Title: Let it at length have an end
Author: rinkle
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Gen
Characters: Sam, Dean, Bobby
Spoilers: Up to and including 3.12, set post 3.12
Word count: 1073
Disclaimer: Don't own anything, not being paid.
A/N: Title from a quote by Thomas Burnet, "A Treatise Concerning the State of Departed Souls". Thank you to starrylizard and lostandalone22 for betaing.
Summary: How long does Dean have to be dead to go to hell?
Sam impatiently brushes his wet hair out of his face and leans down again, breathing for Dean, his heart pounding enough for the both of them.
Weight on Dean's chest, pumping. Air in and out, exhaustion in his arms and shoulders, spots dancing in front of his eyes.
Then there's the blessed moment when Dean's body spasms, heaving up the water in his lungs, placed safely on his side so he won't choke again.
He's not conscious.
The ambulance turns up and they rush to hospital.
It's only when the doctor says he's not going to wake up that Sam thinks, no longer operating on pure adrenaline and drive.
How long did Dean have to be dead to go to hell?
"I'm sorry, Sam. He's not there anymore."
Missouri's words confirm everything that Sam has been trying not to think for the past three days.
"It's not just brain damage?"
He can see from Missouri and Bobby's reactions that he sounds cold and distant.
"No…no, I don't think so. It's like he's empty inside."
Dean is in hell, then, but his body is still alive.
There are options here.
Sam wakes up at Bobby's place, handcuffed to a bed. The last he remembers he was walking out of the care facility, satisfied that they were caring for Dean and ready to leave his shell behind.
He guesses that Bobby somehow realised that.
"You're awake," Bobby says as he walks into the room, not apologising for his actions.
"And you've got me handcuffed to a bed. Should I be worried?"
Bobby's expression indicates that he thinks Sam has completely lost it. Sam thinks that he probably has. The cold automaton that surfaced in the Trickster's reality has never been submerged very far. Dean being here was all that had kept it from completely taking over again.
"I can help, Sam. I don't want you taking off on me on some insane quest to do this by yourself."
Sam studies him for a minute, sees the grief that is barely hidden.
"I don't want you destroying yourself to bring him back."
Bobby knows about demons, about hell and has more contacts than Sam has ever had. That's the only reason he stays and lets Bobby help him.
Four months later, one month before Dean's deadline would have passed, Bobby trusts him to go off on a hunt on his own. They've made progress in ruling out ways to get Dean back and Bobby thinks that there are still plenty of rituals left to go through. After all, demons have to get out of hell somehow.
The only way he can kill the succubus is by letting it drain another man. Only after they've fed are they vulnerable. She knows nothing useful to help him and he leaves her corpse beside that of her last meal.
He feels a glimmer of pity that the man had to die. His death will save many more.
Three months after Dean was due to die, Bobby finds something.
It doesn't require draining a man of blood or ripping out the heart of a virgin. Sam isn't sure anymore whether he could have done it if it did.
There had been a child and she'd trusted him so much to do what was right, to protect her. To protect her family. It had felt like his eyes were suddenly open again, like he was suddenly in the sun again after eons of nuclear winter.
It takes another two months to follow up on all the references they have, to make sure that the ritual does what they think it should. Three months after that they have all the esoteric items they need to summon Dean from Hell.
Dean has been an empty shell for just over a year when they perform the ritual. Nothing happens at first and Sam thinks that they've failed. Dean's body still lies unmoving on the bed, pale and skinny.
Then light-grey smoke comes seeping out of the floor, sinuously weaving around the room and alighting gently against Dean's mouth, before darting over to an empty expanse of floor. Dean coalesces out of the smoke, dressed as he was when he drowned.
Sam can feel tears running down his cheeks as he stands and moves the few feet to face Dean. A smile blazes across Dean's face, more radiant than any that Sam has ever seen on the living version.
"Your….your body didn't die," Sam says, struggling to get the words out. "You can return to it."
He doesn't want Dean to disappear in a burst of light like their dad did, doesn't want Dean's body to just lie there, empty, for another thirty years. Dean could already be whole again, but he isn't.
Dean's spirit pulls at the collar of his shirt and exposes the tattoo that protected him from being possessed and Sam suddenly realises.
"Oh, shit, shit. Bobby, the tattoo! He can't get back into his body!"
"We'll have to get it removed," Bobby replies. "But, it'll take time. Can he exist without a body for that long?"
Dean fades away again into the grey smoke and moves towards the door. Sam and Bobby follow him as he ducks briefly into nearby rooms, before deciding on one. There's an older man lying still on the bed closest to the door. The man's mouth is open and his throat works as the smoke pours into the body. Sam expects it to suddenly wake up and move as Dean takes control, but it stays still. Dean's not going to wreck another family by making it seem that their loved one has suddenly recovered. That reassures Sam that Dean is still the Dean he knew.
It's four weeks before Dean's body has the first laser treatment to remove the tattoo. They're fairly confident that with several treatments it'll disappear and not just fade. Sam ignores the weird looks he gets; to them, Dean's just a vegetable and it'd be a relief if he died.
After three months, Dean tries again, but it hasn't faded enough. Four months after that, Dean finally opens his eyes.
Over the coming months, when Dean is so clearly still Dean, Sam convinces himself that the flash of grey over Dean's eyes when he woke up was just a trick of the light.
Five years, seven months and twenty-one days later Dean gets shot point blank in the chest.
He doesn't die.