SPOILERS for S3E16, S4, S5 (just in case you haven't seen those eps I don't wanna be responsible for spoiling anything for you). I just had to write this story and I totally completely realize that it's not a good story, but it would drive me crazy if I had kept it to myself. So here it is...
The title and the summary come from Breaking Benjamin's song called Anthem Of The Angels. I own absolutely nothing. And I'm sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes you're probably gonna find.
Enjoy.
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"Hey, hey, Dean, ummm… look we're cutting it close, I know, but we're gonna get this done. I don't care what it takes Dean, you're not gonna go to Hell. I'm not gonna let you. I swear. Everything's gonna be okay."
-:-
Thinking back at it now...
You couldn't cry anymore. The last tear that slipped from your eye was when the word was slipping into darkness and you were gripping the edge of the day with fingers stained with blood. The tear got soaked up by your brother's bloody shirt, making pink stains on the ripped skin of his chest.
You washed some blood off your brother's body with such gentleness and care, your fingers went numb. You were numb.
You pushed his insides back where they needed to be and thought absently that maybe that should've made you puke, but in reality, it made you feel special because you fixed your brother. Put him back together like scattered pieces of a puzzle.
You sewed him up. All the nasty claw marks, all the deep wounds, all the little scratches. You sewed it all up with trembling hands and numb fingers while trying to keep his insides where they belonged.
But he's your brother, he's your family, your blood and you could do that.
His chest was cold and pale and had stitches all over when you rubbed a cloth over his skin and yeah you really should have puked your guts out, because the cloth got red so fast you had trouble rinsing it out. You had to change the water fifteen times, before you were happy with the results. But blood is hard to get off and your hands were covered with it.
Trembling fingers, itchy blood and warm water… and your dead brother.
A black T-shirt was the first thing you found while rummaging in his duffle and you slipped it over his head, slid it over his chest and covered any evidence that your brother was ever clawed open.
You sat down on a hard chair silent and still, watching your brother lie on the table… dead.
His eyes were closed. The bright greenness of them was hidden behind his eyelids. That bright green that sparkled with weariness, worry, love, compassion, mischief… and hunger for something that he never got.
His body was still. There was no breath left in him. He wasn't moving. His arms were stretched along his sides, palms down like he was trying to grasp something, something that he could use to pull himself of Hell. But his hands were still.
He was quiet… his lips were slightly parted, but there were no words, no pop culture references, no snarky comments, no 'bitch' coming out of them.
He looked like he was sleeping, but you knew he wasn't.
"Sam…"
"We'll bury him."
"Sam…"
"Bobby," you know your eyes were cold when you looked at him, "we'll bury him," you looked back at your brother again, lying there… so still, cold, "he'll need a body when I get him back."
"Sam…"
"Bobby, we'll bury him."
"Okay, kid, okay."
You dug up a hole, sweating like a pig. You remembered all the times you did this with the man that was lying cold and silent in the open coffin by the side of the open grave.
You climbed out of the hole and glanced at Bobby who was silently watching you. Observing you. You knew then that you'll have to run, go away… you couldn't… stay. You needed to tear open the world and bring back your brother and to do that… you had to go away.
You didn't talk, couldn't really, because there was a pressure in your throat that would break as soon as you would've opened your mouth. Even breathing was putting cracks into the pressure, but you had to breathe, if you wanted to get your brother back.
He looked peaceful lying there. He didn't look like a man whose soul was being tortured in Hell. He looked peaceful, serene, silent and pale.
Dead.
Your hand sliced through the wind, coming near your brother's unmoving body.
It was cold where you pressed your palm in the middle of his chest, the coldness of his skin going straight through the shirt. Where a heartbeat should be making your palm twitch, you found only stillness and quietness.
Dead stillness.
The pressure in your throat was breaking… so slowly it hurt like knives slicing you apart.
You slid your hand up the soft string, grazed your fingers over your brother's collarbone, placed your palm at your brother's nape and lifted his head. You striped him naked of the amulet.
Your gift.
You would've done it sooner, while you were cleaning him up, but you couldn't. You wanted him to have it for as long as possible, but… but then a strange desire overcame you… a strange feeling of… want. You wanted the amulet; you wanted it by your side. You wanted your brother by your side.
You wanted to say: "I'll give it back to you soon."
You wanted to say: "'m sorry I couldn't save you."
You wanted to say: "Jerk, the Impala's mine now."
You wanted to say: "Dean."
But you said nothing at all, because the pressure in your throat was hanging on a thread and if that thread should've ever snapped… it would've left a pretty little mess out of you.
So you closed the pine coffin and Dean's still, quiet, pale face slipped from your eyes. Never to be seen again… until you got him back.
Bobby helped you lower the coffin into the grave. It was lighter then you imagined, or maybe Bobby was doing the lion share of lowering… you couldn't find the power in you to care. It was your brother in there.
Under the dirt, Dean would be safe until you bring him back. He would be. You knew that.
The moon was bright above the tree tops, brighter then it had every right to be. It made the amulet in your hand sparkle. Glow even. When you stumbled away from the dark hole that held your big brother, the amulet felt strangely like the feel of Dean's hand in yours when he helped you cross the street when you were little.
You held the amulet in your hand at every given chance. And when you couldn't touch it, you knew it was there, touching you; hitting you on your chest when you ran, walked, slept. It forced you to breathe. Your brother was there, beside you. Never leaving your side. You never leaving his.
Days went on and on and on, blurring into weeks, sliding into months… the Impala was eating up the road like she knew that her boy's life depended on it.
You did everything, you tried everything, everything you could think of, everything… that could've gave your brother back to you. Day after day, you did things, tried things, but nothing, nothing worked.
Even when Ruby was lying underneath you, the taste of her blood in your mouth, and the amulet whispering this is wrong, it's wrong, wrong you couldn't stop, because maybe, just maybe that would be the thing that would bring your brother back to you.
But it didn't.
-:-
The feel of your brother's arms around you, squeezing tight around you… felt like you could finally breathe again without the help of the amulet.
The feel of his breath in your ear… felt like you could finally stop for a second. Just one second and enjoy the rare moment of… connection.
He squeezed tighter… it felt like you were safe again, without having to touch the amulet to feel like that.
-:-
"Hey wait…" your hands reached for your life line, the thing that kept you going for four months, "you probably want this back."
You watched your brother; the way he held the amulet in his palm, like it's the most precious thing in the whole wide world, the way his eyes started to shine with happiness, the way he became serious, not really believing that it was really happening... you still couldn't believe that you had him back. Your own brother, back from Hell.
"Thanks." He said casually, like he had no idea that the weight of the amulet was what spurred you on when you weren't able to remember what he looked like, sounded like.
"Don't mention it."
You had him him back by your side again.
-:-
Looking back at it now...
The things that you did back then... to get your brother back... were wrong, because you lost him again. He's there, but he's not... not really. He's by your side, but he's not... not really. He's alive, but you feel dead. Cas even took away his amulet, the only thing that... and days just go on and on and on.
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The End.