All Hell Breaks Loose fix-it type coda. Extremely AU after season 3 hit, but was written in the summer between seasons.
In June, they're still recovering from a clusterfuck of a job in May.
Dean moves slow enough that he feels like a freakin' granny; Sam's got long wounds on his back that are only now starting to scar over. That's not really the problem though, because they're still alive and the motherfucking harpies aren't. No, the problem is that they took the job in New Mexico before the heat turned brain-melting and now they're stuck crabby, itchy, and healing, in a goddamn oven.
As soon as they can sit comfortably in the Impala, they're hightailing it to cooler states.
It's so hot that Sam's got his head out the window like a particularly huge, floppy eared dog. He bitches constantly about the Impala's busted air conditioner (it's never worked right after Sam let the semi total his baby, which is usually enough to shut him up on that subject), the fact that Dean only ever buys soda and not water, and the way the black paint seems to absorb every stray "sunbeam."
He's a prissy bitch to be around.
Dean rolls his eyes behind his sunglasses and turns the music up loud enough to hurt his ears. He keeps an eye out for every river, pond, creek, and stream and doesn't say a word when Sam's directions take them fifty miles from their destination in the pursuit of them; it's worth it to slide from the Impala's baking interior into crusty water.
Dean doesn't obsessively check the scarred over, fatal wound in Sam's back anymore than Sam keeps a running tally of days in Dad's journal. They're good at ignoring shit, and when Dean's being a little too obvious while Sam's splashing around in the water, well, Dean doesn't say a word when he finds suspiciously smudged papers with three-hundred-some-odd little marks and the words, "wasn't worth it, wasn't worth it," written over and over again.
The water's good for cooling down and the day doesn't seem quite so exhausting.
Of course, afterwards Sam whines about being dirty, but Dean figures he can't win them all.
Ellen calls them a week before Halloween, right when Sam's starting to slip into that funk that drove Dad to booze every year. A case is just what they need to take their minds off things.
Dean's grateful for it; he doesn't like Sam drunk any more than he enjoyed Dad being two sheets to the wind, but at the same time, it's kind of weird. Jack-o'-lanterns have always meant a few days/weeks (sometimes even a month, when they'd gotten older) to themselves while Dad drank the demon away.
It's not until he's got the phone up to his ear and is jotting down information that he realizes Ellen's voice is wobbling all over the freakin' place.
"Ellen? What's wrong?" Sam pauses in the middle of packing both their bags, looks up to narrow his eyes and mouth, "what?" at him. Dean ignores the question and points towards a shirt half-buried under the motel towels they're going to be stealing while he waits for her answer.
She doesn't say anything for long enough that Dean takes the phone away from his ear and checks to see if it's dropped the call; he has to ask her to repeat herself when she's in the middle of a sentence by the time he raises it again.
"Jo's missin'," Ellen says, like it's actually, physically hurting her to voice it, "Last I heard from her, she was workin' a possession case right around here. Now, I'm not for sure whether or not it's got anything to do with her, but I'd appreciate it if you boys went and took a look."
The case has everything to do with Jo. It takes Sam less than an hour to figure out where she's holing up and Dean doesn't ask if it's because he's had this particular demon in his head before, but he wants to. He also wishes the Colt had an extra bullet, special just for her, because she's a whore-faced bitch who needs to go down.
Not Jo. The demon that's playing around in her at the moment. She's possessed, spitting venom as much as she possibly can and it doesn't take a genius to figure out just which demon is nosing around inside her.
Dean doesn't take much pleasure in stripping her down to check for the binding link he knows Meg has stashed somewhere, and he likes it even less when he has to hold Jo's legs down so Sam can burn the link open. She's gonna have one fuck all of a scar on her inner thigh when this is all over. He tries not to feel guilty about that.
They'd taped her mouth shut this time, before starting the ritual, and Meg goes screaming back to hell as soon as Sam finishes the exorcism.
Dean hopes that she fucking stays down there this time.
They hustle Jo into Bobby's house three days later. Dean herds her into the house without touching her and Sam endures her distrustful, teary stares when he's got to support her. Jo's tired and heartsore, hasn't said a word to either him or his brother. She flinches away from the both of them like they're the ones responsible for Meg coming after her, and maybe they are, but they're also the ones who got her free.
Dean refuses to feel guilty for that.
She falls into her mama like water; Dean has to look away while Ellen fusses over her and gets her to bed.
Sam's holed up with Bobby, going over books and rituals, when Ellen finally sidles out from Bobby's backroom.
"She's beat down," she says bluntly. Dean nods to her; he knows the look. None of them have mentioned it, but they can all see it. Jo's got that look in her eyes, the one hunters sometimes get when they've barely survived and are too horror stricken to go on hunting.
"She'll be okay," Dean tells her. Tells her; he wishes it were true. Not all the victims survive possession as well as Sammy did. "She's tough."
"My Jo's got nothing left right now and I'm not sure that's ever gonna change," Ellen corrects, "But she's alive, and I've got you and your brother to thank for that." She steps forward and enfolds him in a flannel-y hug that makes him extremely uncomfortable.
He catches his mind wondering if she's screwing Bobby or just staying with him because she's got nowhere else to go.
Sam's quiet on the drive out, watching the gold leaves whiz by. Dean knows how he feels.
Both of them are agitated and antsy when Christmas rolls around.
Dean can't stand being cold (just his fucking luck they're in the northern states in winter and the southern states in summer,) and Sam looks at him and sees death. It makes for an awesome combination.
"Present," Dean says, curt, and hands over the knife he picked up for Sam a few weeks ago. It's sharp and curving, perfect for the kind of chopping cuts Sam favors in close quarters and a bunch of other things, if the seller had been telling the truth. It doesn't even really matter if he wasn't; man can never have too many knives.
Sam disappears with it out the front door a minute later, so he's hoping that means, "Thanks for the knife, Dean! As soon as I'm done being an emo bitch, I'll come back in and maybe offer to wax the Impala for the next four months," instead of, "I hate this. I'm going to go throw it in the dumpster, thanks. You're a sucktacular big brother."
The door slams back open with a blast of cold, cold air. Sam's suspiciously knife free; Dean lets the hurt roll right the hell off his back, because there's also a suspiciously festive looking package in his brother's hands.
"Hey. I got you something," Sam says like it isn't obvious. Man, sometimes he worries about his brother's intelligence.
Sam tosses a package at him, something squishy and not weapon-like. The hell?
Weapons are the gifts that just keep on giving. Anything else? Is just shitty gift-giving. Sam knows that. He gives his brother a firm, half-disbelieving look and turns the squishy, crappily wrapped package over in his hands.
The wrapping job is shit. The few times they'd done Christmas over the years, Dean'd been the one doing all the gift wrapping; Sammy would bring him his present, some stupid little thing he'd found in the yard or made in school, and Dean would have to wrap it and pretend to be surprised a few days later. Good times.
Sam is clearly rolling his eyes from across the great bed divide. "You know, you'd figure out what's in it a lot sooner if you actually opened it, Dean."
"Oh, I'm savoring the anticipation, Sammy." He turns it over to find the nearest open edge anyway, because Sam might be shit at wrapping, but he makes up for it in the sheer amount of tape he seems to have used. Dean glares flatly at his brother and dares him to say anything when he finally has to flip his knife out and wriggle it under the tape.
Somewhere? Dad is rolling over in his grave at the flagrant disuse of an expertly sharpened knife. The tape leaves sticky residue all over his nice sharp knife, dooming it to repeated sharpening sometime in the near future.
Dean stares at his present and tries not to gag.
"You... got me a sweater?"
It's blue and it has a giant snowman on it getting hugged by these demented looking kids. There are hideous Christmas trees dancing along the sleeves and hem. Dean wants to gouge his eyes out just looking at it. "You got me the sweater from Christmas hell as a present."
Sam nods and looks earnest. "You hate the cold, man. And it was the last thing in stock."
Dean can't tell whether he's being seriously helpful (in which case? he's pretty much doomed to wearing the sweater at least once before it has an unfortunate accident on a hunt) or if he's playing the world's cruelest prank. "There's a reason it was still there, little brother." Please let it be a prank.
He pinches two corners of the thing and picks it up. Multiple things drop out of the bottom of it at the same time that Sam just cracks right the fuck up.
"Merry Christmas, dude," Sam says as he pokes through the things that had come from his hell-sweater.
Dean distractedly mutters back and flicks the sweater to the ground in disgust. A lighter, two replacement cassettes for the ones that the Impala had seen fit to eat within the last month, and a switchblade are sitting in the remains of the wrapping paper.
Also, maybe Sam just is the best pain in the ass little brother ever.
His brother's playing with the kukri knife when Dean looks up again, instead of flipping though books and mumbling to himself. He's testing the balance and running his thumb across the edge, getting a feel for the weapon, and Dean has to pat himself on the back. He picks out awesome presents.
The next day Sam goes back to obsessively researching the miracle plan he's somehow concocted in his scary-ass brain.
Dean goes outside to get coffee and sneaks a snowball in when he comes back. A snowball might actually be kind of misleading, Dean thinks, because what he really does is take one of Sam's giant-sized hoodies, stuff it full of snow, pat it into a vaguely round shape, and dump it over Sam's head when his brother is busy making sure his fruffy coffee is actually fruffy coffee.
"Heh," he tells Sam, when his brother slowly stands up and turns to glare bloody death at him, "Snowball fight?"
They're both covered in snow an hour later, pretty much white from head to toe. Sam's laughing so hard he's snorting and Dean will never admit it, but he might actually be crying icy tears of laughter. It's freezing and there's only four months left (which he's not thinking about so much as he's worrying about how much sleep Sam isn't getting), but it's been long enough since they cut loose and had some fun that he's almost giddy with it.
Though he'll kill anyone that ever calls him giddy. He's not a girl.
He's pretty sure the townies think that the abominable snowman visited them the day after Christmas; if he didn't know better, he'd swear his giant, snow covered brother was a supernatural monster too.
They go back to Cold Oak two days before Dean's debt comes due.
It's April, but it's still ball-numbingly cold in South Dakota, so they're huddled on the Impala's rapidly cooling hood to keep what little heat they've got. The new green leaves on the trees all around them are mocking him, he's sure. Jesus. He's almost considering digging out the hell-sweater just to add an extra layer on.
He's never liked the cold.
Dean's curiously okay with it, his impending doom, not the goddamn cold, whether or not Sam's plan works; his little brother is alive and if he doesn't mind sneaking into Mexico or Canada, he's got his whole life ahead of him, hunting free. What's the rest of eternity in hell compared to that?
Sam's enough of a nervous wreck for the both of them anyway.
He keeps leaning towards Dean, like he's looking for contact, and then pulling away when he realizes that he's not twelve anymore. Dean can't figure out whether he should call him on it and make a joke, or pull him in. Sammy's also opening and closing his hands, scratching his palms hard enough to raise welts in the cold every time he does, and Dean finally presses his mouth together and leans over.
Sam looks at him, all dewy dark eyes and an unhappy curl of the mouth; he looks like his dog is about to get run over (well, okay, so his brother is probably going to go to hell in twenty minutes if their shaky plan gets fucked, but Dean's okay with that. He really, really is). Dean watches out of the corner of his eye as his brother flexes his fists again and sighs.
"Wanna hold my hand, dude?" he asks, "One time offer, mostly free of gay jokes," Dean waggles his hand in front of Sam's face and isn't surprised when Sam bats it away with an eye roll. But his brother smiles a little, quickly repressed, and that's all he was aiming for.
Sam's quick, unthinking, "Go to hell, man," pretty much ruins that though.
It's quiet; there's five minutes left by his wristwatch when Sam speaks again.
"Dean?" Sam's voice comes out sounding about three years old, scared of the monster under the bed even though Dad had ringed it with salt and Dean had patiently threaded iron beads onto a bracelet his brother could wear. It makes a lump rise in his throat. Sammy continues on, still staring off into the middle of the crossroad, "Man, is that offer still open?"
"What, the hand-holding one?" His little brother ducks his head and tries to curl into himself, so Dean raises an eyebrow and purses his lips. Seriously? There is no fucking way Sam is actually serious. Except for the part where he really is a ginormous, sparkly little girl and would ask to hold hands when a demon comes to take his brother's soul. "You really are a twelve year old girl, aren't you?"
"If you're gonna be a jerk about it--"
"Gimme your hand, princess. Jesus, the things I do for you..." Sam's hand is bigger than his, has been for years. It's also cold and there's a smear of blood that's making his own skin kind of clammy, but he's not going to mention that.
Three minutes left.
Sam takes a deep breath and curls his fingers tighter in Dean's grip. "Dean--"
Dean quite seriously doesn't want to hear it. "Christ, just because we're holding hands? Does not mean it's time for a heart to heart, dear diary moment. Grow a dick, Sammy."
"You're such a friggin' jerk."
"Love you too, bitch."
He thinks for a second that Sam's gonna press on anyway, but he just grips his hand tight enough to turn it white. Dean presses his lips shut so he doesn't say that he's going to need that hand to be functional in a few hours; it's entirely possible he's not.
He wiggles his fingers a little bit to try to ease blood into them, before giving up and clamping down on Sam's hand just as tight.
They wait.
On Sammy's 25th birthday, they're in CancĂșn, sipping margaritas, with two lloronas under their belts and a sayona they're waiting until nightfall to dig up. There's a possible tunda ("Dude. She farts on the food?!") two days south of them in a rural little nothing village they're planning on checking out after they finish with the sayona.
Between the two of them, they know a handful of useful Spanish and a handful of very specialized words. Sam knows enough of the language to understand when people are talking about ghosts; Dean knows enough to understand when a woman is propositioning him.
It works out pretty well, he thinks.
Sam's bitchy about the heat, because he's always bitchy about something. Dean wears sunglasses a lot, so that he can watch the bikini clad asses without fear of righteous feminine anger. Sam teases him about finding a grey hair before he even turns thirty and Dean glances at his brother's back when he strips to take a dip and doesn't feel like flinching.
He figures that sometimes? You really can win everything. It's an awesome feeling.
