Payback
The text that Martin sends him makes Dean's breath hitch as he reads it. Finally. It's been years, more years than he cares to think about, but Martin found them, and he's not sure if he could even bring himself to celebrate yet or not.
It's late, when it comes, and Dean is already half way ready to get some sleep. Sam is already curled up on himself in the bed, facing Dean's bed, and the older of the two watches him for the longest moment before getting himself off the chair by the table and pulling his jeans back on. He sits on the edge of his bed, nearly silent as he pulls his boots on and laces them, facing Sam's sleeping form the entire time.
Feet planted firmly on the floor, Dean's elbows dig into his knees as he watches his little brother. He's not sure what to do. Should he wake him? Would it be something Sam would want to be involved in? He doubts it, somehow. Sam isn't like that. He's always been a vicious son of a bitch when he got started but he's not sure Sam's really able to stomach some of the things that Dean can cope with. They both came out of Hell different men, in the end, and Dean's got Purgatory on top of that.
"I'm doing this for you, so you can't be pissed at me," he murmurs to Sam's sleeping face and the only sign his words even register on a subconscious level is the minute twitch of Sam's nose.
Dean knows Sam doesn't just wake up easily with him knocking around in their room. He never has. Sam's a sensitive bastard, though, and always knows when something is up, even when he's asleep, so Dean waits a few minutes, in case his brother wakes, just keeping watch on him.
Things are still strained sometimes. They don't quite get each other as much as they did before and Dean knows it's because no one's talking about what happened, what really happened, in their year apart. They skirt edges and they offer half thoughts, half comments, but never the full story. Dean knows the Spectre did a number on them; it made him say things he never would have, it made him try to kill the one person he never would, and he knows Sam is still angry at him and he's sure Sam took to heart whatever bullshit the spirit made him spit out, and while he won't deny he probably felt some of that, he never felt that angry in his entire life and it wasn't him.
Maybe he can right a few wrongs tonight. Starting with this.
He gets up, hesitating with the urge to ruffle Sam's hair like he would when his brother was tiny and could be carried around, but he knows they're not really kids anymore. They never were. So, he heads out the door, after pulling on a jacket, and he doesn't leave a note because he knows Sam will come looking for him. He doesn't want Sam to see this.
---
It's a half hour drive to the location Martin sent him, and Dean's hands are trembling with anticipating. It's sick, he knows that, but he can't help wanting this. He has wanted this since long before Lucifer ever got his icy hands on his brother and before his faith in Sam had been well and truly shaken.
Dean steels himself as he pulls up outside the shack. It's a small hunting cabin, something of a worn down and battered place, but it adds to the charm, he decides, as he gets out of the car. He fills a small bag with weapons and slings it over his shoulder as he heads up the three creaking steps and to the door, pushing it open.
"Martin?" It's a gruff call and the older hunter comes out from a side room with a wary look in his eyes.
"Dean, it's good to see ya, boy," he tells him, and Dean gives him the regular cheery grin and the firm handshake, but even Martin is able to see how forced any happiness from Dean Winchester is. He remembers the last time he saw him, in that mental institution, and he doubts Sam knows about this. Honestly, these boys and keeping secrets from each other. "They're through there. You do what you gotta do, but I'm heading out. I got some stuff to do."
When Martin is gone, Dean waits at the door for only a moment, taking a breath to calm himself. He's sure he's going to snap with how much tension is running through him.
Finally, Dean steps into the room, and the way sweat beads and runs down the faces and necks of his prey is almost a thrill to Dean.
"Walt. Roy. It's good to see you again, guys."
The two hunters in binds exchange looks as Dean sets down the bag of what they know to be weaponry. Walt tries first, knowing it's futile but deciding he has to do something.
"Hey, hey, Dean, look... about that time--"
"About when you shot and killed my brother in front of me then shot me?" Dean's eyes are still on the weapons he's laying out meticulously, and Walt swallows the knot of fear in his throat.
"Y-yeah, that... Look, man, we're sorry. We're real sorry, aren't we, Roy?"
Roy stammers before he finds his voice, looking up at Dean with wide eyes. "Yeah-- Yeah, real sorry, man."
Dean huffs out a breath, something not quite a laugh and not quite a growl, but it's there and it's visceral, and the thick and cloying air is enough to choke a lesser man. Dean Winchester is not a lesser man.
"Oh, sure, you're both real sorry." Dean picks up a knife and he can almost hear Alastair in his ear, his nasally and yet commanding tone purring it's way into his mind like a litany of the worst possible praises for horrific acts no man should be proud of committing.
Oh, that's it, son. Give them back all the pain they caused you. They-- hm-- they deserve it, don't they? They took Sammy away, Dean.
Dean's breathing shallows and he closes his eyes. It's hardly the time to be having Hell flashbacks, not after surviving Purgatory. He's not sure which was worse, maybe Hell, for all the pain he caused innocent souls, maybe Purgatory for the exhaustion it set into his bones and his heart. Neither was pleasant, but Hell had a freedom to it, and Purgatory was pure.
Stabbing the knife into the table, Dean approaches Walt. He was the one who shot Sam, and then shot him. Roy was an unfortunate accessory to the plan. Maybe Dean will go easier on him. Maybe he'll be willing to let him live. Hell, maybe he'll let them both live.
Gripping Walt by the jaw, Dean looks into the man's eyes.
"You looking at me, Walt? Good, 'cause guess what?"
The pause Dean lets sink in is heavy and Walt is holding his breath, but Dean's vicious sneer is savage and inhuman.
"I'm back and I'm pissed."
He lets it linger for a moment before he pulls back, grabbing the knife from the table and leaning down over Walt again. "See, there's one thing I can't let slide, Walt, old buddy, old pal, and that's someone hurting my brother."
Dean slides the blade down Walt's chest, the edge so sharp it splits the fabric of Walt's shirt like it's gliding through butter, and Dean can hear Roy's panicked breathing to his right as he leans over Walt, this man's own breath hot on Dean's cheek.
"And you, you didn't just hurt Sammy. No, you killed him. And then, you dumb son of a bitch, you shot me too."
Walt's fear is so tangible in the air that Dean is sure he's breathing it in, directly from Walt's exhales. It's horrible, and he feels twisted and strange and broken, but he can't stop. This is a loose end, they're something he never got to finish, they're people who hurt Sam, who wanted Sam dead, that never got payback for doing the unforgivable. Damn it all, if he didn't give such a crap about Castiel, he'd have the angel strapped down for breaking Sam's wall, but that angel meant almost as much to him as Sam did.
But not quite. Not enough so that he'd do things like this for his sake. Not enough so that he'd willingly sell his soul, give the last of his blood and heart and breath, just to keep him going. No, Dean was already aware he'd failed Castiel, even if Cas swore he wasn't responsible, and he couldn't fix that, but this he could fix. This he could do for Sam. And a little bit for himself.
Maybe he'd finally lost it. Maybe everything the cops ever said about him over the years was true. Dean didn't give a shit anymore. No, he was going to make them pay for everything. He would make them pay for how his faith in Sam was shaken in Heaven. He'd carve out a new amulet for himself, if he damn well had to.
The first cut was smooth and along Walt's cheekbone. It only earned him a single hiss of pain from the other hunter who, as far as Martin had told him, hadn't hunted a god damn thing since they'd killed him and Sam. Maybe they had been big game back then. Maybe they were the Ultimate Hunt, and these two chuckleheads thought they could retire.
Guess they were wrong.
---
By the turn of the hour, Dean is bloodied, Roy is dizzy from the stench of blood and burned flesh, and Walt is drooling both blood and saliva as Dean pulls his head back by his hair. He eyes his work. It's all mostly superficial, just burns and cuts, and really he's been quite nice up until now, but he can't help wanting to cut deeper, and he isn't satisfied with the screams that come from Walt.
"So, how're we feeling, huh? It feels good, right? Cathartic, like a drink after a long day, hm?" Dean knows he's taunting, knows he's slipped into that dark place that he found himself in whenever Alastair handed him a blade in Hell. He wants to stop, he can hear himself screaming at him to stop, and Dean doesn't know if he can. What he does know is he'll be going back to the motel yet again a changed man and he hopes Sam doesn't have to deal with the fallout of it.
Sweat-slicked fingers drag over a wound on Walt's side, a knife cut, and Dean pushes on the sliced flesh until one finger slips inside, all the while listening to the screams coming from Walt.
Before he even has his finger inside up to the second knuckle, Walt is passing out on him for the third time since he started, and Dean yanks his hand away from the wound to slap Walt across the face. It wakes him and Dean tuts irritably.
"This isn't naptime, Walt."
Smearing the blood off his fingers and onto his jeans, Dean turns his gaze on Roy. He only now notices the man's thrown up nearby and he wonders vaguely when it happened. He doesn't remember it. Maybe he was too focused on Walt.
"So, either of you got a reason yet?" He'd been asking them for the past forty-five minutes, or so, about their reasons for everything. For killing Sam. They insisted it was the Apocalypse, and yet Dean wouldn't take it.
"We've... told... you..." Walt grits out through shaking breaths.
"The whole 'flipping the switch on the Apocalypse', yeah, I got that." Dean paces, like a caged animal aching to strike. "But, see, what I can't get my head around is why you thought it was a good idea to even point a gun at Sam. I mean, everyone's always known I'm a mean son of a bitch, and you guys caught me when I was barely a year out of Hell. It's like you just wanted me to do this." He turns to Roy then, hands pressing down on the man's arms where they're bound to the arms of the chair. "Is that it, Roy? Did you want me to rip Walt to pieces in front of you? Then do the same to you? Is that why you came for Sammy?"
Roy is trembling, eyes wide and pupils blown like he's high on something (fear, Dean figures), but he doesn't answer and Dean pushes away from him.
"Dammit, you guys were never this stupid before, were you? I mean, how anyone can just point a gun at Sam is beyond me." Yet Dean gets a flash of a memory in his head, of himself, doing that, pointing a gun at his little brother and spewing vile words he couldn't remember the taste of anymore, and he feels his self-loathing fury spark up like an ember bursting into a flame.
The anger and hatred for his own actions snaps him for a moment and Dean swings his fist, hitting Walt clean in the jaw. The man's head whips to the side and Dean brings that fist down over and over until Walt's eye is swollen shut and his lip is split and his nose is gushing blood.
Shaking out his hand, Dean curses under his breath and presses both hands down into the table sticky with blood from his knives. He breathes, trying to rationalise anything he can, and for a moment he spaces out, remembering doing this kind of thing in Purgatory, torturing for answers, trying to get Castiel's location out of beast after beast. They hadn't been humans anymore, not like Walt and Roy, but Dean's more primal side, his take care of Sammy instinct, was screaming at him that these two men gave up their right to be treated like humans when they pointed guns at Sam.
Dean looks over his shoulder, eyeing the mess Walt is in. He's weak, Dean can see that. He's not the kind of man who'd last more than a day on his rack in Hell, and Alastair's voice is back with a vengeance as he thinks on that for even a moment but Dean shakes it away. Sometimes, he wonders if this is his own mild, watered down version of Sam's hallucinations of Lucifer.
Hell fucks a man's mind six ways from Sunday, and while his forty years were horrifying, he's not prepared to imagine Sam's centuries.
---
Eventually Dean moves on from Walt. He leaves the man unconscious, with wounds so deep they'll need stitches, and burns so horrifying they'll need skin grafts. He tempts himself with the idea of giving him a Joker-like set of facial scars, but that'll just be a step too far, if he intends to leave them alive. He wonders if, maybe before he sold his soul, he would have just put a bullet in each of them. Now, he can't even consider such a quick and freeing end for them.
Roy gets cuts, he gets little burns, but Dean knows this one wasn't into the idea, he was dragged along by Walt, and tried to act the big tough hunter, but Dean is well aware that Roy was never going to pull the trigger on either of them.
"How you feelin', Roy? Because I'm thinking about letting you go, you know. You let Walt drag you around in that bullshit idea, and look where it landed you. He was right about one thing, though. Living with the knowledge of me being on your ass has you piss scared, don't it, Roy?"
The older hunter is shaking and Dean doesn't get a response beyond a whimper.
It's not even worth doing more to him. He's already as tortured as he'll ever be. That's enough for Dean.
---
He calls Martin, thanks him, ignores the six missed calls from Sam, and he even unties Roy, but he leaves Walt bound up. He packs away his weapons and the entire time Roy remains in his seat, just breathing and trembling. Dean is down from his high, he's out of the haze, and he's almost shaking too, with disgust and self-hatred, and a multitude of other emotions he can't quite pin down. Still, he doesn't let the mask slip and he makes sure Roy gets the full message.
"Don't fuck with the Winchesters."
It's nearing dawn when he finally gets back to the motel. Sam is awake, he knows that by the light on in the room that he can see shining even through the curtains over the window. Dean is bloody, it's all down his grey t-shirt and the blue and grey plaid shirt he had on over it, it's dried and crusted on his jeans, it's on his hands and his face, and he can feel his fingertips trembling a little bit as he turns off the Impala's engine.
Sam's at him before he even has the door all the way open.
"Where the Hell were you, Dean?!" It's a second later, when Dean's fully in the room, that Sam sees the blood and registers it as something Very Wrong. "What happened? Whose blood is that? Are you okay?!"
Dean just grunts at him, sliding his clean jacket off and hooking it over a chair. Next he's peeling off the plaid shirt, the blood making it hard to get off, and he still hasn't answered Sam. The taller brother isn't letting him off easy, though.
"Dean, god dammit, what's going on?!"
Sam's hands are on his arms, his biceps, and Dean's mind finally slams back into his own body with the realisation that Sam is here, alive, and awake, and completely, utterly, entirely freaked out. Dean breathes, looks up at him, and shrugs off his hands.
"I'm fine, it's not my blood," Dean assures him, but that only brings up more questions for Sam, ones he doesn't even need to say, because they're painted on his face and shining in his hazel eyes, and Dean can only see a six month old baby in his arms, a five year old asking too many questions, a thirteen year old that idolises him, a nineteen year old that wants to leave, and the twenty-two year old that needs him like he did when he was six months old.
"What did you do, Dean?" The quiver in Sam's voice is unnoticeable to everyone but Dean, because Dean knows this guy, this kid, like the back of his own hand. Better even.
He doesn't answer, he peels away his bloody clothes as he makes his way towards the bathroom, shutting the door behind him and locking it.
---
Sam is wrung out with panic and confusion and questions, Sam on the end of Dean's unslept-in bed with his hands clasped tightly, to keep them from raking through his hair or down his face yet again. When Dean finally emerges, clean and wearing clothes Sam didn't realise he'd taken into the bathroom with him, Sam surges to his feet, crowding Dean up against the wall with both hands fisted hard in the black t-shirt Dean has on.
When his back hits the wall, Dean lets out a huff of breath, but he doesn't fight Sam off. He watches his little brother with the reverence he always did, with the unguarded devotion.
"What. Did you. Do?"
The way Sam grits it out makes Dean feel even more knotted and twisted inside for what he did.
"I called in a few debts," he answered vaguely and as Sam yanks him a few inches from the wall just to slam him harder against it should make him angry. It should bring out the belligerent older brother who can still knock his too-tall sibling on his ass, but it doesn't.
"Dean, god dammit!"
Sam backs off, most of the way, and Dean stays where he is. "Walt and Roy." He breathes the words out but he knows Sam hears them because he turns sharply to look back at him.
"Are they...?"
"Dead? No. They didn't deserve a get out of jail free card." Dean straightens his shirt and rubs his hand over his mouth, and he watches Sam with a guarded uncertainty.
The younger Winchester lets out a breath, pushes his hand through his hair, and he wonders if Sam is going to freak out even more. He's not sure what they can do to change anything, though, and Dean finally sets the line of his shoulders and squares up. "You can be pissed all you want, Sam, but I did this because no one screws with you. I couldn't give a damn about them killing me, but nobody screws with my brother."
And it's then, in the cool morning light, with the sun barely risen an hour ago, and the stink of blood still painted through the air, that Sam realises what this is about. This is Dean's apology, for Missouri, for the Spectre, for everything said, and Sam isn't sure if he wants to laugh or cry, but he knows now, above all else, that he can't even imagine going back to being normal.
Not with Dean still alive. Not when he knows just how shattered and torn and damaged his older brother is.
If someone-- If Sam isn't there to keep Dean in line, then all Hell and all Purgatory will break loose of Dean Winchester and pour into the world like salt water on an open wound. He watches Dean for a moment, the way his brother stares him down like he expects an argument, and Sam is stunned.
Just over a year ago, his whole world imploded and rained down on him. Now, Sam realises, it's still raining and he's not sure he's ready for the flood that Dean is, but he'll have to be.
It's late, when it comes, and Dean is already half way ready to get some sleep. Sam is already curled up on himself in the bed, facing Dean's bed, and the older of the two watches him for the longest moment before getting himself off the chair by the table and pulling his jeans back on. He sits on the edge of his bed, nearly silent as he pulls his boots on and laces them, facing Sam's sleeping form the entire time.
Feet planted firmly on the floor, Dean's elbows dig into his knees as he watches his little brother. He's not sure what to do. Should he wake him? Would it be something Sam would want to be involved in? He doubts it, somehow. Sam isn't like that. He's always been a vicious son of a bitch when he got started but he's not sure Sam's really able to stomach some of the things that Dean can cope with. They both came out of Hell different men, in the end, and Dean's got Purgatory on top of that.
"I'm doing this for you, so you can't be pissed at me," he murmurs to Sam's sleeping face and the only sign his words even register on a subconscious level is the minute twitch of Sam's nose.
Dean knows Sam doesn't just wake up easily with him knocking around in their room. He never has. Sam's a sensitive bastard, though, and always knows when something is up, even when he's asleep, so Dean waits a few minutes, in case his brother wakes, just keeping watch on him.
Things are still strained sometimes. They don't quite get each other as much as they did before and Dean knows it's because no one's talking about what happened, what really happened, in their year apart. They skirt edges and they offer half thoughts, half comments, but never the full story. Dean knows the Spectre did a number on them; it made him say things he never would have, it made him try to kill the one person he never would, and he knows Sam is still angry at him and he's sure Sam took to heart whatever bullshit the spirit made him spit out, and while he won't deny he probably felt some of that, he never felt that angry in his entire life and it wasn't him.
Maybe he can right a few wrongs tonight. Starting with this.
He gets up, hesitating with the urge to ruffle Sam's hair like he would when his brother was tiny and could be carried around, but he knows they're not really kids anymore. They never were. So, he heads out the door, after pulling on a jacket, and he doesn't leave a note because he knows Sam will come looking for him. He doesn't want Sam to see this.
---
It's a half hour drive to the location Martin sent him, and Dean's hands are trembling with anticipating. It's sick, he knows that, but he can't help wanting this. He has wanted this since long before Lucifer ever got his icy hands on his brother and before his faith in Sam had been well and truly shaken.
Dean steels himself as he pulls up outside the shack. It's a small hunting cabin, something of a worn down and battered place, but it adds to the charm, he decides, as he gets out of the car. He fills a small bag with weapons and slings it over his shoulder as he heads up the three creaking steps and to the door, pushing it open.
"Martin?" It's a gruff call and the older hunter comes out from a side room with a wary look in his eyes.
"Dean, it's good to see ya, boy," he tells him, and Dean gives him the regular cheery grin and the firm handshake, but even Martin is able to see how forced any happiness from Dean Winchester is. He remembers the last time he saw him, in that mental institution, and he doubts Sam knows about this. Honestly, these boys and keeping secrets from each other. "They're through there. You do what you gotta do, but I'm heading out. I got some stuff to do."
When Martin is gone, Dean waits at the door for only a moment, taking a breath to calm himself. He's sure he's going to snap with how much tension is running through him.
Finally, Dean steps into the room, and the way sweat beads and runs down the faces and necks of his prey is almost a thrill to Dean.
"Walt. Roy. It's good to see you again, guys."
The two hunters in binds exchange looks as Dean sets down the bag of what they know to be weaponry. Walt tries first, knowing it's futile but deciding he has to do something.
"Hey, hey, Dean, look... about that time--"
"About when you shot and killed my brother in front of me then shot me?" Dean's eyes are still on the weapons he's laying out meticulously, and Walt swallows the knot of fear in his throat.
"Y-yeah, that... Look, man, we're sorry. We're real sorry, aren't we, Roy?"
Roy stammers before he finds his voice, looking up at Dean with wide eyes. "Yeah-- Yeah, real sorry, man."
Dean huffs out a breath, something not quite a laugh and not quite a growl, but it's there and it's visceral, and the thick and cloying air is enough to choke a lesser man. Dean Winchester is not a lesser man.
"Oh, sure, you're both real sorry." Dean picks up a knife and he can almost hear Alastair in his ear, his nasally and yet commanding tone purring it's way into his mind like a litany of the worst possible praises for horrific acts no man should be proud of committing.
Oh, that's it, son. Give them back all the pain they caused you. They-- hm-- they deserve it, don't they? They took Sammy away, Dean.
Dean's breathing shallows and he closes his eyes. It's hardly the time to be having Hell flashbacks, not after surviving Purgatory. He's not sure which was worse, maybe Hell, for all the pain he caused innocent souls, maybe Purgatory for the exhaustion it set into his bones and his heart. Neither was pleasant, but Hell had a freedom to it, and Purgatory was pure.
Stabbing the knife into the table, Dean approaches Walt. He was the one who shot Sam, and then shot him. Roy was an unfortunate accessory to the plan. Maybe Dean will go easier on him. Maybe he'll be willing to let him live. Hell, maybe he'll let them both live.
Gripping Walt by the jaw, Dean looks into the man's eyes.
"You looking at me, Walt? Good, 'cause guess what?"
The pause Dean lets sink in is heavy and Walt is holding his breath, but Dean's vicious sneer is savage and inhuman.
"I'm back and I'm pissed."
He lets it linger for a moment before he pulls back, grabbing the knife from the table and leaning down over Walt again. "See, there's one thing I can't let slide, Walt, old buddy, old pal, and that's someone hurting my brother."
Dean slides the blade down Walt's chest, the edge so sharp it splits the fabric of Walt's shirt like it's gliding through butter, and Dean can hear Roy's panicked breathing to his right as he leans over Walt, this man's own breath hot on Dean's cheek.
"And you, you didn't just hurt Sammy. No, you killed him. And then, you dumb son of a bitch, you shot me too."
Walt's fear is so tangible in the air that Dean is sure he's breathing it in, directly from Walt's exhales. It's horrible, and he feels twisted and strange and broken, but he can't stop. This is a loose end, they're something he never got to finish, they're people who hurt Sam, who wanted Sam dead, that never got payback for doing the unforgivable. Damn it all, if he didn't give such a crap about Castiel, he'd have the angel strapped down for breaking Sam's wall, but that angel meant almost as much to him as Sam did.
But not quite. Not enough so that he'd do things like this for his sake. Not enough so that he'd willingly sell his soul, give the last of his blood and heart and breath, just to keep him going. No, Dean was already aware he'd failed Castiel, even if Cas swore he wasn't responsible, and he couldn't fix that, but this he could fix. This he could do for Sam. And a little bit for himself.
Maybe he'd finally lost it. Maybe everything the cops ever said about him over the years was true. Dean didn't give a shit anymore. No, he was going to make them pay for everything. He would make them pay for how his faith in Sam was shaken in Heaven. He'd carve out a new amulet for himself, if he damn well had to.
The first cut was smooth and along Walt's cheekbone. It only earned him a single hiss of pain from the other hunter who, as far as Martin had told him, hadn't hunted a god damn thing since they'd killed him and Sam. Maybe they had been big game back then. Maybe they were the Ultimate Hunt, and these two chuckleheads thought they could retire.
Guess they were wrong.
---
By the turn of the hour, Dean is bloodied, Roy is dizzy from the stench of blood and burned flesh, and Walt is drooling both blood and saliva as Dean pulls his head back by his hair. He eyes his work. It's all mostly superficial, just burns and cuts, and really he's been quite nice up until now, but he can't help wanting to cut deeper, and he isn't satisfied with the screams that come from Walt.
"So, how're we feeling, huh? It feels good, right? Cathartic, like a drink after a long day, hm?" Dean knows he's taunting, knows he's slipped into that dark place that he found himself in whenever Alastair handed him a blade in Hell. He wants to stop, he can hear himself screaming at him to stop, and Dean doesn't know if he can. What he does know is he'll be going back to the motel yet again a changed man and he hopes Sam doesn't have to deal with the fallout of it.
Sweat-slicked fingers drag over a wound on Walt's side, a knife cut, and Dean pushes on the sliced flesh until one finger slips inside, all the while listening to the screams coming from Walt.
Before he even has his finger inside up to the second knuckle, Walt is passing out on him for the third time since he started, and Dean yanks his hand away from the wound to slap Walt across the face. It wakes him and Dean tuts irritably.
"This isn't naptime, Walt."
Smearing the blood off his fingers and onto his jeans, Dean turns his gaze on Roy. He only now notices the man's thrown up nearby and he wonders vaguely when it happened. He doesn't remember it. Maybe he was too focused on Walt.
"So, either of you got a reason yet?" He'd been asking them for the past forty-five minutes, or so, about their reasons for everything. For killing Sam. They insisted it was the Apocalypse, and yet Dean wouldn't take it.
"We've... told... you..." Walt grits out through shaking breaths.
"The whole 'flipping the switch on the Apocalypse', yeah, I got that." Dean paces, like a caged animal aching to strike. "But, see, what I can't get my head around is why you thought it was a good idea to even point a gun at Sam. I mean, everyone's always known I'm a mean son of a bitch, and you guys caught me when I was barely a year out of Hell. It's like you just wanted me to do this." He turns to Roy then, hands pressing down on the man's arms where they're bound to the arms of the chair. "Is that it, Roy? Did you want me to rip Walt to pieces in front of you? Then do the same to you? Is that why you came for Sammy?"
Roy is trembling, eyes wide and pupils blown like he's high on something (fear, Dean figures), but he doesn't answer and Dean pushes away from him.
"Dammit, you guys were never this stupid before, were you? I mean, how anyone can just point a gun at Sam is beyond me." Yet Dean gets a flash of a memory in his head, of himself, doing that, pointing a gun at his little brother and spewing vile words he couldn't remember the taste of anymore, and he feels his self-loathing fury spark up like an ember bursting into a flame.
The anger and hatred for his own actions snaps him for a moment and Dean swings his fist, hitting Walt clean in the jaw. The man's head whips to the side and Dean brings that fist down over and over until Walt's eye is swollen shut and his lip is split and his nose is gushing blood.
Shaking out his hand, Dean curses under his breath and presses both hands down into the table sticky with blood from his knives. He breathes, trying to rationalise anything he can, and for a moment he spaces out, remembering doing this kind of thing in Purgatory, torturing for answers, trying to get Castiel's location out of beast after beast. They hadn't been humans anymore, not like Walt and Roy, but Dean's more primal side, his take care of Sammy instinct, was screaming at him that these two men gave up their right to be treated like humans when they pointed guns at Sam.
Dean looks over his shoulder, eyeing the mess Walt is in. He's weak, Dean can see that. He's not the kind of man who'd last more than a day on his rack in Hell, and Alastair's voice is back with a vengeance as he thinks on that for even a moment but Dean shakes it away. Sometimes, he wonders if this is his own mild, watered down version of Sam's hallucinations of Lucifer.
Hell fucks a man's mind six ways from Sunday, and while his forty years were horrifying, he's not prepared to imagine Sam's centuries.
---
Eventually Dean moves on from Walt. He leaves the man unconscious, with wounds so deep they'll need stitches, and burns so horrifying they'll need skin grafts. He tempts himself with the idea of giving him a Joker-like set of facial scars, but that'll just be a step too far, if he intends to leave them alive. He wonders if, maybe before he sold his soul, he would have just put a bullet in each of them. Now, he can't even consider such a quick and freeing end for them.
Roy gets cuts, he gets little burns, but Dean knows this one wasn't into the idea, he was dragged along by Walt, and tried to act the big tough hunter, but Dean is well aware that Roy was never going to pull the trigger on either of them.
"How you feelin', Roy? Because I'm thinking about letting you go, you know. You let Walt drag you around in that bullshit idea, and look where it landed you. He was right about one thing, though. Living with the knowledge of me being on your ass has you piss scared, don't it, Roy?"
The older hunter is shaking and Dean doesn't get a response beyond a whimper.
It's not even worth doing more to him. He's already as tortured as he'll ever be. That's enough for Dean.
---
He calls Martin, thanks him, ignores the six missed calls from Sam, and he even unties Roy, but he leaves Walt bound up. He packs away his weapons and the entire time Roy remains in his seat, just breathing and trembling. Dean is down from his high, he's out of the haze, and he's almost shaking too, with disgust and self-hatred, and a multitude of other emotions he can't quite pin down. Still, he doesn't let the mask slip and he makes sure Roy gets the full message.
"Don't fuck with the Winchesters."
It's nearing dawn when he finally gets back to the motel. Sam is awake, he knows that by the light on in the room that he can see shining even through the curtains over the window. Dean is bloody, it's all down his grey t-shirt and the blue and grey plaid shirt he had on over it, it's dried and crusted on his jeans, it's on his hands and his face, and he can feel his fingertips trembling a little bit as he turns off the Impala's engine.
Sam's at him before he even has the door all the way open.
"Where the Hell were you, Dean?!" It's a second later, when Dean's fully in the room, that Sam sees the blood and registers it as something Very Wrong. "What happened? Whose blood is that? Are you okay?!"
Dean just grunts at him, sliding his clean jacket off and hooking it over a chair. Next he's peeling off the plaid shirt, the blood making it hard to get off, and he still hasn't answered Sam. The taller brother isn't letting him off easy, though.
"Dean, god dammit, what's going on?!"
Sam's hands are on his arms, his biceps, and Dean's mind finally slams back into his own body with the realisation that Sam is here, alive, and awake, and completely, utterly, entirely freaked out. Dean breathes, looks up at him, and shrugs off his hands.
"I'm fine, it's not my blood," Dean assures him, but that only brings up more questions for Sam, ones he doesn't even need to say, because they're painted on his face and shining in his hazel eyes, and Dean can only see a six month old baby in his arms, a five year old asking too many questions, a thirteen year old that idolises him, a nineteen year old that wants to leave, and the twenty-two year old that needs him like he did when he was six months old.
"What did you do, Dean?" The quiver in Sam's voice is unnoticeable to everyone but Dean, because Dean knows this guy, this kid, like the back of his own hand. Better even.
He doesn't answer, he peels away his bloody clothes as he makes his way towards the bathroom, shutting the door behind him and locking it.
---
Sam is wrung out with panic and confusion and questions, Sam on the end of Dean's unslept-in bed with his hands clasped tightly, to keep them from raking through his hair or down his face yet again. When Dean finally emerges, clean and wearing clothes Sam didn't realise he'd taken into the bathroom with him, Sam surges to his feet, crowding Dean up against the wall with both hands fisted hard in the black t-shirt Dean has on.
When his back hits the wall, Dean lets out a huff of breath, but he doesn't fight Sam off. He watches his little brother with the reverence he always did, with the unguarded devotion.
"What. Did you. Do?"
The way Sam grits it out makes Dean feel even more knotted and twisted inside for what he did.
"I called in a few debts," he answered vaguely and as Sam yanks him a few inches from the wall just to slam him harder against it should make him angry. It should bring out the belligerent older brother who can still knock his too-tall sibling on his ass, but it doesn't.
"Dean, god dammit!"
Sam backs off, most of the way, and Dean stays where he is. "Walt and Roy." He breathes the words out but he knows Sam hears them because he turns sharply to look back at him.
"Are they...?"
"Dead? No. They didn't deserve a get out of jail free card." Dean straightens his shirt and rubs his hand over his mouth, and he watches Sam with a guarded uncertainty.
The younger Winchester lets out a breath, pushes his hand through his hair, and he wonders if Sam is going to freak out even more. He's not sure what they can do to change anything, though, and Dean finally sets the line of his shoulders and squares up. "You can be pissed all you want, Sam, but I did this because no one screws with you. I couldn't give a damn about them killing me, but nobody screws with my brother."
And it's then, in the cool morning light, with the sun barely risen an hour ago, and the stink of blood still painted through the air, that Sam realises what this is about. This is Dean's apology, for Missouri, for the Spectre, for everything said, and Sam isn't sure if he wants to laugh or cry, but he knows now, above all else, that he can't even imagine going back to being normal.
Not with Dean still alive. Not when he knows just how shattered and torn and damaged his older brother is.
If someone-- If Sam isn't there to keep Dean in line, then all Hell and all Purgatory will break loose of Dean Winchester and pour into the world like salt water on an open wound. He watches Dean for a moment, the way his brother stares him down like he expects an argument, and Sam is stunned.
Just over a year ago, his whole world imploded and rained down on him. Now, Sam realises, it's still raining and he's not sure he's ready for the flood that Dean is, but he'll have to be.