Fic: Balance of Days (Supernatural)
Title: Balance of Days
Author: Ivy (ivy03)
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: none
Rating: R
Word count: 7,000
Warning: OMG THEY'RE DEAD! THEY'RE ALL DEAD!!!!11!! Only not really. Fake character death.
Minor spoilers for "Born Under a Bad Sign"
A/N: So I started this thing back in February. And it had some structural problems, so I set it aside for a bit. And then AHBL happened and I went…no point in this little story, then, right? It's a very odd thing to have Kripke suck my story out of my head and then do it better. Well, I've finally dusted it off and fixed it up. Enjoy.
Beta thanks to bunches of people: trinityvixen, feiran, dotfic, ecmyers, trakkie…did I forget anyone?
Summary: His brother had been right next to him, but he couldn't see him now. He called out again and got only silence. He stepped over a beam-one of the ceiling supports had fallen-and then he saw him.
His brother was dead. Undeniably, unarguably dead.
~*~
"Sammy! What the hell did you use for a timer, the watch that came with your happy meal? The idea was to blow it when we were outside and the vamps were inside, not the other way round.
"Sammy?"
~*~
"What the fuck was that, Dean? You didn't have to use all of it.
"Dean?"
~*~
The force of the blast had knocked him flat on his face, splinters and dust raining down on his hair and the back of his neck. He could still feel the heat of it, which means they'd chosen the right stuff for wasting a nest of vampires, even if his brother had fucked up and the thing had gone off too soon.
He pushed himself up, feeling the soreness that would turn into bruises later. He called for his brother but heard nothing, and suddenly it didn't feel hot anymore.
There were debris all over the floor, splintered boards and twisted metal. They'd set the bomb in the sleeping quarters-or at least what looked like them-hoping that if they didn't get all of the vamps, they'd at least get most and the rest would be easier to track down alone. It was just before dawn; they'd planned on waiting until the vampires returned for the day's rest and set it off.
They'd gotten back up to the first floor, almost to the door, when it blew.
His brother had been right next to him, but he couldn't see him now. He called out again and got only silence. He stepped over a beam-one of the ceiling supports had fallen-and then he saw him.
His brother was lying flat on his back, spread-eagled. The fingers were curled gently towards the ceiling, palms open as if in offering. His eyes were open, too. Staring. He looked a little surprised, his lips parted. His neck was ripped open. A foot-long piece of shrapnel stuck out of the wound, propelled like a bullet by the explosion. Blood coated the sides of his neck, the floor, seeping into the flannel collar of his shirt, matting his hair.
His brother was dead. Undeniably, unarguably dead.
~*~
Dean screamed. He was at his brother's side in an instant-he wanted to touch him but he couldn't bring himself to, not with that thing in his neck. Looking at where metal met flesh kicked him in the gut; it looked more wrong than anything he'd seen in his life. He gripped the shrapnel with both hands and pulled it out. No blood seeped out of the wound. If Sam's heart had still been beating, it would have been a geyser. It wasn't.
When he was a kid, one of his classmates had once told him that if he wished for it hard enough, he could turn back time, just for a few minutes. Dean had never wished so hard. It seemed so small-the time between now and when Sammy was walking beside him. But he already felt the time with Sammy cracking and falling away from him. It felt like it had always been as it was now; Dean cradling Sam's body in a warehouse, alone.
He didn't want to get up. Getting up would mean he accepted it.
~*~
Eventually he had to get up. They-no, he-had to leave. A bomb going off wasn't something that tended to go unnoticed, even in an area this remote. Someone would be by to investigate, and if he was still here, he might end up in jail for his brother's murder. He couldn't let that happen, not until Sam was laid to rest. Dean wondered what his Dad would have thought of this, of Sam dying because Dean fucked up. He didn't know if the dead, the ones that had moved on, knew anything about the living, but he hoped not. He couldn't bear for his father to know of his failure.
He heaved Sam up onto his shoulder. It was inelegant; he had to make several attempts to stand before his knees stayed steady under the weight. He'd carried Sammy a few times before since he'd hit his growth spurt. It wasn't an easy thing to do, not when he was so limp.
"Sasquatch," Dean muttered, curling his arms around Sam's knees to try to keep him balanced on his shoulder. He felt a wet stickiness seeping through his shirt where Sam's head was resting. The silence was profound. He couldn't hear anything except the creaking of the floorboards under his shoes.
Getting Sam into the Impala was involved. He grappled him into the back seat so that he lay across it. He wanted to make himself believe that his brother had just gotten sloppy drunk and he was taking him back to the motel to sleep it off. But then he looked into those staring eyes and he couldn't believe anything but the truth.
He gently folded the long legs up onto the seat, but Sam's right leg fell forward and jerked his whole body onto its side, head rolling to the edge of the seat. Dean reached out by instinct to stop Sam from falling, his hand gripping Sam's belt loop. He tried to maneuver Sam onto his back but his lungs just weren't working right and his arms wouldn't go where he told them to. Dean rested his forehead against the doorframe of the car and squeezed his eyes shut. All he could hear were his own wheezing breaths and his heartbeat. He felt the cold metal against his face and the denim over cold flesh beneath his hand.
He couldn't do this, but he had to. He had to keep moving for Sammy's sake, just like after every other tragedy in their lives.
He rolled his brother so that he was facing the back of the seat. Dean couldn't see the wound this way, just the blood. He climbed into the Impala and took off, with no clear idea where he was going.
~*~
He ended up pointing the Impala south. They'd been in South Dakota, near the Nebraska border. He could make it today, if he didn't stop.
Dawn was just kissing the sky all pink and orange. He remembered when their Dad had first driven them across the Badlands, not too far from here. Sammy had lain across the back dash staring up at the blue sky, telling Dean all the shapes he saw in the clouds that seemed to go up and up forever. Dean had pretended to be too old for that nonsense, but he'd craned his neck to see, too.
Dean's eyes flicked involuntarily to the rearview mirror, where he could see the bottom of Sam's jacket falling over his hip as he jostled with every bump in the road. Dean forced his eyes back onto the road and wrenched the mirror so it was pointing at the ceiling.
He found a wooded area and pulled far off the road, hoping that no one would notice the smoke from here. It took a good hour or two to gather the wood, his limbs feeling heavy and numb. Once he'd built a pyre, he carried Sam for the last time, laying him out on the uneven bed of branches. Dean poured salt over him, the crystals gathering in the folds of his clothes. Dean was careful to keep it away from Sam's face. Next came lighter fluid and a match, then he just had to stand back and watch.
~*~
Sam would have found it funny, Dean was pretty sure. Oh, he'd have given Dean hell for it, but he would've been laughing. Sammy never laughed enough.
When the fire had burned down to ashes the daylight was beginning to fade. Had this been a crematorium, he would've gotten a little box, properly labeled, containing Sam's ashes, neat and tidy, ready for burying or sprinkling or whatever the hell crazy thing people liked to do with their dead.
Dean couldn't risk a funeral home, though, not when the back of his shirt was still stiff with blood. All Dean had was a shovel, a garbage bag and an old cardboard box. He gathered up the ashes the best he could, shoveling them into the bag. There was charcoal in there too, and dirt, all mixed up with the little charred pieces of Sam. Sam might have tried to talk about the metaphor of that intermingling but Dean didn't think like that. It was just ashes and dirt.
He twisted the top of the bag and tied it with a twist-tie, then put it in the cardboard box, folding it shut. It didn't weigh enough to be Sam. Dean crammed the box into the passenger-seat footwell and turned the car south again.
~*~
Dean was driving down an inky black stretch of highway, his headlights making barely a dent in the darkness. He hadn't eaten in a day, hadn't slept in two, and his baby brother's ashes were sitting on the floor under the glove compartment. Dean had never been so tired in his life. He was halfway between nowhere and nowhere, though, in the great expanses of nothing that made up America's breadbasket. He hadn't seen another car in hours.
Dean took his foot off the gas and let the car coast to a stop, right in the middle of the road. What was he doing? His mind kept running in circles. He'd been consumed by a constant litany of find a way to save Sammy for months. Every time the thought crossed his mind now, he wanted to laugh.
"Well," Dean said into the silence. "Bet the Demon's pissed now, huh, Sammy? Guess we really fucked his big demonic plans for you."
The joke didn't sound so funny when it echoed back to him in the strange acoustic of the empty car. He turned off the engine and the headlights flickered out.
He had nowhere to be, nothing to do, no great plan to follow anymore. No reason not to sit here on the side of the road until his dick rotted off.
So he sat, his mind slowly emptying as he quashed the lingering impulse clawing at him to try harder, fight harder to save Sammy.
And to think, he'd been dreading the day when he had to put a bullet in his brother.
It was kind of a moot point, now, wasn't it?
~*~
Dean didn't think he'd dozed off, but he didn't remember seeing a car approach until the headlights were shining right in the back of his car. Headlights and the silently spinning red lights of a police cruiser.
For a moment Dean panicked. There was blood in the backseat, blood on his clothes, an arsenal in the truck, and his face was on the FBI's most wanted list. Ever since the bank in Milwaukee, he'd been careful to take back roads, drive the speed limit, obey traffic rules-except when necessity required, of course. It said something about the state of their lives that a busted taillight could lead to Dean spending the rest of his life in jail.
Dean curled his hands around the steering wheel and rolled his shoulders. After the panic passed, he felt nothing. He didn't want to go to prison-Sam had tried to introduce Dean to a number of things he'd learned about in college, including Oz-but his need to stay free, to keep fighting, wasn't there anymore. Bobby had told them a storm was coming, but whether Dean liked it or not, he wasn't in the middle of it anymore. He was firmly on the sidelines. And he just couldn't bring himself to care about the cop walking up to his window.
"Excuse me, sir?" she asked, leaning down a little toward the window. Most cops didn't do that anymore in case the road rage case they'd pulled over turned out to be, well, someone like Dean. This is it, Dean thought. She'd lean down, see Dean's face, step back to her cruiser to check the wanted flyers and he'd be hauled away in handcuffs.
"Yes," Dean said flatly.
"Are you alright, sir?"
That surprised Dean a little. "Uh…what?"
"Do you need assistance?"
"No," Dean stuttered, trying to make his brain catch up with this line of inquiry.
"Sir, you can't sleep on the side of the road. Is there somewhere I can take you?"
"No," Dean said, finally slipping in to his game face. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I'm just a little tired. I didn't want to fall asleep at the wheel, so I pulled over, just for a short break. Must have drifted off…"
The cop smiled at him, actually looked him straight in the face and smiled. She looked matronly and her smile was kind, like one she'd give to one of her own brood when they were tired and confused. "There's a hotel, 'bout ten miles up the road. It isn't much, but it'll be more comfortable than the backseat."
"Thanks," Dean said and forced himself to smile back. He fought to keep his eyes from flicking to the backseat. If she shined her light back there, this could still end in handcuffs.
She kept her kind gaze on his face. "Just next time, stop for the night before you can't see straight, okay?"
Dean nodded. The cop smiled again and clapped her hand against the roof of his car, then walked back to her cruiser, and that was it.
Dean sat for a moment longer then started the engine.
~*~
He found the motel the cop had told him about, pink and green neon palm tree flashing over a neon pool on the sign, though Dean couldn't see any palm trees, or a pool. He pulled into a parking spot but couldn't bring himself to get out and get a room. In the years Sam was at Stanford that was one of the things Dean hated the most-checking into rooms by himself. For all his whining growing up that he needed some privacy, getting a room just for himself made him feel disconnected and wrong. To Dean, privacy was just another way of saying alone.
Dean curled sideways on the seat, one leg tucked awkwardly under the door handle, the other hanging into the footwell, stretching his back at an impossibly uncomfortable angle. He brushed one hand back and forth across the top of the cardboard box and stared into the dark space under the glove box until the streetlights flickered off and the sun came up.
~*~
Dean didn't remember picking it as a destination-didn't remember most of the morning, to be honest. He just found himself pulling into the dirt lot in front of Harvelle's Roadhouse. "Huh," he said as he let the engine stall out.
He had this strange sensation that someone was hitting the pause button on the world, like he was missing the little connecting bits between one moment and the next. He knew it was one of the symptoms of sleep deprivation, and at the very least meant he was in no condition to keep driving.
He pushed open the front door and squinted while his eyes adjusted to the dark interior. Ellen was sitting at one of the tables, surrounded by a stack of crinkled receipts and an accounting ledger. It was early enough that no one else was in the bar. Ash was nowhere in evidence.
"Dean," Ellen said, looking up. She craned to look behind him. "Where's your brother?"
"He's in the car," Dean said, then laughed. He tried to swallow it down, but it kept bubbling up. "Under the glove compartment."
Ellen stood slowly, looking at Dean with concern. "Dean, what are you talking about?"
"Nothing," Dean said, still giggling. He remembered why he'd thought it might be a good idea just to turn around and keep driving. This was not a conversation he was ready to have.
"Don't you bullshit me," Ellen said, walking toward him. "That look does not say 'nothing.'"
Dean cleared his throat. "It's nothing, Ellen, I'm just tired."
Ellen stood in front of him, searching his face, those almost black eyes pinning him like a butterfly to a board. "Dean," she dragged out. "Where's Sam?"
"He's-" Dean tried to go for the joke again, but his throat closed over it. "He's dead."
The words dropped out of his mouth like stones. He wished he could call them back just so he could wait a little longer before he had to face this.
"Honey," Ellen reached out, rubbed a hand over his arm. "How did it happen?"
Dean looked straight down at the floor in front of him.
"Was it the Demon?" Ellen asked, an edge of fear creeping into the sympathy in her voice.
"Ellen-I can't talk about this," Dean said and his voice cracked. Oh god, he needed to get out of here. Ellen's presence felt like it was smothering him. He couldn't look at the pain he felt reflected in another face. He had to move or he'd lose it. "I'm just tired," he finished quietly.
"Sure sweetie," Ellen said, her voice cloying with sympathy. She ushered him towards the back of the bar, both hands on him as if she thought he'd fall over on his own. Maybe he would. "I've got a spare room. If you need anything, or someone talk to, you just-"
God, Dean could feel tears burning at the edges of his eyes. He just needed to get somewhere where he could put a door between him and the rest of the world. "Yeah, sure," he said, just to get Ellen to stop talking.
She opened the door to a small room-queen bed with a calico bedspread, mirror on the wall and not much else. "Just give me a few minutes to get you some fresh sheets," Ellen said, trying to edge past him through the doorway.
"It's fine." Dean blocked her passage. He had maybe one more blink before he was busting open.
"OK," Ellen said, backing down. She finally shut the door, leaving Dean in silence. Dean sank down against the wall and let everything fall apart.
~*~
Sam's head hurt. There were lights dancing in front of his eyes, but when he blinked, the image in front of him just got clearer. His must have been out for awhile-the sun was completely up now. Which just meant there was plenty of light in the warehouse, more than enough to see Dean's body there, on the floor, throat ripped open. He thought he might be sick.
He crouched next to Dean's body, reached his hand out to stroke his brother's hair. It felt just like it always did. This didn't feel real. It was so stupid-it wasn't even a demon or a vengeful spirit this time. It was-
Sam swallowed. It was a bomb that they'd set, that Sam had made the detonator for. A detonator that shouldn't have gone off until they were safely out of range. But it had, it had blown while they were still in the building. Which made this-Dean-his fault.
~*~
Sam didn't know what to do. He always relied on Dean at times like this. After Jess, after Dad, Dean silently took the lead and Sam let him. Dean always pushed him when he needed it, kept him going until they were where they needed to be. He really needed that push. Without it, he didn't think he would ever move from here.
His head really hurt-he must have been knocked out by the blast. He looked at his watch but the face was smashed. He didn't know what time it was, how long since the explosion. He needed Dean to tell him what to do.
He needed a plan. First things first. He needed to fall back, regroup, figure out what to do with the body. He had so much experience with bodies, but no experience with this. Sam stood up, then slowly backed out of the barn, superstitiously afraid of taking his eyes off his brother. He didn't know if he expected Dean to disappear or to get up, but he just couldn't look away. He made himself turn and step outside.
Dawn had passed while he was inside; it was full daylight. Sam glanced around quickly and saw nothing. The Impala was gone. The fucking vamps must have come back, seen the wreck of their nest, and stolen it. Dean was going to be so pissed.
Sam's emotions hit him all at once and his knees buckled. His brother's body was in the building behind them and he was crying over the fucking car.
~*~
Lucky for Sam there was plenty of wood in the barn, splintered into portable pieces by the blast. Once he'd chastised himself enough about breaking down he'd gotten back on his feet and gotten moving. He built the pyre in the rough driveway, far enough away from the surrounding field not to risk a wildfire. He didn't have any salt. He hoped it wouldn't be necessary. And it was too hard to think about 'death for ghosts' at a time like this. He'd fucked up and killed Dean in the first place; the whole ritual felt like rubbing it in.
He'd stopped shaking by the time he'd gathered enough wood, but he hadn't stopped crying. He wasn't trying to stop.
It took him a long time to build up the courage to carry Dean outside. In the end he had to force himself, there was no other way around it. It was just him; either he did it or he left Dean there until whoever or whatever found the body.
Sam cradled Dean's head into his shoulder and carried him out into the daylight.
~*~
Sam couldn't watch the fire burn. He hadn't had cloth for a shroud and had to turn around, staring at the hollowed-out shell of the barn instead, scuffing his shoes in the dirt restlessly. It wasn't right.
No, Sam realized, it wasn't right.
It was mid-day, late spring, and not a single sound. No crickets, no wind in the grass. No birds in the great oak growing in the field. Something was seriously wrong here. One of them should have noticed, but they'd been tracking the vampire pack for weeks and had come here to torch the place the first night they were in town, before the pack could move on again. They hadn't bothered with any reconnaissance; they thought they knew what they were fighting.
But there was something else going on. If something had killed his brother, Sam was going to figure out what it was.
~*~
Sam walked back to town. It took a while, but he wasn't going after anything with no supplies. Everything he would've needed had been in the trunk of the car the vampires had fucking stolen. At least he still had three or four fake credit cards in his wallet to replace the essentials. Besides, he was hungry.
He'd get to town, get some food, get some rest, buy as much artillery as he could carry, then he was coming back here, finding whatever had done this and torching the fucker to the ground.
~*~
Sam couldn't sleep. By the time he reached Main Street of Middle of Nowhere, South Dakota, he looked like a hobo-dust, soot and blood mixed all over his clothes and skin. The clerk in the pay-by-the-hour motel didn't ask any questions as Sam handed over a credit card wordlessly. He stood for a long time in the shower, watching the dirty water swirl around the drain and felt like he was washing Dean off his skin, out of his hair, out of his life. All the remnants of his brother swirling down the drain.
His stomach grumbled but when he stepped into the diner, the photos on the menu made him nauseous. He ordered the meatloaf but only managed to force down a couple of peas.
Somewhere in his twisted brain he thought sleep would be easy. He was more exhausted than he ever remembered being, but when he closed his eyes, he just saw Dean's slack face with a shard of metal tearing into his throat.
Sometime in the witching hour he most have dozed off because he could suddenly see Dean above him, neck ripped open, blood dripping down onto Sam's forehead like Jess's, like their mother's. When Dean burst into flame Sam screamed and then it was gone and Sam couldn't convince himself that it hadn't been real.
~*~
Sam hit the library in the morning.
His computer had been in the Impala, too. He felt stripped of everything. Even the small stupid sentimental things from his childhood he'd managed to hide from Dad had been in the Impala. With it gone, he didn't have anything of his brother's.
He forced himself to get to work before his mind could take him too far down that path.
He wasn't surprised when he found something unusual. The barn they'd been in had once been owned by the Donnelly family, a name that kept popping up all over the news for this tiny little town. Seemed like the Donnelly's had been pillars of the community-philanthropists and town council members and more than anything else, rich. The Donnelly farm had been unusually profitable, especially for this part of the world. The one photo of the family showed them smiling, an old oak arching its limbs over the family like a shield.
Sam buried himself further back in the archives and found that this town, not surprisingly, had all been Native American land before it was settled. But unlike most Sioux, the group that had lived here had not been nomadic. And they had worshipped a particular nature spirit-a tree. Son of a bitch.
~*~
Sam didn't bother to get a gun, going straight for the lighter fluid and matches in the general store. He grabbed an axe too and threw it onto the counter.
There wasn't much by way of transportation in Podunk, USA. There were no car dealerships and no hope of finding an Avis. He jacked a car instead, thinking that Dean would be proud. But he knew that as soon as he popped the lock the clock started ticking. It was a small town and he was a drifter who'd done a number of decidedly noteworthy things in the last twelve hours. When the owner spotted it missing, they'd know exactly who to look for. This had to be quick and dirty.
Sam was back at the barn before he had time to think. He grabbed his supplies from the trunk and headed straight towards the tree, his eyes locked on it. He stepped around the charred remains of the funeral pyre and let the emotions it evoked fuel the rage inside him. Oh, this sucker was going down.
He doused the first. Lighter fluid all around the trunk and as far up as he could reach. The tree's branches curled around him like a cage but didn't move. Sam was watching. Everything was unnaturally still-no birdsong, no wind. Just silence as if everything was holding its breath as Sam drew a circle in the ground around the trunk with the fluid. Pagan gods did not go down easy, and Sam didn't know enough about this one to know what to expect.
He stepped back from the tree and lit a match, holding it out over the soaked ground. It was an idle threat-trees this firmly rooted needed more than a small fire to take them down-but he was hoping to force whatever was bound to this spot to manifest.
The match burned down to his fingers and Sam let it go out. "Fine," he growled and grabbed the axe.
The first swing seemed to take an eternity. The blade bit into the bark and the world erupted in sound. It sounded like a hurricane, whipping through the branches of the tree-only the tree, the grass around still-and scraping twigs across Sam's face. It sounded like a scream. Sam swung again and his axe dug deep into the sapwood.
"Stop!" A voice cried. "Stop!" When Sam drew his axe back, something darted between him and the tree, quicker than his eye could track. Sam stopped his swing but kept the blade raised. It looked like a child-pale and naked, its limbs stretched just a little too long and thin to be human. It curled at the base of the tree, clutching its knees to its chest, and looked at Sam with huge tear-rimmed eyes. "Why do you hurt me?"
"What are you?" Sam demanded. The thing looked fragile and pathetic, too weak to harm anything. Looks could be deceiving.
When it didn't answer, Sam swung his axe back for another blow. "No!" It mewled. "Why do you ask me that? Why do you hurt me?"
"Answer me."
"I am this," the creature said frantically, brushing its hands against the wood. "I am the tree."
"You're a god of what, trees?"
"No. Not god." It shook its head. "Is that why you came to destroy me? You and the other?"
Sam stopped. "We didn't come to destroy you!" he cried. "We didn't even know you were here!"
"But you came with fire," it said. "You came to burn me!"
"You-" Sam fumbled, tears burning in his eyes. "We came to kill the vampires," he said softly. "We didn't know you were here."
"I had to protect myself. I had to." The creature seemed to be reacting to Sam's anger and pain, curling against itself like a child cringing from a parent.
"Protect yourself?" Sam said in disbelief. It was like a cosmic joke. This pathetic little thing had killed Dean in self-defense when they weren't there for it at all. They'd come for the vampires. It was all a big misunderstanding. If he'd just known then he could have made it understand. "You killed my brother!" Sam shouted in rage. He brought the edge of the axe up to the creature's throat. "You killed him and we wouldn't have hurt you!"
"No!" it was crying. "No, no! Not killed. Not killed. Just confused."
Not killed. The words rang in his head. But he'd seen- "What?"
"Just tricked! Tricked you! Thought if you were apart you would leave."
"How-"
"Made you see, but not real. Wouldn't last, just make you leave. Not hurt me, not lose each other, not for long."
The axe fell from Sam's numb fingers. He turned slowly to the scorched earth in the parking lot. Not real. Oh, god. Dean was alive. Dean was alive…thinking that Sam was dead. He had to find Dean.
He ran from the unnatural tree, leaving the creature curled at its base. His mind was racing frantically-dryad, he remembered. Dryads were powerful but couldn't use their power to hurt. They could bring prosperity, gather followers to protect them, like the Donnelly's and the Sioux before them. But to protect themselves, all they could do was misdirect.
His brother must have been lying close beside him in the warehouse-seeing the same corpse, but as Sam instead. Dean must have taken the Impala-how could Sam be so stupid?
He ran to the stolen car, fumbling for his cell phone in his pocket. Dean could be anywhere by now.
~*~
Dean lay on his side on top of the coverlet, unconsciously curving inward as if that could ease the pain. He hadn't moved since he'd arrived at the Roadhouse. He had to get up, talk to Ellen, call Bobby, get to Kansas, get back in the fight. Just because he wasn't in the crosshairs now didn't mean he couldn't still do some good. Hell, it would be easier to go after the Demon now. But none of that had to be done today. For now he didn't need to do anything at all.
His cell phone played "Smoke on the Water" from where it lay on the floor in his crumpled coat pocket. He didn't move to pick it up. He didn't know who the fuck would be calling and he really didn't care.
~*~
After the fourth time Dean's cell phone rang through to voice mail, Sam chucked his phone into the passenger seat. He'd stolen a beat-up white Civic and felt like a giant cramped behind the steering wheel. Dean would laugh his head off. Damn it! Why didn't he just pick up?
Sam pulled over to the side of the rode and scrubbed his hands through his hair. He'd just picked a random direction and floored it, but he honestly didn't know where Dean would go. He needed some clue. Sam knew his brother better than anyone, but the best idea he could come up with was some dive bar somewhere, which was aggravatingly unhelpful.
He grabbed his phone and climbed out of the car, stretching the crick in his back. He called Bobby. It rang six times and Sam was about to start kicking the tires on his crappy stolen car when Bobby picked up. "What," he demanded flatly.
"Bobby?" Sam asked, a little frantic. "It's Sam-I need to find Dean. Do you know where he is?"
There was dead silence from the other end of the line. Oh, crap. When Bobby spoke again there was ice in his voice. "I don't know what you are or what your game is but Sam Winchester is dead."
"Bobby, it's me. I promise. Look-there was this dryad, it's a long story, I just-let me prove it."
"You walk around looking like that boy I will personally hunt you down and put a hole in your skull. If Dean doesn't do it first."
"You know where Dean is?"
"You cut this innocent little act you've got going." Bobby's voice was hard and Sam was afraid he was five seconds away from a disconnected line. He already had the Demon, the police and half the hunters out there after him. Having the other half after him thinking he was some monster wearing Sam's skin was not a prospect he enjoyed thinking about.
"Look, Bobby, I know this is a bit hard to explain-"
Bobby snorted. "You bet your ass."
"We were after a nest of vampires but we got a little too close to a dryad. It tricked Dean into thinking I was dead. I don't know how better to explain this. Uh…when I was six you taught me the f-word and Dad didn't talk to you for a month. You helped Dean replace his first transmission on one of your old vans when he was twelve. I know this is hard to believe, especially after Meg, but it really is me." Sam was babbling, but he just had to keep Bobby on the line.
"If you really are Sam, you know that doesn't prove anything." Bobby's voice was a little softer and Sam could hear just an edge of grief.
"Bobby, please, I'll do whatever you want to prove it but right now I just have to find Dean. Please."
There was a silence long enough for Sam to look at the display on his phone to make sure he was still connected, then Bobby spoke. "He's at the Roadhouse. He's not alone. And you have to know that if you're lying it's going to go real badly for you."
"Thank you," Sam said, then Bobby hung up.
The Roadhouse. Dean was just under six hours away.
~*~
It was dark when Sam pulled up to the Roadhouse. He took a moment to steel himself before walking in.
When Sam stepped through the front door, the first thing he saw was the shotgun Ellen had pointed at him. The bar looked cleared out, though Sam had no doubt Ash, and probably others, were around here somewhere.
"Hi, Ellen," Sam said sheepishly.
"Bobby said you'd be coming." Ellen had the look on her face of a wolf protecting her cubs. Sam took a moment to be thankful that Dean had been the one to track him down when he'd attacked Jo. If Ellen had found him, possessed or not, he'd be very, very dead.
Sam walked slowly forward into the bar, hands raised. Ellen tracked his motion. When he got about five yards from the door, Ellen suddenly relaxed, but she kept the gun pointed at his chest. Sam was confused for a moment, then he looked up. There was a devil's trap on the ceiling in front of the door and he'd walked right through it. Didn't prove he was Sam, but it went a long way towards it.
"I need to talk to Dean," Sam said evenly.
"You got any way of proving you are what you say you are?" Ellen said warily.
Sam squeezed his eyes shut-with his luck he'd spend the rest of his life proving that he wasn't dead. He decided to put his cards on the table. "Things went bad on a job and we got separated, but if you just let me talk to Dean, he'll know if it's me."
"You mind if I don't take your word for that?" Ellen asked.
"Not at all."
He stood still, hands still raised, while Ellen chucked holy water at him, then salt, then said a few incantations Sam didn't recognize. She didn't look satisfied when he passed all the tests, but she looked less likely to shoot him than she had before, so Sam counted it as a win.
Shotgun pointed at the floor, Ellen finally showed Sam to a door at the back of the bar. "He's been in there since this morning," Ellen said quietly. "Hasn't really said much." She stepped to the side, allowing Sam to open the door, but still watching him carefully.
Sam took a deep breath, then opened the door. He was looking at Dean's back, lying like a lump on the bed. Sam didn't think he'd ever seen anything more beautiful in his life. He blinked his eyes a couple times and found he couldn't speak for a moment. Dean hadn't moved, though he must have heard the door open. Finally he just said, "Hey."
Dean's head whipped around and he looked at Sam with eyes like saucers. "Sammy?" Dean's voice cracked. Then he launched himself off the bed and crashed into Sam, squeezing him once around the ribs, hard as a vice, then pushing him back to look into his face.
Sam felt his eyes welling up. God, Dean would never stop making fun of him if he cried. It was just-it was Dean, his Dean, and he hadn't thought he'd see him again. Dean was staring at him like he was the Holy Grail, and Sam thought they were having a moment.
Then Dean punched him in the shoulder. "Ow!"
"What the hell, Sam?" Dean asked, then punched him again. "What was that?" He pulled back for another punch and Sam grabbed for his hand, starting a ridiculously girlie slap fight.
Sam got both of Dean's hands in his grip. "It was a dryad. There was a dryad near the nest-it thought if it tricked us, we'd leave it alone." Dean stopped struggling and Sam could see him figuring out the last couple of days. When he looked up at Sam again, it was a look of joy and guilt and fear. Sam smirked, then grabbed his brother in a bear hug and didn't let him go.
"Okay," Ellen said with a chuckle from the doorway. "You're Sam, all right."
~*~
Sam had been right. Dean did laugh when he saw the Civic.
Ellen had made them a big dinner of cold leftovers that tasted better than anything Sam had ever had. She made Dean call up Bobby to explain. Sam tried not to smile too much at how Dean kept shooting glances his way the whole time he was on the phone. It sounded like Dean was getting a lecture over letting himself get tricked. Sam was sure he'd get his share of that lecture soon.
They'd gratefully hit the sack after that. Dean wouldn't sleep in a separate room, even though this one only had one bed. Sam made a show of complaining, but if Dean hadn't insisted, Sam probably would have. When he closed his eyes he didn't want to dream like he had the previous night. In a rare indulgent mood, neither of them set an alarm clock and they slept well into the next afternoon.
"Dryad, huh?" Dean said, walking out to the Impala.
"Yup."
"And you found it all on your own." Dean gave a skeptical shake of his head.
"You know, it must have made doubles for both of us, one of you, and one of me. We probably weren't even lying too far from each other."
"You toast it?"
Sam stopped and looked at Dean. "No. It was just looking out for itself."
"Whatever, man," Dean said, opening the driver's side door. Sam made no move to get into the passenger seat. He looked at Dean speculatively.
"But if you woke up first, you must have practically tripped over me on your way out. What did you do, just tear out of there? You didn't even try to figure out what happened?"
Dean looked for a moment like he was about to say something painful, then he smiled his usual smile, the one that never quite reached his eyes. "No, man, figured it best to hit the road. I mean, without you bitchin' at me all the time I was too busy with hookers and blow."
Sam rolled his eyes and opened his door. When he stepped into the car, he kicked something. He pulled back, then squatted down to investigate. "What the…" He pulled out a shabby box and opened the cardboard flaps. Dean was looking guiltily at the dirt. "Are these… Dean, are these ashes?"
Dean turned his head away, looking off toward the horizon and fidgeting with the door.
"Dude, I'm trying not to be creeped out by the fact that you kept my ashes in the car. I mean, I know you like a co-pilot, but seriously."
Dean swung himself into the driver's seat and shut the door. Somewhere in the middle of that action he muttered, "I was taking them to Lawrence."
Sam, still holding the box, leaned down so he could see Dean. "Really?"
Dean scrunched his nose. "Thought you'd want to be buried next to Mom."
Sam started to say thanks, but Dean ostentatiously started the engine to drown him out. "What am I supposed to do with these?" Sam asked.
"Doesn't matter, does it?" Dean shrugged.
Sam thought for a moment, then took the box a hundred yards downwind of the Roadhouse, Dean watching him warily from the Impala. He opened the box and let the wind carry the gritty ashes out over the highway.
When he walked back toward the car, he threw the empty box in a dumpster. He climbed in and Dean looked at him inquisitively. "Hey, not every day you get to sprinkle your own ashes."
Dean shook his head, then turned the car toward the road. After a moment he said, "Dude, we're driving over your grave."
"Shut up," Sam said, then whacked Dean in the shoulder.
For anyone interested in navel-gazing about this story, Author's Notes, the Extended Self-Indulgent Edition.
Read on AO3.
Author: Ivy (ivy03)
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: none
Rating: R
Word count: 7,000
Warning: OMG THEY'RE DEAD! THEY'RE ALL DEAD!!!!11!! Only not really. Fake character death.
Minor spoilers for "Born Under a Bad Sign"
A/N: So I started this thing back in February. And it had some structural problems, so I set it aside for a bit. And then AHBL happened and I went…no point in this little story, then, right? It's a very odd thing to have Kripke suck my story out of my head and then do it better. Well, I've finally dusted it off and fixed it up. Enjoy.
Beta thanks to bunches of people: trinityvixen, feiran, dotfic, ecmyers, trakkie…did I forget anyone?
Summary: His brother had been right next to him, but he couldn't see him now. He called out again and got only silence. He stepped over a beam-one of the ceiling supports had fallen-and then he saw him.
His brother was dead. Undeniably, unarguably dead.
~*~
"Sammy! What the hell did you use for a timer, the watch that came with your happy meal? The idea was to blow it when we were outside and the vamps were inside, not the other way round.
"Sammy?"
~*~
"What the fuck was that, Dean? You didn't have to use all of it.
"Dean?"
~*~
The force of the blast had knocked him flat on his face, splinters and dust raining down on his hair and the back of his neck. He could still feel the heat of it, which means they'd chosen the right stuff for wasting a nest of vampires, even if his brother had fucked up and the thing had gone off too soon.
He pushed himself up, feeling the soreness that would turn into bruises later. He called for his brother but heard nothing, and suddenly it didn't feel hot anymore.
There were debris all over the floor, splintered boards and twisted metal. They'd set the bomb in the sleeping quarters-or at least what looked like them-hoping that if they didn't get all of the vamps, they'd at least get most and the rest would be easier to track down alone. It was just before dawn; they'd planned on waiting until the vampires returned for the day's rest and set it off.
They'd gotten back up to the first floor, almost to the door, when it blew.
His brother had been right next to him, but he couldn't see him now. He called out again and got only silence. He stepped over a beam-one of the ceiling supports had fallen-and then he saw him.
His brother was lying flat on his back, spread-eagled. The fingers were curled gently towards the ceiling, palms open as if in offering. His eyes were open, too. Staring. He looked a little surprised, his lips parted. His neck was ripped open. A foot-long piece of shrapnel stuck out of the wound, propelled like a bullet by the explosion. Blood coated the sides of his neck, the floor, seeping into the flannel collar of his shirt, matting his hair.
His brother was dead. Undeniably, unarguably dead.
~*~
Dean screamed. He was at his brother's side in an instant-he wanted to touch him but he couldn't bring himself to, not with that thing in his neck. Looking at where metal met flesh kicked him in the gut; it looked more wrong than anything he'd seen in his life. He gripped the shrapnel with both hands and pulled it out. No blood seeped out of the wound. If Sam's heart had still been beating, it would have been a geyser. It wasn't.
When he was a kid, one of his classmates had once told him that if he wished for it hard enough, he could turn back time, just for a few minutes. Dean had never wished so hard. It seemed so small-the time between now and when Sammy was walking beside him. But he already felt the time with Sammy cracking and falling away from him. It felt like it had always been as it was now; Dean cradling Sam's body in a warehouse, alone.
He didn't want to get up. Getting up would mean he accepted it.
~*~
Eventually he had to get up. They-no, he-had to leave. A bomb going off wasn't something that tended to go unnoticed, even in an area this remote. Someone would be by to investigate, and if he was still here, he might end up in jail for his brother's murder. He couldn't let that happen, not until Sam was laid to rest. Dean wondered what his Dad would have thought of this, of Sam dying because Dean fucked up. He didn't know if the dead, the ones that had moved on, knew anything about the living, but he hoped not. He couldn't bear for his father to know of his failure.
He heaved Sam up onto his shoulder. It was inelegant; he had to make several attempts to stand before his knees stayed steady under the weight. He'd carried Sammy a few times before since he'd hit his growth spurt. It wasn't an easy thing to do, not when he was so limp.
"Sasquatch," Dean muttered, curling his arms around Sam's knees to try to keep him balanced on his shoulder. He felt a wet stickiness seeping through his shirt where Sam's head was resting. The silence was profound. He couldn't hear anything except the creaking of the floorboards under his shoes.
Getting Sam into the Impala was involved. He grappled him into the back seat so that he lay across it. He wanted to make himself believe that his brother had just gotten sloppy drunk and he was taking him back to the motel to sleep it off. But then he looked into those staring eyes and he couldn't believe anything but the truth.
He gently folded the long legs up onto the seat, but Sam's right leg fell forward and jerked his whole body onto its side, head rolling to the edge of the seat. Dean reached out by instinct to stop Sam from falling, his hand gripping Sam's belt loop. He tried to maneuver Sam onto his back but his lungs just weren't working right and his arms wouldn't go where he told them to. Dean rested his forehead against the doorframe of the car and squeezed his eyes shut. All he could hear were his own wheezing breaths and his heartbeat. He felt the cold metal against his face and the denim over cold flesh beneath his hand.
He couldn't do this, but he had to. He had to keep moving for Sammy's sake, just like after every other tragedy in their lives.
He rolled his brother so that he was facing the back of the seat. Dean couldn't see the wound this way, just the blood. He climbed into the Impala and took off, with no clear idea where he was going.
~*~
He ended up pointing the Impala south. They'd been in South Dakota, near the Nebraska border. He could make it today, if he didn't stop.
Dawn was just kissing the sky all pink and orange. He remembered when their Dad had first driven them across the Badlands, not too far from here. Sammy had lain across the back dash staring up at the blue sky, telling Dean all the shapes he saw in the clouds that seemed to go up and up forever. Dean had pretended to be too old for that nonsense, but he'd craned his neck to see, too.
Dean's eyes flicked involuntarily to the rearview mirror, where he could see the bottom of Sam's jacket falling over his hip as he jostled with every bump in the road. Dean forced his eyes back onto the road and wrenched the mirror so it was pointing at the ceiling.
He found a wooded area and pulled far off the road, hoping that no one would notice the smoke from here. It took a good hour or two to gather the wood, his limbs feeling heavy and numb. Once he'd built a pyre, he carried Sam for the last time, laying him out on the uneven bed of branches. Dean poured salt over him, the crystals gathering in the folds of his clothes. Dean was careful to keep it away from Sam's face. Next came lighter fluid and a match, then he just had to stand back and watch.
~*~
Sam would have found it funny, Dean was pretty sure. Oh, he'd have given Dean hell for it, but he would've been laughing. Sammy never laughed enough.
When the fire had burned down to ashes the daylight was beginning to fade. Had this been a crematorium, he would've gotten a little box, properly labeled, containing Sam's ashes, neat and tidy, ready for burying or sprinkling or whatever the hell crazy thing people liked to do with their dead.
Dean couldn't risk a funeral home, though, not when the back of his shirt was still stiff with blood. All Dean had was a shovel, a garbage bag and an old cardboard box. He gathered up the ashes the best he could, shoveling them into the bag. There was charcoal in there too, and dirt, all mixed up with the little charred pieces of Sam. Sam might have tried to talk about the metaphor of that intermingling but Dean didn't think like that. It was just ashes and dirt.
He twisted the top of the bag and tied it with a twist-tie, then put it in the cardboard box, folding it shut. It didn't weigh enough to be Sam. Dean crammed the box into the passenger-seat footwell and turned the car south again.
~*~
Dean was driving down an inky black stretch of highway, his headlights making barely a dent in the darkness. He hadn't eaten in a day, hadn't slept in two, and his baby brother's ashes were sitting on the floor under the glove compartment. Dean had never been so tired in his life. He was halfway between nowhere and nowhere, though, in the great expanses of nothing that made up America's breadbasket. He hadn't seen another car in hours.
Dean took his foot off the gas and let the car coast to a stop, right in the middle of the road. What was he doing? His mind kept running in circles. He'd been consumed by a constant litany of find a way to save Sammy for months. Every time the thought crossed his mind now, he wanted to laugh.
"Well," Dean said into the silence. "Bet the Demon's pissed now, huh, Sammy? Guess we really fucked his big demonic plans for you."
The joke didn't sound so funny when it echoed back to him in the strange acoustic of the empty car. He turned off the engine and the headlights flickered out.
He had nowhere to be, nothing to do, no great plan to follow anymore. No reason not to sit here on the side of the road until his dick rotted off.
So he sat, his mind slowly emptying as he quashed the lingering impulse clawing at him to try harder, fight harder to save Sammy.
And to think, he'd been dreading the day when he had to put a bullet in his brother.
It was kind of a moot point, now, wasn't it?
~*~
Dean didn't think he'd dozed off, but he didn't remember seeing a car approach until the headlights were shining right in the back of his car. Headlights and the silently spinning red lights of a police cruiser.
For a moment Dean panicked. There was blood in the backseat, blood on his clothes, an arsenal in the truck, and his face was on the FBI's most wanted list. Ever since the bank in Milwaukee, he'd been careful to take back roads, drive the speed limit, obey traffic rules-except when necessity required, of course. It said something about the state of their lives that a busted taillight could lead to Dean spending the rest of his life in jail.
Dean curled his hands around the steering wheel and rolled his shoulders. After the panic passed, he felt nothing. He didn't want to go to prison-Sam had tried to introduce Dean to a number of things he'd learned about in college, including Oz-but his need to stay free, to keep fighting, wasn't there anymore. Bobby had told them a storm was coming, but whether Dean liked it or not, he wasn't in the middle of it anymore. He was firmly on the sidelines. And he just couldn't bring himself to care about the cop walking up to his window.
"Excuse me, sir?" she asked, leaning down a little toward the window. Most cops didn't do that anymore in case the road rage case they'd pulled over turned out to be, well, someone like Dean. This is it, Dean thought. She'd lean down, see Dean's face, step back to her cruiser to check the wanted flyers and he'd be hauled away in handcuffs.
"Yes," Dean said flatly.
"Are you alright, sir?"
That surprised Dean a little. "Uh…what?"
"Do you need assistance?"
"No," Dean stuttered, trying to make his brain catch up with this line of inquiry.
"Sir, you can't sleep on the side of the road. Is there somewhere I can take you?"
"No," Dean said, finally slipping in to his game face. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I'm just a little tired. I didn't want to fall asleep at the wheel, so I pulled over, just for a short break. Must have drifted off…"
The cop smiled at him, actually looked him straight in the face and smiled. She looked matronly and her smile was kind, like one she'd give to one of her own brood when they were tired and confused. "There's a hotel, 'bout ten miles up the road. It isn't much, but it'll be more comfortable than the backseat."
"Thanks," Dean said and forced himself to smile back. He fought to keep his eyes from flicking to the backseat. If she shined her light back there, this could still end in handcuffs.
She kept her kind gaze on his face. "Just next time, stop for the night before you can't see straight, okay?"
Dean nodded. The cop smiled again and clapped her hand against the roof of his car, then walked back to her cruiser, and that was it.
Dean sat for a moment longer then started the engine.
~*~
He found the motel the cop had told him about, pink and green neon palm tree flashing over a neon pool on the sign, though Dean couldn't see any palm trees, or a pool. He pulled into a parking spot but couldn't bring himself to get out and get a room. In the years Sam was at Stanford that was one of the things Dean hated the most-checking into rooms by himself. For all his whining growing up that he needed some privacy, getting a room just for himself made him feel disconnected and wrong. To Dean, privacy was just another way of saying alone.
Dean curled sideways on the seat, one leg tucked awkwardly under the door handle, the other hanging into the footwell, stretching his back at an impossibly uncomfortable angle. He brushed one hand back and forth across the top of the cardboard box and stared into the dark space under the glove box until the streetlights flickered off and the sun came up.
~*~
Dean didn't remember picking it as a destination-didn't remember most of the morning, to be honest. He just found himself pulling into the dirt lot in front of Harvelle's Roadhouse. "Huh," he said as he let the engine stall out.
He had this strange sensation that someone was hitting the pause button on the world, like he was missing the little connecting bits between one moment and the next. He knew it was one of the symptoms of sleep deprivation, and at the very least meant he was in no condition to keep driving.
He pushed open the front door and squinted while his eyes adjusted to the dark interior. Ellen was sitting at one of the tables, surrounded by a stack of crinkled receipts and an accounting ledger. It was early enough that no one else was in the bar. Ash was nowhere in evidence.
"Dean," Ellen said, looking up. She craned to look behind him. "Where's your brother?"
"He's in the car," Dean said, then laughed. He tried to swallow it down, but it kept bubbling up. "Under the glove compartment."
Ellen stood slowly, looking at Dean with concern. "Dean, what are you talking about?"
"Nothing," Dean said, still giggling. He remembered why he'd thought it might be a good idea just to turn around and keep driving. This was not a conversation he was ready to have.
"Don't you bullshit me," Ellen said, walking toward him. "That look does not say 'nothing.'"
Dean cleared his throat. "It's nothing, Ellen, I'm just tired."
Ellen stood in front of him, searching his face, those almost black eyes pinning him like a butterfly to a board. "Dean," she dragged out. "Where's Sam?"
"He's-" Dean tried to go for the joke again, but his throat closed over it. "He's dead."
The words dropped out of his mouth like stones. He wished he could call them back just so he could wait a little longer before he had to face this.
"Honey," Ellen reached out, rubbed a hand over his arm. "How did it happen?"
Dean looked straight down at the floor in front of him.
"Was it the Demon?" Ellen asked, an edge of fear creeping into the sympathy in her voice.
"Ellen-I can't talk about this," Dean said and his voice cracked. Oh god, he needed to get out of here. Ellen's presence felt like it was smothering him. He couldn't look at the pain he felt reflected in another face. He had to move or he'd lose it. "I'm just tired," he finished quietly.
"Sure sweetie," Ellen said, her voice cloying with sympathy. She ushered him towards the back of the bar, both hands on him as if she thought he'd fall over on his own. Maybe he would. "I've got a spare room. If you need anything, or someone talk to, you just-"
God, Dean could feel tears burning at the edges of his eyes. He just needed to get somewhere where he could put a door between him and the rest of the world. "Yeah, sure," he said, just to get Ellen to stop talking.
She opened the door to a small room-queen bed with a calico bedspread, mirror on the wall and not much else. "Just give me a few minutes to get you some fresh sheets," Ellen said, trying to edge past him through the doorway.
"It's fine." Dean blocked her passage. He had maybe one more blink before he was busting open.
"OK," Ellen said, backing down. She finally shut the door, leaving Dean in silence. Dean sank down against the wall and let everything fall apart.
~*~
Sam's head hurt. There were lights dancing in front of his eyes, but when he blinked, the image in front of him just got clearer. His must have been out for awhile-the sun was completely up now. Which just meant there was plenty of light in the warehouse, more than enough to see Dean's body there, on the floor, throat ripped open. He thought he might be sick.
He crouched next to Dean's body, reached his hand out to stroke his brother's hair. It felt just like it always did. This didn't feel real. It was so stupid-it wasn't even a demon or a vengeful spirit this time. It was-
Sam swallowed. It was a bomb that they'd set, that Sam had made the detonator for. A detonator that shouldn't have gone off until they were safely out of range. But it had, it had blown while they were still in the building. Which made this-Dean-his fault.
~*~
Sam didn't know what to do. He always relied on Dean at times like this. After Jess, after Dad, Dean silently took the lead and Sam let him. Dean always pushed him when he needed it, kept him going until they were where they needed to be. He really needed that push. Without it, he didn't think he would ever move from here.
His head really hurt-he must have been knocked out by the blast. He looked at his watch but the face was smashed. He didn't know what time it was, how long since the explosion. He needed Dean to tell him what to do.
He needed a plan. First things first. He needed to fall back, regroup, figure out what to do with the body. He had so much experience with bodies, but no experience with this. Sam stood up, then slowly backed out of the barn, superstitiously afraid of taking his eyes off his brother. He didn't know if he expected Dean to disappear or to get up, but he just couldn't look away. He made himself turn and step outside.
Dawn had passed while he was inside; it was full daylight. Sam glanced around quickly and saw nothing. The Impala was gone. The fucking vamps must have come back, seen the wreck of their nest, and stolen it. Dean was going to be so pissed.
Sam's emotions hit him all at once and his knees buckled. His brother's body was in the building behind them and he was crying over the fucking car.
~*~
Lucky for Sam there was plenty of wood in the barn, splintered into portable pieces by the blast. Once he'd chastised himself enough about breaking down he'd gotten back on his feet and gotten moving. He built the pyre in the rough driveway, far enough away from the surrounding field not to risk a wildfire. He didn't have any salt. He hoped it wouldn't be necessary. And it was too hard to think about 'death for ghosts' at a time like this. He'd fucked up and killed Dean in the first place; the whole ritual felt like rubbing it in.
He'd stopped shaking by the time he'd gathered enough wood, but he hadn't stopped crying. He wasn't trying to stop.
It took him a long time to build up the courage to carry Dean outside. In the end he had to force himself, there was no other way around it. It was just him; either he did it or he left Dean there until whoever or whatever found the body.
Sam cradled Dean's head into his shoulder and carried him out into the daylight.
~*~
Sam couldn't watch the fire burn. He hadn't had cloth for a shroud and had to turn around, staring at the hollowed-out shell of the barn instead, scuffing his shoes in the dirt restlessly. It wasn't right.
No, Sam realized, it wasn't right.
It was mid-day, late spring, and not a single sound. No crickets, no wind in the grass. No birds in the great oak growing in the field. Something was seriously wrong here. One of them should have noticed, but they'd been tracking the vampire pack for weeks and had come here to torch the place the first night they were in town, before the pack could move on again. They hadn't bothered with any reconnaissance; they thought they knew what they were fighting.
But there was something else going on. If something had killed his brother, Sam was going to figure out what it was.
~*~
Sam walked back to town. It took a while, but he wasn't going after anything with no supplies. Everything he would've needed had been in the trunk of the car the vampires had fucking stolen. At least he still had three or four fake credit cards in his wallet to replace the essentials. Besides, he was hungry.
He'd get to town, get some food, get some rest, buy as much artillery as he could carry, then he was coming back here, finding whatever had done this and torching the fucker to the ground.
~*~
Sam couldn't sleep. By the time he reached Main Street of Middle of Nowhere, South Dakota, he looked like a hobo-dust, soot and blood mixed all over his clothes and skin. The clerk in the pay-by-the-hour motel didn't ask any questions as Sam handed over a credit card wordlessly. He stood for a long time in the shower, watching the dirty water swirl around the drain and felt like he was washing Dean off his skin, out of his hair, out of his life. All the remnants of his brother swirling down the drain.
His stomach grumbled but when he stepped into the diner, the photos on the menu made him nauseous. He ordered the meatloaf but only managed to force down a couple of peas.
Somewhere in his twisted brain he thought sleep would be easy. He was more exhausted than he ever remembered being, but when he closed his eyes, he just saw Dean's slack face with a shard of metal tearing into his throat.
Sometime in the witching hour he most have dozed off because he could suddenly see Dean above him, neck ripped open, blood dripping down onto Sam's forehead like Jess's, like their mother's. When Dean burst into flame Sam screamed and then it was gone and Sam couldn't convince himself that it hadn't been real.
~*~
Sam hit the library in the morning.
His computer had been in the Impala, too. He felt stripped of everything. Even the small stupid sentimental things from his childhood he'd managed to hide from Dad had been in the Impala. With it gone, he didn't have anything of his brother's.
He forced himself to get to work before his mind could take him too far down that path.
He wasn't surprised when he found something unusual. The barn they'd been in had once been owned by the Donnelly family, a name that kept popping up all over the news for this tiny little town. Seemed like the Donnelly's had been pillars of the community-philanthropists and town council members and more than anything else, rich. The Donnelly farm had been unusually profitable, especially for this part of the world. The one photo of the family showed them smiling, an old oak arching its limbs over the family like a shield.
Sam buried himself further back in the archives and found that this town, not surprisingly, had all been Native American land before it was settled. But unlike most Sioux, the group that had lived here had not been nomadic. And they had worshipped a particular nature spirit-a tree. Son of a bitch.
~*~
Sam didn't bother to get a gun, going straight for the lighter fluid and matches in the general store. He grabbed an axe too and threw it onto the counter.
There wasn't much by way of transportation in Podunk, USA. There were no car dealerships and no hope of finding an Avis. He jacked a car instead, thinking that Dean would be proud. But he knew that as soon as he popped the lock the clock started ticking. It was a small town and he was a drifter who'd done a number of decidedly noteworthy things in the last twelve hours. When the owner spotted it missing, they'd know exactly who to look for. This had to be quick and dirty.
Sam was back at the barn before he had time to think. He grabbed his supplies from the trunk and headed straight towards the tree, his eyes locked on it. He stepped around the charred remains of the funeral pyre and let the emotions it evoked fuel the rage inside him. Oh, this sucker was going down.
He doused the first. Lighter fluid all around the trunk and as far up as he could reach. The tree's branches curled around him like a cage but didn't move. Sam was watching. Everything was unnaturally still-no birdsong, no wind. Just silence as if everything was holding its breath as Sam drew a circle in the ground around the trunk with the fluid. Pagan gods did not go down easy, and Sam didn't know enough about this one to know what to expect.
He stepped back from the tree and lit a match, holding it out over the soaked ground. It was an idle threat-trees this firmly rooted needed more than a small fire to take them down-but he was hoping to force whatever was bound to this spot to manifest.
The match burned down to his fingers and Sam let it go out. "Fine," he growled and grabbed the axe.
The first swing seemed to take an eternity. The blade bit into the bark and the world erupted in sound. It sounded like a hurricane, whipping through the branches of the tree-only the tree, the grass around still-and scraping twigs across Sam's face. It sounded like a scream. Sam swung again and his axe dug deep into the sapwood.
"Stop!" A voice cried. "Stop!" When Sam drew his axe back, something darted between him and the tree, quicker than his eye could track. Sam stopped his swing but kept the blade raised. It looked like a child-pale and naked, its limbs stretched just a little too long and thin to be human. It curled at the base of the tree, clutching its knees to its chest, and looked at Sam with huge tear-rimmed eyes. "Why do you hurt me?"
"What are you?" Sam demanded. The thing looked fragile and pathetic, too weak to harm anything. Looks could be deceiving.
When it didn't answer, Sam swung his axe back for another blow. "No!" It mewled. "Why do you ask me that? Why do you hurt me?"
"Answer me."
"I am this," the creature said frantically, brushing its hands against the wood. "I am the tree."
"You're a god of what, trees?"
"No. Not god." It shook its head. "Is that why you came to destroy me? You and the other?"
Sam stopped. "We didn't come to destroy you!" he cried. "We didn't even know you were here!"
"But you came with fire," it said. "You came to burn me!"
"You-" Sam fumbled, tears burning in his eyes. "We came to kill the vampires," he said softly. "We didn't know you were here."
"I had to protect myself. I had to." The creature seemed to be reacting to Sam's anger and pain, curling against itself like a child cringing from a parent.
"Protect yourself?" Sam said in disbelief. It was like a cosmic joke. This pathetic little thing had killed Dean in self-defense when they weren't there for it at all. They'd come for the vampires. It was all a big misunderstanding. If he'd just known then he could have made it understand. "You killed my brother!" Sam shouted in rage. He brought the edge of the axe up to the creature's throat. "You killed him and we wouldn't have hurt you!"
"No!" it was crying. "No, no! Not killed. Not killed. Just confused."
Not killed. The words rang in his head. But he'd seen- "What?"
"Just tricked! Tricked you! Thought if you were apart you would leave."
"How-"
"Made you see, but not real. Wouldn't last, just make you leave. Not hurt me, not lose each other, not for long."
The axe fell from Sam's numb fingers. He turned slowly to the scorched earth in the parking lot. Not real. Oh, god. Dean was alive. Dean was alive…thinking that Sam was dead. He had to find Dean.
He ran from the unnatural tree, leaving the creature curled at its base. His mind was racing frantically-dryad, he remembered. Dryads were powerful but couldn't use their power to hurt. They could bring prosperity, gather followers to protect them, like the Donnelly's and the Sioux before them. But to protect themselves, all they could do was misdirect.
His brother must have been lying close beside him in the warehouse-seeing the same corpse, but as Sam instead. Dean must have taken the Impala-how could Sam be so stupid?
He ran to the stolen car, fumbling for his cell phone in his pocket. Dean could be anywhere by now.
~*~
Dean lay on his side on top of the coverlet, unconsciously curving inward as if that could ease the pain. He hadn't moved since he'd arrived at the Roadhouse. He had to get up, talk to Ellen, call Bobby, get to Kansas, get back in the fight. Just because he wasn't in the crosshairs now didn't mean he couldn't still do some good. Hell, it would be easier to go after the Demon now. But none of that had to be done today. For now he didn't need to do anything at all.
His cell phone played "Smoke on the Water" from where it lay on the floor in his crumpled coat pocket. He didn't move to pick it up. He didn't know who the fuck would be calling and he really didn't care.
~*~
After the fourth time Dean's cell phone rang through to voice mail, Sam chucked his phone into the passenger seat. He'd stolen a beat-up white Civic and felt like a giant cramped behind the steering wheel. Dean would laugh his head off. Damn it! Why didn't he just pick up?
Sam pulled over to the side of the rode and scrubbed his hands through his hair. He'd just picked a random direction and floored it, but he honestly didn't know where Dean would go. He needed some clue. Sam knew his brother better than anyone, but the best idea he could come up with was some dive bar somewhere, which was aggravatingly unhelpful.
He grabbed his phone and climbed out of the car, stretching the crick in his back. He called Bobby. It rang six times and Sam was about to start kicking the tires on his crappy stolen car when Bobby picked up. "What," he demanded flatly.
"Bobby?" Sam asked, a little frantic. "It's Sam-I need to find Dean. Do you know where he is?"
There was dead silence from the other end of the line. Oh, crap. When Bobby spoke again there was ice in his voice. "I don't know what you are or what your game is but Sam Winchester is dead."
"Bobby, it's me. I promise. Look-there was this dryad, it's a long story, I just-let me prove it."
"You walk around looking like that boy I will personally hunt you down and put a hole in your skull. If Dean doesn't do it first."
"You know where Dean is?"
"You cut this innocent little act you've got going." Bobby's voice was hard and Sam was afraid he was five seconds away from a disconnected line. He already had the Demon, the police and half the hunters out there after him. Having the other half after him thinking he was some monster wearing Sam's skin was not a prospect he enjoyed thinking about.
"Look, Bobby, I know this is a bit hard to explain-"
Bobby snorted. "You bet your ass."
"We were after a nest of vampires but we got a little too close to a dryad. It tricked Dean into thinking I was dead. I don't know how better to explain this. Uh…when I was six you taught me the f-word and Dad didn't talk to you for a month. You helped Dean replace his first transmission on one of your old vans when he was twelve. I know this is hard to believe, especially after Meg, but it really is me." Sam was babbling, but he just had to keep Bobby on the line.
"If you really are Sam, you know that doesn't prove anything." Bobby's voice was a little softer and Sam could hear just an edge of grief.
"Bobby, please, I'll do whatever you want to prove it but right now I just have to find Dean. Please."
There was a silence long enough for Sam to look at the display on his phone to make sure he was still connected, then Bobby spoke. "He's at the Roadhouse. He's not alone. And you have to know that if you're lying it's going to go real badly for you."
"Thank you," Sam said, then Bobby hung up.
The Roadhouse. Dean was just under six hours away.
~*~
It was dark when Sam pulled up to the Roadhouse. He took a moment to steel himself before walking in.
When Sam stepped through the front door, the first thing he saw was the shotgun Ellen had pointed at him. The bar looked cleared out, though Sam had no doubt Ash, and probably others, were around here somewhere.
"Hi, Ellen," Sam said sheepishly.
"Bobby said you'd be coming." Ellen had the look on her face of a wolf protecting her cubs. Sam took a moment to be thankful that Dean had been the one to track him down when he'd attacked Jo. If Ellen had found him, possessed or not, he'd be very, very dead.
Sam walked slowly forward into the bar, hands raised. Ellen tracked his motion. When he got about five yards from the door, Ellen suddenly relaxed, but she kept the gun pointed at his chest. Sam was confused for a moment, then he looked up. There was a devil's trap on the ceiling in front of the door and he'd walked right through it. Didn't prove he was Sam, but it went a long way towards it.
"I need to talk to Dean," Sam said evenly.
"You got any way of proving you are what you say you are?" Ellen said warily.
Sam squeezed his eyes shut-with his luck he'd spend the rest of his life proving that he wasn't dead. He decided to put his cards on the table. "Things went bad on a job and we got separated, but if you just let me talk to Dean, he'll know if it's me."
"You mind if I don't take your word for that?" Ellen asked.
"Not at all."
He stood still, hands still raised, while Ellen chucked holy water at him, then salt, then said a few incantations Sam didn't recognize. She didn't look satisfied when he passed all the tests, but she looked less likely to shoot him than she had before, so Sam counted it as a win.
Shotgun pointed at the floor, Ellen finally showed Sam to a door at the back of the bar. "He's been in there since this morning," Ellen said quietly. "Hasn't really said much." She stepped to the side, allowing Sam to open the door, but still watching him carefully.
Sam took a deep breath, then opened the door. He was looking at Dean's back, lying like a lump on the bed. Sam didn't think he'd ever seen anything more beautiful in his life. He blinked his eyes a couple times and found he couldn't speak for a moment. Dean hadn't moved, though he must have heard the door open. Finally he just said, "Hey."
Dean's head whipped around and he looked at Sam with eyes like saucers. "Sammy?" Dean's voice cracked. Then he launched himself off the bed and crashed into Sam, squeezing him once around the ribs, hard as a vice, then pushing him back to look into his face.
Sam felt his eyes welling up. God, Dean would never stop making fun of him if he cried. It was just-it was Dean, his Dean, and he hadn't thought he'd see him again. Dean was staring at him like he was the Holy Grail, and Sam thought they were having a moment.
Then Dean punched him in the shoulder. "Ow!"
"What the hell, Sam?" Dean asked, then punched him again. "What was that?" He pulled back for another punch and Sam grabbed for his hand, starting a ridiculously girlie slap fight.
Sam got both of Dean's hands in his grip. "It was a dryad. There was a dryad near the nest-it thought if it tricked us, we'd leave it alone." Dean stopped struggling and Sam could see him figuring out the last couple of days. When he looked up at Sam again, it was a look of joy and guilt and fear. Sam smirked, then grabbed his brother in a bear hug and didn't let him go.
"Okay," Ellen said with a chuckle from the doorway. "You're Sam, all right."
~*~
Sam had been right. Dean did laugh when he saw the Civic.
Ellen had made them a big dinner of cold leftovers that tasted better than anything Sam had ever had. She made Dean call up Bobby to explain. Sam tried not to smile too much at how Dean kept shooting glances his way the whole time he was on the phone. It sounded like Dean was getting a lecture over letting himself get tricked. Sam was sure he'd get his share of that lecture soon.
They'd gratefully hit the sack after that. Dean wouldn't sleep in a separate room, even though this one only had one bed. Sam made a show of complaining, but if Dean hadn't insisted, Sam probably would have. When he closed his eyes he didn't want to dream like he had the previous night. In a rare indulgent mood, neither of them set an alarm clock and they slept well into the next afternoon.
"Dryad, huh?" Dean said, walking out to the Impala.
"Yup."
"And you found it all on your own." Dean gave a skeptical shake of his head.
"You know, it must have made doubles for both of us, one of you, and one of me. We probably weren't even lying too far from each other."
"You toast it?"
Sam stopped and looked at Dean. "No. It was just looking out for itself."
"Whatever, man," Dean said, opening the driver's side door. Sam made no move to get into the passenger seat. He looked at Dean speculatively.
"But if you woke up first, you must have practically tripped over me on your way out. What did you do, just tear out of there? You didn't even try to figure out what happened?"
Dean looked for a moment like he was about to say something painful, then he smiled his usual smile, the one that never quite reached his eyes. "No, man, figured it best to hit the road. I mean, without you bitchin' at me all the time I was too busy with hookers and blow."
Sam rolled his eyes and opened his door. When he stepped into the car, he kicked something. He pulled back, then squatted down to investigate. "What the…" He pulled out a shabby box and opened the cardboard flaps. Dean was looking guiltily at the dirt. "Are these… Dean, are these ashes?"
Dean turned his head away, looking off toward the horizon and fidgeting with the door.
"Dude, I'm trying not to be creeped out by the fact that you kept my ashes in the car. I mean, I know you like a co-pilot, but seriously."
Dean swung himself into the driver's seat and shut the door. Somewhere in the middle of that action he muttered, "I was taking them to Lawrence."
Sam, still holding the box, leaned down so he could see Dean. "Really?"
Dean scrunched his nose. "Thought you'd want to be buried next to Mom."
Sam started to say thanks, but Dean ostentatiously started the engine to drown him out. "What am I supposed to do with these?" Sam asked.
"Doesn't matter, does it?" Dean shrugged.
Sam thought for a moment, then took the box a hundred yards downwind of the Roadhouse, Dean watching him warily from the Impala. He opened the box and let the wind carry the gritty ashes out over the highway.
When he walked back toward the car, he threw the empty box in a dumpster. He climbed in and Dean looked at him inquisitively. "Hey, not every day you get to sprinkle your own ashes."
Dean shook his head, then turned the car toward the road. After a moment he said, "Dude, we're driving over your grave."
"Shut up," Sam said, then whacked Dean in the shoulder.
For anyone interested in navel-gazing about this story, Author's Notes, the Extended Self-Indulgent Edition.
Read on AO3.