Sam and Dean had been driving for roughly three hours in pure unadulterated silence. It had been almost five hours since Sam had shot the bastard yellow eyed demon, but it felt like longer. The boys had spoken with Bobby before leaving. There was a war on. They were needed. Why did it feel like things were coming to an end.
There it was, the sun slowly creeping up the highway, creating lazy waves of heat that rivaled a desert mirage. Finally Sam spoke. "So we can go back to our lives." He said quietly, his voice almost shocked and almost hopeful.
"There's a war on Sammy." Dean said back, just as shocked. "We have to get ride of the demons we let out." A quick look at Sam's face told Dean that his younger brother was going to fight him on it. "Sam, I'm not going to rest until anything even remotely demon has been wiped off the face of the earth. Then, I'm going after spirits. Maybe I'll make a sweep for shape shifters next. Never liked those things, but demons are the first to go. I want them all dead, Sammy, anything with demonic blood dies."
Dean looked back to his brother again, hoping he had erased any thoughts of running back to Stanford from the boy's head. A slow, almost sad smile spread over Sam's face as he nodded. "Yeah, you're right." Where his mumbled words, and Dean took them as a signing of the invisible contract to stay together and kill as many evil sons of bitches that their time on earth would allow.
They drove on, neither speaking, but Dean blamed it on his music. Half afraid that it wasn't the amazing guitar solos keeping Sam's mouth shut, he refused to turn the music down, in fact, he reached out and turned the dial a little higher and began tapping out the baseline on the steering wheel. As the sun sank back low again, Dean pulled the Impala into a small junky looking hotel parking lot. Sam gathered their bags wordlessly as Dean went in to pay until the name of James Hetfield. The man behind the desk didn't even bat an eyelash, and Dean was bitching as he walked into the hotel room.
"You'd think these people would have listened to a god damned Metallica record over the course of their lives. Shit." Dean looked over his shoulder where Sam was setting their bags down on the small corner table.
"Yeah." Sam said, pulling his shirt off and falling into his bed, closest to the bathroom and door.
"Hey, man." Dean groused, and when Sam stared up from under his elbow, he simply said, "Goodnight." Before climbing into his own bed for the night.
Dean didn't let his mind idle over Sam's mood swing longer than it took him to come up with an explainable excuse. He was quickly snoring, and Sam was climbing out of bed, grapping the new bottle of whiskey they'd picked up for a "Yellow Eyes is Dead" celebration. He quickly uncorked the bottle, and ignoring the plastic cups they'd stolen from the convenience store they bought the whiskey from, brought the bottle straight to his lips.
He couldn't really explain the anger and self loathing that was brewing in his gut, but it only seemed to be made hotter by the liquor. The brew just kept flowing and his mind kept turning into deeper and darker corners, until he was sure he was hallucinating, and finally until he wasn't sure he was hallucinating any longer.
It was when he was standing in front of the bathroom mirror that he stepped over the edge. As his blurry eyes started into the mirror, the lighting fell poorly, shadowing his eyes, making them appear a pitch black. His mouth twisted and he tipped the bottle once more to his lips before stealing into the main room one more time. He began rummaging through the bag, alcohol slowed fingers searching for something they couldn't seem to find.
A groan from the bed behind him drew his gaze to where Dean lay. He rolled slowly, off his pillow and buried his head in the crook of his arm, bringing the pillow with him. Dean only kept Sam's attention for a moment, however. The bright silver of the blade shone even in the dark of the hotel room. The irony of the fact that he'd be using Dean's blade, his safety net, to do what he was about to do wasn't lost on Sam, even with his whiskey idled mind. He quietly took the blade, studying Dean's face as he did so.
I'm not going to rest until anything even remotely demon has been wiped off the face of the earth.
Sam smiled slowly and took the bottle as he went into the bathroom. He looked into the mirror and took the blade to skin. Carving directly in the center of his chest. The wound wasn't deep, but it was starting to take shape. Quickly the blood made its way down his chest, absorbing into the hem of his jeans. An onlooker would recognize the circular symbol and Latin letters as a devil's trap, but Sam just looked at it, nodded once, and cut a little deeper, just to make sure.
Shedding his jeans he climbed into the tub, blood in the hotel tiles would be hard to explain. He started on the left side of his chest, just under the tattoo he and Dean had gotten. With a smile, he tipped the bottle back yet again and started carving. At first they were symbols that he and Dean had both memorized as children. A pentagram here, a few Latin symbols there. Down this rib cage, up the other side.
As the blood seeped out, the whiskey kept coming in, dulling the pain, and driving him further and further over the edge of sanity. He went down his left thigh before treating the other to the same. On the opposite side of his chest, he carved a Droje to repel the demon blood. He finished, finally, with a warning symbol, directly in the middle of his chest. Even if he didn't get all the demon blood out, maybe the symbol would warn others away from him.
His head swam as he dropped the dagger into the bottom of the tub, stained red with his blood. The world around him began swaying and he almost thought he saw Dean walking through the bathroom door. The fear in that mirage's eyes pulled him back into reality as his big brother was leaning over the tub, hands pressing into his skin in an attempt to stop the blood.
"Hold on, Dean." He slurred. "I'll get it all out." Sammy promised in a childlike voice. "I'll get all the demon out." He tried to life the whiskey bottle to his lips again, but as he raised his hand it was gone, sitting empty in the bottom of the tub.
"Sammy!" Dean cried, trying to haul the larger man from the basin. "Sam!" He cried again, finally managing to pull him over the edge and to his feet.
"I told you, Dean." Sammy said, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. "I'll get it out of me. I'll get it out of me and then you can rest."
Dean had never been as scared in his life, or as thankful for hotel's tendencies to put a bed almost directly in front of the bathroom door. He just had to pivot and Sammy fell, legs dangling off the edge of the bed.
The older Winchester stared for a moment, as the blood kept running in tiny rivulets down into the bedspread, and Dean had to wonder how many of Sam's words were the alcohol and how many were blood loss. He grabbed a hotel towel and pressed hard down on the worst of the wounds, trying to staunch the flow of red. He left the towel there, grabbing the stitching needle from his bag and started in on the cuts that hadn't stopped bleeding. A few of them, deep and twisted, wouldn't sew, and Dean began to wonder how he was going to get them closed.
He finally decided that it didn't matter how this turned out, Sammy was getting closed up, one way or the other, and he fetched his blade from the bottom of the tub and started a fire with old newspaper and a lighter in the sink. He thrust the tip of the silver blade into the center of the flames, and when it started to turn a faint red, he brought it quickly down on the symbols that wouldn't close.
Up until now, Sam had simple laid back and watched with dilated pupils as Dean tried to stop the blood flow. Neither brother had said a word, and Sam was perfectly happy with it. When the hot metal touched his skin, however, he howled. The whiskey couldn't dull everything.
"Shh. Sammy, its okay. Its okay. I'm almost done, Sammy." Dean said, more for his own benefit than his brothers. When the last of the bleeding stopped, Dean allowed himself to sit back on his haunches and look down at his brother. Sam was unconscious, and marred, but he would live, something Dean had questioned when he saw him sitting in the bath tub.
"God, Sammy." He said, wondering if he should even try to wipe the blood from his chest and legs. Deciding he would have too eventually, and it would be easier when wet, he took yet another towel and soaked it in warm water before using it to dab away the blood. He kept working, willing his mind not to go to the words his little brother had said. Instead, he busied himself with caring for the taller man.
Eventually he ran out of things to care for, and slowly, sank back onto his bed. Sitting straight up, eyes wide, with tears forming at the corners. He would stay up that night, only to tend to the wounds in the morning, when Sam woke. They didn't speak of it as Dean bandaged his chest and Sam did his thighs. They wouldn't speak about it, but for the next few weeks Dean was awake every thirty minutes, checking to make sure his brother was still where he should be. They left the hotel room only a few days later, and Sam was silent through most of the trip.
Finally, Dean pulled the Impala over. "Sammy, we need to talk about this." He said, but Sam just kept looking out the window. "Sam, I know what you thought I meant and-"
"No chick-flick moments. You're rule. Keep driving." Sam said, eyebrows drawn together as he watched the trees slowly start to pass again. Quickly the trees were flying by, and Dean followed Sam's gaze, watching the world pass. He could only pray Sam's thoughts had gone as quickly as those trees.