Blood Oath

"The next time…" Sam's eyes dart all over the main room of the bunker. He's being shifty, means what he's about to say but it's still a rough mouthful of words to deliver. "I die, that's it. The last time. You won't bring me back."

Slouched in a chair, Dean swallows a mouthful of whiskey but it's not the liquor that burns on the way down. "Yeah, okay." It's not like Sam can stop him.

A clenched jaw, that deep line between his eyes, and Sam stomps his foot. "I mean it."

"I know you do." He's talking to you, but also, let's talk about ANYTHING else. A can of worms, if ever there was.

"Say it."

Dean looks up sharply. "What?"

"Say the words."

What the hell, Sammy? For all his talk of trust, he's certainly pushing it now. Dean sniffs, monotonously responds, "The next time you die, I won't bring you back."

The corner of Sam's mouth twitches. He thrusts his hand towards Dean. "Shake on it?"

Dean tosses back what's left of his whiskey. Yeah, whatever. Sam's planted just far enough away that Dean has to stand. The glass hits the table as he rises and steps forward. His right hand locks with Sam's, and his brother grips tight. Dean frowns.

Sam's left hand shoots out wicked fast, a brief flash of steel as he draws the small concealed blade just deep enough across the back of Dean's hand, a hot poker tearing a path wrist to thumb along the bone.

"Ow, son of a bitch! Sam, what the hell – " Dean instinctually moves to cradle the wounded limb, tries to wrench his hand away but Sam holds firm, drops the blade and wipes his palm across the cut, gathering a smear of blood. He releases Dean, steps back and drags a leathery swatch of dark…something, from the back pocket of his jeans.

Dean jerks away, punches Sam in the upper arm and puts pressure on the bleeding cut. "Damn it." A thin stream of blood runs along the curve of his forearm, slips quickly to stain the rolled cuff of his navy shirt.

Sam ignores the jab, ignores Dean altogether. He had this planned, wipes the blood meticulously from his hand onto the papery surface.

Dean's lip curls as he inspects the smarting wound on his hand. But only briefly; for just a moment he's more concerned with whatever the hell Sam's doing and less with this most recent bout of near-fratricide. "S'that from an animal?"

"Goat," Sam confirms. He tosses a white handkerchief to Dean without looking at him.

Dean wraps the thin but clean cloth around his hand with a wince, fabric brushing raw skin laid open. "And do I want to know where you got that?"

"No." Sam goes to work, has a pocketful of magic crap Dean doesn't care to pause and identify thrown onto the tabletop in the blink of an eye.

"What the hell is this, Sammy?"

"It's a blood oath, Dean." Snooty, maybe even proud of himself. "Took me a couple of weeks, but I found it in one of Bobby's old books."

"A – " Dean blinks. "Excuse me?" He lets the handkerchief fall as he steps up to the table, moves to take the bloody animal skin from Sam. This is what you made him, he reminds himself. Little brother Sammy is gone; this is the grown, vicious, take-no-prisoners man that Dean never prepared for, but in whose emergence and evolution his actions have certainly played a part.

Sam ungently slaps his hand away. "The last words you spoke before I took your blood will be…you'll be held to them. To not saving me."

Dean recoils, grabs Sam's arm. "Sammy, you don't have to do this."

Sam wrenches violently away. "Apparently I do, Dean. Because you won't let things be."

Dean slaps a palm on the table, knocking his empty glass to the floor. "I save you, Sammy. That's my job. That's who I am."

"Stop with the 'Sammy,'" Sam grits. "I'm not a kid. I don't need you protecting me like one. I've gotten along just fine without you when I've had to."

As if Dean needs to be reminded. Sam said less hurtful things when he didn't have a soul. He didn't save you. Didn't even try.

Sam strikes a match, brings the flame close to the bloody skin. He hesitates, because he does have a soul, meets Dean's eye.

"Sammy…" Dean implores.

Sam's face hardens. "You're forcing my hand. I don't have a choice."

Dean takes a step back. "I'm not forcing your hand. I'm all the way over here."

"This is the only way to make you let me go."

"Do you hear how ridiculous you sound?" Dean shakes his head. "You don't need my blood, Sam. You have my word."

The flame hovers mere inches from sealing their fate. Dean's blood glistens in the light. "What good is your word when you do whatever you want the second I turn my back?"

"You started this, Sammy!" Dean explodes. "You remember that? The, the fucking faith healer," he spits. "You would have been rid of the burden of me a hell of a long time ago if YOU hadn't made sure I stayed alive." He's been holding that in for far too long. "Maybe you should have just let me die in that hospital."

A long, shudderingly chilly pause. The flame goes out, and Sam drops everything, puts it all on the table. The items in his hands, and the words. "I've thought about it."

Dean rocks back as though physically struck. "Feel the love in this room."

Sam braces his arms on the table, gaze down. "You're right, Dean, I did start this. That's the way things were supposed to be. We're…just guys. We aren't special. People die all the time. At some point you're just going to have to accept that. I have." He won't look up, seethes silently for a long moment before finally speaking again. "And you have to stop using that as an excuse."

"What?"

"You heard me." Sam sinks into a chair as Dean advances on the table, not lacking for aggression. He continues. "I was a kid, and I was scared. I'd just lost Jess, and Dad was missing, and you…you were dying. Like, immediately, and painfully, and right in front of me. I made a mistake and I would never do it again. I know it. You know it. Stop using that as a crutch to excuse your selfish behavior."

You would think he'd be immune to the sting of Sam's words at this point. "You said you tried to make a deal for me when I was in Hell," Dean argues, remembering Sam's stories. "To bring me back."

"You're right," Sam relents, looking up with a cool, steely gaze. "I did." Dean nods but Sam isn't finished. "I did say that."

Any pain in his hand is long forgotten. "So what the hell are you saying now, Sam? You didn't really try to make a deal and bring me back?"

"No, I did, right after you died." He says it so matter-of-factly, like Dean's a pet goldfish. Guess mortality loses a bit of its gravity after the eighth or ninth time you bite it. "I was hurting and stupid and – "

Dean snorts, reacts to the phrasing. "Thanks for that. You lied to me."

"I didn't lie to you. Not really. I just…didn't really push the issue as much as I may have led you to believe. I tried to get a demon to deal with me, I got shot down. I was pissed but then I came to my senses."

"What do you mean, you came to your senses?"

A patient sigh, gearing up for a lecture. "If I had managed to make a deal, if I had brought you back, it would have been selfish of me. Just as selfish as it was when…"

"When I did it?" Lecture over. Dean's pulling the plug. He slowly straightens, backs away from the table. "That's what you think, you think I was being selfish? That kid STABBED you in the BACK, Sammy. Because Yellow Eyes told him – that's how you think you were supposed to go out? I did think about it, I had hours alone with your CORPSE to think about it, and I was just putting things right."

"Well, you should have thought harder. Maybe about how you felt when you found out Dad went to Hell for you."

That was a lifetime ago. Several lifetimes ago, it sometimes seems. Dean shrugs. "You know, I don't really care. I'm not sorry for what I did. And I'd do it again."

Sam smiles a small but unbelievably self-righteous smile. "I know you would. But after this, you can't."

Dean shakes his head, surveys the landscape. "I'm not gonna let you do this, Sam."

"You need this, Dean. You have to stop making my decisions for me. You've been doing it my whole – "

"Your whole LIFE? Are you KIDDING me? Sam, no one has EVER been able to tell you what to do. You were telling Dad and me 'no' before you were out of diapers."

"Once again, it's nice to hear how much you despise my personality."

"Damn it, Sam – "

"That's the way things were supposed to be. We just keep screwing around with the way things were supposed to be. When…" Sam's eyes narrow, a sure sign he knows he's about to cross a line, but knowing it isn't enough to stop him. "When I was in Hell, when I was hunting with Samuel, you were happy with Lisa and Ben."

Dean's face hardens as he lashes out with a closed fist at his seated brother, striking Sam's face like a rock. His nose doesn't break as promised, but not for lack of trying, just the odd downward angle. He steps back, face red, breathing hard, daring Sam to hit back. Wanting it. But he won't, not with fists. Hanging at his sides, Dean's hands pulse with pain, and his heart thuds in his chest.

Sam sniffs, wipes a drip of blood from under his nose. "Was that for the knife?"

"You know what that was for."

"I know." Sam keeps his face turned away. He swallows. "I remember what you said, so I know I had that coming. But that doesn't mean it's not true."

Dean's fist twitches, begging to unleash again, that fire inside always wanting violence. "You have no idea what the hell you're talking about. I was not HAPPY, Sam. I was barely holding it together." He grabs the open whiskey bottle from the table and walks away, taking a couple of healthy pulls to tamp out the flames. He pauses, swallows, and slowly smiles. He turns and gestures to Sam with the bottle. "That was good, though, getting me off the subject. Trying to make me walk away and forget what we're really talking about."

"Doesn't seem to have worked."

"Nope." Dean takes long strides back to the table in the middle of the cavernous room, slams the bottle down. "I know you, and you would not rather be dead. When we were blown away by those douchebag hunters and went to heaven, you were just as ready as me to get back down here."

"I was, I don't know," Sam sighs. "I was momentarily blinded by the mission. And besides, that was forever ago."

Sammy always has an answer for everything. Dean shakes his head in disbelief. "You want things to be the way you think they're supposed to be? Just wait a week, tops, and don't save my life next time."

"I don't want you to DIE, Dean. You're still my…I mean, you're…"

"I'm, what, your hunting buddy, right?"

"My BROTHER. I shouldn't have ever said you weren't. That was, I was being a jackass." Sam pauses, sucks in a deep breath. "You saved my life, and I'm still not okay with the way you did it, but, whatever, I'm alive. I'm over it."

Dean laughs without humor. "You're over it? You tell me you don't want to be my brother anymore, barely talk to me for weeks, and then with no conversation, no acknowledgement, you're, what, just over it?"

"Guess so."

I guess we still do this, Dean thinks, oddly nostalgically. Yell, fight, throw a punch every now and then, then glaze over everything and pretend it's all good. A dance they have well-rehearsed. He takes a silent moment to digest the past several moments, winces and shakes out his hand, sending a spray of blood drops to the polished floor and delivers the next line on the script. "You know I owe you one for this, right?"

Sam winces. "Noted." He hands over a folded square of clean white gauze he had ready the whole time. "I'll, uh, I'll clean this up."

"I'LL clean this up."

"Dean, come on, you can…"

Dean sniffs, straightens to his full height one last time. "I can what?"

Sam squares his shoulders. "Trust me."

Dean averts his eyes, stares down at the wipe of his drying blood on a scrap of goatskin. "Yeah," he says quietly, and begins to gather the items.

Author Notes: Takes place sometime soon after #THINMAN.

The cold open was a new thing. This was originally - well, a part of it - a piece of a much larger and longer story, but that just wasn't coming together the way I'd hoped, so I've been pulling things out here and there and seeing if there's anything worth salvaging.