Sam leaned against the cool glass of the Impala's passenger window, staring into the blackness outside. With Dean right beside him, it was familiar, comforting—almost. Only the darkness outside wasn't the inky night he was so used to watching as the Impala tore down another highway. This Darkness was completely different. It seethed. It roiled. It was alive.
Well, at least now Dean gets his wish, Sam thought.
Because any minute now, the Darkness was going to seep through the cracks made by the windows and the doors and do—something bad and painful, probably.
Behind the wheel of the motionless car, Dean laughed. Sam tensed, waiting for it to become one of those full bodied roars that didn't reach Dean's eyes that were so common since the Mark. When it didn't grow past a derisive chuckle, Sam relaxed back into the leather seat.
"I was just thinking," Dean said, shattering the silence that Sam was half expecting covered the whole world now. "At least now I can actually die."
"Yeah," Sam agreed.
And I can too. And then it'll be just like you want.
"Except," Dean continued. "For the whole killing Death thing. I mean, that has to have ramifications, right? Can people even die anymore?"
"I don't know, Dean," Sam said, gesturing at the blackness outside. "I kinda think we might have bigger problems at the moment."
Killing Death, Sam thought. That's right. Dean did that. For me. He wouldn't have done that if—
"Hey, Dean?" Sam asked, hating how tentative his voice sounded. God, it was like he was twelve years old again. "Why did you, um—you know?"
Dean sighed and peered out the windshield like he did whenever it rained so hard visibility was shit and Sam begged him to pull over, but Dean would keep driving anyway, hydroplaning be damned.
"I dunno, Sammy," he said.
Sam nodded, biting his cheek to keep himself together. Of course, it was just a reflex action that stopped Dean from taking Sam's head off with that scythe. Some leftover of Dad's "keep your brother safe" mantra that had lodged in Dean's brain. Not a conscious choice. That made sense.
"I'd like to say I had good excuse, but the truth is, I don't think there is a good excuse for that," Dean said. "I was just so—ready to be done. I wasn't thinking about anything but ending it all, you know? But, um—" Dean rubbed his mouth with one hand before settling it back on the wheel. "I am sorry. Really, I am. I know I can't make it up to you, but—"
"Wait," Sam said, head swinging around towards Dean, only now noticing the guilt in his brother's face, the way he wouldn't meet Sam's eyes. "I get why you made the deal with Death. What I want to know is why you didn't go through with it."
Dean just stared at Sam like he'd started speaking Enochian.
"You know," Sam said, lowering his voice. "After what you said—after Charlie."
"I think it should be you up there, not her." Sam could hear the words now just as clearly as if Dean was still speaking them, still condemning Sam for Charlie's death.
"C'mon, Sam," Dean said, some of his usual bravado returning. "You know that was just the Mark talking."
"No," Sam said, shaking his head so hard his hair bounced against his cheeks. "Don't do that. Don't play that whole 'siren spell,' 'goddess of truth made me say it' crap. Because yeah, you were under the Mark's influence, but you wouldn't have said it if you didn't feel it already deep down."
"But, with the siren, you were the one who—" Dean started. He took a good look at Sam and seemed to deflate.
Sam noticed for the first time how lined his brother's face was getting. That, with the defeated slump of his shoulders just made him look fragile.
"Look, Sam," Dean said, and even his voice sounded weary. "Sometimes I say shit—shit I might not necessarily mean. But I say it because, I dunno, because I'm angry I guess. Or—"
He cleared his throat. Sam waited for him to go on. When he felt the silence had stretched on long enough, Sam said in his quietest voice of all, "I didn't say you were wrong."
"What?" Dean demanded. "Jesus, Sammy, that's not what I—" Dean ran his hand through his spiked up hair, staring at Sam like he was trying to communicate all the secrets of the universe with just the one look.
"What happened to Charlie," Dean said, starting up again. "Was all my fault."
"What?" Sam yelped, sitting up in his seat so far and fast he bumped his head on the Impala's roof. "Dean, that's not true."
Dean held up his hand for silence, and Sam's little brother instincts kicked in. He shut up.
"I know you're the one who asked her to keep working on the Book of the Damned, but she wouldn't have done that if it weren't for me," Dean said. "Charlie died because of me. And nothing I can do can change that. And yeah, I was, well, I was furious. And I was, you know."
Dean paused.
Hurting, Sam supplied, if only in his mind. You were hurting.
"So, anyway," Dean said, coughing a little. "I said that stupid-ass thing to you. And yeah, the Mark was messing with my head, and making me even more pissed. But you're right, Sam. At the end of the day, I still said it, and that's on me."
"It's—it's okay, I guess," Sam said, letting his gaze wander back out the window.
"Yeah, but, Sammy," Dean said. "You know I didn't mean it, right? I mean, not really."
Sam shrugged, his eyes still trained on the glass, but no longer able to make out anything past his own reflection.
"Sammy," Dean said, placing a hand on Sam's arm.
Sam startled, then turned around to face Dean again. Those insanely green eyes were staring holes through him.
"Sammy, don't you know by now, I'd never let you stay dead?" Dean asked, not breaking to give Sam a chance to answer. "If it had been you that died that day, I never would've let it stick. I'd have made a deal, worked a spell, done something, anything to get you back. If it'd been you instead of Charlie, God help me, you wouldn't have had the chance to make it to that pyre."
Sam blinked. Dean's face seemed strangely distorted all of a sudden. Like Sam was looking at him through bubbled glass. Sam blinked again. Two tears spilled in warm trails down his face, and his vision cleared. Oh.
Now that he had a better view, Dean's eyes looked a little watery too. When he spoke again, his voice was raspy, and his accent thick, the way it always got when he was emotional.
"Haven't you figured out by now, there is nothing I wouldn't do to keep you alive?" Dean said. "I'd keep the Mark for you, Sammy. I'd become a demon a thousand times over. Hell, I'd let the world end to keep you safe."
"I know that, Dean," Sam whispered.
Because suddenly he did. Suddenly, it seemed stupid, so stupid that he could ever have forgotten. This was Dean. Dean who would always choose Sam above anything else.
Sam noticed Dean's hand still rested on Sam's arm. Sam raised his own hand to grip Dean's bicep, so they were holding onto each other. Braced on one another.
"Hey, look," Dean said, pointing with his free hand to some point out the upper right corner of the windshield. "I think I see a little sky there. Looks like the Darkness is breaking up, huh?"
Sam stared out the window. All he saw was Darkness and more Darkness. There wasn't so much as a pinprick of light anywhere beyond the Impala's interior. But then Sam looked back at Dean's face. His brother was smiling just a little. He looked so hopeful.
"Yeah," Sam said, squinting into the black. "I see that."
"See, Sammy," Dean said, giving his arm a squeeze. "We're gonna be okay."
"Of course," Sam said, finding he didn't even have to force the smile he aimed back at his brother. "I never doubted it."