Disclaimer: I wish, but no luck.
A/N: Just a short, short story, but be WARNED: there is character death and tragedy ahead.
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Keeping the Promise
"No matter what it takes, I'm going to save you."
Sam Winchester crouched in the bushes, where his brother could not see him. Dean stood at the same crossroads where this last desperate hellish year had begun, just a few miles outside of Cold Oaks, South Dakota. He stood nervously--Sam could see Dean's hands clenching and unclenching as he paced around the center, the heart of the intersection.
Sam hated that they had come to this place yesterday, that they would spend the last time they would never have together in a rundown motel near the ghost town that had destroyed his life and what was left of his family. The place where he had failed his brother for the first time in the past year by not doing what he'd had to do and what he had ended up doing anyway--taking Jake down. By leaving that damn knife there where Jake could get it.
It might have been the first, but it wasn't the last time Sam had failed Dean in the past year.
He had not found a way to break the deal.
He had tried. Oh, God, how he had tried! If there was a book out there on demonic deals, then he had read it. He had talked to everyone he knew, Bobby knew, John Winchester had known, and a bunch of people met for the first time only this year. He had put up with that demonic bitch, Ruby, because of her constant refrain that she could save Dean, and had finally tossed her out on her Hell-spawned ass when it became obvious she could do nothing to help his brother--with the promise to do to her what he had done to the Crossroads Demon if she ever showed her face anywhere that he could see it. Hell, he had even been willing to deal with smug, greedy Bela, if she could produce a magic talisman that would keep Dean from going to Hell.
He had shot the Crossroads Demon and even now, though he knew that his summoning her had put the poor innocent host into the middle of everything, he felt no remorse for the host's death. He would have plowed through a hundred such if it would have kept Dean alive and out of Hell's clutches. Too bad, isn't it, Winchester, that you developed this incredible ruthless streak too late for it to count? Would've been nice if you'd offed Jake when you could have.
He had even tried prayer again, despite the fact that all the praying he once told Dean he'd done had never helped them even one step of the way.
In the end, though, it had all been for nothing. There was no magic cure, no talisman, no spell, no loophole, no divine intervention. Dean was doomed and all Sam had been able to do was stand there helplessly when his older brother, his family, the person he loved more than anyone or anything else in this world, said goodbye. He had not even been able to help keep his brother's fear at bay.
And Dean was scared, scared in a way Sam had never seen him be before. Not of dying. Dean had faced death every day since he had started hunting, and he had done it with a smirk and a smartass remark. It was the idea of suffering an eternity of torment and pain. Hell, Dean would have to not be human, not to be scared of that.
Which was why Sam was hiding now in the underbrush, though he had sworn to his brother he would not come to the crossroads; what was one more lie on his part, after all he had done this year? He had sworn to Dean that he would save him and he would, even if it were not in the way Sam had meant when he had uttered that oath.
Back then, in the cemetery, with the yellow-eyed bastard finally dead and Dad out of Hell and moving on--maybe even to being with Mom again--he had been so sure he could find the way to break the deal. Free ride to Stanford and all that, right? He was the big brain Winchester, right? His lip curled in a sneer. God, he had been so damn arrogant!
Life--and Hell--had brought that home to him. Fists clenched, he bowed his head, the stiff leaves of the bushes brushing against his face, and he acknowledged the magnitude of his defeat. There would be no happy ending. Not for Dean. And definitely, not for him.
There was no breaking the deal, there was no way to keep Hell from claiming Dean. But there was one way to keep his brother from suffering even one second of torment. He had, for the longest time, refused to even consider it. Because it would be truly the end. Of Sam's belief in a caring God and that there was some kind of justice in the universe. Of his hope that the Winchester brothers would come out at the end of this nightmare into the light. Of his desperate need to believe that, in whatever might come after this life, he and his family would find peace, together.
And most of all, the end for Dean. It had taken Sam so long to begin to understand the brother Sam so smugly thought he had totally pegged, back when he had left for Stanford. It had taken him so long, too long, to realize how much a part of his life Dean was, and how much a part he had wanted Dean to be in the future, no matter where it led them.
Something that now would never be. There would be no future for Dean. Time had run out for them.
A sudden muted glow made him look up again. Something was opening in front of Dean, a roiling combination of colors it was almost sickening to watch. Then a figure stepped out, a corporeal demon, all scales and talons and leathery wings. Two hellhounds accompanied it. Dean stood ramrod straight. Sam could see his brother swallow once, then jut out his chin and step forward.
He was never so proud of being Dean's brother as he was right then.
Before the demon or hellhounds could make any move toward Dean, Sam stood up and stepped out into the open, about twenty feet behind his brother who did not yet realize he was there. The demon stared at him angrily, which alerted Dean to his presence. His brother turned to look at him with stricken eyes.
"Sammy," Dean said in almost a pleading tone, "you promised not to come. I--I don't want you see this. Please, go back."
Sam shook his head. "No, Dean, I'm sorry I lied to you, but I'm here because of the earlier promise. I said I'd save you and I will." He realized to his horror that tears were blurring his view of his brother and he angrily dashed them away. He would need clear sight, because he would get only one chance at this.
The demon rumbled with laughter. "Haven't you learned yet, little Sammy? There's nothing you can do to stop this."
Sam's expression became grim. "There is. I can make sure that no one, including you, will ever hurt Dean again." Without another word, he pulled the Colt from where it had been hidden at the small of his back. He raised the gun and the demon shied back. Sam could sense its fear.
But shooting it would accomplish nothing more than what had been accomplished with the destruction of the Crossroads Demon with which Dean had made his deal. He was pretty sure this was also a minion of the one that held Dean's contract. Instead, fighting back the grief that threatened to overwhelm him, to stay his hand, he pointed the weapon of ultimate destruction at his brother.
In that instant, Dean realized what Sam meant to do and a smile touched his lips. In Dean's face, Sam saw both thanks and absolution. And all the love Dean could never put into words.
His aim was true and as the lightning flashed across Dean's face, as his brother crumpled silently to the ground, not just life but soul gone forever, Sam was assailed by a lifetime of images. All the times Dean had held him, helped him, protected him, worried about him, sacrificed for him, loved him. Everything he had destroyed and lost with that one shot.
The demon roared with fury and Sam turned the Colt toward the fiend, his face icy-hard despite the tears streaming unchecked down his cheeks. Sam's smile was dangerous.
"Is there a reason why I shouldn't blow a hole in you?" he asked, the smile becoming more feral. "Any reason why you shouldn't lose, too?"
"I could take your life," the demon snarled back, though the fear still sat on its features. "That was the deal."
"Wrong. Only Dean couldn't try to get out of it; nothing in the deal stopped me from trying--or succeeding. Or I would have died after I shot the Crossroads bitch." He raised the Colt. "I'd kill you now but I want you to take a message to your boss. Tell It, I'm coming for It. And I will make It pay for every second of fear and worry Dean went through this past year." Sam swallowed and swiped at his eyes. "And for taking Dean's forever from him, for denying him what his life had earned him."
Before he could even blink again, the demon and its slavering pets were gone. The crossroads stood silent and empty of anything except Winchesters, one living and one for whom even eternity no longer existed. Sam knelt beside his brother's lifeless corpse, crying openly now, one hand brushing the short spiky hair over and over, and he thought how empty the universe was without the blazing presence that had been Dean Winchester in it. And how empty he was.
Somewhere down the road, if there was any kindness left in existence, Sam would find his parents and Jess waiting for him, and it would help. But not enough. The hole in his soul where Dean had stood would never be filled again, leaving him bereft and alone even in their midst.
And forever was a long time to be alone.