky breath. "I've been trying to figure out how to do stuff. You know. With my mind."
"Sam," Dean started, but Sam cut him off.
"No, listen. I think that's the key. The whole reason I'm having these visions. So I can take control of my own destiny. So I can save..." He swallowed hard. "There has to be a way."
"This isn't it," Dean said. He backed up and picked the big book up from the table, the one full of apocalyptic prophecies that made Sam's eyes water. "Every vision you have is related to that yellow-eyed bastard, Sam. What makes you think he's not tricking you now? Come on. You're smarter than this."
"You always do this," Sam said. "You try not to hear me so you don't have to do it my way."
"Yeah, well, there's a reason for that," Dean said. He tossed the book at Sam, hard enough to catch him in the chest, forcing a grunt of air out of him as he caught it. "Your way is dangerous. And stupid. Not to mention wrong."
"What makes you so fucking sure?" Sam threw the book on the floor. "God, Dean, you think I didn't tell you because I wanted to lie to you? This is a conversation we can't have. Aren't having. This is what I'm going to do. There is no discussion."
"Really," Dean said, his jaw working. Then the sea change happened, and his face was smooth, all the betrayal and hurt locked away behind calm eyes like it had never been there at all. "Good. You do that. You stay here and you fucking kill yourself trying to be exactly what he wanted you to be." He stepped closer, cupped Sam's jaw with his fingers, hard enough to bruise. "You think I haven't seen the blood? All over your sleeve, the ground, the goddamned pillow in the morning? You really do think I'm stupid, don't you." He pushed Sam's face away with disgust.
"I don't, Dean." Sam stepped closer just as Dean moved away. It took him a moment to realize Dean was already reaching for his pack, was stuffing random shit into it, knives and cans of food, haphazard crap that wouldn't help him at all. "Dean, please. You have to trust me." Dean stilled in mid-motion, one hand around a can of Spam, another around the dead-as-a-doornail police radio laying on the table. Sam pressed his advantage and moved closer, until their shoulders were touching. He reached out a tentative hand to touch Dean, to anchor him, fingertips brushing against the pulse point at Dean's wrist.
The tension in Dean's body ratcheted up a notch, until Sam could feel the decision vibrating through him: stay, or go. "I don't know what's in your head, man," Dean said, in a low voice. "You're making decisions that don't include me, and that's not how this works."
"And you've always been so great at thinking things over and consulting me, instead of giving away your soul," Sam said, a desperate little smile making its way onto his face. But it had the opposite effect on Dean, who stepped back, out of Sam's reach.
"You drag my ass up here for no reason you can tell me, and then you tell me you're going to go darkside if I die. And then you do start the process without any input from me." He squared his shoulders, looked Sam in the eye. "Either we're in this together or we aren't."
"I'm not trying to push you out of it," Sam answered.
"Then tell me. Tell me why you think you can make one bit of difference. Tell me what you're bleeding over this for, if you don't want to go down this mountain. Tell me all of it, or so help me Sam, I will leave your ass standing here and I'll drive down this goddamned mountain by myself."
"You think it's wrong, to use the powers at all, don't you?" Sam sat down on the edge of the bed. After a moment, Dean sat down beside him. "Like letting myself be part of whatever the demon had planned."
"You can't help the visions," Dean said. "That's different."
"Is it?" Sam ran the palms of his hands over his knees, over and over the frayed denim, thinking of the people he'd helped, the lives he'd saved already. "If what I can do can save someone, then it's worth it." Dean beside him was like the fever beneath his skin gone supernova; he couldn't even breathe. Softly, he added, "If it saves you."
"It's not worth the price, Sammy." Dean looked away from him. "This might be what the demon wanted all along. Play us against each other. You die, I bring you back, I can't break the deal or you die, so you use your powers to save me and it's all for nothing. You die, or go darkside, end of story. Don't you get that?"
"You don't know that. Dean, I can control it. I have so far. Until today. And you don't get to decide, anyway. It's my choice." Sam watched Dean, the profile of his face, where a muscle twitched in his clenched jaw.
"So we're back to where we started."
"No. Where we started was with me dead. Now I'm alive, and you're alive." Sam put his hand out, smoothed it over Dean's back, the soft flannel beneath his touch and the hot fresh bruises underneath, hiding from him. Dean's whole body twitched, but he didn't pull away. "But you can't save yourself. It's up to me."
"I can still save you," Dean said, turning his head to meet Sam's eyes, all his decisions laid out in what he didn't say. In answer, Sam slid his hand down Dean's back, slipped it beneath Dean's shirt and slowly pressed his fingers to Dean's skin, just the lightest touch.
"I don't need saving," Sam said softly. "Not this time."
Dean shivered suddenly, a full-body shiver, and goosebumps rose under Sam's touch. He stood up, stumbled a little when he stepped away.
Sam let his hand fall back down to the bed and made no move to follow. "Maybe I can't stop you from dying, or from going to Hell. Or maybe I can." He waited for Dean to process it, watched the tension flooding his body, tightening his shoulders, then said, "Or maybe...maybe I can come and get you, once you're there. Dean, the key is for me to be ready before you...before. If it happens after, without you to ground me..." He shook his head, helpless to find the right words.
Dean drew in a long, shaky breath and shook his head. Then he looked away from Sam again, up at the ceiling, as if he would find the answer there. "No more bullshit," he said, glancing back at Sam. "You do this, you let me help you. Train you. What the fuck ever."
"I'm not really sure...how. Or what I'm doing."
"We'll figure it out." Dean went quiet again. Sam met his gaze and held on, no flinching away from whatever he might see there. The silence between them was heavy, until Dean said, "So can you do anything cool?"
"What?" Sam tilted his head.
Dean smiled, just a little. "Can you levitate the firewood in here so we don't have to carry it? Or make it split itself?"
Sam made a noise of disbelief. "Uh, no."
Dean's grin widened briefly, then dimmed. "Any other freaky shit you should warn me about?"
"I don't know yet," Sam answered truthfully. "You know I get vibes about stuff. There's the visions, and the moving things around." He stopped, wondering if he should tell Dean the rest; he just wasn't sure. But Dean was looking at him like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, so he shrugged and said, "Maybe I can tell what you're thinking, sometimes."
"Jesus," Dean said. One hand moved up to his forehead like a shield, which made Sam burst out laughing.
"I said maybe," Sam said quickly. "Or maybe it's just because I know your stupid ass so well."
"Yeah, well," Dean said, frowning. "No fair doing that unless you warn me. Or that other thing, that thing where you make people do stuff."
Sam flashed on the moment Ellen had turned her own gun to her head, courtesy of Jake's simple command. "I can't do that," he said. "I wouldn't."
"Uh-huh," Dean said. "We'll see."
1992
Sam stood at the window and stared with wonder at the foot of fresh snow on the ground. Everything from the icicles on the trees to the snow sparkled as the sun hit it, like something out of a movie. "Dean!" he cried, hopping down from the chair he was standing on and colliding with his brother, who was trying to eat a bowl of dry cereal. "Dean, Dean, look!"
"I saw, Sammy." Dean handed a bowl down to Sam, but Sam didn't want it. He wanted to go outside and make snow angels and snowballs, and Dad was busy doing something in the woods and so it was perfect.
He turned his face up toward Dean and said, "Come on, Dean!"
At that, Dean grinned at him and messed up his hair. "Get your coat on. And the boots. And a scarf, too, or Dad'll kill me."
"Yeah!" Sam shouted, just barely handing the bowl back to Dean before its contents were upended over the bare floor. He whipped on his coat and hat and scarf in record time, and let Dean shove mittens over his hands, and then he burst out the door, tumbling off the porch to land face-first in the loose-pack snow. It smelled fresh and clean and it was crunchy and tasted like ice, and he laughed, because Dean landed on top of him a second later.
Sam squealed and tried to wriggle out from under Dean, but Dean had him pinned, one hand on the back of his head shoving him deeper into the snow, crowing "Say uncle! Say it, Sammy!"
Dean's giggle made Sam fight harder. They rolled over and over in the cold snow, Dean's arms wrapped securely around Sam's chest, until finally Sam landed a good smack to Dean's eye and toppled over forwards, laughing so hard his legs were jelly.
"Snow angels," Dean announced, mashing a handful of snow into Sam's face, then scrambling up to his feet. "Come on!"
Sam got up, covered head to toe in snow, and ran to the edge of the treeline, where there was lots of fresh snow to fall in. He stretched his arms out and fell back, landing in the snow with a poof, and began flailing, flailing, arms and legs going wide, wider, the wingspan of tiny angels. When he stopped, he sat up and said, "Help me, Dean, so I don't mess it up!"
"Just step out," Dean said, but he was already walking over to Sam, one hand outstretched. He hauled Sam to his feet and then lifted him out into the snow, and they stood together looking at Sam's angel.
Sam could almost see the halo at the top, where the sun sparkled on the snow. "Do you think it looks like Mom?" he said, holding on to Dean's hand tight, so Dean wouldn't pull away like he did sometimes when Sam asked about her.
Dean's fingers tightened around his, then relaxed. "Yeah, Sammy. Sure."
Dean sat down in the snow with Sam and made snowballs with him, packing the snow up tight in his mittens. They spent the next hour pelting each other with snow, squeaking and laughing and shouting "OW!" every so often, until Sam's skin was stinging with wind and cold and his throat hurt, because his scarf had fallen off somewhere, a green trail in the churned up white.
"You boys having fun?"
Sam stopped dead in the middle of throwing a really big snowball right at Dean's face, and looked up at his father, standing still at the edge of the clearing with his hands in his pockets. He was smiling.
And then a snowball hit Dad square in the face.
Sam turned to Dean, mouth open heart pounding. Dean was standing there, another snowball all ready to go, grinning at his dad. Sam turned back to Dad, who was wiping ice from his face.
"Like that, is it?" he asked, and then he dove aside, hands thrust deep in the snow. Moments later, a hail of snowballs went whizzing through the air at Sam and Dean, and Sam ran to Dean's side, his heart bursting because Dad was laughing, he was really laughing, and Dean was grinning, and it was perfect.
By the time the fight was over, Sam was so tired he could barely lift his arms and he was shivering, though he wasn't going to admit it, no way. Dean looped an arm around his neck and pulled him in tight to his side. "Cold, Sammy?" he asked, and Sam shook his head.
"No."
"Well, I am," Dean said. He was still grinning, so big his face looked all stretchy and weird, and it made Sam grin up at him. "Let's go in and warm up."
"Not so fast," John said, brushing ice from his coat. He put one hand on Dean's head, ruffled his hair; his hat was lost somewhere in the snow. "Get your hat and then pull down one of the rabbits. We'll need something for dinner."
"Okay, Dad."
"And take Sam with you."
The smile vanished from Dean's face. "Dad, what-"
"It's time, Dean. Take him with you, and let him help."
"Yes sir," Dean said. His face looked all pinched. Sam looked from Dean to Dad, not sure what had happened, but they weren't having fun anymore, and it was his fault somehow. "Wait here," he told Sam, and followed Dad inside.
Sam looked around and found Dean's cap buried in the snow. He shook it out and held it, waiting.
When Dean came back, he took the cap from Sam and started into the woods. "Keep up, okay Sammy?" he said, and Sam nodded.
They didn't go far. When they rounded a corner and Dean stopped, Sam opened his mouth to ask why, and then he saw them: seven rabbits, hanging upside down on long strings, far above the ground. He cried out and jumped back, and Dean sighed. "What did you think we were eating, Sam? You know how to set the traps as well as I do. Now come on."
"No," Sam said. He stared up at them, at the way they were swinging, and his throat went dry.
"Sam," Dean said. "Don't be such a little baby. They're already dead."
"I know," Sam said. He swallowed hard.
Dean shimmied up the tree trunk and grabbed one of the ropes wound around the lowest branch, then let it go. The rabbit plummeted out of the treetops and hit the ground with a smack. Sam shrank back against the tree. Dean hopped down and produced two knives from his coat, one of them the one Sam had been using the last month. "We've got to skin it, and Dad says you have to help. Take off your mittens."
The knife hilt against his hand wasn't cold; it was almost warm, because it had been in Dean's coat. Dean sat down on a fallen tree trunk and waited for Sam to sit beside him. Sam's feet felt like they were too heavy for his legs, and he dragged them all the way over.
Dean's blade was poised at the edge of the rabbit's neck, biting into the wet fur, and Sam burst into tears.
"Oh, come on," Dean said, rolling his eyes, but Sam couldn't help it. He turned his head away from Dean and tried to pull the tears back into himself, because it was stupid and Dean would think he was a crybaby, and he knew Dean wasn't hurting it, that they had to eat. He gasped, breath hitching, and dropped the knife on the ground; his hands balled into fists.
"You know what," Dean said, "go wait over there." He pointed to the trail they'd followed. "Seriously, Sammy. Go."
"No," Sam said. He swallowed again, and again, until he'd stopped the flood of tears. "No."
"Sammy." Dean's hand was on his knee. "I mean it. Go over there."
"I can help you," Sam said. "I want to."
"Tomorrow, okay? When you're ready."
Sam nodded and didn't look at Dean's eyes. He just got up on shaky legs and practically ran for the sheltering trees. He put his back to one and closed his eyes, like he expected to hear a little rabbit-scream, but he didn't hear anything but the sound of his own breathing.
It didn't take long, and Sam didn't look when Dean walked up with two canvas bags. They walked back in silence, Sam with his head down, watching Dean's feet. Dad was going to be so mad. Dean thought he was a baby. They wouldn't understand.
When Dean pushed the front door open, Dad looked up from the table and smiled. "That was fast," he said. He nodded at Sam. "How'd it go?"
"Fine," Dean said. He set both bags down at the hearth. "Sam's a pro."
"Good for you, little man," John said, smiling full-on at Sam, and Sam felt the tears welling up again. He didn't say anything, just looked at Dean, who looked back at him, no expression on his face.
He wasn't able to eat a bite of the rabbit, later, or any of the canned vegetables Dad set on his plate. "You spend too much time out there in the cold, buddy?" Dad asked him, feeling his face for fever. "You're red as a beet."
"I'm fine," Sam mumbled.
"Good, then you can do the dishes." John put on his coat and went outside into the night, and Sam finally looked up at Dean.
"I'll do it," he said softly.
"Don't-" Dean began, but Sam shook his head.
"Next time, I'll do it." He lifted his chin. "I'm not a baby."
"I know," Dean said. He pushed Sam's plate toward him. "Now eat."
"I'm sorry," Sam said. "You didn't have to lie to Dad."
Dean put his fork down and pushed his plate away, and was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Yeah, I did."
**
2008
Sam was sick of the cold and snow. Since he had reached his limit, and was actually daydreaming about hunts, he could only imagine what Dean was feeling. Not that he had to guess; Dean bitched constantly about the weather, the smoky fireplace, the food, the boredom, and everything else.
He didn't mention leaving, though, and Sam counted that as a small victory.
Visions were coming like clockwork every day, small changes to the form but never to the outcome. The pain was intense every time, but Sam was expecting it, and so it wasn't as debilitating as it had been in the beginning. That's what Sam told Dean, anyway. Secretly, he was starting to suspect that the more confident he became with his powers and the better able to use them, the easier the visions got, and the less energy they'd drain from him.
You know what to do, Sam.
Trouble was, Sam had no idea what to do. He only knew what he wanted. The two were tied together, each a part of the other: what he wanted, and what he had to do.
"Tell me what I'm thinking," Dean said every morning, a little smirk on his face as he made the coffee, and every morning Sam would roll his eyes and spout off some random girl's name, which made Dean chuckle like the joke was new.
But every so often, Sam picked up flashes of the real deal - not actual thoughts, just...vibes. Impressions, like pictures gone blurry in his mind's eye, almost like visions but without the pain: a flash of Sam as a little kid, wearing a crazy-looking green scarf; the way Sam looked in the morning before coffee, with his hair sticking up. Sometimes it was more, something deeper - a sense of Dean's isolation, or the nature of his worry, which was sometimes save those people, but mostly it was Sam help Sam.
Dean's idea of help materialized without prompting. "I made a list," Dean told him, when Sam managed to crawl out of bed a few days after they'd settled the issue of leaving. "Everything we know the special kids can do. I guess we can just go down the list and try them out." He handed Sam the pad of paper, and Sam blinked until it came into focus.
1. Telekinesis
2. Control demons
3. Control other people
4. Future visions
5. Kill by touch
6. Read minds
7. Super strength
"I think I'll skip number five," Sam said, handing it back. "On account of how I'm not murdering anything that isn't already dead."
"Lots of little furry things out there in the woods," Dean said, but he stopped when he saw the look on Sam's face. "Or not," he said, and just like that, the subject was closed.
"Hard to test out number two right now without actually summoning a demon, which we're not doing again, ever," Sam added, giving Dean a look. "And we know for sure I can do one, four and seven. Even if I can't control it yet. Technically."
"So you just need to learn to control people - I'm guessing it's a short step to bossing demons around after that - and read minds."
"And eat my spinach," Sam said, pointing at the paper.
"Right." Dean ran a hand through his hair, like he was working through a plan. "Maybe we concentrate on one of these at a time."
"You really have the patience for this?" Sam asked. "Like you said, Dean. Concentration. Not really your strong point."
"Hey!" Dean tossed the list on the table. "I can. When I have to. And clearly I have to."
"Whatever you say," Sam said. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. With one hand, he pulled the lantern to the middle of the table and eased back in the chair, staring at it. He focused all his effort on the lantern, willing it to the other end of the table.
It always took time, and it was like a battery draining, or so Sam liked to think of it; he could feel the seepage of energy, bits and pieces of him falling away in increments, until finally enough of him was sacrificed to the task and the object gave way against his will. The lantern scraped a millimeter, then two, and stopped. Sam kept staring, focused entirely on the next millimeter. It was easier when he was angry, but the whole point was to learn to do it when he was entirely calm.
Dean cleared his throat. Sam tilted his head to look at Dean, who was watching him with a peculiar look on his face. "What?"
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Training?" Sam said, raising his eyebrows. "How else did you think I'd do it?"
"I don't know. Wave your hands around or something," Dean said, and Sam grinned.
"Dude, these aren't Jedi mind tricks."
"Ha ha, very funny." Dean stood there, looking lost, and it dawned on Sam that he had no idea how to help.
"Maybe you should, um, go find something heavy for me to lift."
"Okay," Dean said. He turned to go, then turned back and said, "Did you just mind whammy me?"
"No," Sam said. "Um, no."
"Are you going to make me walk like a chicken or something?"
"No!"
"Okay." Dean stopped, turned again. "Did you just make me believe you?"
"Dean!"
Ten minutes later, Dean had rearranged part of the woodpile and thrown the Impala's spare tire on top like a cherry. Sam went outside with him and stared at it. "I'm seriously getting the Yoda vibe now," he said, and was rewarded with a grin and a laugh from Dean.
"You want to stand on your head, go for it. I'll get my phone and take pictures."
"No thanks." Sam frowned. "I can't actually lift that in my arms, Dean. It's too unstable. I don't think that'll help me figure out if I can use my strength."
"Oh, right." Dean stood there scratching his head, the world's handiest two-hundred pound weight, so Sam just reached out and-
"WHAT THE FUCK," Dean squawked, Sam's arms around his waist and his feet a good eight inches off the ground.
"Huh," Sam said, not even breathing hard. He tossed Dean maybe a foot into the air and caught him, more or less, though Dean's chin knocked into the top of his head and made him see stars.
"Put me down right now, Sam, so help me, or I will kick your fu--"
"Well, you wanted me to lift something," Sam said mildly. He set Dean down gently; Dean yanked down his shirts and tried to recoup a little dignity, while Sam grinned in his face.
"Dude, you could have warned me," Dean said.
"Yeah, but that wouldn't have been any fun." Sam scrunched his shoulders up experimentally, then released. "It wasn't any effort at all to pick you up. I might as well have been lifting air."
"Uh-huh," Dean said, eyeing Sam dubiously.
On the day Sam moved the table without so much as a squint or a grunt of effort, Dean looked up, startled, and met his eyes. That was the first time Sam actually picked up a true thought from Dean's mind, clear and true - stronger than me, he could take me now -- and it made him blush because it was without context. It would be easier for them both if there was some kind of barrier Dean could put up, for his sake. There probably was, but they didn't have time to figure it out. Better if he didn't say anything about those stray thoughts.
But he caught himself, sometimes, noticing Dean in quiet ways. He'd been watching Dean all his life, every nuance of his body language, every predictable and exasperating habit. As the weeks went by, they all began to seem new again, or maybe just subtle differences -- the way Dean stretched out on his stomach when he slept, or the way he kicked his feet up on the table when he drank his coffee in the morning.
The way he watched Sam as he was training, eyes traveling the length of Sam's body, interested, aware in ways that made Sam's breath catch.
Those moments hung suspended between them, planks on a bridge they were building from two sides of a river, and when they met in the middle, Sam had no idea what would come next.
Time seemed to fly as Sam's powers grew stronger, and the days left before Dean's deal came due began to dwindle. There were only a few weeks, now. Dean started recoiling at odd times, staring at Sam for long seconds before he answered questions.
Then came the day Dean hurled a pan across the room, narrowly missing Sam as he came in the door, and stood there pale and still when Sam said, "Dude, what the hell?"
"Nothing," Dean said, the muscle in his jaw clenched so tightly the whole right side of his face twitched, before he turned back to the remaining pan over the fire.
"Like hell," Sam said. He closed the door and stripped off his jacket, and then he was beside the fire, beside Dean, who shoved him hard enough to send a clear message. Sam gripped his left arm and hauled him to his feet, ignoring the angry flare in Dean's eyes. "What's goin' on with you?"
"Leave it alone, Sam," Dean said, shaking off Sam's hand.
"So, this deal we're in, it only goes one way? I tell you everything, and you tell me exactly nothing? I call bullshit, Dean."
Dean tugged his overshirt down and brushed it into place, looking at the floor, the fire, everywhere but at Sam. Fear radiated from him in waves so strong, Sam was surprised he didn't topple from the force of it. Finally, Dean met his eyes. "I'm...hallucinating, all right? I'm...I thought there was a demon standing there. Ugly fuckin' thing. I...threw the skillet."
"Because it's iron," Sam said, a half-hysterical laugh threatening to burst out of him at Dean's embarrassed head-scratch.
Amusement died down in an instant when Dean turned away and sat down at the table, elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. "Bobby warned me about this. He said when the time came to pay up on the deal, I'd start seeing things. He was right. Sam, I see insane shit everywhere. A couple of times, I've looked at you, and...you're not you." He raised haunted eyes. "There's not much time left. I can feel it."
"I'm almost ready," Sam said. He dropped to one knee in front of Dean, and without thinking, rested his hands over Dean's. "Dean. I'm almost ready."
Dean nodded, a half-hearted thing, and it sent a chill straight through Sam. If Dean didn't believe he could be saved, Sam would have to find enough faith for both of them.
**
1992
The tip of Sam's nose was so cold, he thought it might break right off. He lifted a hand out from under the covers, blinking sleep away, and cupped his palm over the end of his nose. It was his own fault for sleeping with his stupid face out -- that's what Dean would say.
He could hear scuffling around on the porch, and that was probably where Dean and Dad were, and that meant Dad would probably come haul him out of bed any second, no matter how cold it was in there. Sam poked one foot out of the blankets, then threw them back fast and ran for the pile of clothes Dean had laid out next to the stove the night before. He was pretty fast, but he was still shivering by the time he had on all his layers.
With one hand, he snagged a cold hard biscuit for breakfast and then hit the door running, only to stop short on the porch. Dean was sprawled in the snow at the foot of the stairs, and Dad was standing a few feet away, looking pretty impatient.
"Get up," Dad was saying. "Come at me again."
Dean didn't seem to notice Sam as he bounced up from the ground and slowly circled their dad. Sam sat down on the top stair, watching. He stuck the biscuit in his mouth and held it between his teeth while he fished down into his coat pocket for his missing gloves. Dad liked to do training early in the morning. He said it kept Dean sharp, but Sam wasn't so sure; Dean didn't seem to be all that sharp in the morning.
Dean lunged, then backed up and lunged again, landing a pretty good hit to Dad's stomach. Dad made an ooof noise, but he straightened up fast, dodging Dean's follow-up strike. He reached out lightning-quick and snatched Dean's arm, and a second later Dean was on his back again, staring up in surprise at Sam, who snorted with laughter.
"Shut up," Dean said viciously, no smile for Sam, and the laugh choked off in Sam's throat. Dean got his feet under him and scrambled up, launched like a missile toward their dad. There was sickening crack, and then Dean hit the ground again, blood flowing down his face from his nose.
"Dean," Sam said, dropping his breakfast in the snow, but Dad stopped Sam with a look.
"You stay there, son," he said, and then he looked down at Dean. "Get up. Work through it."
Dean coughed, spit blood into the snow, and on his first try, he fell back in the snow. Sam swallowed hard. "Get up, Dean," Dad said, no question it was an order.
For a second, Dean looked like he was going to throw up, but then he rolled over and got to his knees, bright red drops falling into the stirred-up, dirty snow beneath him. He wiped his face.
"Stop pulling your punches," Dad said. "You can't learn unless you go for it." Dean mumbled something in response as he stood and turned, and whatever it was, Dad didn't like it much. "That's an excuse, Dean," Dad said. "You can't hurt me. Now come at me."
Sam balled his fists up and crammed them under his thighs, knuckles pressed against the hard wood, just as Dean crashed to the ground in front of him. His eyes were squeezed shut, and his face was red.
"Damn it, Dean. You're not trying," Dad said, stepping closer.
"Yes he is," Sam said hotly. "He always tries."
"Sam," Dad said, a clear warning, at the same time Dean said, "Sammy, shut up."
Sam pressed his lips together. Dean tried harder than anybody-he was good at everything, he was a total show-off, and that meant Dad was wrong. Sam tried to make how mad he was show all over his face when he stared at Dad, but if his father noticed, he didn't say anything; he only looked at Dean, and waited for him to get up.
This time, Dean barely raised his arms; Dad knocked him easily into the snow.
Sam saw red. He flew off the stairs and toward his father, who stopped him easily with one hand on each shoulder. Sam pushed at him once, twice, and twisted away from him to go to Dean, who hadn't bothered to get up this time. "Dean," Sam said, dropping to his knees beside his brother, but his brother turned his face away and shoved Sam.
"Get away," he said.
"Dean." Dad crouched down in the snow, not close enough for either Dean or Sam to reach. "You have to learn to fight full-out, no pulling punches. It doesn't matter who you're fighting."
"Dad." Dean's voice sounded funny. "You...I can't."
"You hurt Dean," Sam shouted at his father, not even caring that he was going to make Dad mad.
But it didn't; it only made those funny lines show up around Dad's face, and he looked sad. "I didn't mean to, Sammy, but you both have to learn...you have to know, just because it's family, you don't...." Abruptly he stood up, ran a hand over his face, and turned away, walking steadily away until he rounded the corner of the cabin and was out of sight.
Sam focused his full attention on Dean, who wouldn't look at him. He threw his arms around his brother's shoulders, but Dean shoved him away again, with half the effort of before. Sam shoved him back this time, then he threw his arms around Dean once more and held on tight.
Dean didn't hug him back, but he didn't push him away.
2008
A late-season snowstorm descended in the middle of a long night, but Sam was already up, huddled down in blankets and a sleeping bag in front of the fire to keep it from dying in the middle of the night. The book open in front of him went unread. Instead, he watched Dean sleeping. It had become his frequent pastime, observing the way Dean's face relaxed in sleep. He didn't kid himself that it meant Dean had accepted anything, or was going to give in to the inevitable. But he craved those moments of peace for Dean.
Just then, Dean opened his eyes, pulled out of sleep as though he could feel Sam watching him. "Sam?" he said, voice rough with sleep. He rose up on one elbow. "Get some sleep."
"Can't," Sam said. "Too cold. Got to keep the fire up." He closed his book and shoved down the blankets, extricating himself from his cocoon. Dean watched him as he padded across the cool floor barefoot, made his way to the bed. "Scoot," he said, and Dean did, lifting the blankets for him. Sam crawled into the space Dean had just vacated, the warmth of his body to one side and the warm place he'd created beneath, and turned on his side to face Dean, the fire at his back. Sam moved closer, until there was barely an inch separating their bodies, and slung his arm over Dean's side.
He'd been watching Dean fight what was between them, struggle with it, every day they'd spent in this place; the clock would run out, and Dean wouldn't have to make the choice - or maybe he'd choose, and the clock would run out, and it would be too much to bear. But now, Dean's nose bumped against Sam's when Sam closed that gap, pressing them together, and then he tilted his head and touched his lips to Dean's.
Dean's lips parted for him, though Dean's body was coiled tight against him, fight or flee in full operation. "Dean," Sam breathed into his mouth, invoking Dean's name as his protection, offering it back in kind. Dean had been Sam's world, the whole of his heart, from almost the moment he'd been born. Dean was his to have, to save, and there was nothing else in the world that mattered. Only this. The fight went out of Dean, and he made a soft, strangled noise, one last tiny objection Sam took in and kissed away.
"Why didn't you, before?" Sam asked, breathing the question into Dean's ear.
Dean stilled in his arms, and said, "Selfish," like it was some kind of indictment against everything he was, everything Sam meant to him.
"No." Sam ran his hand under Dean's shirt, eager for any part of Dean he could touch. "You don't even know what that word means." Dean tilted his head, touched his lips to Sam's again, but gently, like he wasn't sure of Sam, like this might all slide right away from him. "No," Sam said again, and curled his fingers around Dean's neck, holding him still.
Dean sought skin under Sam's sweatshirt, his breath hitching when his fingertips traced the scar across Sam's spine, defining the path, and the message of his hands was we're almost out of time.
Sam pushed back into Dean's touch, pulled Dean close, and kissed him until Dean's lips parted for him and they were inside each other, slow, wet kisses, as if they still had all the time in the world and could cheat death and cold for as long as they were here, like this.
He tugged at Dean's shirt until Dean lifted up, let Sam have it and toss it away. Dean's skin was warm under Sam's hands, and he covered as much of it with his touch as he could, slid his hands down the hard muscles of Dean's back until he reached the edge of Dean's boxers. He reveled in the full-body shiver Dean surrendered to him, and the way Dean smiled into the kiss when Sam's breath caught. He was helpless against the force of Dean's love, and when Dean skimmed off his briefs and pushed Sam onto his back, straddling him, Sam settled his hands on Dean's hips and held on tight.
"Sam," Dean said softly, nothing more than his name, and it sounded like an answer to all Sam's questions. Dean pulled Sam's sweatshirt over his head and drew his fingertips across Sam's shoulder blades, his teasing smile dancing just out of reach until Sam's hand cupped the back of his head and pulled him in, irrevocable, right.
He wanted to see Dean, all of him, the strong lines of his body, but Dean was sliding down next to him now, shoving at Sam's briefs and sweats until Sam grabbed them and tugged them off himself. Dean's hand closed on his cock then, so sure, like he'd known all his life what Sam needed, and had only been waiting to be asked to make him whole.
Sam reached for words and found nothing, so instead he kissed Dean, breathed his urgency into Dean's parted lips, where words formed and were whispered back against Sam's mouth. Dean's hand moved, and Sam's hands traced the arch of Dean's back, coming to rest on Dean's ass, urging him to move against Sam.
They moved in unison, Dean's hips rolling forward, his hand stroking fast, and Sam cried out, head thrown back as he stopped trying to fight against the white-hot desire coiled at the base of his spine. Dean moved his mouth to Sam's throat, pressed a kiss there at his beating pulse as Sam came with a blinding rush of love and release.
Sam took a breath, two, and wrapped an arm around Dean, flipping him to his back. The ancient bed frame gave a creak of protest, then went silent when Sam pushed the covers away, exposing Dean's body, as familiar to Sam as his own. Dean was quiet, watching Sam, his fingers curling and flexing around the iron bed frame, waiting.
Hands under Dean's ass, Sam lifted Dean's body, and slid down in the bed, and closed his mouth around Dean's hard cock, pushing Dean's hips back flat to the bed when his hips bucked up, uncontrollable. Barely the touch of Sam's lips, and Dean was coming, small noises of disbelief in deep in his throat. Sam held Dean in his mouth until the last pulse, swallowed it all, then licked his spent cock while Dean watched through heavy-lidded eyes. Sam looked back at him, let him see everything.
When Sam crawled back up beside Dean, he yanked the covers up, and they lay facing one another, not even an inch of space between them. Sam put his arm gently over Dean's side, and Dean threw his over Sam, so much like when they were younger, and nothing like it at all.
Now Sam had all the words, everything he wanted to say hovering at the tip of his tongue, and none of it was necessary any longer. Dean's mouth covered his, sensuous, slow, and he let this touch speak for him, the soft exchange of breath shared like a treaty written in blood.
Dean was his, and he was Dean's, and whatever might come, this was theirs, now.
**
1992
Sam had been digging for what seemed like hours, straight down a line his father mashed in the snow with a trowel. "Six inches deep and three inches wide, son, and stick to the line," Dad said, and then took Dean off to the other side of the cabin. Probably he didn't want them talking to each other, or Dean telling Sam stories.
Bitter cold made Sam's cheeks feel frozen. He couldn't smile, and that was okay because he was still mad at Dad, anyway. He stabbed away at the frozen ground, hands clumsy in Dean's old gloves, which were a couple sizes too big for him.
"Progress requires strategy, Sammy." Dad dropped down in the snow beside him and set a wooden crate down in the snow with a grunt. "You can't keep on doing something you know isn't working. You have to try something new."
"The ground is frozen, okay?" Sam said, glaring at him.
Dad gave him a sharp look. "You watch that tone, boy."
Sam kept glaring for as long as he dared, and then he went back to banging at the dirt.
Dad sighed, and reached into the box to pull out a grey metal box, maybe eight inches long. He pushed it down into the tiny trench Sam had cleared for it, poking at the dirt to fit it secure inside, and then grabbed another box, nesting it up against the first one. Sam watched him out of the corner of his eye until Dad caught up to him.
"I'll give you a hand," Dad said.
For a little while, they dug side by side in silence. Sam wanted to know what the boxes were, and why Dad was planting them, but he was still too mad. So he just dug, and pretended he didn't mind when Dad was able to dig deeper and go faster.
After a while, Dad sat back on his heels and wiped his sweaty face. "Take a breather, son."
Sam didn't stop. He just kept poking at the dirt, even though his arms were so tired, and his face wasn't tingling anymore.
"Sam." Dad took the trowel out of his hand, but Sam didn't look at him. He wiped the back of his runny nose with Dean's glove, then felt bad about it and cleaned it off with some snow.
"Sammy. I know you're angry with me." Dad hesitated, then added, "I know you think I was mean to your brother."
"You hurt him." All it took to make Sam mad all over again was to say it out loud.
Dad looked sharp at Sam, who did his best not to let tears well up in his eyes. All he'd ever wanted was for Dad to stay home, to be there, but not like this.
"Sammy, I know you're still a little too young to understand, but - I'm building instinct in you and Dean. Teaching you how to think on your feet. If I do it right, you'll always know what to do. You'll never have to stop to think about it. It could save your life one day."
Sam didn't answer. He thought about Dean on the other side of the cabin, exiled to dig by himself, and clenched his jaw.
"Do you know what we're burying here?" Dad took another grey box out of the crate and handed it to Sam. It was heavy in Sam's hands, and whatever was inside shifted around, making shhhh sounds against the sides. "Iron boxes, full of salt. It's a full circle - a perimeter around the cabin. It'll make sure this place is secure for a long time to come. Decades, maybe."
Sam stared at the churned up snow mixed with dirt, and said, "So?"
"You-" Dad stopped, and cleared his throat. When he reached out for Sam, he did so gently, pulling Sam around so he could see Sam's face. "Listen to me, Sammy. Listen carefully. I know you don't get it, but you remember this. Everybody needs a fallback position. This cabin is yours and Dean's. You don't come back here until you have to, until you don't have anywhere else to go. And then you come here. You come here, and you remember what I taught you."
Sam stared at his father, at the deep lines at the corners of his eyes, and said, "Okay, Dad."
"Remember, Sam. And when the time comes, you know what to do." Dad let him go, and Sam pulled his scarf up, hiding most of his face from his father.
They went back to digging in silence, Dad planning for a future Sam couldn't even imagine, and Sam thinking about lunch, and whether Dean would let him have the last of the dried apples.
**
on to part three