Author:Mirrordance
Title: Home Road
Summary:The brothers were so different sometimes.Dean after Sam died was lethal silence and a sense of suicide-Let the world end.Leave me alone.That loudly unspoken I wish I was dead.Sam was different.He had murder in his eyes.Post-3.16 and Sam finds a way.
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Home Road
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10
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Indiana
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There was a good load of strength in those old bones, yet, though of course adrenalin had a lot to do with it. Kicking at doors, dragging clinically-dead, soaking-wet six-footers from overindulgent suburban bath tubs and screaming for help.
"Brennan!" he bellowed and bellowed, and the sound was so loud he thought his head was going to pop right off. He laid Sam flat on the tiles, and started feeling for breath and pulse, as if he expected one. The boy's color was not good.
"What did you do, what did you do..." he murmured, as he started doing chest compressions and breathing for Sam.
Ironically, the first respondent was the ridiculously active teeny-bopper. Her head kind of just popped into the room, and her eyes widened, taking in the sight. She had seen something Bobby had missed, and she picked up the mostly-empty bottle of pills and the rum, from the sink.
Her father appeared behind her and was pushing past, except she stopped to show him the things she found.
"Damn it," Brennan muttered, pushing her back and kneeling before Sam. He rattled off orders to the EMT's who had followed, asking for the crash kit, and pumps for suction. The two rushed off to get their equipment.
"We need to get him out to the hall," Brennan ordered, "And we gotta get him dry, right now."
Jessie splashed her way into the bathroom, grabbing every towel she could find. Jo Harvelle was grabbing blankets from the nearby bedrooms. Ellen appeared and helped Brennan and Bobby drag Sam out, as the EMT's returned.
"Dry him out," Brennan said, his voice taking on that toneless, calm doctor's manner, "And start charging."
Bobby stepped back and, feeling cold and old, let the doctors do their jobs.
" " "
Hell
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A flash of light, that was all that there was and then suddenly, the terrain had gone from barren empty to Sam, Dean, Ruby, the Watcher and Bela side to side, completely surrounded by a scene right out of Dawn of the Dead. Dark-eyed, expression-less, hollowed faces, staring at nothing, surrounding them completely in a perfect circle. They made as if to move forward, but Sam's protective barrier was raised again, and they remained where there were.
"Is this you, bro?" Dean asked, under his breath.
"I think so," Sam said, softly, brows furrowed in concentration, and uncertainty.
"Fucking force field," Dean murmured, sounding both wary and impressed, "I can't top that can I? Bitch."
"For now," Sam breathed, and Dean suddenly noticed that his brother's form was flickering.
"What's going on, Sammy?" Dean asked.
"That's Bobby hauling my ass back," Sam said, desperation beginning to crawl into his voice, "Not so soon, damn it."
In a flash of movement, Ruby sailed past Dean's vision as she slammed her body against Bela, taking them both to the ground. If there was a part of him that had forgotten how good a fighter she was or just how cruel, if there was a part of him that had forgotten she was a freaking demon, there was no forgetting it now. She took Bela down in a precise heap, landing at a dominating straddle, as she hit the other woman in the face.
"You're like a goddamn 24-hour convenience store, aren't you?" Ruby asked, "Who's gonna be dining off of you now, huh?" he hit her again, and Dean blinked before stepping forward, trying to pull her back. Ruby kicked and scratched at him like a barn cat.
"Let go!" she yelled at him, "She fucking sold us out, Winchester, figure it out!"
Dean just held her back, looking stunned, unsure about what to do, tempted to let her claws get at Bela, and yeah, and he was as big a fan of hot chicks fighting as the next guy, but it just felt wrong. Two sociopaths trying to kill each other just was not good, especially for the innocent by-standers. Ruby kicked carelessly, making holding her back much easier than when she was strategically combative.
"Fucking whore!" she screamed.
"Take a breath, potty-mouth," Dean grunted as he pulled her away from the rising Bela, who was glaring at her hotly and shaking.
"Is it true, huh?" Dean asked her, "We helped you, and you sold us out?"
She averted her eyes, "It's only fair. The same thing that got me here's the same thing that's gonna get me out..." But she wouldn't look at him, and Dean realized that she really had been trying to tell them to leave just now, as if she had changed her mind (not a change of heart, knowing her, 'cos he had a sneaking suspicion she misplaced that long ago). Maybe it was guilt, or maybe she was trying to get on Sam's good side so he'd get her out too. But he wanted to think that after awhile, all this backstabbing must get tiresome.
"Only fair?" Ruby retorted, her voice beaking, "You think you're some kind of victim who doesn't deserve to be here? Tell you what, Talbot. Everyone's got a story. Daddy loved you just a little too much, fine, that ain't your fault. But everything else between then and now was all you, sister. They promised to get you out of here, did they? Tough. You get up there and I can promise you you won't be seeing resonant fucking light where you can go on to a better place. This is it, and you screwed us all and yourself. Everything else between daddy and now is all you, and you'd have paid for it here, deal or no. Welcome home, bitch!"
Harsh, Dean grimaced.
"Lucian!" Bela called out, ignoring her, "Lucian!"
He was the only one with lucid eyes of the whole Dawn of the Dead club. He was an ageless, race-less man, not-quite vampiric because he was not delicate-looking by any stretch of thought. He was grittier, hardier. His thoughtful eyes wore crinkled corners in wisdom, rather than age. Short shock of dark silver hair, blue eyes... he looked misplaced in hell, like a fricking icicle. He stepped forward and the Dead parted, and he broke into Sam's protective circle casually.
"Don't wear my name out," he said, wryly, his voice low and his tone calmly humorous. His eyes had a light of mischievous humor, reminding Dean of the late yellow-eyes. He was trailed by a dark-haired woman who looked like perfection gone wrong, going past beauty to look like an alien. She too, walked past the circle easily.
Lucian and Dolores, Dean remembered, from the Watcher's answer. The last two of Colt's 13 demons.
"I told you where they were," Bela said, nervously, "My reward?"
"Does she get thirty pieces of silver?" Dean asked, wryly.
"A Jesus joke," Lucian said with an indulgent smile, "I can almost appreciate that. As it is, she bargained for something much more useful here." He turned to Bela, "My soldiers will get you to the very front of the line to Colt's gate and protect your place there for as long as it takes, Ms. Talbot, as promised. If that gate opens, you will be the first one out."
She nodded, glanced at the Winchesters and Ruby, "Now?"
"If you so wish it," Lucian said, opening his hands out to her, and waving her toward his army, "Anything you want to say in parting to your friends?"
She set her jaws, gulped a little as she looked at Ruby, and then Sam, and lastly, Dean. Was that regret? Was that an apology? Because a film had settled in her eyes, before she shook her head and walked away, trailed by her protectors. As soon as Bela left with about ten of Lucian's soldiers, the place they vacated was filled up by others.
"The least she could have done was given me a kiss for the betrayal," Dean murmured.
"She did you a favor," Ruby spat out, "You could have caught something."
Lucian and Dolores stood a few steps away from Sam, who raised his hand tentatively, before setting it back down on his side. Dean remembered that the powers didn't usually work on others who had them. Sam must have come to the same realization.
"I wasn't counting on Sam Winchester himself being here," Lucian murmured. He turned to Ruby, "You're right, you know."
"About what?"
"Bela Talbot," Lucian said, absently, as he studied Sam's face, "When – if -she gets up there, she'll realize it herself. She already belongs here. I don't mind waiting, she's not going anywhere." He stepped away from wary Sam, and touched Ruby's hair, "You on the other hand... my little optimist."
"Her?" snorted Dean, "Are you serious?"
Lucian smiled tightly, "Am I not correct, Watcher? That our fiery Ruby has oft asked about the road to redemption? Still dreaming about doing enough good things to get into the warm white light. And now here we all are."
Dean's brows rose, and he glanced at the frowning blond, who pointedly ignored him.
"Who are you?" Sam asked, "And what do you want from us?"
"You are Azazel's heir," Lucian replied, "You do not want your throne, but I do. I am Lucian. And we have a common enemy, you and I. Lilith."
"You're all my enemies," Sam corrected him.
"True," Lucian conceded, "But some enemies are more bearable than others. Lilith, as I am sure you have realized, is both hasty and messy. She takes on domination as if she was a hungry child. I, on the other hand, have a very firm understanding that sometimes, true power is in timing and subtlety."
"What do you want?" Sam asked, his form flickering again.
Lucian's eyes lit up in understanding. "You know, you will not be here long," he nodded toward Dean, "And you cannot take him with you."
Sam's jaws set, as his mind raced.
"You will be gone from here," Lucian said, "And with you, the last thing that protects him. I will have your brother when you are gone."
"I'll fight you tooth and nail, old man," Dean growled, "You won't find it easy--"
"What do you want?" Sam asked Lucian, ignoring his brother. Dean grabbed him by the arm, irritably.
"Don't let him use me against you, Sam," Dean said in a low, desperate voice, "I went away precisely to keep this damn thing from happening--"
"What do you want?" Sam jerked away from his brother's grip, looking past him to Lucian.
Lucian glanced from the determined Sam to the pissed-as-hell Dean, thoughtfully. Sam flickered again, making him curse under his breath.
"Think fast, demon," Sam snapped.
"Sammy--" Dean growled, grabbing his brother's arm again.
"No," Sam told him, "No, Dean. You don't know what it's like, up there, having you dead. You couldn't live with it, and you're expecting me to? Worse, I have to live with knowing you're here? No."
"Don't do this..." Dean begged.
"Dead guys don't get a vote," Sam snapped.
"No, Sam," Dean continued, his voice low and ragged, "Don't do it..."
Sam's eyes softened a little, and Dean vaguely remembered using that same tone, almost the same words, too long ago. Lying on the ground and bleeding and half-dead but painfully aware that his brother was about to make a huge mistake.
"Not this time, Dean," Sam told him quietly, almost gently, except his eyes had hardened to steel, "Not this time. Lucian - what. do. you. want."
"Sam," Dean said, not relinquishing his grip on his brother, as he struggled for something to say. His chest was heaving. He didn't know what to do, because there was no reasoning with a desperate man, there never was. It would have been like talking to a brick wall, besides, he couldn't argue logic with emotions, they simply were not in the same plane. He couldn't tell Sam that the world might hang in the balance and that they had responsibilities when all Sam could think about was the world up there, having you dead. Sam was at least as stubborn as Dean and often more so. Bobby Singer had tried that tack once too, he remembered, and all Dean could think to say was Let the world end.
Let the world end...
"You're stronger than me," Dean begged, god, he hated begging, "You are—"
Sam was still ignoring him, much as Dean himself would have ignored anyone who stood in the way of him saving Sam. God, I'm gonna doom him, Dean realized, I'm gonna doom the whole fucking world.
He had doomed his father when John sold his soul to save him and now here Sam stood, asking a fucking demon what. do. you. want.
I wish I was dead, Dean thought, his breath hitching in mounting panic, Like, Colt's gun-dead. Not this fucking stupid half-alive soul being used as the currency of the land.
God, he felt dirty and small. His father had traded him around, for his own good, sure, but wasn't he supposed to have a vote? And now here goes Sam, doing the same thing.
I really, really wish I was dead.
His vision was beginning to do a neat little spin, and the colors started blurring. A mess of browns and oranges and reds that spun together, looking like dried-up blood.
I really, really wish I was dead.
Better, he realized, I wish I'd never been born.
The world spun and spun and spun, and he knew he was fading. Still, a remnant of him struggled.
Not now, not yet, it urged, but the voice was a very, very small one, and it felt foreign and unwelcome.
Sammy needs you, it evoked, and for a breath, Dean blinked and fought harder, I gotta stop him.
I gotta save him.
"Don't do it, Sam," he said, softly, barely-there by now, hand a death-grip on his brother's arm, "Don't do it, please. You'll kill me, I swear to god."
Sam shrugged him off, and it could have hurt just fractionally, except the pain was amplified by Sam's refusal to look at him. Dean could see the tears gathering at the corners of Sam's eyes.
"I don't know how to stop you," Dean begged, "Don't make me beg, Sammy... No deals with these fuckers. How hard is it to not-do anything? It'll bite you in the ass in the end, you know that. Haven't we had this conversation before? Hear me, goddamnitt. I chose this, I understood what it cost, it's worth it, I'll be fine--"
"What the hell do you want?" Sam asked Lucian, voice loud, drowning out his brother's pleas.
"Sammy..." Dean whispered.
It's kinda like I'm not here.
I wish I'd never been born.
And the world shrank into nothingness and this time, he didn't feel as if he was being assaulted, or invaded, or ass-fucked by a fucking vision. He kind of just swung into one, realized it was already a part of him.
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Dean went down next to him, out like a light, eyes rolled back and body suddenly slack and limbless. The grip on Sam's arm slackened, the first sign that his brother had faded, because otherwise, even half-alive, that grip never would have let loose.
Sam felt the release, and caught him easily, letting the two of them slide to the floor. He felt, with a tinge of regret and deeper relief, that Dean had stopped talking, stopped begging, because he feared he would lose his nerve.
Sam looked up at Lucian hotly. "Stop hurting him," he said simply, and dangerously.
"It's not me," Lucian said, "It's this place. The whips and the fire, you can run from. The torturers you can hide from. But the thirst, the hunger, the heat, the visions, the very illness of the air here, you cannot escape."
Dean started to shake in his arms, making him hang on tighter, even as Sam felt that growing detachment to this place, like he was going further and further away...
Damn it, Bobby, give a guy a minute here...
"I'm going to ask you to do something you were going to do anyway," Lucian said, squatting in front of Sam, as if willing him to be at ease, instead of looking up at him.
"What's that?" Sam asked.
"Kill Lilith."
Sam scoffed at him. "I was going to kill her to set my brother free. If you have him, I would rather kill you."
"Simple fact is you can't," Lucian said, "Not unless I go up there and you shoot me with the goddamn Colt or that knife, mortal weapons which you cannot bring down here. And I don't plan on going up, not yet, not for awhile. You see... I told you Lilith was too hasty, and to an extent, so was Azazel. The world is not ready to be taken by us, not yet. But it will be soon enough. Already your world, your people...are destroying themselves. When at last we rise from here, we will have to do very little but take it, because they'd have already offered themselves."
"What...?"
Lucian shrugged, "It's the truth. We wouldn't have to do much to take the world. I can wait a little longer.
"I am what I am," Lucian continued, "I want relief from here as much as the next man. You cannot blame me for wishing to leave. But you and I, we need not be uncivil. There are things you want from me, and things I want from you, after all. I will keep your brother from the whips and the torture and the fire. That is all the protection that anyone can get from here. Only if you agree to kill Lilith for me. She has been a thorn on my side for a long, long while, creating dissent, trying to take Azazel's place. But she is not good enough. She is a fool. But I and my wife, we can rule in his stead, the place you do not wish to take. With Lilith gone, and your refusal to take your rightful place, all shall bow to us. Kill her, give me my throne, and I will not harm your brother."
"Sam," Ruby said, warily, "Strategically, if you get rid of Lilith and everyone follows this megalomaniac, you'd have helped him create a more concentrated effort to take over."
"I know," Sam growled.
Killing Lilith was hard enough, without the added burden of him having a hand in the downfall of the world. Dean would hate him. His father would. Bobby would. Everyone would. Maybe this is what his destiny was about. He was going to destroy the entire world, not by leading an army from hell, no, but helping to create one.
"I will do you one better," Lucian said, smiling slowly, knowing Sam was swaying his way and will have no time to think it through harder, "Of course you've heard that the only things that can kill us are the weapons and ammunition made in the light of Halley's comet? Even after you've repaired the Colt, some of our powerful colleagues could still bend their spoons around the bullets, because they were not made in the comet's light. The light of the comet signaled the beginning of the war. Now you're out of bullets. And the next Halley sighting isn't until 2061. Here and now, Samuel. You and I. Kill Lilith, and I give you my word that I will not rise from here until after that."
"A demon's word?" scoffed Sam.
"Firmer than yours I dare say," Lucian said, "Our greatest punishment, this bureaucracy. Forcing hour honesty. The power comes from the truth of the word. You know this."
Sam flickered again.
"Think fast, Samuel," Lucian leered at him.
Sam closed his eyes, pressed his trembling brother close to him.
"This is easy for you," Lucian said, "I'm asking you to do something you'd have done anyway, and I'm not even asking you to stand down once I make my move to take the world. All I'm asking is for you to get that bitch out of my way. You can try and kill me after, I don't care."
"'Cos you think you'll be unstoppable once I kill Lilith," Sam said.
"Frankly, yes," Lucian shrugged, "Besides, as I said, you can't kill me now, not here. And I can't kill you. It's almost like a truce, isn't it? Where people make treaties? This is a good trade, Samuel."
"I can't promise to stop hunting," Sam said, his voice trembling only slightly, "I can't promise not to kill or send back to hell any demon who dares make a mess up there."
"I do not expect you to stand down," Lucian agreed, "And anyone who goes there without my orders deserves the punishment."
Sam rubbed a hand over his face. He was going to kill Lilith anyway. He was going to kill demons and monsters invading the world anyway. This was like getting something (in this case, Dean, who was actually everything) for nothing.
"I don't know where she is," Sam said.
"The Watcher will tell you," Lucian said, waving toward the goofy-suit-man.
"And I need that spell," Sam added, "To make my own gate. To ensure that nothing else escapes when I return for him."
"That too, he can give," Lucian said.
"There is a price--" the Watcher began.
"You will take it from me or all those that are mine," Lucian told him, "He has no time. Give him his answers."
"Come with me," the Watcher said to Sam, motioning toward his cave.
Sam blinked and nodded, clutching Dean tightly one last time, before lowering him to the ground as gently as he could. He closed his eyes, leaned his forehead against his brothers and clutched at the back of his neck.
"I'm sorry, Dean. Please, please hold on," he murmured, before rising to his feet and looking at Ruby.
"Watch him for me," he told her, "And I will not forget you."
"Are you sure about what you're doing?" she asked him.
"No," Sam admitted, "But I have no choice. There are many people, you know, more than I thought at least, fighting this war. But Dean... he's all I got. I'm all he's got. I have to believe... I have to believe that it doesn't all depend on me or my mistakes, and that when this thing blows, that Lucian is wrong about the world. That there'll be a shitload of people kicking back."
She nodded, and glanced at Dean's necklace, still wound around Sam's right hand. "Take that with you if you can. He needs it back, but they will only take it from him again."
Sam tightened his grip on the necklace, stole one last glance at his brother, and then walked after the Watcher.
"The spell is in a sheet here somewhere," the man muttered as he led the way back to his cave, "But the other answer I can give you easily. You'd have figured it out too, eventually, if you weren't so... distracted."
"Where is Lilith?" Sam asked, making the smaller man's lips curve into a smile.
"You were willing to kill a little child to get to her, you know," the Watcher replied, "Chock it up to casualties of war. I promise you now, though I think you already know, you'd have killed any form she came in to save your brother."
Sam just walked with him, said nothing. Knew what he was saying was the truth.
"But there is one form you would never harm," the Watcher said gleefully, and Sam realized that he was looking at the fates of all of them as if they were made for his entertainment.
"You will find Lilith hidden in the one mortal shell you would never touch," the Watcher told him, making his head shoot up in alarm, and sudden realization.
"What did that to him?" the mother of the home had asked, when the two of them were kneeling by Dean's dead body.
"Dogs," Sam had replied with a grunt, as he drew out surgical scissors from the first aid kit, and started getting rid of the remnants of Dean's clothes. He did it with practiced precision, and tossed aside the soggy, bloodied pieces of clothing and, occasionally, he almost gagged, torn muscle and flesh...
The hellhounds have broken the tattooed ward on his brother's chest.
"Where's your brother?" Bobby had asked.
"There," he replied distractedly, and vaguely.
"...Is Dean all right?"
Sam had looked up at him hotly. "No, Bobby, he's dead. Now help me."
"Dead--" Bobby said, turning on his heel, determined to head off to find Dean, except Sam grabbed him firmly by the arm.
"Nothing you can do for him in there," Sam had said.
But he was wrong, he realized now. He had left his brother's body unprotected, and now someone else was at home.
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Indiana
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Coming back from the dead was a bitch.
Sam's head felt as if it was stuffed with cotton, his body half-his and half... god, he was floating, and he didn't know where the rest of him was. He gulped, breathed in and out and in and out, wanting to open his eyes. Wanting to say something. His stomach felt like it was burning. His head was imploding.
And that was just the beginning, wasn't it? Because he had a shitload of other things he had to do? Breathe, open eyes, rise, save brother--
His eyes shot open.
"I could throttle you," was Bobby Singer's Welcome back to the world of the living, first words out of his mouth from the first face Sam awoke to. Vaguely, he thought that he was not in the habit of waking up in front of people... primarily because he did not let his guard down, let alone sleep, in front of them. There was Jess, of course, she brightened his days. There was his dad who was always either gruffly reassuring (when he was hurt or ill), or simply annoying, when he was getting roused for training (Dean did the rousing for school). Then of course, there was Dean himself, to whom Sam had woken to in every imaginable situation.
He woke to Dean grinning like a doofus, shortly before Sam rose to find that, at age seven, he had grown a permanent marker mustache overnight. He rose to an impatient Dean, wanting to go somewhere else. He's woken to a teary-relieved Dean, when he was seriously injured. He's woken to an anxious Dean, needing to run away with him somewhere safe. He's woken to a grouchy Dean who was also just woken up by their dad. He's woken to a hesitant, worried Dean, after Jessica burned...
Dean, he thought, a sharp pain in his heart.
"Bobby," he rasped, making an effort to push himself up to his elbows. God, his stomach was burning, making him cry out in surprise. The older hunter shot forward and tried to push him to lay back down, palms placating on his chest.
"Take it easy, idiot," Bobby muttered at him, "We barely pulled ya back--"
"We," Sam gasped, wincing as he struggled, and leaned on one arm, raising up his right hand. He opened his fist, and Dean's necklace dangled from the spaces in his fingers, "We gotta talk."
Bobby's eyes widened, looking at the amulet, brows furrowing.
"You don't say."
To be continued...