HE GETS THAT DANGEROUS LOOK
Dean is playing music too loud, too hard in the impala but he looks happy. Happier than he has in days. And Sam feels good. A comfortable tiredness is descending on him and Baby is warm and safe around him. And he's been able to leave behind that horrid blue monstrosity that he honestly never wants to see again. God, he sounds like Dean.
Really Baby was a gift from God, he doesn't think they would have lasted this long without her...now he really sounds liked Dean. The huffing chuckle he lets out into the air swimming with loud music stretches the cuts on his chest and he hisses wetly between his teeth. They sting, and he knows from the general overlook Dean had done to make sure Sam was okay when he'd arrived that his big brother will be playing nurse.
Dean sends him a grin, he still looks tight and tense though the scary anger has since disappeared. That anger that welled up in Dean over time always terrified Sam. A force he didn't understand, didn't understand its capabilities, and that uncertainty made Sam respect that darker side of his brother.
Dean played music loud when he wanted to avoid talking and when he was too 'alive' to be still and quiet. Sam's guessing in this case it's a little bit of both. But Dean occasionally got thrown back into his old habits. He'd wanted a hunt to ease the edge off his anger, now Sam watches him let lose that road-hungry bit of himself that loved late nights and Baby eating up asphalt under the stars.
Sam knows that deep, primal reaction Dean has to being hurt is at work, knows Dean is surrounding himself with things he loves and trusts to help heal the aching holes inside him right now.
Dean pulls into a restaurant close to home and leaves the car without a word, brings them back some supper, Sam a chicken sandwich with a salad like he'd known his little brother wanted. Fries and burger for him, beer was back at the house. When Dean puts the impala in park and uncranks her and the music falls silent Sam sends up thanks that his eardrums have survived another session of torture.
Dean strolls unconcernedly to the door and unlocks it. Lets them into their home. Sam goes down the stairs with a thankful sighing of his heart for the bunker. That white new age crap back at the British men of letters outpost had creeped the hell out of him.
He and Dean definitely fit better here, here around the rustic and old, worn and proven true walls they were safe, had made this thrown away and forgotten corner of the world their own space. And Sam wouldn't have it any other way. He sits in one of the chairs in front of the table where Dean had placed their food.
His brother disappears going for the first aide kit. Sam strips out of his layers, pulls his t-shirt up over his head, looks down with a grimace at the angry looking, red scratches. With all the brit's smarts somehow they hadn't figured up ways to heal wounds, or to prevent them all together, he laughs. Something's just can't be changed, sometimes the pain must be endured.
Listen to him quoting his brother.
"Catch," Dean says nonchalantly come back into the room. And Sam barely keeps the flask of holy water from hitting him in the face. "Go ahead and clean it." Dean instructs, placing the kit on the table and opening it. "Stitches?" He asks.
Sam pours the holy water over the wounds and grits his teeth with the burn, takes the swab of alcohol dosed cotton from Dean's outstretched hand and dabs the wounds down, breath gasping in and out with the sting.
"No, I'm good," he manages, "Just need a few bandages."
Dean tears open a fresh package of bandages and sits himself down in the chair beside Sam's, sets the medical tape close by for use. He bats Sam's hands away impatiently and Sam just sighs, partly with relief. Dean was much better at this...he was even gentler than Sam himself.
His cool fingertips dance over the skin around the scratches examining the pull, the worst parts of the wounds. Would place the bandages just so to hold the skin together. He dries the wounds carefully with some cotton swabs and Sam watches as he uses his hands to oh so lightly press the bandages against his wounds. It should have hurt. Should have hurt bad. But it didn't.
He marvels for a moment at the anomaly his brother makes. He can read all of his brother's parts. The teasing big brother, angry or loving son, the ruthless hunter, the enemy you fear the most...the gentle companion that soothes over your wounds and heals you better then you can yourself. Dean's face softens as he concentrates on making sure Sam is as comfortable as possible.
The hard lines are still there, the tightness there in his shoulders, his mouth pressed in a hard line and if it wasn't for the loving care in his eyes Sam would have thought him monumentally pissed. He frowns at that. The night was over, they'd both done things they could have regretted, but all's well that ends well, right?
"Dean," he starts but Dean clucks at him with his tongue and a focused look on his face.
"Be still Sam," he demands, as he gently presses tape to the bandages and Sam's skin and Sam shivers with the foreign feeling on his skin.
Sam sighs and reaches for the next bandage and Dean looks at him sharply, "What part of sit still is so hard to understand, god, thought you were smart."
Sam sends him an innocent grin and Dean just shakes his head, his attention going back to the bandages. "Just don't wake me up whining when you can't sleep at four in the morning when these are itching like hell."
"Whatever," Sam retorts, "We both know who does the best patching up job."
"Yes, we do." Dean says with an arched brow. Because they both know, no matter how much they bicker that Dean is just as gentle as he is violent. Translation: a lot.
Dean pats one last time at his final piece of tape and lets a pleased smile out (at himself.) Dean leaves for the kitchen to grab a few beers and napkins, silverware for Sam's salad and put the coffee on. Sam grabs his button up and gingerly draws it back on, the chill in the bunker and the aftershock of the pain making him shiver a bit.
Dean sits back down and hands him the silverware and his takeout plate and then proceeds to dig into his own meal after popping the cap off his beer. Sam sighs contentedly as he takes his first bite of chicken sandwich, already feels better and stronger.
"I can't believe," he says, stopping to swallow, "Can't believe we got the alpha vampire."
"Oh yeah, me neither." Dean returns, making big exasperated eyes at his burger before taking another bite.
Light dawns in Sam's mind and he laughs, turning his body more towards Dean. "So that's what this is about? You're pissed you missed it?"
"I'm pissed I didn't get to kill any vampires, man!" He huffs as he bites into his burger and Sam just laughs again.
"You're such a child," he states, because honestly he doesn't have any other words.
"Well, this child," Dean uses his burger to point at himself, "wanted to kill something, and you were supposed to find us a hunt."
"Well, sorry, I was a little preoccupied with not getting killed."
Dean snorts, "That was your own fault for going in there without me."
Sam just smiles and laughs and his brother looks offended, he knows Dean isn't really mad, just honestly ill he didn't get to behead anything.
"And the same totally DOESN'T apply to running off pellmell with scary-ass black leather assassin dude." Sam retorts into his sandwich and takes a bite so he doesn't start laughing again.
Dean points at Sam, "HE had a hunt."
And Sam sends him the 'you're so full of shit' face and comfortable silence sits between them.
Dean's face darkens and Sam can see he's thinking, can see the thoughts running wild, and not favorably for Dean. He kicks his foot under their chairs and shoots him a smile as he takes his first drink of beer, having wolfed down all his food.
"What is it?" He asks softer, recognizes that the light moment has passed.
Dean shrugs, swirling French fries around in a puddle of ketchup. "Just something that Brit said."
Sam cocks his head to one side curiously, "What did he say?" Dean shrugs and hesitates, watching his own movements.
"Said I was a killer."
And then Dean looks at Sam.
And Sam is frozen in his gaze. Dean's got this way about him. A sort of second personality. Where Dean is gentle and good he is also violent and reckless, and there is a part of him that is purely antagonistic.
Where Dean is pushed too far, and pressed too hard he strikes back with this person. And he's got a tell Sam has learned to read, because even Sam steps down and respects this version of Dean. He gets that dangerous look. The look that proclaims men dead, the look that promises so many dark things...the look that speaks of such hunger it sends chills up Sam's spine.
Because it's not something Sam pretends to understand. He's never been so angry that he physically couldn't turn down the offer of a vampire hunt. But Dean, Dean burned with feeling and conviction and anger. And he had to let it out, let it out before it destroyed him. And that second personality, that dangerous man allowed Dean to that.
That was the killer within. A hunter who coveted justice, a child who had been horribly wronged, a brother who fought on everyday. It was the best and worst parts of his brother all wrapped into one persona, a persona that did unspeakable things without blinking in the name of doing what's right.
And Sam has always been too scared to really discover if it was right or not. Mystified as to what lurked underneath Dean's extraordinary self-control, exhilarated and terrified at the prospect of one day finding out. Of one day standing beside that terrifyingly horribly righteous man...and often Sam wonders if that is what made his brother stand out to the angels, if it was what irrevocably tied him and Cas together.
This burning, passionate side of his brother that needed blood and death to assuage the keen sense of wrong aching away inside him. Sam has never quite been able to face that burning, glowing holy fire inside of his brother.
And he knows that's why Dean gets so angry, why he just can't accept it when people mess up. Because his sense of right was set to his own standards, the standards he lived by. Dean didn't seem to realize, not everyone was Dean Winchester.
So Sam looks down and away from Dean's gaze because he can't face what he doesn't understand...for when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you...He loves his brother, he trusts his brother...and he respects him, and yes there is a healthy fear for that side of his brother which thirsts for violence and gore.
Said I'm a killer.
The pain and confusion and very sure conviction in Dean's tones are heart breaking. And Sam doesn't know what to say and so is silent. Hears his mother saying, you boys wouldn't have to hunt anymore and knows deep inside Dean would never survive that life, knows deep inside he wouldn't either...the strife, the blood...the fight has long become what they live by.
Knows they will end bloody, at the end of the knife or the barrel of a gun as long last meant to be. He looks up to Dean again, and his eyes must reflect his belief that those who live by the sword die by the sword and their mom fights this battle so they can have a better life and Sam feels momentarily bad for her. Because there is no other life for them.
They will fight the good fight until the day they die.
So Sam simply inclines his head, "We are killers."
And Dean gives a little laugh.
"You know," Sam says softy, "Not one of those brits there tonight had ever killed anything...they have no idea just how big what they're doing is, no idea." And Dean laughs again. "They don't know how many times we've come through nights drenched from head to toe in blood, how many we have killed and how many times we drank toasts over that...mom doesn't know that."
She doesn't know that there is no shot at redemption left for them.
She doesn't understand, Sam doesn't understand, the brits don't understand this...
(You're not a child.
I never was.)
They don't understand who that makes Dean, Sam is the closest, Sam almost understands...Sam understands when he's high with the kill and smiles at the blood on his hands. Understands that this right here, was the only constant Dean ever had in his life.
So he smiles at Dean, shows his teeth like Dean taught him. And there's a dangerous glint in his eyes too.
"I'll find us a hunt." Sam says and Dean sends him that cold dangerous look accompanied by a smile this time and Sam shivers. They understand each other.
They might work with the brits, they might bend over backwards for the chance to know their mother...but there is no washing the blood off their hands so they will labor hard in the time they have left. They can do the dark, dirty work...the brothers can bear the taint on their souls, can bear the burden of childhoods taken away and what that makes them because there is no other life for them.
Let he who hunts monsters take care, that in doing so he himself does not become a monster, for when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. —Friedrich Nietzsche
...the end.
Hope you guys enjoyed!!! PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!
(I'm really sorry this got so dark, but it got me feels going)