Title: God Please Make Me A Stone
Summary: It's not Sam's fault. It surprised him, nuzzled the back of his hand. Maybe it sensed something timid in him, didn't think he'd...maybe it was just curious.
Word Count: 7,898 (one-shot)
Author's Notes: I'm primarily a prompt-writer, but only one out of ten prompts get filled, so I sometimes fill my own prompts. Like right now. Beta credit goes to SurfAndStars (www dot twitter dot com slash surfandstars), at the eleventh hour, bless her brave freakin' heart.
Prompt Filled: "God Please Make Me A Stone" by iamthepasserby (AlanahC) at ( shangrilada dot livejournal dot com slash 10580 dot html ? page = 6 # comments) 5/9/12, 6:11 am. Title from Joss Whedon's Serenity, obviously.
Rated: M for some language, descriptions of hell/torture, one animal death, potential triggers.
Verse: Season 6, Sam Post-Hell AU. Not part of, but at least a derivative of Kira's Sammyverse - her Sam will always be the inspiration for my occasional sick/allergic/asthmatic-Sam standalone fic, and her style (esp. Dean-voice) is a definite influence on this particular piece. So, in a way, this is Kira-fandom fic, not even SPN fandom fic.
Other Notes: Weird POV switching, Dean-3rd-person, Sam-first-person, parentheticals, run-on sentences, thought-speak, gratuitous italics, general format rule-breaking. I'm not even sorry. At least my tenses are consistent.
Dean pulls up to this sweet little bed and breakfast place on the South Eastern side of Freeman, South Dakota. It's long and thin, spread out in a T-shape. The doors are a light beige, and the roof is tiled. The sign has been recently painted. It looks family owned; he can see an elderly lady behind the reception desk inside the window, and he thinks, quiet clean safe, thinks, help me god, help me, thinks, there is no god, and turns off the car with a click and a shudder to stillness. He swallows down the dirty feeling he's had in his throat since Monday, the feeling of grit that comes from shouting too loudly for too long. He presses his forehead against the top of his thumbs on the steering wheel for just a second, and squeezes his eyes shut until bright swirls of pressured color replace the image of Bobby's pale, stricken face shrinking in the rearview mirror while Sam said, "he's scared, he's scared of me, I'm scared of me," and then sang softly in Enochian from the backseat unil he fell asleep.
It only works for a moment, but even a moment's reprieve from the things he can't forget is nice, right now.
Dean turns around to brush his hand over Sam's hair to wake him up, and he is proud of nothing when he only hesitates a tiny bit.
"Sammy. Sammy, buddy, let's go inside, yeah?"
Dean watches Sam rouse like a small child. What's crazy is that Dean can remember what Sam as a small child looked like when rousing, and it makes it hard to breathe when his memory automatically compares the haze and depth in Sam's eyes now to the glow and simplicity that his look used to have back then.
Dean wonders briefly what his own eyes must look like to Sam these days, wonders if Sam ever sees two of him, and then feels exquisitely, shamefully guilty for a swooping, shaky second before he gets it together and smiles down at the kid. He rubs his thumb over the cotton covering the skin and knobby bone of Sam's shoulder.
"We're at a motel. Gotta go inside to get a room. You with me?"
Sam hasn't been very lucid for most of the day, not really here, so Dean is unsure whether he's going to be great company for front desk chatter, but he's sure as hell not leaving him in the car by himself. Sam blinks, and rubs his eyes in such a young gesture that Dean's smile gets wider and goes honest for a second.
"Inside?" Sam asks.
"Yeah, let's go."
"'Kay," Sam says, and reaches for the door handle, "'Kay."
Sounds are just sounds.
"Room number 6," is a thin line of copper gong, a long, echoing bom, decorated with pink polka dot pops. Dot, dot, dot, one for every time the little girl behind the counter pops her bubble gum. Standing on her tiptoes to reach the counter, standing next to her grandmother who smiles (smiles are good and bad, smiles are Dean but smiles are also open wide let me inside, I'll cut your cheeks to make more room), she smiles down at the girl with her pig tails and osh kosh overalls, tiny hand reaching over to hand a number 6 key to Dean.
The key sounds like pretty, tinkling glass, and the sharp wet splat of cut, cut, aftermath. Dean knows, somehow (Dean knows everything (Dean knows nothing, Dean can't know anything) Dean is good at knowing me).
"Actually," Dean says to the grandma, and it sounds like blue with a yellow glow, like a calm mist of beach and sky flowing from Dean's face, "can you make it an odd number? Sorry, just…can you?"
The little girl drops her hand down, and the low, ram's horn call of it makes me feel ashamed and embarrassed, and I reach to clutch at Dean's sleeve, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean- You don't have to (but please, please, don't make me), I didn't mean to hurt her-
I think a lot in bronze and grey and bright bright violet with orange streaks, but I only have to say a little.
"Dean…"
"It's okay, Sammy." Dean's voice is calm blue tides, and blankets over the young, tired moon.
The grandma peers at me in lavender and ecru, and the little girl grins and hands Dean the number 5 key. Her pride is pink, and hums cicada-like.
"Enjoy your stay," is what the little girl says, her pigtails giggling and pink polka dots lighting up a copper halo (no, not- no) a copper crown.
"Okay," I say.
Okay. Okay.
Dean brushes my shoulder and guides me outside, and the girl waves a single flute note to me, and I wave back, a grey clarinet. Dean breathes the crunch of gravel under new tires, and blue.
Okay.
Sounds are just sounds.
When they get into the office, Dean gathers that the grandma behind the front desk is the owner of the place, and that the little girl bouncing next to her is her granddaughter. There's a picture of the two of them on the wall, and there's a kitten asleep in the corner behind the desk, a pink ribbon around its neck, right next to a couple of boxes and a grocery store helium balloon that says Happy Birthday on it. The girl all but squeals, delighted by their entrance.
"Can I give it to him, can I? Can I?"
"Yes, Mia, here," the lady laughs, "But hold on to it until he signs the sheet, okay?"
Dean turns on his don't-mind-me-I'm-just-charming smile, and glances back once. Sam is mild-faced, but his brow is a bit furrowed and he's holding his left hear with his left hand, which means he's hearing things. It's easy to keep the smile on, because Dean is good at knowing Sam's signs now, it's getting easier to know what Sam needs for specific episodes of whatever the hell (but the actual hell, actually), some days.
Dean doesn't know what Sam hears when this happens, but he knows that when Sam grabs his ears, he's calmest if he hears Dean talk.
"Hey, there, Mia," he says to the girl, "My name is Dean, and this is my brother Sam. Can you help us find a room?" He winks at grandma for good measure. Her pleased look has free-continental-breakfast written all over it.
"Hullo," Mia says, and smiles shyly. She has gum in her mouth, and she starts blowing bubbles. Sam is watching her, looking sort of awed, and she giggles. Grandma hands Dean a clipboard.
"Go ahead and sign in here, dear, and we'll get you set up. Credit?"
"Yeah," Dean fills the form out, and pulls a card from his wallet for her, "two queens, two nights. And uh, no housekeeping. if you don't mind." He tosses grandma another grin before taking his card back and signing the bottom of the page. Mia is bouncing, excited, and after her grandma gives her a nod, she reaches her hand up, stretching clear of the counter, to hand Dean a room key with a shiny number 6 on it.
No. Absolutely not.
Sam only has a problem with threes every once in a while, a problem with numbers that aren't prime or multiples of five. It's rarely an issue, and when it is, it's usually a quick fix. But Dean definitely recalls, cannot erase the memory of Sam staring at the door of a motel room the night before they went to Bobby's, at a shiny, screwed in number six, and addressing it like you would if you were seeing an old hook-up from college, "Lucifer?"
No sixes. Absolutely not.
"Actually," Dean says, a little too quickly, trying not to recoil from the girl's hand like an idiot, "can you make it an odd number? Sorry, just…can you?"
They both sort of blink at him, and Mia lets her hand fall awkwardly, but grandma gives a glance over to Sam and seems to draw some sort of conclusion when Sam suddenly clutches to Dean's arm and tremors out a thin, worried, "Dean?"
"It's okay, Sammy," Dean says automatically, and the look of pity grandma offers him then is both a relief and the most grating, aggravating kind of insult. It's easier, in some ways, to let people think that Sam is just slow or sick, but when they look at Dean like he's a hero or a social martyr, that's when it gets really damn difficult.
Mia instantly raises her other hand, where the key to number 5 had apparently been primed, waiting, and pops her gum.
"Enjoy your stay!" she trills, and Dean nods his thanks.
"Okay," Sam says, but uncertain, almost suspicious. Not for the first time, Dean wonders what Sam is hearing, or seeing.
Back when Sam first got back from hell, he spent a long night crying, trying to explain his hallucinations as if Dean could make it stop if he understood, the bugs and the thunder, he'd said. Dean held him, on the floor next to the nightstand in the space between the two beds, and choked out what was probably the least helpful thing to say, They're just sounds, Sammy. They're just sounds. They can't hurt you anymore, I'm here, just- just hear me. Just listen to me, alright? Sounds are just sounds, okay? I promise, they're not real. They're just sounds.
He'd felt so so stupid after he'd thought about it, like a complete jerk, and now, he wonders what Sam is hearing, and hopes it's not too bad, at least. Hopes it's not hurting him.
Mia waves as they leave the office, and Sam drops his hand from his ear to wave back, and leaves it down. Dean blows out a breath and tells himself to stop worrying so much.
I keep step with Dean as we walk to the car, and I reach out for my bag when he opens the trunk. When I first see the duffles, I don't recognize either of them. I only know which one is mine because Dean reaches for it first, but that's dumb. I give him a don't-be-stupid look. I can carry my own crap.
For some reason, this makes Dean grin like an idiot. So easy to please, my brother.
The door to our room is olive green and clean, and the silver number five on the door is a soft, rounded font. Vaguely, it makes me think of warmth and baked things. I have the presence of mind, somehow, to note that this is a normal, regular kind of association, and not a weird, hell-crazed one, the likes of which I've just kind of been existing steadily through for the last few...days, I think. I guess this is what you would call a lucid moment. It's a strange thought to have as Dean lets us into the room. I let my feet follow a familiar path (still familiar, somehow, after ages away from beds or rooms of any kind) to the bed furthest from the door, next to a window whose off-pink curtains are drawn back in loops of pale ribbon. The trees outside just look like trees, and Dean is unpacking behind me, and it's strange to notice myself in these moments of simple, sane self-awareness, knowing that there's a difference in this from when I'm being crazy. I can tell I'm me, when it's like this, and I haven't necessarily forgotten about what's happened, but it's kind of like keeping ahead of a bunch of other runners in a marathon. Sometimes I'm ahead of that crowd of many, sweaty, hot, panting things chasing behind me. They're always there, far away or right there, and sometimes they catch up with me, but I'm not always caught in middle of them. It's nice to know that, at least.
I don't know how long it's been since I got back. I know that we didn't wait for too long before going to Bobby's, maybe a week. And I think we were only there for three or four days before Bobby got too freaked out and we left. So I guess it's been about two weeks. It doesn't feel longer or less than that, not right now. Two weeks just sounds about right.
I inhale a breath that is just a breath, that smells and tastes and sounds like nothing more than a breath should, and unzip my bag to unpack some clothes, or whatever. Being crazy is a marathon, I guess. Even if it's just for a moment, it's nice to be ahead.
Sam is pulling the zipper open on his bag, and Dean is trying not to watch him over his shoulder, but hey, this is so regular, he's just kind of jazzed, alright?
And damn, you know your standards for a good day are low when you're stoked your brother can just unpack some clothes without having a flashback.
Regardless, Sam's coherence levels are evened out for the time being, because his Dean-senses seem to be functioning pretty well when he says, "That impressive, huh?"
Dean blinks at Sam's back, then smirks. "You're a shoo-in for the shirt folding olympics," and then instantly regrets it, because that's gotta be the lamest joke he's made since that Weirdy-Mc-Weirderson quip he let loose back during the trickster case, and he'd agonized over spitting out that piece of crap for days.
Sam still chuckles, and replies without turning, "I'm crazy, Dean, not handicapped."
Dean wrinkles his nose, and immediately shakes his head, gesturing at Sam's back with a pair of balled up socks, "You're not crazy, you're just…traumatized."
Sam snorts on a laugh, and Dean can hear the roll in his eyes, which is great, just so fucking great, because it's just so Sam, just Sammy being Sammy. The kid puts on his fake-sulk bad-comeback voice, says, "You're traumatized." Dean grins so wide it hurts.
"Nah, I'm crazy."
"No, you're handicapped," Sam throws back.
"Ooh, that's how it is?"
"Oh that's definitely how it is."
There's this one second where Dean feels light and kind of disbelieving, but this is what he'd missed when Sam was gone, what he'd thought he'd never get back, what he'd thought Sam would never have again. This is his brother, and it's a good moment.
Then a pair of Sam's socks smacks into the side of his head, and he turns to see Sam trying to bite back a guffaw. Forget good - this is great.
Dean is thirty-one (seventy-one) years old, and Sam is twenty-seven (a hundred and twenty-eight), but they've been to hell and back, so they spend the next ten minutes pelting each other with balled up socks and tshirts. Dean's pretty damn sure that it's the hardest he's laughed in the last ten (eighty) years.
The entire thing is ridiculous. I'm crouched between the beds with a pair of rolled up jeans primed in my hands, but I keep having to wait until I stop laughing to take a breath so that I can aim. Dean is on the other side of the bed, holding a pillow up as a shield, alternating between lobbing socks at me and giggling like a ten year old, and every time I hear him, it starts me laughing again.
I literally can't remember the last time I heard Dean laugh like this, and I definitely haven't laughed because I was actually happy in what honestly feels like an eternity, so this is all pretty funny.
"S- Sam, aha-ha, Sam-"
"What, you jerk?" I peek over the bed, but the pillow is still blocking my sightline.
"I'm-" Dean is trying smother himself, reign the laughter in, "I'm out of ammo, man."
"Oh good. Is that a surrender then?"
And then the pillow drops and I can't see him, but I hear Dean hit the carpet and start cackling. He's literally fallen over laughing. I catapult the jeans over and hear them land on Dean's face with a solid slap. His oh shit is muffled and when he sits up the jeans are around his neck like a scarf and he's scowling at me.
Now it's my turn to fall over laughing.
"And that's what you get for cheating!"
"Cheating! I was owning your ass until you got all the shirts-"
"You used a pillow for a barricade, and a pillow is definitely not clothes!"
"In an emergency, a pillow is whatever I want it to be, bitch!"
"You're the bitch, I just defeated you with socks," I've climbed up onto my bed and I'm laid out on it now, hands under my head. Dean tosses my jeans away and lies back on his own bed.
"Oh man. That was great."
"What, losing?"
Dean chuckles once, and then it's quiet while we catch our breath. We should probably both get a shower.
"You're not crazy, Sam," Dean says, out of nowhere, and I don't look at him, I just keep looking at the ceiling. He doesn't sound sad or fierce. He just sounds like Dean.
"Not always," is what I say back, and this seems to be good enough for Dean. He's still half-smiling when he grabs his clothes and heads in to the bathroom for a shower.
I look around the thrashed room, let myself chuckle, and then start picking up the clothes, folding them once again.
I guess this is good enough for me, too.
I open the window, and lightly kick Dean's boots over to the side of the bathroom door. There's a chair there under a mirror, so I avoid looking at my reflection (seeing myself does weird things to my head, sometimes), and sit down to pull off my own shoes. I'm undoing my left shoelace, and look up for just a second when I think I maybe hear Dean singing in the shower.
The corner of my eye twitches and I feel something warm and rough and wet swipe across the back of my hand, and it's like a wash of white, curdled terror sweeps up from below me, suddenly there is flashing violet and brown and grey and I am blind, it's the sound of screeching trumpets and fog with fire and an angel's hysterical laughter. I am lunging and desperate, I can't see, I smell blood and ash, I can taste gravel, and I don't know whether or not to scream, it depends, it depends on the day, on the decade, is it a bite or a kiss, is it-
I'm on the floor with my back against the wall, blinking and hyperventilating, but it's just a room. It's just the room around me, half-lit with the pre-sunset light and the breeze is blowing through the off-pink curtains at the window. My hands feel wrong, and I feel nauseous and dizzy and-
I glance down. A boot knife is in my right hand. It's Dean's. His left boot is lying sideways next to my knee. In front of me is a shape I don't recognize, in a spreading oval of dark damp on the carpet.
It's a small, lanky bit of soft stripes.
I know what this is.
I remember these.
It has a bright name, a sharp sound. Kah, kah, kah, the middle of Michael's name, the way that stop sounds without a tongue.
Cat.
A cat. It's a cat. I have a brief memory of Jessica in a pet store, the flash of an encyclopedia entry while I studied for a zoology quiz, the image of a panther on a bookmark from the shelf of a corner store in Iowa.
This is a cat. This one is a baby. A kitten.
Oh fuck.
I recognize it now: a lean, rounded body no bigger than my foot, four limbs arranged in a loose tangle but each pointed accusingly at me, triangle ears, a tail, the color of dusk, the mood of ash, the grey-on-grey look of Mackerel tabby cut with stark, black red along the middle.
It's dead, I know it's dead, it's dead, and the blood is on the knife. It's on my hands, oh jesus, oh fuck, help me, help.
My jaw is flexing, my mouth gapes and I look at my hands, my strange, large, foreign hands, and they're red. Pomegranate red, the color of pulled eyes and rent hair and no, no, please.
My hands are red, and they are open, they are open in pretty, perfect lines from fingertip to palm, mathematical and meticulous, the skin pulled back and the nerves exposed and Lucifer holds them close to his face and leans near, he points to each bone and names them, says, "we'll call this one Ronra, and we'll call this one Enaj," and he kisses my left palm and comes up with dyed lips, says, "we'll name the veins, too, before we taste them," and-
I've killed it. I've killed this cat for nothing. My hands are red. My hands are hiding places for names and knives and kisses. My hands are raspberries and dead things forever.
I wail once, but there isn't enough air behind it and it comes out like a thick gasp, there's never enough air here, there's only smoke and ash and crying is so pointless, crying never puts out the fires, and Lucifer hates it when I cry-
Wait. I'm not there, though. I'm not supposed to be-
I blink and the wallpaper is tacky green with pink rosebuds, I blink and the walls are eyes while Michael grins playfully down at me with my kidneys in his hands, I blink and the carpet is brown but also red and the kitten is dead in front of me, I blink and Lucifer is braiding strands of muscle pulled from my legs into a crown for me to wear, I blink and my jeans have bloody handprints outlined on the tops of my thighs, I blink and my hands are bright and rusted and cruel, I blink fat, useless tears out of my eyes and onto my face and I don't know where I am, I don't know what's real, I don't know what is actually here, I don't know where here is.
I don't know, but I think that maybe I'm in hell. I blink down at the dead thing, and I think that maybe I deserve to be here.
Dean is in the shower for less than three minutes before he hears a mild thump, and thinks, oh no. He waits a solid two seconds, but when he doesn't hear anything, he decides to book it through the lather and rinse spiel, and is free of soap and toweling off inside of 40 seconds.
The water is off and the bathroom is just a bit foggy, and Dean almost eats it when he tries to leap into the boxers he'd grabbed before his shower, but Sam's been traumatized enough, he's not gonna flash the kid on top of it, especially if he's already in the middle of a crappy moment or-
Dean doesn't even have the bathroom doorknob fully turned before he hears the sobbing. He's not scared, necessarily, just concerned. Sometimes Sam cries, it's- well, dammit, it's normal.
The bathroom door isn't fully open before Dean sees blood on the carpet, bright and wet, and yeah, now he's scared.
"Sam. Sam, oh my god, Sam, what is it, where is it," there's a big oblong splotch on the floor in front of where Sam is collapsed on the floor against the wall right behind the bathroom door, rocking and crying, sitting on his legs, arms wrapped tight around his chest, and there's blood on his jeans, oh christ, there's blood on the bottom of his shirt, it's wet, it's fresh, and Dean's boot knife is on the floor, and what did he do, how could Dean have been so stupid, what did Sam do, "aw f- buddy, I need you to tell me where you're hurt, Sam- Sammy, let me see, let- lemme see, okay? I need to see it, please-" Dean's voice breaks, but he can't get at Sam's stomach or chest, the kid is rigidly curled in on himself, keening, just bawling, oh fuck, "god, please, kid, let me- I can help, I'll fix it, please."
Dean is trying to keep it cool, he's trying to keep it together, but his hands are shaking and Sam will not unwrap his arms, and Dean lurches over to the bed to grab his cell phone because jesus, if Sam's stabbed himself or something, but when he turns back Sam is uncurled and looking up at him with this desperate, begging expression, and Dean sees what's in his hands, his big, wet, trembling hands.
Oh christ. It's an animal. It's a fucking cat, dead in Sam's arms, cradled to his chest.
"I didn't mean to," Sam moans, "I didn't- I didn't-" and then he's curled into himself again, weeping.
"Sammy," Dean says, but that's all, because he doesn't know what he's supposed to say. He has no fucking clue.
I don't remember a lot of things. I don't know the last movie I saw before the pit. I don't recall when my birthday is. I don't recognize my own duffel when I see it. My memory is a thin, stretched thing, and a lot has diffused out of it, seeped out and evaporated like sweat, over time.
I do remember exactly how many times Michael skinned me. 338,964 times. I didn't keep count, but he did.
He always started it the same way. A single slice with a knife made out of bone, starting down from under my chin and straight to the bottom of my belly.
It's for the symmetry, he used to say. Lucifer used to tsk his tongue at him, it's crooked, Mikey, he'd say, you'll have to start over.
It was somewhere around the 1900th time when I beat Lucifer to the punch, the first time I managed to gurgle out a, no, Mikey, no, and the both of them looked up at me, Michael with those animalistic eyes full of hate, and Lucifer with his sickly adoration and cruel love. You have to start over, I said.
It's crooked.
Sam cries for an hour.
It takes half of that time to get the cat away from him, and Dean is trying to be gentle about it but Sam has always been allergic to cats, and sitting there cradling the thing is covering him in hives, bloody and swollen hives, and it's terrifying. Sam seems to think he'll make it worse if he let's the- the body go, "I know, Sammy, I know, but you're allergic, you're so allergic, your hands-" but he finally does let Dean pull it away, limp and wet and really just nauseating.
Dean's seen decomposed remains and reanimated corpses and a hell of a lot of scary shit. He's seen innards and smelled all manner of dead things, and he can still go and eat a steak immediately after.
He's been to a circle of hell, too.
This kitten has a ribbon around its neck that is barely pink on one end anymore. The rest is dyed with blood to match Sam's shirt and jeans and face and hands. The slice begins under its tiny chin and almost looks surgical, straight and clean. He recognizes it. He knows what a skinning starter looks like.
Dean really has to struggle not to gag.
He puts the cat in a black trash bag from the corner bin, wraps it up a couple of times, and leaves it there. Then he crosses back to a hiccuping Sam, hauls him up and into the bathroom, and sits him down on the toilet. He slaps on the faucet, dips a fluffy white towel in the stream, pulls off the kid's shirt and starts to wipe him down. The towel darkens, turns pink and brown.
It's a good 30 minutes of tears streaming steadily, quietly down Sam's face, his eyes glazed and staring past Dean's head at the wall. Dean tries to be slow and clinical, and clean him. Sam's forearms and neck and chin are hivey and puffy, but he isn't scratching or wincing, so Dean cleans them off as best he can. He throws the towel in the bathroom trash can and grabs a new one. He wipes Sam's face down, catches the tears, and waits for him to come back.
Dean is in the process of pulling off Sam's socks and shoes when Sam swallows, blinks, and then slowly looks down at him.
"Hey," Sam says, all young and confused and like he's just woken up from a weird dream he can't really remember.
"Hey," Dean says back, and sits back on his haunches. He watches Sam's face, watches him look around the bathroom, at the towels, his shirt in the trash, Dean in boxers with still damp hair. Sam watches him, dazed and a bit drunk looking.
"Are you…no. Am I hurt?" he asks. Dean puts his hand on Sam's knee, pats it, but then leave sit there.
"Naw, kid, just a bit hivey, but I'll get you some Benadryl in a sec and you'll be good."
"Oh," Sam seems to think about that, and nods vaguely, then looks down at Dean's hand on his knee. Dean watches his gaze crawl up the jeans to the rusty hand prints, watches awareness drain back into Sam's expression, sees that sickened widening of the eyes, knows exactly when Sam remembers - at least in part - what's happened.
Is isn't hard to be patient through this, somehow. Dean can't really explain why - his legs are complaining about the position he's in, he feels chilly and muggy at once from being mostly naked and a bit bloody and wet, and there's a dead cat in the next room he needs to deal with, but Sam needs to be okay first, so it's not hard to be patient right now. Dean waits until Sam finally meets his eyes again, and when Sam speaks, he speaks slowly, in something between a whisper and an apology.
"Did I…was the cat real?"
This is the hard part. This is the part that Dean has to force himself through.
"Yeah, buddy. The cat was real."
Sam's face crumples, and he starts to cry again, but this time it's into Dean's bare shoulder, and he's lucid when he says, "it just surprised me, I was just untying my shoe and it must've- I only opened the window, it must've- I didn't know what it was but I didn't mean to, Dean, it just surprised me, it was just- oh god, it was probably just- "
Curious, is what Dean thinks as Sam cries and cries, then gradually calms and agrees to take some Benadryl, to shower and clean off.
It was probably just curious.
Dean stays in or right outside the bathroom with the door open while I shower. I'm not bothered by that - I clearly had a serious departure from sanity today, of course he's gonna keep a close eye on me for a while. The curtain is privacy enough, and I don't waste time getting clean. I want to be clean. I wish I could be clea-
Stop it. Stop. Just shower and get out.
When I get out Dean's put some sweats there for me, and I pull them on. They're soft, and black. The shirt is blue and smells like the Impala.
I sit on the edge of the bed, and Dean takes the trash bag outside, where he spends eight long minutes behind the motel making it look more like coyote claws and less like precision. When he comes back, the knife is gone, and I figure it's either in the Impala or in a new hiding spot, but that's fine. Makes sense. He's brought a bottle of bleach. We always gotta keep one in the car, when it's not too hot out, at least. No one likes bloodstains (blood doesn't stain, Lucifer said, it paints, special watercolors to decorate with) and even if we aren't trying to hide them, the DNA evidence has to be taken care of, at least. So bleach is a good thing to have around.
Dean goes to the bathroom to wash his hands, and I hear him dousing things in the bathtub. The carpet out here is beige. I know it has to be cleaned, but it'll discolor it. The carpet is ruined, of course, but I know we're going to have to ruin it more, and the lady who owns this place seems so nice. She'd smiled at Dean and called him dear, earlier.
I should help. I feel like I should help. Only, maybe Dean would rather I just sit still and try not to lose my mind or kill anything else.
He comes out of the bathroom with a rag and a bucket and pauses, looks from me to the puddle, and his face has that look on it, the one where I feel like Dean doesn't just see me here and now, but that he sees every me, every age and type of me that's ever existed, and picks the one out of the spectrum that I am in this moment, and knows (I don't know how, I just don't), he knows exactly who I am and what I need and gives it to me without question.
I am a million Sams. Baby Sams and teenage Sams and insane Sams and college Sams and Sams on demon blood and Sams possessed by things and Sams in love with Jess and Sams that scream at night.
I think that maybe Dean is just one Dean, taking care of a million of me, and thinking that it's not at all a miracle or a tragedy. I feel grateful and selfish, and like the heaviest, most beloved burden a Sam could be.
"Wanna help me out?" Dean asks. I nod, I hold the bucket for him, and I pour out the bleach while Dean washes my sins out of the motel carpet.
It's not even a question that they have to leave. Still, for some reason, it's harder to leave the bed and breakfast than it was to leave Bobby's.
Dean knows that it's just another motel, but he guesses that he made it into a bit of an ideal, in his head. Which is stupid, because it was only twenty or thirty minutes they'd even been there before it all went to-
He has to struggle not to lash out and punch the car, or slam the trunk lid down, when he thinks that. He pushes a long breath out through his nose and looks up to where Sam is locking the number 5 door and leaving the key in the lock. The sun has set now, but it's bright out. There are lights in the parking lot, and the stars are bright. Everything looks warm around them. It all looks good and kind and refreshing, and feels like it's not theirs.
Sam is still a bit shocky, but he's responsive, and he knew where the room key was when Dean couldn't find it, started packing before Dean even said anything about leaving. Dean knows that his brother was only triggered. He's just as capable of having a sock fight and making witty remarks now as he was three hours ago. Sam would never kill an innocent thing, if he could help it.
But jesus, Sam hadn't had any control at all. One wrong feeling and he'd reacted and yes, most post-traumatic lashing out is fight or flight, and he was in a literal corner, of course he'd react with violence. But Sam has the training and the experience to unleash violence combined with skill. Dean knows that he has been trying to avoid the reality that it's dangerous, it's so dangerous for Sam to be around anything or anyone else, right now. Bobby couldn't handle the nightmares alone, Dean can't imagine what he'd think if he'd seen this, because it's bad, it's really really bad, and it's not Sam's fault but that doesn't mean it's not true.
Dean's shorter and smaller now, sure, but he's still almost always been able to beat Sam in a fight when Sam's himself (because Sam seriously fights like a girl sometimes), but also because Dean's just kind of willing to be however vicious he needs to be, and Sam just cares about people too much. But the truth is that Sam's stronger than Dean is. He's bigger, and in a completely blind moment, where all he has is instinct? Yeah, Dean's pretty sure that Sam could pulverize the shit out of him without pulling a muscle.
Dean's not at all worried about being in danger here, but if they're gonna keep on truckin, he knows that he needs to be able to protect people from Sam, if it becomes necessary. He needs to be able to protect Sam from himself. And what if he can't?
Sam opens the passenger door and gets in. Dean sees him put his head in his hands, and wait.
So this is it. This is the only moment Dean has left to come to terms with this whole situation, between now and closing the trunk to get in the car with his clinically jacked up brother and drive off to who knows where else. This is the only thirty or forty seconds that Dean can allow himself to absolutely freak the fuck out without Sam seeing, so he better damn well get it over with, because this is such bullshit.
Dean knows, okay? He knows that this type of behavior is the textbook warning sign kind of crap. Blacking out. Animal mutilation. In literally any other case, there'd be shrinks and living facilities and, god, drugs and restraints, even. But that's kind of the point, here. There is no other case of this. Sam is the oldest man on earth, has had more than one mind take up residence in his head on more than one occasion, has been through a century of the most unimaginable (and, at times, far far too imaginable) kinds of torture, and he still brushes his teeth in the morning. He still comprehends irony. He still knows the difference between a pillow fight and a real fight, and he's jacked up, sure, but it's not the same as anyone else in the world, okay, because it's angels and demons and hell, not earth, not war, not parents or kidnappers or any documented medical kind of anything.
It's supernatural. Sam is, Dean is, this damned car is. They've all been affected by the supernatural. Natural rules and remedies and scientific lines of thought are not the law of their lives, and yeah, Sam killed a cat today because he got triggered by a single lick, and that's pretty friggin horrendous, it's scary, and it's not good, it's not good at all. But it doesn't mean this has to be it. This isn't the line. It's just not.
They're packed and they're ready to go, and Dean's ready. He's done with panic. That poor little girl, Mia, is going to think coyotes killed her cat, and she'll cry, but she won't be left wondering like she would've if they'd just buried it, and she won't have to rationalize the idea of an actual person slicing her kitty open like she wouldve if they'd just taken off. The grandma is going to have a lot to deal with in the morning, with the giant bleach fest in room 5, but she'll chock them up to being psycho vandals and call her insurance company when the credit card doesn't clear.
They're packed, and Sam is waiting, and Dean is going to tell him they're going to be okay, and he's going to mean it.
He closes the trunk, and he gets into the Impala. Sam still has his head in his hands, but he looks up now, and his face is tragic, it really is.
"Hey," Dean says, and reaches out to grip his shoulder. Solid, same, Sam.
"Dean-"
"It's gonna be okay. We're okay. We're okay."
They start off heading East, and Dean drives while Sam grits his teeth and pulls hard on his own hair and, eventually, dozes.
I'm unsure whether I'm dreaming or not, but Dean is still driving and it's still night, and the radio isn't on but the driver's side window is cracked open, and the sound of trees and night time and the whoosh of air is there, normal, soft, steady. It feels dreamy, but it feels real, too.
Also, Lucifer is sitting in the back seat. He leans forward and drapes his arm around the top of my seat, his fingers almost reach my hair.
Sleep well? he asks. He's speaking in Hebrew.
"I think so," I say. My Hebrew accent isn't perfect, but I know that I almost sound native. I've had lots of practice. Angels are strict teachers.
Why the long face, love?
His face is almost kind, the way it often can be, and I hate him with my whole being. This is probably a dream, because Dean would never let Lucifer into the car, and he certainly wouldn't let him talk to me. It doesn't matter. Lucifer's asked me a question, so I answer.
"I killed a cat because it scared me. It didn't deserve it and I feel-" My voice is thick and I recognize that warm swell that means my body wants to cry, but I really don't want to. And Lucifer hates it when I cry.
Lucifer tsks and shushes me, but there's a warning look in his eyes, too. Ooh. Don't worry about it, it was just one kitty. At least it wasn't a dog, right? Or a person? Or Dean?
He grins and it's harsh. He slides his gaze over to Dean. Do you think you could, love? Think you might kill him? Do you think he'd let you?
Every part of me hurts to hear this, but I don't speak. I don't know what Dean would do if I really snapped and tried to hurt him. Or maybe I do know, and I just wish I didn't.
But Lucifer reaches out and does touch my hair now. He pushes it back behind my ear and I hate him so badly. I don't want him here. I never want him anywhere.
Nooo, don't worry. It was quick. It wasn't like how we used to play with you. Pretty little kitty is probably in 'a better place,' right? and he laughs a full belly laugh, while Dean faces front and drives.
It's awful to watch, all of it is awful, but worse is the realization creeping through me, cold, but like evaporating acetone instead of ice. I feel chilled and sick, and Lucifer cocks his head at me and asks me why with his eyes.
"No," I beg, "No, but- is it true? Is it true?" Oh god. Oh god, no. No. Please don't let it be true.
Lucifer looks at me, and I know that he understands what I mean. He smiles, and leans in close, and whispers into my ear, of course it is, Samuel.
Dean is just pulling off the interstate four towns over when Sam wakes up, and starts babbling frantically in another language. He pulls the car over, and holds Sam shoulders, and Sam clutches Dean's sleeves and the collar of his jacket and begs, pleads in what might be Arabic? Hebrew? Dean has no real idea.
After a couple of minutes of Dean repeating, "this is what English sounds like, I need you to speak English, can you speak English for me, Sam? I don't know what you're saying, buddy, work with me, here," Sam's mouth finally catches up with what he wants to be saying.
"All dogs go to heaven and all cats go to hell, Dean. All dogs go to heaven and all cats go to hell," he says it over and over, and his face is white, he's not crying, but he's horrified. Dean is too surprised to respond for a good few seconds.
"No. No, Sam-"
"-dogs go to heaven-"
"Sammy, stop."
"-ts go to hell, all dogs-"
"Stop, Sam, STOP," Dean puts his hands on the sides of Sam's face and holds his gaze. Sam's stopped talking, but he still looks mortified. "It's not true. It's not true. C'mon, man, we know this. Animals don't have souls." Dean watches Sam blink, his brow crinkles a bit, and Dean keeps going, "They don't. Sometimes it feels like they do but they don't, okay? That kitten is not in hell. You did not send that cat to hell. You didn't mean to hurt it, it wasn't your fault. And even if it had been, they don't have souls, Sam. They don't go anywhere."
Sam's face does this sort of blanking thing that isn't better than the horrified white thing, but isn't worse either. It's just dead, which is a really horrible way to phrase it right now but Dean can figure another way to describe it. Sam's face is blank and lifeless and he sinks back into his seat and lets go of Dean. He stares dully at the windshield.
"Sam? Okay?"
Sam doesn't say anything and, well, they're on the side of the road in the middle of South Dakota. Dean starts the car and spares one more glance at Sam who has leaned back into his seat now, reclined against the head rest.
They drive out into a small town that Dean's never been to before, which is an accomplishment in and of itself, and they come to a stoplight. Out of nowhere, Dean has no clue whether he should turn right or left, and sort of comes to a standstill. The light is red, but it will be green soon. The roads are empty. There's a closed bar on the corner to the right, and a gas station on the left, and a motel could be in either direction.
Sam is quiet, and they're both still, and the light turns green, and Dean realizes that he has no idea which way to turn.
"Make me a cat," Sam says, and Dean turns to look at him. Sam is looking up, at the fabric ceiling of the Impala, but Dean knows he sees past that, if he is even seeing anything at all, "I'll be a cat."
The light turns red again, and the streets in this little stranger town stay empty, and the Impala idles at the intersection while Dean watches Sam pray to whatever is above him.
"I'll be a cat," Sam breathes. Dean watches a single tear roll down the side of Sam's face, toward his ear, sinking into the deep brown of his rumpled hair, and Sam whispers, "I don't want to go anywhere." Dean shut his eyes and turns away. It's late. It's late, and they're tired, and it's been a long day. It's been one day.
Dean grips the steering wheel hard, and watches the stoplight change, and wishes that he knew which way to turn.
FIN