One of my favorite things about season 11 is how the boys are actually talking to each other. And there's so much more they could be talking about!
Set a bit after "Red Meat," though not concerning the events of that ep (already wrote that story); and includes one tiny, entirely expected spoiler for "Don't Call Me Shurley."
Render Safe Procedures
It's not that Sam deliberately hides it from Dean. They're doing so much research now, on the Darkness, on Hands of God, on Cas's situation, that he's got a dozen books scattered across the library tables at any given moment. So if he avoids reviewing those few particular texts when Dean's around, that's just coincidence. And Dean is so involved in his own studies that he doesn't notice.
At least, Sam doesn't think he does. Not until he comes back from the kitchen after dinner—getting shot didn't get him out of dish duty—to find Dean with one of the treatises open on the table before him. One of the treatises Sam's been leaving stacked under four or five other innocuous works, most of the time.
Maybe Dean just got bored with the latest volume of the unabridged Tobin's Spirit Guide he was going through. They've been holed up in the bunker for the last week and Dean's been getting more restless by the hour. Sam knows better than to try to talk his brother into another hunt, at least not until the stitches are out. And Dean is hitting the books harder than he'd hit on a diner waitress in Daisy Dukes, but his impatience shows in the haste with which he shoves books aside, in favor of the next equally unhelpful tome.
He's absorbed in this one, though, scanning down the pages, lips moving—Dean reads too quickly to verbalize, but when he's really engrossed he'll start reciting Ozzy or AC/DC. With Dean's shoulders hunched over the book, Sam can't get a glimpse of the current page.
He tries to make a guess as he sits down across from his brother, glancing at the thick ripple of yellowing pages. The treatise is nearly five hundred pages, a dense, meandering review of obscure exorcism rites by a Man of Letters who, even in Sam's opinion, was a little too fond of dictionaries. Dean is somewhere in the middle of it, but the chances that he'll come across those particular passages—or even if he does, that he'll take the mental effort to untangle the esoteric and frankly slightly unhinged ramblings...Sam's probably worried for nothing.
Laptop open and waiting, Sam returns to his own current project. He's soon so involved in deciphering the Latin and occasional Old High German that he doesn't realize when Dean puts the treatise aside. Not until there's a beer bottle interposed between his eyes and the computer screen.
"You're going cross-eyed," Dean helpfully informs him.
"And beer's supposed to help?" Sam says, but he accepts the bottle. Leans back in the chair and rolls his shoulders to loosen them, then winces as the motion pulls at the stitches.
"How's the bullet hole?" Dean asks, popping the cap off his own bottle.
"Fine," Sam says, like he's reported every night for the past week. "No infection, just a little sore. I can probably take out the stitches tomorrow." And then they can get back on the road, the next case he finds.
Dean nods, says, "Good," but he's not looking at Sam but down at the books scattered across the tabletop. "You come across anything interesting?"
"Not yet," Sam says. "How about you?"
Walking right into it—he should've been paying more attention to where Dean's gaze was resting. It's not until Dean's pause stretches into silence that Sam tracks his line of sight to the treatise, still open on the table.
"Interesting," Dean says finally. "Yeah, you could say that." He reaches out, taps his finger on the open folio. Upside down, the font's too small to make out, but Sam's read that page enough to recognize the arrangement of paragraphs.
"Found this one in your pile," Dean says. "You come across this part yet? About rituals to strengthen exorcisms and banishments? By, what was it—'sympathetic resonance achieved via ingestion of contaminated vital fluids.'" Dean's voice is quiet, calm. Controlled, not hinting at what feeling could be building behind it. "You saw that bit, Sam?"
Sam takes a deep gulp of beer, keeps his own voice as calm as he answers, "Yeah, I did, actually."
Dean raises his eyes from the book to Sam's. "So you've been reading about drinking demon blood."
"I've been reading just about everything on exorcisms I can get my hands on," Sam says. "And that's one method we know works. Even on powerful demons."
He doesn't know what to expect. An angry shout, a disgusted sneer. Or just hurt and worry. But all Dean says is, "Except Lucifer's not a demon."
Sam was braced, but not for this perfectly logical point. He gives his head a shake as if he can physically realign his thoughts. "No, he's not. And exorcisms don't work on angels, that we know of, much less archangels. But I thought it was worth looking into. Maybe give us another avenue to explore."
"Another avenue, right," Dean says. He tilts his bottle to his lips, swallows and says, "So...have you found anything from it?"
"Not yet," Sam says.
"Oh. Too bad."
Dean takes another pull of beer. Sam watches him, waiting.
Then decides screw it. It's getting late and he needs sleep, to have a clear head for research tomorrow. If they're going to have this fight, they can do it now.
Sam yanks the other two books out from under his stacks, shoves them across the table towards Dean. "There's more in these. About demon blood rituals. Drinking, injection—hell, this one's got a suggestion in the footnotes about smoking it. I wasn't the first Man of Letters to..." and he falters. Unrighteous anger only gets you so far.
"Chase the crimson dragon?" Dean suggests. "Ride the red horse? Light up a fat, uh, clot?—geeze, smoking it? Seriously?"
Sam stares at him. Dean quirks his eyebrows back.
Dean sometimes makes wisecracks when he's pissed off. But not about this, not that Sam can recall.
But then, it's been a long time since they've had this argument. Some of their fights are well-tracked roads, back and forth as familiar as the interstates. But Dean hasn't raised this specter in a while. And Sam wouldn't, not if he had a choice. Not if they weren't desperate, because it's the end of the world, again, worse than before. Because it's Lucifer and the Darkness both. Because it's Cas.
And maybe that's why Dean doesn't look angry now, that he's cracking jokes instead of snarling threats.
His smirk fades, though, the longer Sam goes without responding. Finally Dean asks, straight-faced and serious, "Is it hard on you? Reading about it?"
"I'm not getting inspired to go find a demon to suck dry, if that's what you're asking."
"It's not," Dean says immediately. Then, "Or. Well. Even if you weren't going to do it—"
"I'm not, Dean."
"—You're not, I know, I get it. But you're not...you know... Tempted?"
Sam takes a deep breath. Exhales it slowly. "Even if I found anything to suggest that drinking demon blood could help us now, I wouldn't do anything without discussing it with you. What we're dealing with now, it's too big for that. Whatever we try, we both need to be on board. And I know you wouldn't go for this—"
"Damn straight," Dean mutters.
"—which is why I didn't mention it. Not unless I found some pretty damn convincing evidence, which I haven't. As far as I can tell, it's a dead end. So we can drop it."
"Okay, then," Dean says. "Dropping it," and he makes a flicking motion with his fingers. Slouches down in his chair to lean his head against the wooden back as he nurses his beer.
Sam finishes his own, sets the empty bottle aside and turns back to his laptop. He doesn't manage to enter a line, however, before Dean interrupts the click of the keys to say, "It was a good idea, though."
Sam lifts his eyes to meet Dean's over the edge of the laptop screen. "Exploring all avenues, like you said," Dean says, his tone casual. Diffident, not sarcastic.
"Right," Sam says.
"Really," Dean says. "We're deep in it now; any paddle in a storm, huh?"
Sam opens his mouth to count the mixed metaphors. Resists, and says instead, "It's not like you would've let me do it anyway."
"Well, I would've taken some convincing," Dean says. "But it would've been your call in the end, right? You'd be the one drinking the shit. And going through the detox after," though he's the one who flinches, a jerk of his shoulders as he glares down into his empty beer bottle.
Sam gets up cautiously, mindful of his stitches, gets another pair of beers from the fridge and hands one to his brother before settling back in his chair. He closes the laptop, moves it aside to face Dean directly. "So you really would've been okay with it?"
Dean sets his bottle on the table, clasps both hands around it. "Not okay, no. But I wasn't okay with you going to the Cage, either."
"Yeah." Sam snorts. "Good call on your part."
"But it might've been the answer," Dean says. "Hell, it might still be the answer—Lucifer means business. Granted, it's terrible business for the world; but maybe for Amara, too. Either way, it wasn't like we had a lot of options. And at least you're doing something. Finding things to try. You're not giving up."
"Neither are you," Sam says, frowning down at the books piled before them. Dean's naturally a pessimist, and sometimes the odds can overwhelm him. But the world needs them. Cas needs them. Dean knows what they have to do, how they have to keep going, however hard it gets.
"Sam," Dean says, his voice dropped low enough that Sam looks up. Dean's fingers are curled around the beer bottle, tight enough to whiten the knuckles, sliding on the condensation on the cold glass. "I'm sorry," he says.
"For what?" Sam says, readying his answer. If it's Dean's issues with Amara, or not getting Sam out of Lucifer's grasp sooner, or something that Sam's missed, for all his careful observation—
Except what Dean says is, "What I said to you—all the things I said to you, back when it was happening, and later. About the demon blood and, you know, your thing with it. Your problem. I'm sorry."
Sam freezes. "Um," he says. "Okay?"
"I was an asshole," Dean says. "I mean, it's me, that's a given. But especially about that. I didn't get it. I should've been helping and instead I was a total dick."
Sam feels like he's twenty-five again, like he's got multiple selves fighting to be heard. The loyal little brother who wants to deny that his big brother is or could ever be a jerk. The younger son who feels furious and patronized and who the hell does Dean think he is, Dad?
But it's the man he is now, who says, "Not a total dick. Three-quarters. Seven-eighths, at most."
"I'm serious, man!" Dean says. "What you went through—what Ruby put you through, and Lucifer, and the mess with Famine, and all of it—and you didn't want it. Or, you didn't want to want it, but it was in you, and you had to deal with it. And I didn't make it any easier for you. Did I."
"No," Sam says, because Dean didn't inflect it like a question but the look in his eyes has Sam answering before he can compensate.
"But I should've," Dean said. "Demons on one side and angels on the other and you needed someone on your side, and that should've been me."
"It was," Sam says. "You were there when it counted." It doesn't matter how many years ago it was; he remembers Stull Cemetery like it just happened, every moment, every sensation, permanently burned into his mind by the Morningstar's searing light. Remembers finding himself under all of Lucifer's layers of pain and deception, finding the brother Dean had come looking for, against all odds or reason.
"But not for all of it." Dean shakes his head. "Shit, Sammy, if I'd really grasped it then, what you were going through... And now you've been reading up on it, and I know you didn't tell me because of what you thought I'd say—I get it. And I'm sorry for that, on top of everything else."
Seven years ago (two centuries ago) Sam would've given anything to hear this apology. For the validation, the release from his dread and doubt? Or to throw it back in Dean's face? To jeer at the pathetic attempt at empathy, that Dean could even pretend to know what he was feeling. What it felt like.
Sam doesn't know himself anymore, what he'd really wanted then. What he would've done. He doesn't even know if it counts, for this Dean now to apologize for his younger self, for his treatment of a kid brother who doesn't really exist anymore, no more than that younger Dean.
Sam considers trying to laugh it off again, lighten the mood. They've got enough else to worry about now.
But then, isn't this the triage that always gets them in the end—set aside conflict instead of resolving it, to deal with the latest crisis, and meanwhile the resentment and pain and misunderstandings build and build. Until they bleed through, spilling over into every word exchanged, every moment they're together.
And Dean isn't looking in a joking mood anymore. His eyes are on Sam, intense, brow lowered, and his arms are crossed, folded tight over his chest, fingers clenched around his biceps.
The thumb of his left hand is moving, reflexively rubbing back and forth, digging into the flesh of his right forearm, just below the elbow. Clean flesh now, unmarked.
And now Sam is the one who gets it, too late.
"It wasn't easy," Sam says slowly. "None of it. And even if you didn't make it easier for me—it wasn't any better for you, was it? When I was drinking the blood, using those powers—even if there hadn't been freaking angels threatening to ice me if you didn't stop me yourself, you still had to see what I was becoming. How I was losing myself. I'd seen you ripped apart in front of me, and I knew you'd gone to Hell...but it's so much worse when it's happening in slow motion. When you're watching someone's soul being dragged down one step at a time, further from you every day, and you don't know how to stop it."
Dean looks away. Tips his bottle up to his mouth and drains half of it, before he says, "I'm sorry for that, too."
"Yeah, and so am I," Sam says. "When I was drinking demon blood...okay, you weren't as supportive as you could've been. Maybe you weren't always there when I needed you. But you didn't know—you didn't know what I needed. Hell, you didn't even know what the hell was wrong with me, for most of that year. And you were scared—not of me, I know, not really. But for me."
The Dean he'd known then, all those years ago, would've denied it. Deflected with a joke or swung a low blow. His brother now just says, "Fucking terrified."
"And I'm sorry for that," Sam says. "If we're doing apologies, I'm so sorry I put you through that. And for not being there for you, either—you'd just come back from Hell; you needed support, too, and I wasn't in any shape to help you."
"But you were trying," Dean says. "You only trusted Ruby to begin with because you were looking for a way to save me—"
"And you only went to Hell because I got myself stabbed."
"The point is, you were trying to do the right thing. The demon blood, the exorcisms—you were trying to save people. You weren't just after some stupid vendetta—"
"I wanted to save people," Sam says. "But it wasn't all noble. I wanted to take out Lilith. And I thought it was finally my chance to prove myself, to Dad, to you."
Dean blanches, tightening around the eyes and set lips paling, the way he always does when Sam says something self-deprecating. Like for some reason he can't believe it. But he doesn't say anything, just listens as Sam goes on, "I wanted to show that I could do it, be a hunter on my own. I wanted to be stronger, against demons, against anything—I wanted that power, however I could get it. I wanted to be the one who was feared, not the one who was afraid; I wanted to be the one causing pain, not the one being hurt. And eventually I just wanted."
Dean sucks in a breath, deep as a man who's just broken the surface after nearly drowning. "Man, I know what that's like."
"I wish you didn't," Sam says. "I wish you'd never found out."
If he hadn't let Dean go, after Gadreel, after Kevin; if he'd just looked past his own pain and grief, to see how badly Dean was hurting...but he can't say that now. Not until the Darkness is gone and they can honestly put the Mark behind them, once and for all—maybe then he can seek forgiveness.
Dean doesn't give him a chance now. Just says, "Well, I'm glad I did—not how," he specifies, at Sam's sharp look. "But...it's just, sometimes, Sammy, I feel like I don't know you at all anymore. Not like I used to, when we were kids. It's not that I want to go back to that—what we got now, it's better. And you, you're better, too, I think. But all of it, for us to work, I have to understand where you're coming from. At least a bit, as much as I can. So I'm doing my best to catch up."
Catch up—as if he's fallen behind; as if Sam wouldn't have noticed that, after trying for his whole life to keep up with his big brother.
"Anyway." Dean clears his throat, grabs the original treatise and pulls it back before him. "Keep me in the loop with what you're reading up on, okay? There's no point to us covering the same ground; we'll learn more if we're pooling our research."
Sam chuckles slightly. "What?" Dean says.
"You're starting to sound like a real scholar there, Dean. You want me to show you more about the card catalog? Maybe put together a critical précis or two?"
"A precise what, now?"
Sam suppresses his grin behind a sigh, along with a disappointed shake of the head, played up to make Dean roll his eyes. "Never mind."
"But seriously, Sam." Dean is thumbing through the treatise's brittle pages. "Want me to go through this? See if there's anything you missed? It might be easier for me..."
"Don't bother," Sam says. "I've been over it all. And it really wasn't that hard. I don't have any cravings; I haven't for a while."
Dean raises an eyebrow—not disbelieving, just questioning.
"Not since I came back from Hell. Or maybe after the Trials," Sam explains. "To be honest, I don't know if it would've worked even if I had found a spell. I might be permanently depowered. At least as far as demon blood goes."
"Good to know," Dean says. "And also good, period."
"Yeah, well...maybe not for Cas."
"Cas wouldn't want you going down that road again, any more than me."
But Dean would let him, if they had to try. Would trust Sam to come back from it, and Sam didn't realize how much lighter that would make him feel, how much stronger. To know that he's got his brother's faith, like he never thought he'd have again; or maybe never had, not like this. It's a better feeling than any demon blood. Like maybe he can do anything—do the right thing. Like they really can win.
"Dean, thank you."
Dean's reading the book again, but glances up from it, brow creased. "For what?"
"For apologizing. And for understanding. For everything that happened back then, and now, too."
Dean hesitates a moment. Then nods. "Sure. No problem."
But his tone's uncertain. Sam leans back in his chair, waits. In a moment Dean pushes the treatise aside again, grabs his beer instead. Takes a sip and says, "We just keep finding them, huh."
Sam frowns. "Finding what?"
"These," and Dean gestures an amorphous shape, hands spreading in a sketch of an explosion. "These things that we...that I... From years ago, but we keep tripping over them now, these..."
"Emotional landmines?" Sam suggests.
"Yeah. How many you think we got left?"
"Don't know. A lot, probably." They've been brothers for Sam's entire life, and almost all of Dean's. It's so easy to take for granted what's always been there.
Dean exhales. "Sounds about right. So is this the only way to defuse them? Like this, the two of us—" motioning between them, and Sam for a moment expects him to finish, this stupid chick-flick crap; but Dean's not twenty-six anymore, and what he actually says is, "—talking this stuff out?"
"I think so," Sam says.
"Right." Dean slumps back in his chair. "Because we have so much free time, to sit around hashing out our biggest mistakes whenever something comes up. We need a frigging bomb-sniffing dog."
Sam quirks a smile. "Yeah. Or one of those rats."
"Rats?"
"There's an organization in Tanzania training giant pouched rats to detect active landmines."
Dean stares at him, both eyebrows up. "Dude, why do you even know that?"
"I read an article. It's actually really clever—the rats are too light to set off the mines, but they've got a fantastic sense of smell, so they're put on leashes and run up and down fields—"
"Fine, we need a rat. Metaphorically speaking."
"Don't think rodents are very good at metaphors."
"Okay, you're cut off," Dean proclaims, reaching across the table to pluck the beer bottle out of Sam's hand.
Sam rolls his eyes but lets him take the bottle. It's still half-full; he wasn't going to finish it anyway. He's not even buzzed but he is tired, and his side is sore enough that he might need a painkiller to get to sleep.
He leans back in his chair, gingerly, favoring the stiches without being obvious about it. Dean's not looking at him anyway, studying the bottle instead, like he doesn't know every ingredient in cheap domestic beer. He looks as tired as Sam feels, but his jaw is set. Exhausted but not defeated.
"I miss Cas," Sam says. He puts up his hand before Dean can open his mouth, goes on, "We're going to get him back. We will. I just wish he was here now, to talk to about all of this."
Dean's motionless for a second. Then he slowly tilts the beer bottle to set it on the table, lifts his eyes from it. "Yeah. Cas is great for talking about stuff."
"Even if he isn't much good at metaphors, either."
Dean snorts, close enough to a laugh that Sam takes it as a victory. "Maybe we should put him on a leash. Might solve some problems."
Sam can measure his need for sleep by how long he contemplates that mental image—not because it's funny but because it's reassuring. He stands, stretches cautiously and says around a yawn, "Okay, I'm turning in."
"'Night," Dean replies, staying seated.
Sam watches him push aside the treatise and pick up the spirit guide again. "So, take it I'll find you here tomorrow morning?"
If Dean hears the hinted reproach, he doesn't acknowledge it. "Sure."
On the threshold to the corridor, Sam looks back at his brother, the curve of his shoulders as he hunches over the tome spread open on the table. His rolled-up sleeves bare his arms up to the elbows, revealing only scratches and bruises, a few fading scars. Nothing lasting.
Sam puts his hands in his jeans pockets. Thinks about landmines and Lucifer. Demon blood and Dean's eyes gone black.
"Dean?"
"Yeah?" Dean turns back, enough for Sam to see his eyes, pure green in the yellow lamplight.
Explosives don't always need to be disarmed. Gunpowder saves their life on a daily basis, after all. And he and Dean both love fireworks. Sam fingers the small pointed mass of the amulet, nestled securely in the bottom of his pocket. "Nothing," he says. "Good night."
fin