PART TWO
12
Faith in thy Brother
It had been four days since their less-than-heroic return from Hell. Cas hadn't left Dean's room the entire time. Unlike the angel, Sam hadn't bothered visiting Dean's bedside since that first night. Jody had gone in a few times, tried to encourage Sam to do the same, but he couldn't face his brother the way he was, prone and fatally still. Seeing it once had been enough. He didn't even know what Dean was anymore, and that terrified him.
When—If Dean woke up, then Sam would find it in himself to be there for his brother but until then he would immerse himself into books, doing whatever research was needed to help Cale and Crowley.
The cowboy hunter and the King of Hell were doing the very thing Sam had failed at. Failed, because Dean had begged him to let go, "Just let it go, Sammy." Instead of dying as he should have, he'd gotten possessed by Heaven's most wanted next to Satan himself. It was shit like this that made Sam reconsider how much of a freak he must be.
To be Lucifer's vessel, to be possessed by him was bad enough. But then to discover years later that he would wind up getting possessed, again, by the deceit of his own brother no less, letting the second member on God's hit-list into his skin was a lot to handle—even for him. He wasn't mad at Dean anymore, he was past it. But that didn't mean the whole experience hadn't changed something fundamental about who he was. The only question that remained, like a nagging headache at the back of his skull, was who was he now? One day the answer might come to him, but for now he would do what he and Dean always did: Go through the motions. When shit gets bad, really bad, just keep moving forward—because what the hell else are you going to do?
"You find anything?" He looked up from the text in front of him and glanced over at Jody on the other side of the wood table. She shook her head distantly, still immersed in the entry she was reading. She reached out a small hand and blindly searched for her coffee. He watched her bring it to her lips only to flinch away from the chill. That cup of coffee had been sitting there for nearly three hours.
Sam chuckled and reached over the table to take it from her hand. Her eyes flicked up appreciatively.
"I'll make more," he offered.
"Thank you," she breathed, obviously desperate for more caffeine. "My eyes are burning." She rubbed roughly at them with her fist. It was cute but he knew she'd slap him if he'd said as much. Despite the reality that was his life, Jody Mills softened everything. Her bluntness and her rough and tough 'Go Get'em' attitude seemed to airbrush his entire world.
Sam thought he might love her for it.
They never mentioned how things had changed; there was no need. Since their return, she slept in his bed every night. It wasn't just for the sex or even the joy of her company; it was something fundamental about them together. It was relaxing in a way Sam hardly remembers the feeling of. The down side was that the comfort he'd found with this woman occasionally sparked memories long forgotten: Jody pushing his hair off of his face morphed into Jess doing the same a thousand times and more. Jody noticed the flash of pain in his eyes, he was sure of it. Instead of reacting the way some women might, Jody would kiss him, a soft pull back to the real world. Old memories would then fall away back into the recesses of his memory bank.
Standing in the kitchen, Sam watched the deep brown liquid trickle into the coffee pot, tapping his fingers on the counter impatiently. He was eager to continue the research, he'd let his mind distract him long enough and they really needed to find something Cale could use.
Jody had helped him dig up a bunch of old Men of Letters files and they were scouring through entry after entry that might hint at a crossroads deal. They interspersed the hard copy research with good old fashioned googling and online newspaper queries. They'd so far found three they'd known for sure were crossroads deals but those who'd taken the deals had already been evil bastards and there was no way to be sure that they would be considered innocent souls that needed to be sent upstairs.
The solid stream of coffee ebbed and dripped, the pot coughed up some steam before it signaled it was done. He poured each of them two full hot cups and walked back to the library. The way back took him by the hallway of bedrooms. Notably…Deans.
Finding his steps stopping altogether, he listened by the bedroom door, trying to see if he could hear anything. Not even a single peep or creak from inside reached his ears, so he kept walking, unaware of the grimace that had settled into his expression.
Sam handed Jody the steaming red cup before sitting down with his own. He pushed the book he'd been reading to the middle of the table and pulled the laptop towards himself.
"Switching it up?" Jody noted as she sipped her coffee.
"Yeah, I don't think we'll find anything here," he said gesturing to the mounds of Men of Letters papers.
"It's too bad Crowley can't go and get one for us." Jody smiled, her finger touching along the curved mug handle. Sam huffed his agreement.
That was the only kink in the plan. The King of Hell's permission made a lot of things easier but finding a damned innocent soul should have been one of the perks but since Crowley couldn't go back to Hell without facing Abaddon's wrath, not to mention the turmoil that had become the underworld in his absence, they had to do this the long way around. He and Dean had done it before so it shouldn't be so hard.
Sam fell back into research mode and spent a good long while pouring through article after article about strange incidents, deaths, miracles of good fortune. He tried to sort out the run-of-the-mills from the maybes but the hours passed before he felt he really had anything to go on.
...
"Kill me!" Dean screamed at him in the dream.
Blood ran down the walls. Bodies were flayed and whimpering around them. Sam kept trying to run towards his brother, getting thrown to the ground each time by an invisible force.
"I'll do it myself!" Dean's voice thundered inside the stone, wet, wine-coloured walls. Light cascaded across the room in bursts and streaks like lightning. The fire and heat of it singed the hairs on his forearms as he struggled to reach out.
"Don't!" he cried in a hoarse voice, tears streaming down his face.
His brother raised a knife engraved with the same markings that defined Ruby's blade. Sam shouted through the noise. A grating, metal-on-rock sound echoed inside his ears. Dean's form blurred in his vision, the muscular frame grew and shrank as if it were a heartbeat throbbing inside the stone chamber.
The smell of sulfur, smoky and thick in his mouth stifled his pleas as he begged for it to stop. Dean smiled, looking down at him, his eyes turned soulless black. Sam tried in vain to reach him, to stop him.
"NO, stop! Please stop! I can save you! I can save you!" Each word burned as it tore through his raw throat. Dean mouthed something at him, the world too loud for his words to carry. In a slow, guided movement, Dean began to sink the blade into his flesh, the metal glinting in a ray of light, disappearing into his abdomen. Blood welled and ran down to his low-hung jeans, staining the fabric.
Sam's soul began to splinter.
Dean's face lit up red and yellow like a fire burned within, Sam screamed as hard as he could, losing breath. A stranger was grabbing at him and he fought against the iron-like grip. Swearing and cursing, ripping his arms free —
…
Sam crashed into consciousness with a startling jolt, as if he'd hit concrete from two storeys high. He jerked up from the table to find Castiel's hand on his shoulder holding him as still as he could.
"Sam?" Castiel worried over him, trying to turn Sam around to face him. Sam's long legs felt wobbly where he stood. Slowly, he spun around and tried to calm his lungs. The overwhelming sensations of the dream left him fairly unhinged.
"Is Dean okay?" Sam choked out, feeling the sweat soaked through his undershirt. The nightmare lingered, and he swore he could still smell the bitter scent of Hell and the metallic alkaline odor of blood.
"He's…he has not woken up yet," Cas told him gingerly. Sam calmed enough to take in the full picture in front of him. The angel looked truly haggard, his clothes sagging over him; more draped than worn. The bags heavy and dark under his eyes, his lips were chapped worse than Sam had ever seen and his hair was so disheveled that he would have laughed under normal circumstances, but the terror and grief still swimming in his veins sobered him of any mildly joyful reaction.
"It's been days." Sam rubbed his hands together, the joints aching from being held in tight fists for however long he'd been out of it. Jody must have gone to bed or gone out to get groceries or something. He was glad she hadn't witnessed him like this. Not that it would have surprised her. Frankly, he was surprised this was the first nightmare he'd had. Though he'd been numb for a while, moving fluidly through the bunker like a ghost the last few days, maybe he was finally waking up.
Couldn't say the same for Dean.
"How is he even alive? It's been four days. Doesn't he need like water and food and stuff?" Sam knew logic and real-world rules probably didn't apply in this case, but he had to ask.
"I'm keeping him alive," Castiel answered tiredly.
"Why bother?" Sam asked with dejected rhetoric.
Castiel's eyes flashed with sudden life, heating up the two feet that separated them. "I can tolerate his demented personality when it arises, but I will not tolerate your insolent indifference!"
"We don't even know what we brought back!" Sam hissed, not sure why he was lowering his voice at all. Dimly, he wondered if in his supernatural repose, Dean could hear them.
"Whatever he has become is not fixed or absolute, it can be changed," Castiel argued, his voice rising.
"Have you even tested him?" he asked.
"He came through the door, didn't he?"
"Being carried by you," he shot back. The fact that the argument was baseless didn't matter.
"Tell me Sam, when exactly did you stop loving your brother?" Castiel's words sent him reeling backwards.
"How fucking dare you assume I don't love my brother?!" he yelled. "It's because I love him that I question what he is now. He wouldn't want to be this—whatever this is! You know that!" Sam had zero doubts on this. He'd known Dean his whole life. As terrifying as the nightmare had been, he knew what Dean would want. Maybe that had been the whole point of the nightmare; it was Dean telling him to let him go.
"Don't presume that I will forsake him simply because you have."
"Why do you think he's not waking up, Cas?! It's because he doesn't want to!" Sam argued, gesturing his arm violently in the direction of Dean's room.
The door opening up the stairs cut off their impending words. Jody peered down suspiciously at their heated stances and threatening glares.
"Hey boys, everything okay?" she asked, knowing of course, that everything was not.
"Yes. It's fine," said Castiel, his tone curt. Turning on a dime, the angel strode off back towards Dean's room.
Sam looked up to see Jody coming down the metal stairs with two grocery bags, one in each hand. He was still fuming as she set the bags down on the table.
Jody planted a palm on his chest and pegged him with one of her formidable looks. "What's wrong?" she demanded. "Besides the obvious."
"Cas can't see straight right now. He's convinced Dean can be fixed. But I saw the look in his eyes, Jody, I saw the determination there. Dean won't survive this. He doesn't want to. Because I think he knew…he knew he wasn't right anymore. My brother held on long enough to ask to be let go… Trust me, I know what that means." Sam told her, the pain in his ribs lancing up his throat as it followed his words, coating them in pain.
Jody's hand reached up to trace the angle of his jaw, curving against his cheek until she stroked comforting patterns under his eyes and over his forehead. The slow touch massaged away the tension, and lessened the hurt. Lifting his arms, Sam cupped her face and leaned down to kiss her.
Her mouth opened for him easily and he slipped his tongue into it, tasting the warmth of her. She fell into his chest and her hands slipped under his shirt, moving over his skin. The outside chill on her fingers caused him to jerk away reflexively.
"Sorry," she breathed between kisses, smiling.
"How do you do this to me?" he asked, holding her face in front of him. Examining the planes of her features, Sam tried to read her soul, tried to see what she was made of that held the power to make him solid and whole when he felt like he was falling apart.
"I usually threaten you with violence," she teased, pinching his nipple.
"Hey!" he squawked, trying to move away playfully. Together, they bumped against the painted beige cinder block wall, the staircase rose beside them, and the mezzanine entrance over their heads shadowed the moment.
Suddenly serious, he fixated on her face. "I mean it," he echoed his thoughts. "This is as bad as things can get and, don't get me wrong, I feel destroyed more often than not but when you look at me or touch me, or even when I can smell you next to me in the middle of night—it all seems easier; like it's not so bad after all." Throughout his explanation, Sam realized halfway there that this was bordering on a proclamation of love and he should probably shelve that for a little longer but he was never one for concealing his feelings the way Dean always had.
Jody softened with understanding. "Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?" Angling closer against the line of his body, she threw her arms around his neck and dragged him down for a kiss, pausing as their breath mixed together.
"It feels right," she whispered. "I never expected my life to turn out this way, but I don't regret it, Sam." Jody threaded her fingers through his shoulder length hair.
"I can't give you a real relationship," he warned.
"I want you, Sam Winchester. And I'm not going anywhere. I mean, c'mon, I went to Hell for your brother!" she joked.
Surprisingly, Sam actually laughed. Sucking back a lungful, he pressed a searing kiss against her lips, hard and full of promise. Or at the very least: Full-bodied intent.
"Mind doing some more research with me before we go to bed?" asked Sam.
"Only if you promise that we won't be going to sleep right away? I mean, I should at least get to reap the benefits for my assistance, shouldn't I?" She grinned and slapped his ass as she walked back over to the table.
"It's a date," he agreed, grinning widely at her. The familiar stretch on his face felt good. Despite the argument with Cas, he felt lighter as he opened the computer and scrolled through tedious clips of news.
And when they finally went to bed? It wasn't for sleep.
/\/\/\
The next morning research efforts resumed. A couple hours of silent reading save for the sipping of hot coffee was interrupted by the shrill ring of his cell phone.
"Hello?"
"Hey man, how's the research going?" asked Cale.
"Uh…it's going. I don't have anything for you yet unfortunately. Where are you at?" Sam asked. Jody had discarded her reading in favour of listening to the conversation. Sam turned on the speaker and placed the phone on the table. Cale's drawl filtered out into the musty room.
"It just so happens I'm standin' outside your door, friend," Cale said cheerfully.
"Let us in, Moose!" Crowley called into the line. Seconds later, a distinct smack followed and Cale's low voice mumbled something at the King. Sam smirked at Jody.
"Alright, take it easy. We're coming up." Ending the call, he slipped the phone into his jean's pocket and followed Jody up the stairs.
The day was bright with early morning light. A soft blaze of yellow making the whole world seem a bit slower than normal. Cale's tanned skin soaked up all that light, Crowley looking pasty and blotched beside him. Jody and Sam hiked up the small hill to greet the two.
"Aww…love is in the air." Crowley crooned, his brown eyes dancing between Sam and Jody. Feeling his mouth form a flat line, he didn't bother giving that the justification of a response.
Instead, he turned to Cale. "So, how are you doing?" The sadness crept into his words making it sound like a question for a dying man. He supposed it was.
"You know me, man. Guns'a'blazin'! They got it coming to 'em, and I am damn ready to dish out retribution." Cale smacked a rough hand against Sam's arm.
He smiled back at the fellow hunter. "You're doing an amazing thing, saying thank you isn't enough, ya know?"
Crowley rolled his eyes, "Blah, blah…can we get on to specifics, ladies?"
"Relax sulphur-dick. Damn, he's a whiny one, this guy!" Cale said, poking a thumb towards Crowley. "So we cut ourselves up some hell dog last night. I had to take about ten damn showers just to get that black gunk off me." Cale shivered with remembered disgust and Sam could definitely relate—having done the same.
"Alright, so you're waiting on us finding something then?" Sam asked the obvious.
"That's where we're at. Pressure's on, big guy."
"Okay, well, we'll find someone soon. But I have to ask, how are you gonna get the soul? It's chaos down there! Crowley's no use—"
"Hey! I resent that," Crowley chimed in.
"Whatever, what's your plan?" continued Sam.
"Crowley's got a reaper that's gonna lead me in the same way as you'd gone before—back door special."
Sam glanced skeptically at the King. "You killed the last reaper we used, and now you have one conveniently in your back pocket?"
"Always have a reaper in your pocket, mate," he told Sam plainly.
"Might sound stupid, but I don't want you to get hurt," Sam said to Cale. Vengeful paths were not always the smartest road taken. He knew that from experience.
"Kind of a redundant statement, friend." Cale levelled him with a sobering raised set of brows.
"Yeah," Sam reluctantly agreed. Still, he hated that someone else was doing this. It should've been him.
"Hey man, it's what I want. You got family, Sam. I got nothin' here no more. Suck up those feelings like a man and go do some research, yeah?" Cale punched him lightly on the shoulder and Sam forced a smile. Cale's toffee-coloured eyes still held the excitement that Sam had felt in his early years of hunting—when the bravado and Rambo undertone was still a heavy current in the turmoil of his life. That was long gone.
"We're on it," he promised, grabbing Jody's hand and slipping his fingers between hers.
"There's only one minor, baby hiccup," Crowley intervened.
"The fact that Heaven is closed?" said Sam. Crowley tipped his chin down.
"Well, I spoke to Cas about that before…before everything, when Cale first came to me about the trials, and he said that with Metatron taken care of—"
"Oohh! Who skewered the short little scribe?" asked Crowley, his expression lit-up with joy.
"Uh, well, apparently...God." The words were hard to believe even though they were his. Sam didn't doubt Castiel, but they had no evidence that Metatron was truly dead. Ironically, he had to take it on faith. Truth be told, his supply there was running close to empty.
"So, anyway, he said that God would deal with Metatron and ensure that the trials would be successful. Only that he can't fix Heaven so that's on us. I tried to ask Cas more about it but he wouldn't say much," Sam explained.
"So I guess we're a go then." Cale looked to Crowley, "You're tagging along with me and we're gonna do our own research on this soul business." The King pouted like a child and Sam tried not to think of having to deal with him after this mess was done.
The two took off not long after. Cale had asked about Dean, and Sam had to shake his head when words had failed him. Jody ended up being the one to tell them that his brother hadn't woken up yet.
When they found themselves back in the library, a laptop each in front of them, Sam closed the lid in frustration after only scrolling through one page of results.
"It should have been me," he said. "Kevin would still be here if I had finished it. Every single person killed or possessed by demons since that night is on me. And now…this young guy is doing my job." Sam was overwhelmed with guilt, and regret. There was no going back now, he knew that. It didn't stop the chalky feeling that made his throat dry.
"If it was supposed to have been you, it would have been—but it wasn't and so it isn't." Jody's words were philosophical and maybe he would have believed them ten years ago if they'd been spoken in a lecture hall, but now…he wasn't sure. He'd seen fate. She had long blonde hair and wore cardigans with pencil skirts. Was she the reason he had stalled in the church? Was she the force that had Dean arriving just in time to stay his hand? He'd like to believe it, but there had been no string of gold glinting from the ground when they'd stumbled out of the hobbled church structure as they angels blazed through the sky above them.
In the maelstrom of the current world, it was very likely that the three sisters of fate had perished in the fall. Sam only had himself to blame for his decisions.
"What about me?" Jody leaned back in her chair, her amused gaze settling on him.
Sam focused on her deep brown eyes, the creases in the corners from the years spent smiling and laughing with a family that was now dead. His mind recalled the feel of her skin under his fingers, the extra soft, hardly noticeable scar on her lower abdomen from the C-section she'd had nearly eight years ago now.
"You're the reason I'm not telling Cale to park his ass here so that I can take over." Sam realized in saying the words how true they were. It wasn't for Dean that he stayed, though that was part of it. But it was more for her. They'd found something together here and having always been secretly optimistic, he wanted that. Wanting it didn't stop the feeling of guilt that washed over him.
"Sam, it's okay to have something for you," she said.
"You're probably biased." He smiled over at her, wanting the seriousness of the discussion to be over. As his future plans at the moment were to keep his butt parked in this chair, there was no use in stewing over his guilt anymore.
"Maybe a little." Wearing a sly smile, she lightly kicked his shin under the table. Jody's attention then slid back to the computer in front of her and Sam lingered on her concentrated features a moment before he, too, went back to the research.
/\/\/\
Two hours later and they finally made a discovery. Sam nearly leapt out of his chair in exultation. His body was sore from sitting for the last five days, and he knew this was the next step to ending it.
"Adelyn Hoffer," Sam stated. Jody moved to hover over his right shoulder. "Get this: she was sixteen when her abusive father was inexplicably murdered, cops had no leads at the time. It says here the death was suspicious but they don't give any specifics. And ten years later, the girl is found dead in her apartment torn to shreds." Sam concluded, slamming his hand down on the table and reaching for his phone with the other.
Cale answered on the first ring, "You got somethin' for us?"
"Adelyn Hoffer was twenty-six when the Hell-hounds got to her. Sold her soul to be rid of an abusive father."
Cale hissed against the receiver. "Good deal, I guess, 'cept for the reaping of the soul bit."
"No shit." Firing off a picture of the girl, Sam wished him luck and said to call the second it was done.
Jody scratched along the back of his head with her short nails and she placed her free hand on his shoulder.
"One day soon it will be over. I know it," she declared. The encouraging sentiment had Sam reaching up to hold her smaller hand in his bigger one.
"I hope you're right." He leaned his head back against the cushion of her chest. Curving her body, Jody bent over to kiss the crown of his head.
"I'm always ri—"
Pop!
The sharp crack of a gun going off had Sam bolting out of his seat in a race towards Dean's room, Jody firm on his heels. Sam's ears were ringing and his hands were trembling as he threw the door open. It slammed against the wall behind with a smash. The first thing that registered was Castiel kneeling on the floor with his hands palm out in front of him covered in blood, his head bowed over as he stared down.
Snapping his focus over to the bed, Sam saw his brother lying still over the covers, blood soiled over the white pillow case in a distinct spray pattern. He strained his eyes, his chest heaving as he tried to understand what had happened. There was a gun not two inches from Dean's fingers where his hand lay open on the bed.
"Cas?!" Sam choked out around the lump in his throat. Castiel turned his face at an angle to Sam.
"It's okay," he said shakily. "It's okay. I fixed it." He moved to wipe his hands over his black dress pants when Jody rushed passed Sam and dropped to the floor, grabbing Castiel's wrists.
"Hey," she said with a comforting tone. "Let's get you washed up?" She held on to Cas' forearms and eased up off the ground, pulling him with her.
"What happened?" Sam refused to let him pass through the door before he'd answered. Not that it really mattered, he already knew. He just needed Cas to say it.
"He-he woke up. I thought maybe it was okay. He seemed fine. Calm, eve-even. I don't know where the gun came from. The trigger went off before I could stop him. I healed him but my hands were shaking, Sam. I-I put him back to sleep. He's sleeping."
The two stared at each other. Sam wanted to be angry at Castiel. It was the same damn situation all over again except backwards. Instead of Sam being kept alive, against his will, by an angel, now Dean was being kept alive, against his will, also by an angel.
"I can't lose him twice." Castiel was on the verge of breaking down. Sam could see him teetering fast towards that precipice. It was the only thing that stopped the harsh words that had been making their way up his windpipe.
Stepping aside, Sam let them pass. Jody squeezed his arm before corralling Cas towards the bathroom.
Sam was left alone in the threshold of the room staring over at his brother's form, portentous with his slack features next to the striking bright red over the white pillow. Sam felt himself walking forward; he numbly grabbed the gun and pressed the lever to release the slide, pulling it off completely. He emptied the gun and pocketed the remaining bullets. He methodically moved around the room searching every potential location for weapons. It occurred to him how fucked up this was.
Dean had an array of weapons and once he'd collected them all he threw them in a bag and dropped them by the door with a loud thunk.
Moving back towards the bed, he fixed his eyes on the back wall and lifted Dean's head to remove the pillow underneath. He pretended not to feel the sticky feel of blood on his fingers that was now caked into Dean's hair.
He tossed the pillow out into the hallway and went over to the closet to grab another. Standing over the bed was where he lost himself for a moment. Studying Dean's still face filled him with a disagreeable mixture of regret and pity. He gingerly lifted Dean's head and placed the pillow underneath, squidging his fingers through Dean's short hair to try and wipe away the blood. He smeared it on his jeans without care, they were far from the first pair that had been ruined by blood. And certainly wouldn't be the last.
Sam stared down at his brother's face and wished he could apologize. Wish he'd gone after Dean when he'd left that night on the bridge. If Sam hadn't been immersed with his own anger, he might have seen the destructive force building within his brother and how all of it would lead to his death, his being possessed…to this.
"Sam?" Castiel called his name. The angel sounded himself again. Sam turned to find the guy clean and presentable—maybe even more so than he'd been in days.
Sam cleared his throat of the emotion that sat there. "I got him a new a pillow."
Castiel nodded. Jody was no longer with him.
"I'm sorry you feel that he's lost," Castiel said as he walked over to sit in front of Sam at the end of the bed.
"Shit, Cas, I feel like he has stage four cancer…on the brink of death and we're just keeping him alive, making him suffer, I-I can't stand it." His earlier anger had dissolved leaving only sorrow. He felt empathy for Cas, for himself, and most of all, for Dean.
"Please have faith. I know what I'm doing." Castiel spoke towards the bed and Sam thought he might be speaking to Dean more than him.
"I'm glad one of us does."
Dean hadn't flinched or moved a muscle the entire time.
"Sam," Cas turned towards him, the angel's hand moving to hold Dean's socked foot where it lay beside his hip. "I'm happy that you've found someone." The angel's smile was wistful.
"If it's worth anything, he loved you," he said in return, noticing Castiel flinch from his use of the past tense.
"I know." Cas didn't look back; his hand squeezing Dean's foot, staring down at the connection as if it would help.
