Supernatural: Kicks Like a Sleep Twitch [Part 3/3]

[cherie_morte]

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PART THREE

The sun is bright when Sam drags the body out and lays it in the backseat of what will always be Dean's car. He's bleeding all over the upholstery; Sam hopes for a fleeting second that Dean will wake from the dead just to kill him for letting the car get fucked up.

Dean signed up for this. It's all he can think as he places this limp thing so broken it hardly resembles a body into the cheap shipping crate that will have to do because it's big enough and it's all they've got. They don't have time to make a real coffin, Bobby says, not after the drive. Not in the condition Dean is in. He tells Sam they need to get rid of Dean if they're gonna bury him and they'd better do it soon. But Sam refuses until they get to Pontiac, Illinois where two years ago, in a rare fit of drunken sentimentalism, Dean told Sam that it was the kind of place he could live in forever.

Bobby wants Sam to burn Dean, but Sam laughs in his face when he suggests it. Silently, he begs his brother to come back and haunt him. Give him grief about the shitty excuse for a burial he's getting or the car-especially the car. It was his dying wish that Sam take care of it and Sam is letting him bleed all over. Dean should come back for that.

She'd made Sam watch. This isn't a clean cut, knife through spine. Not that bad, that's what Dean had told Sam just before Sam had his first fleeting taste of death. This is that bad. The cuts are messy and unfinished and everywhere. Sam couldn't look away. She wouldn't let him. He had to stand there, pushed against a wall, useless as his brother got shredded.

He pats down the patch of dirt over the make-shift grave and realizes he doesn't even have a headstone for Dean. In a few years, when the grass reroots and covers up this spot, Sam won't even know where he's buried.

All he finds to remedy the situation is the nearby trees, so he strips bark off one and makes a cross. X marks the spot. He doesn't have the space to write much on it. He goes with brother. Not Dean's name or dates or who he belongs to. Brother. That's all Dean will need to remember the rest when he comes back and sees that Sam left this here so he would know who to look for.

Bobby walks up behind him, places a hand on his shoulder to pull Sam to his feet. It's not until then that Sam realizes he's covered in dirt, trying to dig back into the grave and pull Dean out. He'll never see him again. He'll never hold that body and all its terrifying deadweight again.

Sam had kissed him. Just after it happened, before Bobby came back into the house looking for him. Sam had pressed his mouth against Dean's and hoped it would be one of those times fairytales start to come true. It wasn't.

It's the first time that summer Sam tastes blood, but it's not the last.



For three days, Sam does not sleep. It's not easy staying awake that long, but Sam is too terrified. He thought the nightmares were bad before, when he had Dean's head to hide in and no idea just how unforgiving the stench of dead brother was going to be.

But he can't fight anymore and he slips into it without even realizing he's falling asleep.

He finds a dream. It's far away, somewhere deep down below, but Sam focuses. He reaches down and pulls it up toward him. He thinks he must be having his own weird dream, died and gone to Heaven, or has simply lost it once and for all. Sam would know the sight and smell and sound of Dean's dream anywhere. This is Dean's dream.

Sam doesn't pause to question it.

Dean is sitting in the grass by a river. The water is running gray and looks toxic. The world around them is empty, and Dean has a look so concentrated on his face that Sam almost doesn't want to distract him.

"Dean," he finally says, sitting directly in front of his brother.

Dean looks up from the water and watches him for a few blank seconds before recognition dawns on him. "Sam?"

"Yeah, Dean, it's me."

"That's what Sam looks like," he muses, more to himself than to Sam. "They keep telling me I'll forget. That I'll blame you. But look at you. I remember. You must have looked just like this."

"I do look like this," Sam assures him. "Are you real?"

"Are you?" Dean asks, staring up. "No, you can't be."

"I am. Dean, I promise I am."

Dean shakes his head. "Can't. You can't."

Sam reaches out and pulls him close and holds him for as long as his body will let him stay there.

"I don't want to forget you," Dean whispers.

Sam wakes up in a motel room alone; the owner is banging on the door and telling him he missed checkout.



Sam doesn't know if it's real or not. He almost doesn't care. Every night the dream is there. Every night Dean is sitting by the bank of that dirty river, which is the best he can do as far as building himself a happy dreamscape. Sam always fixes that. He makes the sun shine on his brother, turns the water so clear and cool Dean almost cries every time he dips his fingers into it.

He thanks Sam and he holds Sam and Sam holds him back. During the day, Sam's life is torture, but this happens every night and it makes things almost livable. Dean, every night. Like he never left. He makes fun of Sam's hair and tells Sam fart jokes and smiles sometimes, but only when he's looking right at Sam.

Sam knows it must not be real. How can you dream in Hell? How could Sam find the dream, even if Dean does somehow? But then, how could he not? Dean is his to find. He made sure of that, he tells Dean proudly of how he made sure to put that X down so he could always find him.

"What's it like?" Sam asks one night. He's peeling Dean's shirt off over his head and Dean touches his fingers to Sam's lips.

He leans down for a kiss. "Don't wanna talk about that," Dean says. "Don't wanna think about that. Just want to think about you."

"About you," Sam echoes, his arm curving around Dean's back and pulling him onto to the mattress.

He looks down at his brother, eyes scanning over the freckled, pale skin on his chest. It seems impossible that Dean could be here like this, so real and alive and beautiful, when just a month ago Sam stuffed him into a thin wooden box and tried not to wonder how so much blood could come out of one person.

"Hey," Dean whispers. "You with me?"

Sam nods, shaking the thoughts away. Dean is here and solid and that's all Sam can allow to matter. "Always."

Dean's smile thins then, as if he doesn't quite believe Sam, but he doesn't say anything.

"What?" Sam asks. "What's that look for?"

Dean shakes his head and pulls Sam in for what Sam is expecting to be a kiss that will lead to a fuck but it ends up being more of a hug. "You can come here as often as you want, Sammy," Dean whispers into his hair. "I want you to."

As if Sam was waiting for the invitation.



It's Sam's lifeline, his only lifeline. So he ignores when the dreamscape he comes into starts to get worse and worse every night. He ignores how distant Dean's eyes start to get, because he can still shake Dean and make him pay attention and see him there as if he were real. He just doesn't understand why Dean is ruining it.

"Why do you stay away so long?" Dean's voice is a challenge. He sounds mad at Sam, bitter and hateful. Like he's forgetting what he didn't want to forget and is blaming Sam like he'd sworn at first he wouldn't. Dean has been dead for almost three months. Sam hasn't gone one night without seeing him since those first four sleepless days.

"What do you mean?" Sam asks. "I come here every night."

Dean shakes his head. "You wait. Weeks and weeks. Why won't you come to me? Don't you miss me? Don't you care that I'm here and I need you to-?" Dean falls to his knees, crying loudly and, to Sam at least, inexplicably. He only just arrived; he doesn't know what he did. "You have to come, Sam. Or I'll do it."

"What?" Sam kneels down, sinks until he's on level with Dean and looks his brother in the eye. "Dean, I come as often as I can. My body won't let me sleep more than I do."

"Liar," he spits out at Sam.

"I'm not lying."

"Don't leave me down here alone with them. I'm gonna do it, Sammy. I'm gonna forget and I'm gonna be just like them when I do. I'm gonna do it soon. I can feel it. I want to do it."

"Want to do what?" Sam takes Dean's hand in his own. "Dean, I'm here with you as often as I can be."

"If you're alive, you must be older by now," Dean says, his fingers tracing Sam's jaw, a look on his face like he's trying very hard to understand something. "You don't look like this anymore. You can't still look like this."

"It's been three months," Sam says.

"You're not real. She killed Sam. I sold my soul and he still died, she killed him as soon as I was gone, she killed him. He's been dead for 30 years."

"No, she couldn't. Dean, she tried, but she couldn't."

"30 years. Where is he? Where are you?" Dean grabs Sam's shirt and shakes it. "Why don't you save me? You have to save me. Save me, Sammy, help me. Don't just sit there."

Sam doesn't answer that. Dean is right. Sam is supposed to save him and every day he tries finding a way and it's never any good.

"Dead," Dean mutters in response to Sam's silence. "Or doesn't care."

"Dean?" Sam asks, trying to reach out for his brother.

Dean pulls back. "Bet you have a family by now. Wife and kids. Bet they’ve never heard of me. And you come visit me every few weeks when you happen to remember, is that it?"

"No."

"Why do you even come if you won't save me?" Dean asks. He turns his face away. "I hope you're dead. I hope she killed you. Better than knowing I sold my soul for someone who won't even try to help."

"Why are you saying this?" Sam asks.

Dean looks at him coldly. "Because I hardly remember why I loved you."

Sam makes himself wake up before Dean can say anything else.



The next night, Sam goes back. He's dreading it, but he's dreading not seeing Dean more. He finds his brother sitting alone in pit full of bones and mangled bodies. His hands are red.

Sam makes the nightmarish setting disappear, replaces it with one of the rooms they invented when Dean was still alive and they used to dream together. But the blood stays.

He takes Dean's hands, trying to find the source. "Dean, what did they do to you? Where'd they hurt you?"

Dean laughs lifelessly. "Everywhere."

Sam frowns, feels the crease form in his forehead. He can't find the cut.

"I thought you would never come back," Dean says absently. "After those things I said to you. I wasn't ever expecting to see you again. I was so sorry. Sammy, I was sorry and I was never going to be able to tell you I didn't mean them."

"I told you," Sam says, looking up at Dean just long enough to catch his eyes, "I'm always going to come."

"Will you really?"

"Yes."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"I believe you." Dean's expression goes soft and he looks like he's in horrible pain as he says, "Don’t."

"You don't want to see me?" Sam asks, trying to keep the hurt out of his tone.

"Of course I do."

"Then why-?"

"It's not my blood," he says, yanking his hand back from Sam. "You won't find the cut, it's not my blood." He buries his bloody hands in his hair and pulls at it. "I don't want you to see me like this, Sammy. I want you to go and never come back."



There is literally nothing in the world Dean could have asked for that Sam wants to give him less. And he feels Dean the next night, knows he could slip in there. But Dean had seemed so desperate, completely genuine in his request. I want you to go and never come back. Sam never should have lived long enough to hear his brother say those words to him and mean them.

He resists. He stays in his own nightmare and wakes up after too few hours of sleep, too terrified to try again. The branches of the trees outside his room cast shadows across his bed, looking like the arms of some monster reaching out for him. He wishes it wasn't an illusion, but he lives to see the dawn and the morning and another sleepless night. And another. Even when he's not having nightmares, Dean won't come into Sam's dreams. Sam tries so hard to conjure him, but his dreamwalking abilities are weak from lack of practice and not nearly enough real rest. He tries so hard to dream that when he finally does he can hardly change setting, let along bring up the image of his brother.

After a week and a half of this, Sam gets so frail he can't even sense his brother's dream all the way down in Hell, couldn't disregard Dean's request and tap into it if he tried. He can't even stand on the outside and feel Dean's essence the pathetic way he has been doing since Dean showed up with bloody hands and ripped Sam's last goddamn support away from him.

He finds a crossroad, but it doesn't help him get where he's going. Dean is hogging Hell. It's like Dean is behind him every step he takes, dogging him, ruining every chance he finds for getting through this, only it's not like that at all because Dean is nowhere, not even in Sam's dreams.

And then Ruby finds him. Ruby, of all people, saves Sam when he's getting so close to driving Dean's car off a cliff out of spite. Ruby, who Dean had hated so much, is now the only person who pushes Sam's hair back from his face when he cries and whispers that it's okay and does all the things Dean is supposed to be doing. Dean would have hated it, but then Sam kind of really hates Dean right now.

She can help him, she tells him that first day, when she shows up wearing a body that should be rotting and dead unlike Dean's, which is, but which should be sitting across the room, laughing too loud at bad TV and making his presence impossible to ignore.

Sam kicks through the salt he put in the doorway, steps aside as she slips in past him.

"You can bring him back?" Sam asks.

"No, Sam. I'm sorry. If I knew how to do that, I would have already." Ruby looks genuinely sorry.

See, that's the thing about this. Sam knows deep down that she isn't, but she really looks like she is. Who is there to feel sorry for Sam? He can't talk to Bobby, who will say things like moving on and what Dean would have wanted that make Sam feel violent toward the old man, even though he's just trying to help. The car never answers back. Sam doesn't know how to take care of her like Dean did, and she doesn't forgive him for it, and Sam can't blame her because he's a piss poor substitute.

"Why are you wasting my time, then?" Sam asks, considering the knife in his duffel. She probably doesn't deserve to die, but Sam hasn't killed anything in a long time, and he imagines it would feel as satisfying as anything can right now, which isn't saying much.

"You're just going to give up on Lilith, then?" she asks incredulously. "After what she did to Dean, you're just going to let her walk away?"

She offers revenge. A vent for all the unfocused violent bursts of agony and hatred Sam feels in equal parts for Dean and himself and his dead parents for ever giving birth to him. But most of all for Lilith. She made him watch, and she'd laughed. It was a game for her. Sam can still taste his brother's blood in his mouth. The only thing that could ever make him laugh again would be doing it in her face as he watches the light flicker out of her.

"How?"

Ruby told him, and Sam had thought she was joking at first. He'd said get out and never come back, like Dean had told him, because if Dean ever saw Sam doing what she tells him he has to do, he would swear he never had a brother at all.

Sam is left alone again. No dreams, no brother, no demon with bad ideas that lead to good results.

By the time she finds him again, five days later, he's so drunk he almost has to crawl back to his room. She catches him and holds him up, so much stronger than her slight body should be. Strong like Dean was on the rare nights it was him holding Sam up and not the other way around, though she doesn't laugh at Sam for being drunk or complain that he's too heavy for this shit.

He fucks her that night. The deeper into her he goes, the darker everything around him feels, and Sam knows this is it. This is the closest to Hell he's going to get, so he takes it greedily. He fucks her hard, so hard he's probably tearing the body in two, but then it's not hurting Ruby and if it were Sam wouldn't care. They tangle up, two animated corpses, and afterward Ruby slices into herself and Sam puts his mouth on it like she tells him to, and she pushes his hair away from his face as he drinks and tells him it's okay. Then Sam passes out.

It's not like most nights after alcohol. Sam doesn't wake in fits and starts hoping to find his brother with a glass of water and an aspirin. He sleeps through the night. In his dream, he thinks that he would like to see his brother and within seconds Dean is there. Sam knows it's different from being in Dean's dream. This is an imitation, like the version of Sam Dean used to rely on before Sam discovered his dreams. But it looks like Dean, sounds like Dean, smells and tastes, to Sam's unconscious mind, like Dean.

He wakes up feeling strong and well-rested and like he can carry himself to the end of the day, especially since he knows once he collapses into bed at night his brother will be there. Ruby is there the next morning, ready to teach him. She gives him a purpose, but it's the blood he really wants. The blood gives him his dreams. The blood gives him his brother. Addiction comes easily.

As the nights go on, Sam's dreamwalking gets stronger. Stronger than he ever was, even before Dean went to Hell, when Sam had been practicing so hard. The more he drinks, the better he dreams, until finally, after a week and a half of being with Ruby, he finds his brother's dream again.

He doesn't go in; even in his current state he can't betray his brother like that. And as ridiculous as it is, Sam feels like Dean will know just by looking at him how he got there. How he got so big and strong. Dean didn't want Sam to see him-Sam gets that now. But that doesn't mean he can't benefit from having found the dream again. He dips his fingers in, like he had that first night, lets his hand feel submerged in Dean. Breathes in the residue of the dream as it lingers there in front of him.

"Hey." Sam is being shaken awake. Like every morning, he hopes it's Dean, and like every morning he wants to break the neck of the black-eyed girl holding him just because it isn't.

"Fuck off," Sam mutters, trying to go back to sleep. He'd been with Dean. Dean was going to kiss him. What the fuck did she think she was doing pulling him out of that?

"Sam, the morning's almost gone. The demon we're tracking will have left town by the time we get going at this rate."

Sam ignores her, grabs the knife on the nightstand and brings it to her arm.

"You just drank before bed," she says. "I mean, it's good that you've got a healthy appetite, but maybe you should slow down."

Sam sits up, bringing the knife to her neck. "You don't tell me what to do," he says, gripping her arm hard enough to bruise and lifting it. "You let me have it, or I'll slit your goddamn throat."

Ruby swallows hard, the knife slices her where the blade is grazing her skin. Not deep, but deep enough to bleed. Sam sics on it like a hellhound.

When he finishes he gets up to piss and washes his face clean before he looks in the mirror. Ruby has gotten out of bed and is starting to dress, but Sam heads right back for the mattress anyway.

"What are you doing?" She asks, eyes clicking over to black.

Sam shrugs. "Going back to sleep."

"Sam, we have work to do."

"Do it yourself," he says, rolling over and pulling a pillow over his eyes and ears.

"I can't, it has to be you," Ruby replies in that creepily reverent voice she gets sometimes. A chill passes through Sam, and he wishes she would just leave now that she's served her purpose. "I thought you wanted revenge."

That's true enough. He had. Before the blood gave him his dreams back.

"Revenge isn't going to give me Dean."

"Neither is this," Ruby snaps. "This is pathetic, you're just hiding. Pretending. He's not real, you know he's not real. Lilith is real."

Real is his brother in Hell, not wanting to see him. Sam doesn't really feel like siding with real.

"Go away. Let me sleep. I'll practice exorcizing more when I wake up."

Sam feels the bed dip and then her arms are on him, flinging the pillow away from his face and shaking him roughly by the shoulders. "You're focusing on the wrong thing! This isn't going to get you what you want."

Sam shoves her arms away. "You know what I want? I want to sleep until I starve to death. And if you would quit waking me up, that's exactly what I would fucking do."

Sam sees from the fear that dims Ruby's eyes that he really could do that. The blood helps him sleep longer. Maybe if he drank enough, he could just never wake up. Stay true to his threat. He could drink everything she has in her veins and do the world two favors in one painless move. One less demon bitch in the population, and one less of whatever Sam is at this point. Lower than a demon. It would be a kindness all around.

"You can sleep," she finally says, her voice strained. "We'll talk about this when you wake up."

If, Sam thinks, hopeful for the first time in almost four months.



Ruby leaves him that night. She says she's teaching him a lesson, that she'll come back when he remembers how to stay focused on the goal, which is, of course, killing Lilith. She takes pity on him, though. She leaves his lips bubbling over, warm with the taste of metal and smoke. Sam's whole body is thrumming with power when he drifts off to sleep that night.

He dreams of Dean. Like every night. He dreams of Dean, though Dean looks at him dark and disappointed, because even in his dream, Sam can't quite scrub the taste out of his mouth. It's all over his face, and when he tries to wipe it away, he spits up blood.

Dean takes pity then, lowers to his knees and pats Sam's back until it's all lying in a puddle on the floor and Sam feels like he's just regurgitated his organs. Dean says it's alright as he eases Sam through it, and once Sam is good and empty and clean again, Dean lets Sam kiss him.

He holds his brother that night. He grabs onto to him and holds him so tight and he doesn't let go.

He wakes up the next morning alone in his bed, but clutched in his fingers, so tight they've grown numb from holding on, Sam feels the leather of the jacket he keeps buried in the trunk of the Impala where he won't have to see it and be reminded of how many people he's lost who used to love the damn thing.

It's warm, as if someone has been wearing it recently. Dean was wearing it in that dream. It smells like leather of course, and whiskey, but underneath is that scent, unforgettable even after four months. Long after it's faded from everything Dean left behind including this jacket. It smells like Sam's brother. He holds it to his face and cries into it and spends the day unable to get out of bed. He's too weak, his legs shake from a need for blood. He doesn't know if it's Dean he's craving, closeness to his own uncontaminated blood, or Ruby's, which only makes the taint worse, but which also makes the distance between him and Dean almost marginal, at least while he's asleep.

He can't sleep that night, the withdrawal is too much. He lies awake tossing and trembling and wishing someone could see or hear him and take some goddamn pity. Lilith, for example. She's supposed to be coming for him, trying so hard to kill him. She's supposed to be strong and intimidating. What the hell is taking her so long?

At five in the morning, when the sky is pink and the sun is hardly out, Sam stumbles out to the car. Even the small amount of light is blinding to him, and he holds his hands up to try and block it. Someone packing a car across the parking lot says something to his wife about the crazy drunk and being careful, but Sam ignores them. He has to check something, and he doesn't care what he looks like to other people if what he's suspecting turns out to be true.

Under the weapons, Dean's duffel and the empty space where Sam's would be if it wasn't in the motel room sit exactly how Sam left them. Sam leans forward, reaching past them to the back of the trunk. He fumbles blindly around, looking for the feel of leather where he knows he left it.

It's not there. It's not there. It's inside in Sam's bed, which is impossible unless he sleepwalked, and he highly doubts that seeing as how he can hardly hold himself up conscious.

He makes it back inside and calls Ruby and tells her he's ready to do things on her terms. She shows up just a few minutes later, smiling in a tender way that's full of shit, but Sam pretends not to know. He drinks from her, taking what she offers, and wonders if he'll have to suck her dry the day he uses her blood to save his brother.



Sam is a good little soldier after that. He drinks his blood. He exorcises his demons. He works on hurting them enough to get information. Ruby says it won't be long until he can kill. He pretends that this excites him. He says a lot about hunting Lilith, and it's not that he doesn't mean it, it's just that he doesn’t plan to bring her along for the ride when he and Dean get around to it.

Behind her back-no better than that. Right next to her, when she's lying in bed with her cold, dead body and that ashy scent that makes Sam sick and strong at the same time, he practices. He pulls an apple off a tree and wakes up with it in his hand. He grabs a vase of flowers off a kitchen table and wakes up with roses in his face and water spilled onto the sheets. He steals candy from a baby and offers it to Ruby the next day, claiming he found it in his bag and isn't hungry.

She's suspicious. At first she jokes about the things he's taking to bed with him, but as the objects grow more and more unlikely she starts to give him looks. It doesn't matter. She doesn't know what he's up to, so she sticks around to find out, and that's all Sam needs her for. A link to the blood.

The woman in the room next to theirs has a poodle named Bauble. Bauble runs to Sam's arms when he calls her and the next morning, Sam knocks on the old lady's door and asks if she knows who the dog belongs to. She exclaims and wonders at how Bauble could have gotten there, she left her at home in Florida. Sam flinches at the mention of the state, mumbles something about how it must have followed her there, and walks off while she's still in the middle of expressing her shock with a smile curving the edges of his mouth.

The Dean he dreams about isn't real; no blood high has ever let him forget that. That's why all he gets when he clings so desperately to that mirage is his shirts and shoes and that jacket. But he knows where to find Dean.

He pulled a living thing out of a stranger's head. A living thing from miles and miles away-Sam is nowhere near Florida, he makes sure of that. If he can do that, Sam tells himself, there's no reason he can't waltz into Dean's head and pull his brother out of Hell. Hell and Florida probably have a lot in common, anyway. It's too damn hot, and Dean was never a fan of hot weather.

Sure, Dean told Sam not to walk in his dreams anymore, but he also told Sam to save him. And it doesn't matter. Dean doesn’t get a monopoly on rescuing people without their consent. He's going into that goddamn dream and he's not leaving until he's got his asshole big brother with him.

He drinks and drinks the next day under the guise of preparing to try and kill demons for the first time, and Ruby tells him he probably won’t be able to, but she lets him have his fill anyway. She likes the enthusiasm. He's never had this much at once, feels like his body will explode with all the power, so it's not hard to convince Ruby that the drinking binge is backfiring. He feels sick, he tells her, and he just needs to sleep it off. He knows if he tries saving Dean that night after fighting demons all day he might not have enough juice left, and he's not risking what might be his only chance.

Annoyed, Ruby gives in. Sam falls asleep and finds his brother's dream just where it always is.

He steps in and hears screaming immediately, and his heart freezes up. For a moment he considers fleeing, the sound is too intense, too painful. His brother should never have to cry out like that. He walks forward, though, toward the cries, and realizes long before he sees what's going on that it's not his brother's voice begging for mercy, though the laughing-the hysterical, unbridled, terrifying laughter-that might be Dean.

The image Sam sees when he finally finds his brother is enough to haunt him for a few thousand years at least. Dean is standing in front of a rack, some thing is strapped to it with a face so horrifying even Sam, after his lifetime of monsters, can't look at it. But Dean's face is even worse. He cuts into the creature with dirty, sharp objects, spilling out smoke and blood that makes Sam's stomach rumble, and as the monster pleads with him to stop, Dean smiles the way he used to only smile at Sam.

"Dean," Sam says, his voice breaking.

The cheerful expression falls away as Dean turns toward him. The object he'd been using to torture what Sam assumes must be a demon's real form slips from Dean's fingers and clatters on the floor loudly. It echoes around them. Sam stares down at it, not even sure what the thing is, and then looks back up at Dean. His brother's lip is trembling.

"Sammy?"

The demon coughs up some blood and then finds enough strength to start laughing. "How sweet," it says. "Does somebody have a guilty conscious?"

Dean doesn't acknowledge it; he keeps his eyes locked on Sam's. "Sam."

Sam nods, walking forward. "It's me, Dean. I'm here."

"Why?" he asks. "Why?"

Sam lifts his hand, brushes it along the edge of his brother's jaw. "It's okay, Dean. I'm here to rescue you."

"Your brother?" the demon says with a snort. "There's no saving him. Not after what he's done."

There is. There will be. Sam is doing it right now. He thinks of turning on the creature, torturing it the way Ruby's taught him to for turning his brother into whatever he's turned into. But he can't waste the blood, he's got more important things to use it on.

He grabs his brother. He grabs Dean and focuses like he's never focused on anything, gives his entire mind to this. Around them the dreamscape starts shaking like an earthquake, and the monster on the rack starts yelling something about how this isn't allowed. Dean is his. He can't be saved now.

Dean is Sam's. Why no one understands that, Sam will never know, but he's marking his territory once and for all.

Sam works his way up, fighting through the fog of sleep. He needs to wake up, and he needs to do it before this vortex sucks his brother back down into Hell like it's trying so hard to do.

"Let go, Sam Winchester."

Sam pauses in his assent, taken off guard by this new sound. It's a voice like gravel and thunder and death. Almost singing, but the song strikes him with shame and self-loathing and doubt. He can't save Dean, he can't even save himself. He shakes his head, because he shouldn’t be thinking that, not now.

"I must rescue Dean Winchester from perdition," it says. "It is my task and only I can accomplish it. I have been preparing for thousands of years, and you will alert them to our plans if you do not release him now."

Sam sees a white light in front of him, so bright and hot it burns him down to his bones. He wants to shield himself from it with his hand, but he needs that hand to hold Dean and, anyway, it won’t help in the face of this much power. Sam's flesh would be translucent held up to this light.

He's sure he's dying; this will kill him. His skin is evaporating, his bones are turning to ash. He wants to listen. The first pure thought he's had in years runs through his mind, feeling clean and right. You must let go, it says.

"What are you?" Sam asks. "Who are you? And what do you want with my brother?"

"I am Castiel," it answers. "I am an angel of the lord. I want to save your brother."

Distantly, he hears a scream. The scream is Ruby's, and she's telling Sam to stop, let go, do what this monster is telling him. It'll kill them both, she says. Wake up and let go, make it leave.

A thousand years, it tells him again. This has been his purpose for a thousand years. So why, Sam wants to know, has it taken four months? Why did his brother burn so long? Why did he have to burn at all?

"Sorry, Castiel," he says. "He's mine and I'm saving him."

There's another shriek and the sound of wings flapping. Sam curls his fingers tighter around Dean's arm. He can't let go. He can't lose Dean. It's all he knows, all he can think. Don't let go of Dean.

And then Sam wakes up drenched in sweat.

He leans over the side of the bed and vomits. Someone strokes his back. He can hear ragged breathing. He turns to find his brother's face watching him worriedly.

"It's working," Sam mutters, grabbing the arm that's trying to sooth him. Logically, Sam knows this must be Ruby in bed with him, but he's so high it looks just like Dean. "It's working. Give me more, give me more before it wears off."

"More what?" the illusion asks.

Sam brings the wrist in his hand up to his lips. He's got no knife on him and no time to find one. He needs to keep this image here. He doesn't care if he has to bite through her skin like an animal.

But the sweat he tastes when he puts his mouth on the flesh is salty, not sulfur. It burns Sam's mouth like hot sauce because he's so close to demon right now he can't even swallow salt. But it's Dean. It tastes like Dean. The bite turns to a kiss, and Sam holds his mouth there, the skin of his face burning from the tears running down it.

"Dean," he says. "Dean, be real. Be real, please. Please."

"What is this?" Dean asks. Sam can't see his face, he's too busy kissing skin. He can't kiss Dean's mouth, because Dean will taste what a monster he's turned into, but he can have this. "Am I still dreaming?"

There's one thing Sam knows better than anything at this point, and that's the difference between asleep and awake. The Dean next to him he's not sure about. That dream he went into, the confrontation with that bright white light, that felt real, but there's no knowing. But Sam knows he's awake now.

"It's not a dream," Sam tells him. He's got no strength to explain. He's shaking, his body feels drained of all life. Withdrawal is edging over him and taking hold faster than it ever has before. He emptied himself saving Dean. "Be here when I wake up," Sam pleads.

And then everything goes dark.



Sam's brother-or whatever he pulled from that dream, some monster shaped just like his brother-is hunched on the floor, over a body. Ruby's body. She looks dead, her eyes replaced by deep black holes and more blood. Dean has torn into her stomach and is now eating his way through her corpse. It makes Sam's stomach turn, both in disgust and in envy. He needs a drink. His skin is coated in sweat and he's shaking so hard the bed is rocking. It's been so long since he tasted blood.

"Let me have some," he says, voice weak. So weak he can hardly hear himself over the chewing.

Dean hardly looks up, the bottom of his face now covered in drying blood. Sam has turned away from so many mirrors since he let Ruby talk him into drinking blood, ashamed at the thought of what his brother would say. Seeing Dean's face like this makes him wonder if he accidentally trapped himself in Hell instead of pulling Dean out.

"Please," he tries again. "So thirsty."

"Sammy?" he hears. The monster sounds just like his brother. It sounds worried and warm and Sam doesn’t care if it wants to eat Ruby as long as it'll stay around and sound like that. "Sam, are you awake?"

The thing lets go of Ruby and stands up, rushing to Sam's side. Sam blinks and blinks again, because suddenly his brother's face is clean of blood and the body on the floor is whole, except for her burnt eyes. Dean's fingers are still covered in blood, but Sam sees now that he's been wrapping the body, checking for pulse. That blood is Ruby's though, and Sam tries to reach out for his brother's hand to suck it clean off his fingers. Oh god, he can smell it. He can smell how strong it would make him feel.

Dean misinterprets what he wants. He wipes the blood off before giving Sam his hand. "Sam?"

"Don't take her," Sam murmurs. "I need her. Please, I'm dying without it."

"Without what?" Dean sits by Sam on the bed. "Who is she? Sam, I don’t know what's going on."

"Did I save you?" he asks, squeezing his fingers around the hand Dean gave him, checking to see if his brother is really solid. He is. "I did. I saved you."

"Is this real?" Dean asks, his eyes looking wide and terrified. "Don't let it be a trick."

"'s not a trick," Sam murmurs. "I had to so I saved you. I think I'm going to die now, okay?"

"No," Dean says, tugging Sam's hand desperately. "That's not okay."

Sam's eyes are so heavy.



He's plastered to the wall. The room is empty-no Dean, no Ruby. Sam is alone. Again. Alone. Like he'll always be. He was crazy to think he could save Dean. He…he's crazy. And he's being pressed to the wall by a demon he can't even see.

The demon is inside of him; he can't control it.

"Scared," he says, but there's no one to hear it except for his own voice laughing in his head.

He's thrown across the room, hits another wall just in time to hear the door open and see a rush of light from the sun. It makes him cower-he hasn't seen so much light in what feels like a lifetime, and his eyes burn as if he's looking directly into the angel that came for his brother.

Maybe he is. A voice in the back of Sam's mind whispers that he is an abomination. Sam already knew this. He's pinning himself to a fucking wall for crying out loud. He doesn’t appreciate the reminder.

"Jesus fucking-Sam!"

Sam's body gets another kick across the room at the sound of Dean's voice, and then he starts to slide up. Up. Up to the ceiling. Just like mom and Jess and he can't make Dean watch this happen again.

He can't see his brother, can't even focus on the string of exclamation and curses as Dean throws furniture around, looking for the demon attacking Sam.

It's me, Sam wants to tell him, but the blood won't let him talk.

He drops to the floor. Lights out.



It's minutes or hours or days before Sam is aware of his surroundings again. He sits up, the room almost familiar to him, and looks around at the motel room walls. They were off-white, starting to yellow from age, when he fell asleep, but now they have a fresh coat of blood-red paint. It looks like everything Sam drank before he went to bed has been drenched into the cheap wallpaper.

Ruby is standing nearby watching him with a nasty smirk. Sam stares at her until she morphs into Dean and the smirk turns down into a concerned frown. He doesn’t know which one of them it really is, if either. They could both be mirages, but he likes this one better.

"Thirsty," Sam whines. If his blood would stop buzzing, if the need weren't so insistent, he would think of something to say to his brother that makes sense or matters. "Please, tell her to come back. I'll do anything she asks if she comes back."

"She's dead, Sam. I don't know what happened. But whoever she is, I…she was too far gone to talk by the time we woke up. She died."

Sam whimpers. She's no good to him dead.

"I'm sorry," Dean says again, shaking his head. "Who was she?"

"It doesn't matter," Sam mutters. "Because I saved you."

Dean nods, though his face does not say thank you the way Sam would like it to. "What did you do, Sam? What the hell did you do? Who was that woman?"

"I can’t tell you," Sam replies. He puts his hands over his eyes. "I can't, you'll hate me."

Sam had forgotten until the moment he woke up and Dean was alive that all his brother had asked was for him not to trust Ruby, not to use those powers. Sam will assume 'don't become a demon blood fiend' was implied.

"Did you sell your soul?" Dean grabs Sam by the collar and shakes him, forgetting all his worry. "Sam, tell me you didn't."

"I didn't," Sam answers weakly. "No one wanted me. I tried and I tried, but they didn't want me."

Sam looks over at Dean, reaches up and tries to loosen the grip into something softer. Something more in line with the tender touches he's missed so much for four months, the Dean he poisoned his blood to save. "Dean, I thought I couldn't save you. I gave up, but I did it. I did it."

"How?" Dean asks again. "You gotta tell me what you did."

Sam shakes his head. "You won't ever forgive me."

"The woman," he says. "Her eyes were burnt out. There was blood running down her cheeks. She was dying."

"Dead," Sam mutters. "She's been dead for months."

Dean's contradiction is heated and icy at the same time. "No, she died right in front of me-what did you do to her?"

Sam's eyebrows draw together and he sifts through his slipshod brain for a name. "Castiel," he finally supplies. "Castiel killed her."

"Castiel?" Dean asks.

"The-the thing. The light thing." Sam hesitates before continuing. He sounds almost as crazy as he is. "The angel. I heard her screaming that he was going to kill us. Looking at him was-but I'm not dead. You aren't, either."

"No," Dean replies. "I'm…"

"Alive. I saved you." Sam holds onto him just a little bit harder. "He came for you, Dean. But you were mine. I had to tell him. I couldn't let him do it because he might have done it wrong and I didn't. I saved you."

"Shh, Sammy." Sam knows Dean is trying to calm him down so he can answer straight, but he struggles against his brother's outstretched hand. He doesn't want to answer straight. He can't. He can’t. "Shh, I know. But I need you to tell me how."

"The body, Dean. Tell me it's gone."

"Yeah. I salted and burned her while you were out of it. Then I came home and you were-" Dean cuts himself off, but his eyes dodge up to the ceiling. Sam can see the primal terror in Dean's expression just from the memory.

"Gone," Sam says, both relieved and horrified. He can't drink now. "Ruby's gone."

"Ruby?" Dean says, his voice going dark. "You telling me that was her?"

Sam nods.

"What did you do?" he asks again. This time, his face is unfeeling and his words chill Sam all the way down to the sulfur in his blood. "Tell me."

Sam recognizes the threat in the words and all his hope and happiness and the last pathetic pieces of him that wanted to live curl up inside of him, dead as the brother he tried to save. This is not Dean. This is not what he wanted. This is the thing Sam got a snapshot of in the dream he pulled it out of, the shadow of his brother who laughed as he cut some demon's guts out.

What did I bring back? Sam asks himself, remembering the monster as he ate Ruby and wondering if that wasn't a hallucination after all.

"You've been working with her? You worked with her to bring me back?" Dean's face contorts in anger. "With that black-eyed bitch after everything?"

"Dean, she-"

"She wanted me there, you idiot. If she hadn't I never would have been in Hell." Dean pulls his arm back, and for one confused second, Sam thinks his brother is about to strike him. He punches the mattress instead, but it doesn’t matter. The look he gives Sam hurts more than any hit could have. "They're all the same, and they're so much worse than we thought and you-you've been up here helping them. While I was burning. You were helping them."

"Not them," Sam says, trying to defend himself, but he knows how weak it will sound, and he can't hold up against the glare Dean is giving him. It reminds Sam of the way he looked in the dream the night he accused Sam of not caring or trying to help. The night before he told Sam not to come back. But Sam saved him. He cared, he helped. He saved Dean, that's supposed to be what Dean wanted. "Dean, she wanted to help me. She was the only person who could help me."

"Sam." Dean's voice trembles, and it's not understanding or calm or warm. It doesn't make Sam feel any better. His voice is scared-terrified-with an edge of…angry. Impatient. Dean is supposed to be happy and safe now because Sam saved him, and now it's Sam's turn to be screwed. "Tell me what you did. Tell me why you were sick."

"I was sick?" Sam asks, though he remembers. He wants to distract his brother. Maybe remind Dean that he was worried. It's playing dirty, but it's a game Sam's been good at since he was six months old.

It works. For half a minute it works. Dean leans forward to brush his hand on Sam's face again and his eyes widen just a bit. "You've spent the last five days in a fit. You kept babbling that you needed it, and to feed it to you, but you didn't say what it was. You didn't let me help you."

"It was withdrawal," he finally admits, scrubbing a hand over his face. He almost doesn't even care about disappointing Dean right now, not through his own disappointment. So he tells the truth, which he had been planning never to do. "I would have drank her, even dead. I would have taken every drop."

"Every drop of wh-?" Dean grabs Sam, and Sam winces.

"Blood," he answers quickly. "Blood, Dean, that's how I saved you. I let her turn me into-I don't even know what. An addict, a demon. I'm still craving it. Don't hit me. Please don't hurt me, Dean. It's what I had to do. It saved you."

"Demon blood?" Dean asks, his face pales considerably and he shoves Sam away as he begins to rise to his feet. "You've been-"

"Drinking it, yes." Sam swallows and looks down. "Is that what you wanted? The truth?"

Sam hears Dean drop heavily back into the chair. "No," he replies faintly, and Sam looks up, finding a defeated look on his brother's face that is entirely new. Even in Hell, Dean had more fight than this. His eyes look more lifeless than they did when Sam had buried him. "But that's all I can do now. Force people to tell the truth. I never wanted that."

Sam feels for him. Even after the terror this Dean struck into him. Now that he gets a good look, he sees his big brother under all the fear and hatred and anger and loss. Sam's own fear dissolves until all he feels is pity, concern, and the love that made him fall so low.

"I still love you," Sam whispers dimly. He can feel the room shaking as the need for blood begins to overwhelm him again. "I don't care if you're a monster now."

Dean looks away from him, and Sam doesn't know if he's trying to hide from Sam because of shame or disgust.

It doesn't matter for long. Sam's mind can't fight the withdrawal.



"I need to brush my teeth," Sam says.

As soon as the words are out, Sam feels the back of someone's fingers checking his forehead for fever. There's a cool, wet cloth wiping sweat off his face. He feels…he smells…

"Sammy?" He hears his brother.

Sam opens his eyes slowly and sees Dean waiting by his bed. The room is a disaster area. Half the furniture is broken and the rest is overturned, except for the chair Dean is sitting on. Dean is sitting in Sam's motel room and Sam is awake.

His brother's eyes are as black as pitch. Sam's been there. He tries to sit up, tries to reach out and reassure Dean. It's okay if he's a demon now. They both are. They can still have each other.

"Please be okay this time," Dean says. No trace of anger or hate or anything scary. It's his stupidly perfect big brother this time.

Sam watches as the black in his brother's eyes fades back into green. "I really saved you." He's heavy with disappointment that he knows he shouldn't be feeling. He got Dean back. Not a demon, Dean is saved all the way through. It was okay that Sam turned himself for a moment. It was okay when Dean was just as damned as he was.

He shoves the too-hot covers off his legs and tries to stand up. "I need to brush my teeth," he says again.

"Yeah, it smells like shit in there," Dean replies, putting his palm flat against Sam's chest and pushing him back down into the bed. "But would you take it easy? You've been out of it for days, you might not be okay to walk yet."

Sam shakes his head. There's blood in his mouth, God knows how many days old. "I can walk," he says, pushing Dean's hand away.

He trips onto the floor. Dean half-laughs as he swoops down and pulls Sam to his feet. "Come on, I'll take you to the bathroom if it matters so much."

Sam brushes his teeth and pisses and splashes cold water on his face. He's drawn, yellow-skinned from so many months sleeping through the day, and he smells like a carcass. Dean, though. Dean looks beautiful hanging behind his reflection in the mirror.

Sam stares at his brother in the glass for a long, long minute, and waits for it all to flood in and hit him. He did it. This is real. That is actually Dean and Dean is actually alive. Nothing comes. Sam doesn't believe it. He feels numb, like he's drowning in the same emptiness that has hollowed him out since Dean took all the better parts of him down to Hell where they belonged. He feels nothing but the absence of the blood he needs to stay alive.

"You ready to talk yet?" Dean asks, his fingers curling on Sam's shoulder.

Turning, Sam puts his hands on Dean's face, trying to reassure himself with the touch. Dean's skin has traces of salt, and Sam flinches from the contact. He shakes his head, pointing back into the room. "Too weak," he says, which is somewhat of a lie. "Help me get back to bed."

Dean sighs but he obeys, helping Sam onto the side of the mattress he has not already made a mess of. Dean stacks pillows against the headboard so Sam can prop himself up and then sits at the foot of the bed, his hands on Sam's feet.

"Don't hate me," Sam begs, meeting his brother's eyes and taking his hands between his own. "Dean, don't hate me. You can’t hate me."

"Of course I don't," he replies. "But, Jesus, Sam. Demon blood?"

"I had to. I didn't know what else to do. It made me strong, and I had to be to save-"

"You shouldn't have saved me," Dean replies, but the force has all gone out of his voice. "Not like that."

"It wasn't just…" Sam looks down and fidgets his hands, unsure if he should let go of Dean or hold on tight enough to keep him from lashing out. "I started doing it before I knew it could save you."

Dean's expression dims even more, but instead of pulling away, he just stares blankly at their tangled hands. "That's the kind of thing we were raised to kill people for."

"I understand." Sam manages to force his voice not to break as he says it. "You can kill me. Just don't hate me."

Dean's head snaps up sharply and Sam sees his eyes, wide and wet like an injured animal's. "You think I would do that? Is that what you-it is, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't blame you if you did."

"Sammy." Dean brings his hands up to cover his mouth. He stares at Sam-stares as if he's only just really realized who Sam is. "Oh god, Sam."

Sam frowns at how broken Dean's expression is now that he's fully aware of his surroundings. He pulled Dean right out of Hell and somehow he's already made him miserable. They couldn't have a day first, or even five minutes to celebrate. There will never be five minutes for Sam and Dean.

"Dean, I'm sorry. I know it was wrong. I know I should be punished. But I didn't know what else to do. I just wanted an escape."

"Don't." Dean pushes Sam's hair out of his face. "Sam, I don't want to know what I did to you. I'm sorry, but I don't want to know."

Sam nods. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"It's…" Dean swallows and Sam can see that it takes an effort to continue. "It's okay. We'll get you better. That's-we can still save you. You're going to be okay."

"We both will," Sam tries. Because he saved Dean and more than anything-more than Sam getting Dean back-that was supposed to mean Dean would be okay.

Dean meets Sam's eyes for less than a second before he averts them. "You know that isn't true. You just made it clear that you know. I'll never really be saved."

"Of course…" Sam tightens his hold on Dean's hands and turns his face, kissing them. "Of course you will. The angels wanted to do it, because you should be in Heaven, but I needed you here with me. I couldn't let them have you."

"No angel wanted me."

"I saw him," Sam says. "I felt him."

"Couldn't have been. I saw it, too, but it couldn't-how could you still want me?"

Sam's mouth drops open, because Dean hating him he expected to have to fight against, but that question he did not see coming. "My brother."

"Not your brother anymore." Dean pauses, his eyes scanning Sam's for a few moments. "This wasn't all you saw, was it? I could see it on your face, Sam. The last time you woke up when-I was confused and I was angry but you-you knew what to be scared of." He pulls his hands away. "Those dreams I had, about you visiting me in Hell. Were those real?" He brushes his hands through his hair and laughs dully. "That's crazy, right? They felt real. You were so real. But that's crazy."

"They were real," Sam admits. "I've been doing it for a long time, Dean. Before you went to Hell."

Dean makes a noise of sheer agony, and Sam thinks that's it. He lied for so long, and he invaded Dean's thoughts, and he knew how wrong it was. Dean is right to hate him. But it’s not hate Sam sees when his brother's eyes lock on his own, at least not hate for Sam.

"You were supposed to leave me there. You were supposed to leave me." He shakes his head. "God, you could have left me. You weren't ever supposed to go there."

"They didn't hurt me," Sam assures him. "I didn't go to Hell, just your drea-"

"You saw what I was doing. In my dream, to Alastair. You saw how I loved it. Sam, you weren't supposed to see that ever. Anyone else, but not you."

"A demon," Sam says. "I was fucking one. I was turning into one. How could I care that you were hurting one?"

"It was a demon in the dream. It was people in Hell. Souls, like me. I did those things to them, and I loved it." Dean's hands curl into fists. "It's not safe to have me up here. I just showed you that-I threatened you. Even you. You should have saved someone else."

"But I didn't want someone else." Sam tries to smooth Dean's hands out, but Dean struggles against him. By the time Sam finally wins, Dean is crying.

"How do you think people become demons, Sam?" he asks. "Because it's not by sucking blood."

Sam grabs Dean and guides him forward, making room for him on the bed. Dean lets Sam kiss his face, but he doesn't return it. He just lies there placidly, staring forward.

"I'm the real monster," he says distantly. "What I did-you only hurt yourself drinking blood. But you brought me here. Now it's on you. You should put a knife through me, Sammy. Before I do something awful."

Sam chokes on a laugh, and Dean looks up sharply, as surprised to hear the sound as Sam is to have made it. "God, of all the people to ask for that. After all the shit you gave me."

That isn't why I saved you, Sam thinks. You're going to live whether you like it or not.

"It was different," Dean insists. "You hadn't done anything wrong. I ha-"

"Emphasis on the past tense, Dean. I've done plenty wrong since." Sam swallows. "So do I deserve to die, then? Is that how we're gonna end this? You take me out, I'll take you out?"

"I won't," Dean says. "Not because of some demon blood. Not for anything. I couldn't ever do that."

"I know. I remember." Sam gives Dean a weak smile and strokes three fingers on his cheek. "But neither will I."

"You should hate me after what you saw."

"Maybe," Sam admits. "But I don't. I don't care how much you deserve it. I don't care if it makes me worse than I already am. I am never going to hate you. I am never going to kill you. You're forgiven. Whatever you did in Hell, it doesn't count. I'm not counting it."

"How can you make it sound so easy?"

"Demon blood," Sam reminds him. "No room for judgment here."

Dean takes a deep breath and then launches into what he seems to think is going to be a long, long explanation. "I'm practically a demon. I was well on my way-"

Sam cuts him off. He doesn't really need or want to hear it. "So was I. So what? We're both monsters." He shrugs. "At least we're monsters together?"

Dean doesn't look the least bit convinced, so Sam sighs. "Dean, you made me live. I never asked for that, but you forced it on me. And I can't be good without you, I tried. Maybe that goes both ways. Maybe we can save each other. But if not-if not, neither of us is going back down there alone."

Sam knows if anyone will keep him in line, it's his dick of a big brother. That's all he ever had or needed, and it was the absence of it that made him falter.

Of course, there's no way to say that to Dean. No grabbing him and holding him as hard as he wants because that's how Sam saved him, and even with the demon blood and the white hot pain and the bloodlust he never wanted to see in his brother's eyes, Sam would do it again and again and again. He's proud of it.

He keeps his voice in check. "So we have to clean each other's messes. What else is new?"

Dean still looks pretty shaken, but his eyes flit over Sam's face like he's searching for something, and then he leans forward, pressing his mouth softly against Sam's. "That, if I recall correctly," he says when he pulls back.

Sam gives him a pained smile. "That's kind of new, yeah."

Sam watches what seems like a thousand different emotions war on Dean's face. Finally he gets himself under control, shaking his head for clarity and wrinkling his nose. "This room smells awful."

And well, there it is. The moment is dead and buried.

"You said it," Sam agrees. "I need a shower and then we can leave?"

Dean nods his assent. Everything is packed into the car by the time Sam comes out. He walks slowly to his brother, still a little surprised he's there for the touching, and puts his hand on Dean's shoulder. Dean makes a hissing sound and yanks back as if Sam has just poked a bruise.

Sam pulls his fingers away and watches as Dean rolls up his shirt to reveal three bright red finger prints. As if someone tried to grab him, but their reach wasn't long enough. Sam was holding Dean just out of range.

"What the fuck is that?" Dean asks. "It burns like a motherfucker."

"Castiel," Sam guesses, leaning down to put his mouth on the swollen skin. "I kinda like it."

"Yeah, it's not branding your arm," he grouses as he rolls his sleeve back down. "Think we'll ever hear from him again?"

"I'm counting on it." Sam smacks Dean's ass. "But he knows who you belong to now."

Dean mutters something about being an independent woman, and Sam laughs at him, shoving him toward the door.

"Let's get some pie," Dean says. "I haven't had pie in…"

"Four months."

Dean's face screws up just a bit, but he doesn’t answer.

"What?" Sam asks. "What's wrong now?"

Dean shakes his head, letting his fingers rest on the doorknob. "Nothing," he says. "Just felt a little longer than that."

Sam frowns. He steps forward and gives Dean a quick moment of pressure on his lips. Reminds both of them that this is real, they're together, finally, and no one can take that from them. "You're here now."

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean agrees, squeezing Sam's shoulder. "We both are."

It's a dream come true. Literally, a fucking dream come true. Sam laughs at himself for even having the thought and ignores the questioning glance Dean gives him as he shuts the door.

End.