DEMONIC TENDENCIES

The air is so clear and cold it burns Sam's lungs as he breathes it in. The old asphalt road under his feet is cracked and mostly just rocks. The impala had barely made it up here. But it was worth it, the silence, the blue sky stretching forever and ever ahead of him, nothing but woods slanting down and away for hundreds of miles. There are birds singing, wind rustles leaves but those are the only sounds.

Sam turns to look at Dean. His brother still looks white and weak, redness around his eyes making the brilliant green standout even more. But Dean shoots him a sincere smile as he protectively holds his arm close to his body. Sam thinks a strong wind would knock Dean over right now, but getting him smiling was an improvement so he wasn't complaining.

Sam hasn't felt this in tune with his brother in years. He lets out a final sigh and then turns to start unpacking the impala, doesn't mind that Dean just leans against his baby and watches. Breathes in the clear, clean mountain air.

He's breathing, Sam thinks, he's breathing...and thats more than enough.

Chapter 1.

Even as Dean's arm swept up in a vicious arc to slice through Gadreel's chest, a part of his mind screams frantically at him to stop. Over the past few days he had forced the nausea and cabin fever down trying to control the pacing beast inside him. But as the first blade finds its home in his palm and its sharp blade slips through the soft skin of Gadreel's vessel the nausea, the tension flees from his muscles and leaves him with one thought, and one thought only.

Finish the kill.

Dean sees red. His vision is clearing as Sam and Cas bodily drag him away from Gadreel's fallen body and from the library, down the hall. And he knows, God, he feels the ache bone, soul deep...he hadn't finished the kill. The fight leaves his body, leaving Sam and Cas supporting a corpse like form in their arms.

His vision spins, crueler nausea than ever before makes him gag weakly. The burning sensation on his arm lets him know the mark is alive and its dark power it coursing through his veins stronger than any high he's felt before...too strong. He's nearly over run with it, his hearing fading in and out, the sound of his own heart beat drowning out Sam and Cas' words. Blackness ebbs at the edge of his vision until he's in the all too familiar file room and knows that Sam and Cas mean to lock him away safe and sound.

Please no, he thinks. I'm going insane as it is. There's something itching to claw its way out of him and he can't breathe, he can think...lately he can't even eat. But Sam hasn't seen his cries for help, or has been ignoring them. The cold man his little brother has become over the last few months isn't Dean's redemption anymore.

He's chosen his road and he knows where it leads. The mark demands blood and so does Sam...Gadreel's blood and that's all he was trying to do. And even in his fever and blood lust hazed mind he knows that's still no excuse.

Sorry Sammy, he thinks, as they shut the dungeon doors behind them and leave alone with this thing on his arm. I tried to get him for you, I really did. Because that's what Sam wanted right? For Gadreel to pay for what he did to Kevin? He doesn't even know anymore and Dean kind of doubts Sam does either.

Quiet falls over the bunker as Sam swings the door shut behind him, leaves Dean pacing the Solomon's key in the dungeon floor over and over again. Slowly the angry red of the mark dims on his arm and his boiling blood calms. Dean is able to force its dark presence back into its mental box and finally he has himself back, he can think clearly again...kind of.

Sighing in relief, he cocks his head to one side listening carefully for a break in the silence...I'm alone in the bunker, he decides.

It's too quiet, and Dean and the mark are still very much too alive. Even with the mark boxed away, Dean still thinks of the near miss he had killing Gadreel. God, he just wanted it to be over, he wanted to know that son of bitch's blood was all over his hands, he wanted to do to that angel like he'd done to Abbadon. Obliterate him who had come between he and his brother, smear his insides over the floor, watch the bluish gleam fade from his eyes and let Sam know, he's made it right.

Pleasedontleavemealoneineedyouidontknowwhatswrongwithmewhatishappeningwhycanihearthebloodbeatingthroughme...whycanihearthebloodrushingthroughyourviens.

He looks down at his hands numbly and finds his fingernails buried in the soft skin of his palms. He can't even feel it. The anger and frustration coursing through him is senseless and yet he's completely controlled by it. He's knows he has to get out, he has to get out of here and finish Gadreel and Metatron needs to be stopped before whatever the Mark of Cain is doing rips him apart.

He thinks of summoning Crowley, he could get Dean out of the bunker. Pictures flash over his eyes, he and Sam against the world, Crowley screwing them over...the blade rushing through Abaddon, slicing cleanly through Gadreel...he's trembling, shaking violently. His stomach rolling.

That's not he and Sam anymore, and Crowley had helped lately...the blood lust, the very conviction that he must finish Gadreel off is flooding him. It's a conviction, not a thought or desire...in his bones, soul and heart he must kill the angel and that's what brings him pause.

Who is this person? He thinks frantically. Is this really him now? Dean's a hunter, a defender of the innocent not a stone cold killer, not someone who thirsts for blood. But even as he thinks that his heart speeds up at the sight of the silky red liquid pulling in his palms and dripping onto the floor.

Sammy was right to leave you, he tells himself feverishly. You've become the things you hunt...monster.

The word rams into him and Dean curls in on himself, back against the wall and slides down it to sit and wrap his arms around his knees and listen to his own shuddering breaths. But his mind is screaming at him, and slowly the mark is heating up again and Dean realizes too late he's lost control.

You are a disgrace, you aren't human anymore, you're no better than any other demon or vampire. You need to end this now Dean, end this now before you hurt anyone else, before you hurt Cas or Sam. You can do it yourself...

But Dean doesn't want to die, he thinks hazily through the angry flames and words licking over his mind traveling from his arm and he's not conscious enough to realize with no other option the mark is calling for his own blood.

The ache, the pain inside him is becoming almost unbearable. His insides are boiling but his skin is covered with goosebumps, shivers wracking his frame. The fever that had been simmering over the past few days spiking with the feeling of blood on his fingertips and with the high over nearly ending Gadreel.

Dean fists handfuls of his hair the pain centering him a very little bit. He doesn't want to die, Sam needs him whether he realizes it or not...and they have to defeat Metatron at least for humanity's sake. And Sam can have a regular life again, Dean knows deep down, he knows when he's gone Sam can finally have what he's always wanted.

But first he had to fight, first he had to become himself again in order to help Sam and for them to fight Metatron. So he had to fight the mark, because Sam doesn't need another problem on his hands, doesn't need Dean messing something else up then Sam maybe really would leave him...

Those words are still echoing faintly in his brain...

"No Dean, same circumstances, I wouldn't."

And that's okay, Dean gets it. He's a screw up, he needs Sam in ways Sam will never need him. And bottom line that was it wasn't it? That day, the moment those words left Sam's lips Dean had lost his purpose, when Sam said they couldn't be brothers anymore Dean lost what individualized him. Because without Sam that's all Dean really was, a bloody, angry hunter...a killer.

So was it any surprise he was the perfect bearer of the mark, no, Dean didn't think so. And he accepted that before he even realized he did.

Now he realizes it. Now he knows this virus, the sickness growing from his arm lightening fast and into his brain has to be stopped, has to be ripped out, burned out...has to be ended. Because whether Sam knows it or not Dean is a brother to the end, to his very end.

And god, Dean is ready for it to be the end. He's tired, so tired of fighting, of being angry, of being alone...so one last stand sounds all too good to him. He pulls himself to his feet, swaying with vertigo, pukes on his own boots and thinks through the red haze of is mind, I've got to get rid of this damn mark.

And he's got to do it quick, he can feel it inside him, slithering like a snake, flickering like flames of fire, hooking in like cruel, jagged teeth in the sinews of his very being...he doesn't have much time.

...

The look of pure, savage hatred and darkness on Dean's face as he lashes out at Gadreel makes Sam sick to his stomach. He did this. This is what he'd made Dean think he wanted. Revenge, anger, death...didn't want Dean, only to be repaid for his own hurt. Because this person in front of him wasn't Dean, couldn't be his brother.

Eyes are wild and bright, if Sam had taken time to notice...wild and bright with fever. His brother's body is alive with energy as he grinds his teeth and growls at the fallen angel as he fights Sam and Cas with inhuman force. Sam grits his own teeth pushes his brother backwards with all his might; without Cas' supernatural strength Dean would have easily overpowered them both.

"Dean." He gasps out, half pleading with him...please stop, please let me know this is not who you are now, please let me not have lost you. Dean doesn't stop struggling until all three of them stand panting in the dungeon. Dean scares the living daylights out of his brother when he goes suddenly limp.

All fight suddenly gone, all strength seemingly used up or zapped out of him. Sam wonders if the heavier warding down here was detaining the darker powers swimming through Dean's veins right now. He and Cas let him go, cautiously stepping back watching the muscles in Dean's shoulders ripple with tension and anger. Sam bites the side of his mouth at the way Dean sways, but the rest of his body language screams aggressiveness.

When he turns around Dean's face is set like stone, cold as ice...frozen in that terrible foreign expression. No, Sam tells himself, something is wrong with Dean, this is not who he is. Couldn't be, Sam would have notice this severe a decline. Wouldn't he?

"Sam." He says simply as the two closest people in his life slowly back away from him. "Sam." He says again, as they reach the door and Sam's heart shatters into thousands of pieces as he listens to Dean's angry, but terrified voice as he and Cas shut the door and leave him alone in the bunker's dungeon.

Dean doesn't even know what going on with him.

How had they gotten here? How with all Sam's careful planing and keeping space between them had they still ended up here? Still ended with Sam letting Dean down and leaving him. Because that's bottom line why Sam had been so angry about Dean saving him. How many times was Dean going to look over Sam's giving up and just making his bed and lying in it and in doing that giving up on Dean and failing him? Sam deserved to die, Dean deserved to be free from his weak little brother,

Somewhere along the way he'd just been angry and confused and if Dean wouldn't allow Sam to go Sam decided he would allow Dean to go and oh god...he can't even begin to imagine the chaos and destruction within his brother's heart at those ugly words.

"No Dean, same circumstances, I wouldn't."

He lets fingers fall through his hair in a nervous tick of his as he and Cas come back into the map room. He stares numbly at the bloodstains on their floor, Gadreel is gone. They jump in Cas' car since Dean is locked up with his precious car keys and follow the blood trail to where Gadreel is panting on the ground, his blood soaking into the grass as he heals.

Cas kneels besides him and Sam watches the wounded angel flinch. He's still angry at Gadreel but his heart sympathizes with him. He's been in those shoes, shoes of trying to do good only for it always to go wrong. He watches in silence with his lips pursed as Cas lends hand healing the gash in Gadreel' chest.

They are all silent on the road side for a moment, Gadreel seems to recognize the last few moments and their happenings have been a shock to Cas and Sam. The wind is sweeping around them, birds singing in the air, Sam can hear little wings of grasshoppers and bumblebees in the fields around and his mind goes to Dean.

He sees a million afternoons like this one with he and Dean stretched out on baby's hood, hazy afternoons spent in and out of sleep and every time he wakes Dean is there humming under his breath, tinkering in the impala's engine or simply staring into the fathomless blue sky.

How was he here? How had he wandered so far from their roots that somehow he'd convinced Dean the only thing he wanted from him was to kill an angel? He'd made Dean believe he cared nothing for him and so Dean had gone and found another purpose for himself, to be a weapon...a living, breathing weapon.

Sam shivers thinking back to Dean's face, the confidence in his attempt to destroy Gadreel right there in their home, his inability to stop himself mutilating Abbadon's lifeless body. Sam had turned his back on his brother and in turn Dean had lost himself...had Sam lost him yet? Was there still time, still a chance?

He needed to tell Dean, tell him he lied, tell him he needs him. Tell him he doesn't want Dean to spill blood for him in order to regain their brotherhood, not Gadreel's blood, god, not Dean's blood. Because Sam knows, knows how this ends just like Dean had.

"This ends with one of us dead."

No, Sam thinks frantically. This wasn't how it was supposed to end. He just wanted Dean to hurt like he had, but he'd pushed too far hadn't he? Dean wasn't him, Dean was different. He was good and honorable and loyal...and Sam brought out the worst in him—if Sam wanted blood, if Sam needed Dean to kill then Dean would.

All Dean had wanted was to save his brother, Sam knew what that was like. But he'd turned his back on Dean when he'd been in Purgatory and when Dean saved him again and fought with him through the trails the guilt was crushing and Sam wanted to die. He honest to God wanted to die, relieve Dean of his disloyalty, the cruelty of his halfway love...a love that couldn't follow him to Purgatory apparently.

But Dean, Dean didn't care, he wanted Sam any way and in any form. Dean cared nothing for mistakes or shortcomings all he wanted was he and Sam on the road fighting evil. And right now as Sam realizes he's about to lose his brother again he gets it. He finally gets it.

There is nothing greater...nothing he honestly loves better then that. He'd tried to deny it and Dean had been trying to show him for years and years. That they had nothing more than that. They had Baby and they had each other and that was it, they would never have anything else. And whatever it took to keep that, whoever they had to fight or lie to in order to keep that, even themselves, they would do it.

And finally he recognizes that, finally Sam sees it. It's wrong, it's unjust and reckless. But he knows that there can be nothing but the two of them, nothing in between and no grudges. He needs to get back to Dean, remembers the sorrow in his voice when he shut him in the dungeon. The desperation and confusion all over his face under the anger...fear clenches around his heart as he realizes Dean has no idea what's going on with him either.

Sam doesn't even want to think about what Dean might do cornered and scared and guilty locked up in their dungeon, but he does know he needs to get back to him now. Tell him it's alright, he's sorry, please don't hate me, please don't go fight, please don't leave me...

And that's exactly what Sam had done to Dean hadn't he? He now sees Dean finding hunts and trying to be with him as the cry for help that it was, he's failed Dean again, he realizes with a heavy, sick heart. His brother needed help, that thing on his arm was forcefully twisting him into something his beautiful, righteous brother wasn't. And Sam had turned his back on him.

"Dean's right, you know?" Gadreel says and Sam jerks his head towards him to look at his face and find the meaning of his words.

"He's our best bet to defeat Metatron."

Sam is silent but Cas nods. "He's right Sam. The first blade is the closest we are to having something that can kill Metatron. If we were able to disconnect him from the angel tablet Dean might have a chance."

Dean might have a chance.

'Might' was far too slim a chance, much too risky for Sam. Was he really about to send his brother on a suicide mission calmly and willingly? No. There had to be another way. There was another way. Hadn't he and Dean given up enough? Hadn't they saved the world enough times? It was time for Sam to look to his own.

He thinks of all the times he refused to talk to Dean, refused to even look at him, refused to raven simply watch a movie with him...and now he could scarcely find his brother in those familiar, beautiful green eyes. This is not how they are going to end. Dean deserved better than this, deserved a better Sam. And Sam can be better, because Dean always makes him a better man.

He wasn't going to settle for anything but the best for Dean. If they're going down they're going down together, Sam is going to save Dean, is going to pull him back from whatever scary kamikaze edge he's standing on. He's going to show Dean he's here, he still cares...pleasedontdieiliedpleasedontleaveme.

He lies god forgive him...but he lies to Cas and Gadreel. He doesn't now what will happen to them when they are caught in heaven but it's a necessary sacrifice in order to save Dean. He's not letting Dean go on a suicide mission, in fact he's got half a mind to lock he and Dean up in the bunker and let them live out the rest of their years as hermits.

Let him use the rest of their lives making it up to Dean because god, he's been horrible.

He turns his back on his and his brother's best friend. It leaves a gaping hole in his chest, and he knows if Dean finds out his brother will never forgive him. He's willing to take all those risks as long as Dean lives...

I'm coming Dean, I'm sorry, I love you...please forgive me, please don't leave me.

He wonders who and what exactly will be waiting for him back at the bunker, but knows it doesn't matter. He's started them on a course that can't be altered. A course that is he and Dean against the rest of the world...

Sam hasn't felt this sure, this right since he got his soul back. It's taken him that long to get his true purpose back. To find who he really is once again. He has a feeling this is the stupidest thing he's done to date but Dean will live...Dean will live on with him. And maybe that makes him a selfish bastard, but he wonders when he lost the meaning of how codependent he and Dean are.

Realizes he stole Dean's very essence and expected him to carry on without it...he knows with tears in his eyes and his hands trembling that Dean's wounds and scars are far from just physical. He wonders how long it will take for them to rebuild what he'd torn down...is so scared that Dean won't even want that again.

All he can pray is that Dean is the better man, hope that Dean loves him far better than Sam loves Dean. As he goes straight to Dean's voicemail for the fourth time his stomach is twisted and sour with worry. Dean's just pissed off, he tells himself. He's just ignoring me.

But his foot is heavier on the gas, his heart is beating wildly...thinks of the wild, angry and then cold and calculated looks on Dean's face. Clenches his fist against the steering wheel hearing the terrified tremors in Dean's voice as he pleads for 'Sammy' to come back.

The endless, horrendous possibilities of what those emotions could make his brother do leaves Sam a nervous sweating mess, worry and anger at himself thrumming under his skin leaving him burning ridiculously hot the rest of the way home.

He locks the bunker door securely behind him. "Dean?" He shouts, as he hurries down the stairs two at a time, not really expecting an answer but needs one, so bad. Just needs to know his brother is still there...that he's not too late. When he arrives in the file room, his heart is in his throat the silence filling him with horrible, horrible dread. The scene that greets him causes his blood to run equally cold, tears frozen in his eyes.

...tbc

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