Foreword:I originally wrote this story a year ago this past Christmas for lovely Sujaeya on livejournal as a Christmas gift. This strange little story is, for the most part, an AU take on Sam's supernatural abilities that start rearing their ugly little heads in season 1. They are, for the most part, merely that: just abilities he was born with that are slowly making themselves known. Aside from this fact that the characters themselves are not aware off, this story follows season 1 continuity.
QUOD ITA VISUS SIT
The Sacrament
"As it was seen, thus it shall be."
Sam sees.
At first it's just little things and he thinks that it's deja vu or absurdly good luck or a glitch in the Matrix because he mostly doesn't remember it. Hints, flashes, and feelings that pass by too quickly to be catalogued as concern and he really just mistakes it as an active imagination fueled by a really fucked up childhood. There are much more important things like his new-found freedom, college classes, books, new friends, and the pretty girl in his history class that sits two rows ahead of him with the long blonde hair and the dimples that make his stomach do weird floppy things whenever she smiles at him. He likes her, but he has yet to gather the ol' Winchester courage to talk to her or even ask her name. She's pretty, her laugh is sweet, and she's smart.
He knows that it will all work out fine, though. He isn't sure how he knows (fact is, he doesn't remember how he knows just that he knowsso deep that he feels it like breathing that she likes him too; it's just a fact of the universe, like earth and wind and fire and that the world isn't flat, Columbus, and that her name is Jess, even though no one has told him, he still knows), but he does.
He puts it all aside, because strange things have no place in Stanford and because he left behind the supernatural when he got on that bus and turned his back on his father (arrogant, ignorant, selfish bastard – he hates him as much as he loves him, doesn't want to think about him because when he does he wants to cry like a child or like a girl because he wanted his approval so damn much, too damn much, but he wasn't made for guns and salt and iron, at least he doesn't think that he was because he loves books and paper and learning more than killing and hunting and chasing the monsters away), his brother (Dean, Dean, Dean – pretty green eyes he loved too much that it scared him away, if he's honest with himself which he can never be nor will ever be and Dean will never know, because that's why he left: to keep Dean from figuring it out 'cause it's better that he think that his little brother is an ass than to think that his little brother is a sick freak), and the life that they feel he should be living because of duty and destinyand all that crap.
It doesn't matter. What matters are the things like finals and grades and Jess, and he sees that it's all good, and that it'll all be fine.
Except that it isn't.
Not for long, not forever.
Because Sam sees.
Prophecy runs through his veins and Sam burns with it, stuck somewhere on the road between now and tomorrow and all the days that follow in the thereafter. Maybe he's fallen down the rabbit hole instead. Pretty, pretty Alice wrapped in blue and white and red red red that never washes out, spiraling down down down until up is down and what's right is what's wrong and everything is spinning in a dance that will never end because the cycle is infinite (a twisted, winding road that stretched on into forever as it loops again and again and again and again – forward and backward and onward again), no matter what anyone says, because he has seen. It isn't surprising (not in the least) because he sees it, and feels it, and breathes it, and a raven really isn't like a writing desk – it's a stupid question, anyway.
That's the beginning, but that's merely just a taste of it.
Second verse, same as the first. Try it again with a little more feeling.
Jess dies.
Again, again, again, again. It doesn't stop, it never stops, not behind his mind's eye when he dreams and Sam knows, the way he knows that the sky is blue and that he got an A on his biology final and that Bryce was going to ask the girl that he'll meet at the party next week to marry him come a year from next March, that it isn't just a nightmare because it's never just a nightmare. He won't admit it. Can't. Admitting it means acknowledging it, and he can't do that. He doesn't want to be the freak again.
But Jess still dies. She won't stop dying. It's getting kind of ridiculous.
He ignores it.
'Round and 'round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel. Except the monkey had a sawed off shotgun and the weasel was a ghost up in Maine inside a white house built in the 1800's. The ghost was a little girl, and she meant no harm, but the monkey didn't care because hunters don't care about those sorts of things. A little girl lost doesn't matter, it doesn't matter that all she's doing is trying to reach out for a friend because she never had one, not all those years ago, because her father was a drunk and her mother was a harlot and she died because her uncle couldn't get there in time to save her from herself because she had no friends and no one cared and 'round and 'round they go, until the monkey finds where the weasel was buried and sets it alight – and suddenly the weasel isn't around anymore and won't ever get the chance to make friends, not anymore. Sometimes Casper really is the friendly ghost, and no one cares. No one ever cared.
The monkey surely didn't.
He can feel her pain, even across the country locked up safe and sound in his dorm with his arms wrapped around Jess and he mourns her, that girl with long dark hair and pretty white dress that burns and burns and burns, because no one else would.
Certainly not the monkey, who didn't even tell his little brother to stay because he loved him, just because it was his duty to his family.
That's the heart, and that's the soul of it.
He knows it's Dean even before he hears the first sound, and he isn't surprised, not deep down. He can't admit it, not yet, because (haven't we already covered this? Freak) it's silly to think that he can see things before they happen. It's just nightmares. Lots of them. And Dean, silly Dean, who shouldn't have come because he couldn't leave well enough alone? Sammy found himself a girl, silly goose, and you should run away before he is reminded why he left in the first place to escape from green, green eyes.
They fumble together in the dark.
Not how he wants, but, oh, how he's missed this. Tumbling around with his brother and for once, finally, feeling safebecause nowhere is safe without Dean. Not for little Sammy (not so little anymore, when did Dean get short? Last spring, when Sam grew four inches and Jess laughed about waiting for a flood) who sees too much.
Dad's missing. Dad's on a hunt. Dad's missing.
He's fine, Sam knows, but he won't say it because how does he know?
He just does.
So he lets Dean convince him to flee in the night, to chase the trace of John Winchester to Jericho, California even though Sam knows he's not there, but it's alright. It's okay. Because Dean still smells like oil and leather and Sam feels it beneath his skin like blood (like the blood red of Constance's lips, bitten and chapped, as she drowned deep beneath the river that flowed like sorrow from her broken, fractured heart). She's home but couldn't stay, Sam's home but he can't stay – because if he does Dean'll know, because Sam needs his brother like he needs oxygen, and then there's Jess, pretty Jess and it wouldn't work out, because his brother doesn't love him like that (except he does) and Jess would miss him (except she won't, because she's dying right now as he slams the Impala door shut and tells Dean that yeah, he'll call him. Or something. But he won't, 'cause he'll see him again before it gets to that).
He's on the bed, watching her burn, but he doesn't move. He locks his gaze with her glassy blue eyes and watches the world keep turning because he's seen how this plays out.
"I'm sorry." He says, so softly over the snap crackle pop sound of fire on cloth and drywall. "I saw."
He doesn't say that he didn't know how to tell her that she was gonna die and that he didn't stop it, because he knew he couldn't and because who can see the future, anyway?
Sam can.
He hears Dean call out his name and he doesn't move. He doesn't want to move. Because he loved Jess, even though he knows like he knows that two follows one and B follows A and that somewhere across campus Marcy is making out with her girlfriend and that the two of them will adopt a little girl in ten years time that he loves Dean more, because how couldn't he? Strong arms wrap around him and pull him out of the burning apartment and Sam has a mission to find the thing that killed her – the demon with the yellow eyes (Azazel. They'll meet up with him next year.) - and as he sits in the passenger seat of the Impala, he watches the countryside blur.
Dean's worried, but he's fine because he knows that he will be fine.
Jess will be avenged. Mom will be avenged. They'll catch up with Dad in a few months.
He wants to tell Dean as much, but when his brother asks why he isn't sleeping, Sam just feigns being worried about finding the demon that's Jess's killer because it's easier than the truth (No, Dean, I'm fine because I know how all this plays out and nothing really surprises me anymore because I see it all before it happens).
Sammy's got a screw loose.
Dean knows already, this he's seen. Not the details, not everything, because it's not what big brother Dean would expect of little brother Samuel but he knows that something isn't right with his baby brother. Sam kills monsters that Dean didn't even know about, turning and shooting a ghost right in the face that had snuck up on Dean because they were expecting one not two, but Sam knew. Sam saw. Sam dealt with it quickly, quietly, like it was the most natural thing in the world because of course, Dean, didn't you know that Samantha Hollan had a little sister? Why wouldn't she be here too? Excuses, excuses, and Sam feels their pain as they burn and burn and burn but he stays silent, stays quiet, and Dean's eyes burn into Sam like the match burns into their funeral clothes. He wants to laugh, wants to smile, wants to reassure and tell his brother that he's fine, but he hurts too much and wants to cry because they wanted to cry and no one cried for them.
That was the gift, but therein lay the trick in it.
The first time he got the Sight when Dean was there was not surprising (nothing is surprising, not anymore), but he wasn't sure how he was going to explain it away 'cause he knew he should at least try because today was the day that Dean would know just how much of a freak his little brother really was (it was going to be okay, but it was going to take a few days, he knew this already).
It happened just outside of El Paso, Texas.
He got a headache, as he usually did, but there was nowhere to hide in the leather interior of the Impala and pain makes it hard to feign sleep. So he curls into a ball and buries his face against his knees and trembles until Dean freaks and pulls the car over and flies to Sam's side like he knew he would all along and when this began. Dean curled gun-callused hands against the sides of his little brother's head and turned his face up – his questions dying on his lips and pupils dilating in surprise, in confusion, in fear.
Jess told him he looked far away like that once, when he drifts from now into tomorrow, next week, next year, and on and on and on and on.
Marcy and Bryce would say he looked like he was lost somewhere beyond his own skin, like he would drift away from reality and into a world entirely of his own.
They all three were right, in their own ways.
He knew what Dean would see – unfocused hazel eyes darting back and forth and back and forth and lips moving soundless – because he'd seen it through Dean's eyes before, this moment, days ago in the bathroom of that crappy diner that had bad meatloaf but really good pasta. Otherworldly and foreign, like he didn't belong, because for those few fractured moments he didn't. He shivered back to himself, eyes snapping into focus as he gazed calmly up at his brother (his wonderful Dean, who loved him unconditionally but would be scared and freaked for the next twenty-six hours not because of what Sam was nor of what he could do, but because he didn't know how to protect him from this and Dean didn't like what he couldn't save his Sammy from).
There was yelling, but Sam didn't speak a word.
When it was over, and twenty-six hours had passed, Dean crashed back into their crappy little hotel room and crowded Sam on the bed he had curled up upon and rambled, over and over and over again, about how it was going to be okay, that together they would figure it out, and that Dean wouldn't let anything happen to him.
It was nice to hear Dean say it aloud, and not to hear it only in his own head.
He told Dean as much.
Dean looked a bit shaken, but smiled as best as he could because Dad was going to be livid when he found out, and he knew without Sam's gifts that he was likely to have to protect his little brother from his own father.
"It'll be okay, Sammy." He murmured again, crushing his little brother against him in a tight and terrified hug as Sam shook in his arms and he speaks the words like he means it, but he's scared – so scared, because this is something he doesn't know and it's happening to Sammy, his Sam, and his little brother is so far away that it hurts and he wants him to come back, but knows that he can't, and probably never will. "I'll look out for you."
Sam nods, because of course he would.
They're hunting a banshee in southern Michigan. A woman angered by the man who betrayed her. She screams because if she doesn't, no one would hear her, so she screams and screams and screams out her frustration, her anger, her pain, her betrayal and he tells Dean as much – swaying back and forth on his feet and closing his eyes, listening to her story through her shrieks inside his head. Dean doesn't say anything, just pulls him to the floor and wraps his arms around him as Sam sings a children's lullaby in a language he doesn't understand.
That's how it goes, and that's the general gist of it.
Seasons change, and Sam is standing still in a world in motion around him.
He feels like drifting away with it, but Dean is an anchor in a twisting maze of thought and action and feeling of lives that aren't his own. So he doesn't. He floats on the sea of universal consciousness instead, watching as life plays out around him. Dean doesn't like it when he floats away, so he tries not to, really he does, but sometimes he can't help it – finds himself seeing through someone else's eyes, feeling someone else's thoughts and hopes and dreams.
Sam finds himself speaking nonsensical things, sometimes. Things that don't make sense to Dean because they are parts of someone else's conversations, someone else's memories.
"Maybe a raven really is like a writing desk." He says suddenly in the silence of another state's crappy motel room.
"What?" Dean is groggy and tired. It had been a long day of werewolf hunting, after all, and sometimes his little brother makes no damn sense. Sam stifles a giggle and rolls over.
"Never mind."
Sing a song of six~pence, a pocket full of rye ~ Sam dances with the childhood rhymes inside his head. He's crazy, crazy, crazy and knows Dean is worried, but half of what they hunt are children and it gets to him, sometimes. He can feel them all around him. Innocence lost with time and anger and hate hate hate. Why force sanity in a world gone crazy? Loopy? Bugnuts ~ He looses his train of thought and it's not important, doesn't matter, nothing matters but Dean and he smiles hugely at his big brother whom he adores and when he pulls Dean into his dance, his brother hesitates but doesn't argue, doesn't fight, because Sam is crazy cause of the voices and the visions in his head and Dean feels a bit guilty, somehow, so he lets Sam dance because lucidity is more common than...this, and it's best not to fight to drag Sammy back into himself when this happens because that's when the pain comes back, and Dean hates watching his little brother twist in agony – it's more than he can stand. So he dances with Sam who most likely isn't Sam at the moment, a Sam that is reflecting an image of the things that they are chasing – and waits for his little brother to return.
That's the sight, and that's the sound of it.
They move forward as they always have.
They hunt and search and hunt some more. They drive crazy long hours and stop to sleep in crappy motels and eat food that really isn't good for them but tastes delicious all the same. They grow closer, they grow apart, and then they grow closer again. They move in time to the beat of life around them, and Sam's body hums with the sync'd unity of it all. Dean worries, but time changes some things and the worry will always remain but the nervousness fades into protective acceptance. He shelters Sam from the world when Sam looses his grip on himself, and Sam, in turn, loves his brother fiercely.
It's no surprise when things shift, because Sam knew it would all along and was patient.
It's February in Florida, and it's warm enough outside and even warmer inside. Sam waits, sitting patiently and quietly and when it hits, it hits like a storm – he falls back with the force of the visions that don't shock him so much anymore. He's recognized the build up, and he knew the events of tonight would be brought about by a vision anyway, so it's not like he was unprepared – that's why he was sitting in the first place. He's fallen standing up before, and he doesn't like making his head hurt worse from the fall.
So he falls back onto the bed, back arched, eyes blank, and it's powerful – as powerful as he vision he saw of Jess back then, all those months ago – and Dean's never seen them at their peak, never seen when Sam sees time and life and motion itself, not just the snip-its and pieces of lives or lives lost. He twitches, he knows, because he's seen it, and Dean drops everything when he's coming though the door and rushes to his little brother's side.
"Sammy!" Dean sounds panicked, as panicked as the first time, and there are hands at his temples brushing his hair away. When it's over, it's over, and the vision itself was unimportant (four years down the road, an angel in a trench-coat becomes their best friend and most trusted confidant next to Bobby), because the outcome is all that matters. He opens his eyes as he melts against the mattress and against his brother, sleepy hazel blinking owlishly up at terrified green.
"Jesus, Sammy. What was it? What did-" Dean bites off 'what did you see' because sometimes it gets too weird for him to say, and Sam hums contentedly against Dean's hands still caressing his hair soothingly.
"Doesn't matter." He smiles, because it doesn't. Castiel is a surprise for Dean, a true friend that his brother hasn't had outside of his own family, and Sam doesn't want to ruin it. "You'll know someday." He turns into the hands against his head, his smile cryptic and Dean snorts softly in frustration.
"Prophetic little bastard." His brother grumps, but he's smiling a bit and Sam knows he means it with affection. He hums again, this time in agreement as he nuzzles the wrist that rests against his cheek. Dean's breath catches, and cat-green eyes narrow slightly as his brother tries to figure out what Sam is doing. He goes to move, but Sam snakes out a hand to grip his arm and stills him.
"Don't?" He turns, hazel eyes imploring. He knows Dean won't, but it doesn't hurt to ask anyway. Dean relents and relaxes as Sam curls up against him – long limbs somehow curling and folding so that he can feel, just once, smaller than Dean again. Dean arches an eyebrow, but doesn't comment as he reaches out and tucks an arm around Sam's waist and tugs his little brother against him. They fall asleep curled around one another, and that is how it starts.
Sometimes Sam doesn't get caught up in the feeling on hunts. Sometimes, sometimes it's like it was in the before. Sometimes it's just bag 'em, tag 'em, burn 'em, shoot 'em and that's it, that's all, and that's the end. It's normal, as far as these things go, with research and finding and doing everything by the book if there was a book for such a thing. Sam thinks Bobby might have one, but they haven't met up with Bobby again yet so he doesn't mention it because this is as close to normal as they'll ever get and Dean is happy and Sam feels lucid and grounded in a way that doesn't happen often on emotionally charged hunts.
That's when it's best, and therein lies the test in it.
Sam shivers.
Forehead damp with perspiration and honey-brown hair sticking to his skin in little clumps, Sam twists and shivers and whimpers beneath the blankets and sheets – kicking and clawing and tossing and turning and forever, forever restless. He feels another man's pain, sees through a scared little girl's eyes, watches a child born through a mother's fevered and sickly gaze, and throughout it all he watches the world turn dark and dead and decayed.
When Dean wakes, worried and frantic, and rushes to Sam's side, Sam wants nothing more than to reach out and reassure him that he's fine, he's fine, but he isn't fine, he really isn't, so he lets Dean tug him into his arms and cradle him against his chest and whisper nonsense words into his hair and Sam breathes, so slowly, so as not to shatter apart.
It's hard, but he manages.
When Dean moves to get up, Sam reaches out to still him with a murmured plea escaping his lips. Dean's heart breaks a little upon the sound, and he crushes Sam back to him and refuses to ever let him go. They lay like that for a time, curled around one another once again, until Sam untucks his head from beneath Dean's chin and peers at his brother, all bright eyed curiosity and wonder and Dean feels guilty, so guilty, because Sam looks so much like he did years ago when they were young and he was innocent and Dean wants to shelter what's left of Sam's tarnished innocence so it doesn't wither and die like the souls they hunt and kill.
But Dean's innocence was lost long ago, and Sam is looking at him with such unabashed affection and he can't help himself, he really can't, because he adores his little brother and he's so afraid of losing him because Sam is not alright, his prophecy takes so much out of him, controls him sometimes, and he wants to keep what's left of Sam close so it doesn't fade away like everything else.
He kisses him.
Soft and sweet and Sam's lips are petal soft and open without any hesitation, like he's been expecting it, the little bastard, and maybe he knew all along how this was going to end. It shouldn't surprise him, because Sam seems to know everything, after all, even though he tries to pretend he doesn't.
Sam wraps long arms around Dean, and Dean decides to stop thinking for awhile. Sam's his world, his life, and if he's brutally honest with himself – his purpose for being, so he decides not to bog himself down with the details. He lets his little brother keep his secrets, what little of them he has left, because it's good and it's fine and Sam tastes sweet, like the pie he'd convinced his little brother to have with dinner.
They fit together nicely, even though Sam's tall and gangly and gargantuan. He somehow folds well into Deans arms, and the thought sends a little thrill down Dean's spine.
It's good, and for now, it's enough.
Sometimes when Sam speaks, it's like he's no longer Sam but someone else. He speaks in foreign tongues with words that are not meant for Dean. These are the worst times, when Sam is so far away that it's hard to bring him back. Dean waits and his patient, because he's learned the hard way that trying to force Sam back risks losing him for longer to the things he sees and gets so caught up in. It's frustrating, and terrifying, because he misses his brother so very much during these rare periods when Sam feels so far away even when he's so close he's practically curled in Dean's lap.
That's when it's worst, and that's the hardest part of it.
They grow closer, if that's even possible.
Sam feels Dean like breathing, like he feels the world move around him and through him. Dean is like his lifeblood, and Sam needs his big brother like air. Dean isn't aware of how deeply Sam's need for him goes, and Sam is just fine with that because it really isn't all that healthy, but Sam is so very afraid of losing himself one day and he knows knows knows that Dean wouldn't ever let that happen because Dean loves him.
Dean loves him, and their bond is deeper than that of brothers should be.
Sometimes, Sam is afraid that Dean will put the brakes on their growing relationship, but he knows that he won't because fear is not fact, and Sam is graced with facts. Dean loves him deeply, and Sam loves him even deeper in return.
It's electric, the feelings they have for each other.
Sometimes Sam can feel what Dean feels, the static pull to be close, but he doesn't tell him. It would freak him out too much, and Sam doesn't want to spook Dean even more than he already is. It feeds his own obsessive admiration and adoration, though, and Sam preens under the affection he can feel rolling off of his brother in waves.
He steals kisses, from time to time.
Dean gets this look, like he knows that Sam knows that he isn't going to freak out about it and that he's taking shameless advantage. He feigns wounded surprise, but he doesn't mean it because Dean is right – he is taking shameless, unabashed advantage and he's proud of it because Dean is his – his big brother, his best friend, and someday (someday soon, actually, because he's seen it but he's not telling and he knows that his knowing little grin is freaking Dean out a little) his lover.
He dances away when Dean reaches out for him to reel him back in after stolen moments, and laughs.
Not yet, not yet.
But soon.
The earth spins to the sound of the beat beat beat of the universe. Nothing is still, and everything is in motion. Sam sways with the pulse of it like the pounding of drums, humming in time with the song that the universe sings. Time flows ever forward, but sometimes Sam wants to feel everything swirling and spinning around him. He knows he scares Dean like this, but it's soothing in a way that is grounding in a primal and simplistic way. He feels whole, like this, dancing to the sound of life and it's etherial, otherworldly and Dean is so scared that during that fractured few seconds of time that he's lost his brother, but at the same time...his baby brother is beautiful, swaying to a song inside his own head and Samuel is so alive like this, at one with the world, that Dean finds it wonderfully heartbreaking to behold.
That's the beauty, and that's the wonder in it.
When they come together, it's like fire.
It's after a hunt that almost-but-didn't-quite-go-wrong, where Dean almost didn't get to Sam in time and even though Sam had seen what was going to happen, he hadn't been able to get out of the line of fire anyway. The details were unimportant, and the outcome was all that mattered because it had led them here, to this, and Dean crushed Sam against him like he almost couldn't believe that he was real, that they'd both made it out alive and that they were alright, they were alright, and Sam murmured these things, over and over and over again to try and make Dean believe it, to make him see it they way Sam sees things – truth like knowing, events burned like certainty in his mind.
Dean pulls Sam up into a heart-wrenching kiss, and Sam doesn't fight it. Why would he, because he knows Dean needs this and knows how this is going to play out and he's happy to let Dean have this, because he wants it too. Desperation fuels Deans actions as his shaking hands find their way beneath Sam's clothing, and Sam is still uttering comforting words and reassurances as they fumble their way out of their clothes and onto the motel bed.
It's hot and needy and full of panicked desperation because Dean can't shake the feeling that he almost lost Sam, and Sam needs Dean like he needs oxygen in his lungs.
They're dysfunctional, but they move together in perfect harmony like they were meant to be together because they were. They were born for this, and Sam knows this like he knows everything else.
It's slow and sweet and perfect, even with fumbling hands and too-bright eyes and Dean kisses like he wants to crawl beneath Sam's skin and, really, Sam isn't all that against the idea. He wouldn't really mind it, because he wants to keep Dean close and happy and as happy as they both can be in this life that they lead.
"I love you." Sam whispers, eyes bright and wide as Dean finally slides in and it feels a bit like coming home. It hurts, but it's good, and Sam doesn't mind cause he knows in a few seconds it's going to feel amazing. Dean's eyes are wide and a bit wild, like he's the crazy one and not Sam. He stares down at his little brother, his amazing little brother, and curls his fingers in the sheets next to Sam's head.
"I..." He blinks, and Sam smiles. Sam knows. Of course he knows, but Dean wants to say it anyway. "I love you, too." He blinks again, and Sam's smile is blinding. He moves, and Sam moans, and that's enough thinking for now.
Sam feels disjointed, sometimes, like a fractured piece in the puzzle of life. He knows he's crazy. The things he sees? How can he not be? But it's a sane kind of insanity, if that makes any sense at all. He knows things people shouldn't know, he feels things people shouldn't feel, and sometimes he gets lost in it all but it's alright, it's alright because he has Dean, who is lost right along with him and hangs on for the ride. Sam smiles, and reaches out the window of the Impala like he can touch the sun. Maybe he can, Dean doesn't know, but Sam is brilliance and life itself and maybe he is crazy, but the world itself is insane and Dean gets the feeling that if he was a little bit smarter and a bit more willing to open his eyes to the world and it's infinite possibilities, maybe Sam wouldn't be the crazy one, but the only one who understands.
They work together, somehow, in a way that doesn't make sense.
They live on the edge of life, watching from the outside in, but the universe pulses through Sam and somehow...he feels special, like he's been gifted with life itself and not cursed like he'd always believed because that was the Winchester way.
That's the end, but, oh, that's just the start of it.