Wash My Soul
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When he found Sam, his brother was on his knees, hands clasped together, head bowed in front of a bare altar. It was built in the same style the church was. Simple. Not many colors, not many pictures.
Sam must like that, Dean thought. He remembered Pastor Jim's church, statues of Jesus bleeding with an agonized expression on his face and portraits of crying Mary. They were so expressive that even the pictures of gracefully smiling angels couldn't stop little Sammy from shivering. Dean remembers putting a hand on his slight little shoulder, pressing him against his body.
Dean was strong, reassuring, but most of all, there. Always there, not ready to pick Sam up, but not letting him fall, at all.
Maybe that was the reason why Dean was so angry seeing Sam there on his knees for God. He had been praying all his life, still was apparently, to a God who was never there. Dean, who would never willingly leave Sam, the mere thought of it seeming simply unnatural and so foreign, didn't enjoy the same position in his little brother's life.
He hadn't taken care to be silent while entering the church. He could've been, he was stealthy and knew exactly when it was smart to let himself known. Dean had wanted Sam to notice him.
But Sam's big body that looked oddly small there kneeling on the cold, hard floor didn't budge. He only rocked a little for- and backwards to a rhythm only he seemed to know. Dean could hear almost silent whispers, hushed and incomprehensible leaving Sam's mouth.
When he finally arrived at his brother's side he saw that his eyes were closed. He put a hand on his shoulder and noticed how little flesh was there. It felt so skinny that he had a good grip on the bone. His little brother flinched, his eyes open now. In the dim lights, his pupils were small, the green-brown-blue of his iris standing out even more so against the red skin surrounding them. He looked tired, even with the obvious look of shock on his face.
"Sammy," Dean said, his own voice low but yet so loud in the otherwise empty church.
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Afterwards, many hours later, Sam had led him to his Baby. She stood there, spotless, every part of her gleaming even though there was no sun shining. Inside she was just as perfect and when Dean sat in her, it almost seemed unfamiliar. Everything about her was so immaculate, it vaguely felt like getting ready for taking a car for a test drive. The smell of sweat, blood, beer, gunpowder and them, almost but not quite vanished.
"You didn't drive her?"
Sam shrugged. "Not really." He had slept there sometimes, though.
Sam had a little house, it was tiny really, kinda cold and definitely not comfortable. But that hadn't mattered when he got it at that time. Nothing had.
The little hut had been very cheap with how many problems it had and how it was seated at a pretty deserted place. But the only thing that was of value to Sam was that it was right there, next to the little church.
Still, despite how small the hut was, it was more than big enough to fit Sam's body in there. He shouldn't have had to sleep in the Impala. But sometimes, in his rare little breaks from praying he would go outside for a bit and stretch his legs out. His knees ached from kneeling for hours.
He'd walk through the woods that started right behind the church. The only sounds would come from the little river rushing right next to his little house and from the church bells, soothingly ringing every hour.
Restlessness would suddenly take a grip on him, making him antsy. He'd return to his little hut. Right next to it stood the Impala, protected with a plank from the rainy weather that wasn't rare around here. He'd pull it off, unlock the car and lay himself on the backseat. The space should've been too small, technically was, but to him it felt like he had grown into the shape of this car. Everything was perfect.
He'd take a deep breath, the underlying smell of gunpowder would never leave the leather, no matter how many times they-he cleaned it. Just like it was supposed to be.
He tried not to spend too much time dwelling because after the quick sense of comfort and nostalgia came the memories with vivid clarity. He'd remember Dean. He'd start to cry.
He never bothered to be silent. There was no one there to watch him come undone and it wasn't like he had any pride left to protect.
So he sat up. He didn't know whether God minded people talking to him while lying around, but it felt wrong, disrespectful to do so. That's why he'd gather his limbs and pull them towards his chest, tightly hugging them after reaching into his pocket and pulling the familiar amulet out. The pointy ends that he knew all too well comforted him, making him sigh softly and wistfully. He trained his eyes on the little toy soldier as he started to recite the Pater Noster, letting the words he had spoken so many times roll of his tongue and sooth him.
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Sometimes, late at night when Dean wakes up from a nightmare, he can hear Sam talk. He is always lying on his side, Dean in the other bed and in Sam's field of vision. His little brother's voice is low and his words are mumbled. He's still sleeping. But after listening to him for a few minutes, Dean starts to discern the words.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum.
Dean recognizes it for what it is. He never had been a Latin geek like his little brother is, had only learned as much as he needed for the hunt. Neither is he religious, not in the way Sam is.
Still, he listens to Sam's low mumbling, the repetitive revision of the words somehow calming after the terrors of a nightmare. He memorizes each of Sam's words, his pronunciation, the way he stresses certain phrases.
There is always that one sentence that breaks through Sam's otherwise monotonous, sleepy mumbling.
Et dimitte nobis debita nostra.
'Et' means 'and', 'nobis' is 'us' and 'nostra'… is 'us' too? Or was it 'our'?
He recites the Lord's Prayer in his head, but only comes as far as 'Thy kingdom come'. He is pretty sure that the next line is something about 'Thy will', but he can't remember the exact phrase. Soon though, Sam's mumbles lull him back to sleep.
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Later, as in months later, he's in a church and Dean remembers.
"Say Father, how goes the Lord's Prayer again?"
The look on the old man's face is so scandalized, Dean would laugh if he still could. But those days are over.
The man recites the Prayer with well practiced ease.
He listens to the man, waiting for a line to start with 'And'. There had been an 'et' at the beginning of Sam's phrase, he is sure. There it was.
'And forgive us our trespasses.'
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Sam prays for forgiveness. He spends hours on his knees begging God to give him another chance, absolve him of his sins and make him worthy. No 'Et dimitte nobis debita nostra' is spoken without thought. No matter how often he repeats it, the words never lose their heavy meaning.
He made a deal of reciting the Lord's Prayer in Latin and he isn't quite sure why. Maybe it is because the dead, ancient words seem to hold power. When Sam and Dean exorcise a demon, it is always done in Latin after all.
It also felt more intimate that way. He never talked in Latin with anyone, only when speaking to God.
So yes, 'Et dimitte nobis debita nostra' was his favorite line. The amount of actions he had to be forgiven for seemed endless and it never stopped growing. No matter how much he tried to be good, to be worthy, he always screwed up sooner or later.
This time had been no different. When Dean had vanished, Sam had thought that he had died. He had believed his brother was up in Heaven, probably with Mom and Bobby and all their friends. Happy and content.
He couldn't have tried bringing Dean back. In a way, it was even worse than spending months alone, trying to break the time loop created by Gabriel to teach him a lesson. It was even worse than all that time he spent with Ruby after Dean had been actually killed, mauled to death by hellhounds.
Because they had promised each other not to resurrect the other if something like this would happen.
Sam had wanted to be selfish, wanted to search for all the ways to bring Dean back right there where he wanted to have him: Back to Sam.
But he couldn't. He couldn't have torn Dean away from Heaven's peace only to bring him back into the clusterfuck that was their life. It wouldn't have been fair towards his brother who had made so many sacrifices already.
So yes, he thought he was doing the right thing at that time, even if it pained him. He'd spent hours on his knees instead, selfishly begging God to give him some peace of mind, make it stop hurting so much.
But his life was a running gag. Sam thought he should've learned the signs sometime along the way; because even if he intended to do the good thing it later revealed itself to be wrong all along.
The line 'sed libera nos a malo', gained a whole new meaning.
But deliver us from evil, God, please deliver me from all evil.
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It is days after they reunited when Dean can't take it anymore. He hadn't talked about it on his first day, when he had just met Sam again in the church. Even after a few more days, he couldn't bring himself to speak about it. Sammy had looked oddly weak.
But now he had had enough of it. The constant praying, even if Sam tried to keep it on the low, got on his nerves. When they were in their respective beds late at night in a motel room, he could hear Sam's lips moving against each other, even though he tried to be completely silent.
"Did you search for me?"
Sam was sitting in the passenger seat, tiredly slumped against the window. He'd gotten out of shape while Dean was gone, too skinny and easily out of breath. He could see how his little brother slightly clenched his fist in the pocket of his jacket.
"No."
Dean stopped the car, enjoying the sight of Sam being jolted forwards for a second before guilt took a hold of him. He brushed it aside.
"What do you mean, 'no'?" His voice was hard and his eyes were cold. Anger was burning inside his gut.
"I thought- We made a deal not to." Sam looked little and insecure but Dean didn't have it in him to feel sorry. The memories of Purgatory, of being hunted like prey day and night were too fresh.
"Oh come on, Sam," he scoffed and his brother had the decency to look fucking confused, puppy eyes wide and glistering. "That's not how we do this and you know that. Don't act fucking clueless." The rage that was boiling inside of him was impatiently waiting to spill.
"I prayed for you." And Dean hit his hand against the steering wheel, trying his best to brush the way Sam flinched in his seat off.
"Oh yeah? Is that supposed to make me feel better, Sam?" He ignored the hurt look on his brother's face because if someone was allowed to be hurt, it sure as hell wasn't Sam. "Helped me so much," he mocked "all those prayers of yours were of so much use really."
"Well, you got out, didn't you?" It was the first time since they had reunited that Sam seemed angry and it annoyed Dean that it wasn't even on his own behalf but on a guy's up in the sky who couldn't care less what happened to them.
"Careful Sam," he warned, his voice dangerously low, "I got out of there because I fought myself out of there. No one intervened and it wasn't fucking easy. If someone gets the credit for escaping from Purgatory, it sure as hell ain't God."
He barely finished his sentence when Sam got out of the car and slammed the door shut. The sound was startlingly loud. When Dean got out, he saw that Sam had walked across the street, watching the grassy scenery. It should've been a harmonic picture, but he could see how his brother's jaw was set, his arms crossed.
"Stupid fucking kid. Get into the car," he ordered, but Sam didn't move. "What the hell you waiting for? Get into the car," he repeated.
His brother turned around, his spine straight using his full height at last. "Leave God out of this."
Dean laughed. "Or what? You won't pray for me anymore?"
It was a jeer, simple mocking, but the hurt look that crossed Sam's face proved that he had accidently hit home. "Please don't, Sam. Don't fucking pray for me. I don't want anything reaching the guy up there on my behalf, if anything reaches him at all. I don't want to have anything to do with him."
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Sam never stopped praying for Dean, even when it was all over.
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"Hey, come on, I was angry, okay? Didn't mean it to be- I just, I was angry," he tried. The last couple days the atmosphere between them had been tense. Some tiny part of him had wanted Sam to suffer a little, but mostly it felt like it was Dean who was doing the suffering.
"Come on, that wasn't how I imagined our reunion to go. Where are the chick-flick moments?"
Sam's smile was weak and wobbly but it was there. Dean could see him relax a little.
"But don't expect me to start praying for you, again."
"Never," he teased.
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Sam isn't particularly surprised when Dean takes off for some alone time and leaves Sam to stew in their motel room. The atmosphere between them hadn't been exactly stellar even after their halfhearted reconciliation.
It doesn't bother him too much because there is a church just around the corner. Father James from his church had told him that it wouldn't really matter where he prayed because God was everywhere and would hear him anyway. Still, there was something different about being in a sacred place.
When he entered through the threshold, he had to force himself not to kneel in front of the altar immediately. After the last couple of months it felt like he was suppressing an inner instinct. But there were other people there and he was uncomfortable being watched while praying. What he was doing was between him and God. He chose the aisle in the first row to sit on.
He knew he had done another mistake by leaving Kevin alone to fend for himself. The kid was God's prophet, for Heaven's sake, he should've known better. But he didn't start to wallow in self-pity while contemplating about why he hadn't contacted Kevin. His desperation at that time shouldn't have mattered.
But what was done, was done. The only thing left to do was to ask for forgiveness and struggle to become better.
He didn't know how much time he spent in the church, but when he left the sky was dark. He took the rest of the day to work out and rebuild the muscle he had lost while his brother had been gone.
.
The next morning he went back to the Church at six o'clock. He felt a little at ease at seeing how departed the place was. Not even the elderly ladies from yesterday were there. Still, he didn't kneel. The place was too foreign for him to comfortably do so.
Instead, he sat in the first row, took a deep breath and watched the colorfully tinted windows. There was more color here than he liked there to be. For a moment, he worried. Was that blasphemy?
He was pulled out of his thoughts when someone sat right next to him. A priest. Older than Father James had been. The man introduced himself as Father Carter.
"I'm glad that a young man like you is spending so much time at the Lord's house." The smile on his face was kind and Sam blurted out the first thing that was on his mind.
"Is it a sin not to like the way the church was built in?"
Father Carter looked confused and Sam was sure he had offended him. Instead, the man started to laugh. "Well, this is an old building. Do you know why the ceilings are so high?"
He did. "To be closer to God."
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"Mate, you're brother is-" Benny made a motion with his hand, making it clear that he thought that Sam wasn't right in the head. Dean shrugged.
"He's been weird ever since I came back. In my absence he'd been living like a hermit, God his only companion." He rolled his eyes as Benny chuckled.
"You being gone must've hit him hard."
He snorted. "Didn't even look for me."
His friend leaned back, a contemplative look on his face. "Cut the kid some slack. He's desperate and the more you push him away, the more time he'll spent with the good old Lord."
Dean was aware of that, he wasn't dumb. Sometimes, when he couldn't help himself, he made a snide comment but Sam rarely joined in on the fight. Instead, Dean was given the silent treatment and when he left to unwind in a bar he knew that Sam was somewhere in a damn church wasting his time.
And that's what it was to Dean, a waste of time. Sam was supposed to be the smart one damn it; yet here he was, practically throwing his time into a trashcan.
"Why are people religious?"
Benny shrugged. "Mostly because they've been brought up that way."
Dean shook his head. "Dad didn't believe in god and I sure as hell didn't put these thoughts in Sammy's head either. How do people become religious?"
The silence stretched on, Benny seemingly lost in contemplation. "They seek guidance," he answered finally.
"Guidance? I've been practically dragging the kid along all his life. What more guidance does he need?" He asked indignantly and Benny howled in laughter.
"I think they mean something different; but hell, what do I know?"
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Sam was sitting on the wooden bank, the book in his hand clasped tightly, reading familiar words for the thousandth time. He must have been a pathetic sight to behold.
A man in familiar robes sat down next to him although the rest of the church was completely empty. It was a modern building, the insides flooded with light to make it appear a lot less stifling than those ones that were built in a rather traditional style. Normally, the architecture should have attracted more people, but it was midnight. Even he wouldn't have been here if he hadn't had a fight with Dean before.
The man introduced himself as Father Gregory and he asked whether he could help him somehow. Sam shrugged shyly. With how many Church Fathers he had met, one would think it would be easy for him to talk to them.
He reopened the page he had been reading earlier. The bible was a little battered with how often it had been scrolled through, but Sam had taken good care of it. He always hid it at the bottom of his duffel bag although it made him restless not to put God's word on a higher surface and respect it the way it deserved to be. He didn't want to see Dean rolling his eyes at the look of it though, it would have been an even bigger insult.
He pointed to the passage he had been reading.
'Ait: "Tolle filium tuum unigenitum, quem diligis, Isaac et vade in terram Moria; atque offer eum ibi in holocaustum super unum montium, monstravero tibi."
"God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Later Abraham obeys and God rewards his dutifulness by giving him a ram to sacrifice instead." Sam sighed, his shoulders sinking. "I want to be dutiful, too, but I couldn't ever do that."
"Do you have a son?"
"A brother."
Father Gregory's eyes were sympathetic. "Abraham's deed should serve us as a metaphor. It should teach us to sacrifice for the sake of the Lord."
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When Sam's turn to sacrifice comes, he accepts it with open arms.
His health was deteriorating and in the back of his mind he knew that he wouldn't make it. He was slowly dying.
But actually, it was only the trials purifying him before they would eventually put him to rest. Carving out the filth inside his body and washing his soul.
Since he could remember, he felt as if there was something inexplicably dirty clogging up his veins, making him unclean. Maybe it was one of the reasons he'd started to pray from such a young age on.
But with every drop of blood he was coughing up, it was as if he was spewing the muck out. The fewer boiling his insides was actually burning up all evil and bad.
It was exhilarating and he was thanking God for the chance to redeem himself. He had heard Sam and presented him this opportunity. Sam would not fail him.
He was in peace with dying. By the end of it, he'd never be able to do any wrong again, he wouldn't ever disappoint Dean again.
"You finish this trial, you're dead, Sam."
That was the plan. "So?" He couldn't believe that Dean argued with him about this. The decision they had to make was obvious. "Look at him." He motioned to Crowley who was nervously sitting in front of him, the syringe in his hand wavering. "Look at him! Look how close we are! Other people will die if I don't finish this!"
His brother's face took on a cautious expression, his hands up in the air and obviously trying to placate Sam. "Think about it. Think about what we know, huh? Pulling souls from hell, curing demons, hell, ganking a Hellhound! We have enough knowledge on our side to turn the tide here. But I can't do it without you."
Sam snorted and shook his head. "You can barely do it with me. I mean, you think I screw up everything I try. You think I need a chaperone, remember?"
Dean had never believed in Sam. Not since he came back from purgatory.
His brother's face distorted. "Come on, man. That's not what I meant."
"No, it's exactly what you meant. You want to know what I confessed in there?" The memory alone hurt. "What my greatest sin was? It was how many times I let you down. I can't do that again."
It's a sin he prayed to be forgiven for every single day.
"Sam-"
But he didn't let his brother finish. "What happens when you've decided I can't be trusted again? I mean, who are you gonna turn to next time instead of me? Another angel, another - another vampire? Do you have any idea what it feels like to watch your brother just –"
The pain was simply too deep. Dean and him, they were supposed to be a team. They were the one thing that they had on this planet, the one person they could completely rely on. But somewhere along, even before this whole mess had taken place, something in their relationship had broken.
"You seriously think that?" Dean's face became agitated. "Because none of it - none of it - is true. Listen, man, I know we've had our disagreements, okay? Hell, I know I've said some junk that set you back on your heels. But, Sammy...come on. I killed Benny to save you. I'm willing to let this bastard and all the sons of bitches that killed mom walk because of you. Don't you dare think that there is anything, past or present, that I would put in front of you! It has never been like that, ever! I need you to see that. I'm begging you."
Sam shook his head. He couldn't stop now. It was in him and he didn't know how to quit. This is what he was meant to do. "Hopefully, we won't be separated for long. Maybe we'll see each other in Heaven." He didn't know whether after all they had done they were so allowed to enter it, but he hoped so.
"I'm not in your heaven, Sam, remember?" Dean's voice was venomous, but as soon as he had said it, Sam could see the regret on his face. It didn't matter.
He could feel the tears fill his eyes and spill over his cheeks. He was so frustrated. "Why do you always have to do that? Why do you have to be so cruel?"
Because Dean could be cruel, whether he actually intended to be or not. Maybe it was Sam's fault for letting it get to him, because he valued his brother too much to brush his opinion simply off. Dean could rub salt in his wounds like no one else but he could also be the most soothing balm.
Dean could make Sam love and hate himself.
"I'm doing this for you."
His brother's face was froze and he took slow steps towards him. "Sam, you know I didn't mean to. Whatever I said, whatever I did, I never wanted you to be anywhere else but by my side."
Sam shook his head. He could feel his lips tremble against each other, the tears still spilling from his eyes.
"I love you."
The skin gave away easily when he pressed the syringe into the soft flesh.
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A/N: All I know is that it's 3am and that I'm freaking tired. It'd be awesome to wake up to some of you guys' comments tomorrow:)
I'm always up for discussion here or at my tumblr: desiringparadise