66 Seals of Doom on the Wall
Epilogue
It started out simple enough. You know, the same way major car wrecks start simple. You have an itch on your leg, you lose two seconds deciding if you wanna scratch it or not and Bang! Thirty-car pile up.
So, you know, simple.
It was only fair that it ended simple enough too. Like bugs squashed against the windshield, inconsequential, unimportant, unmentioned as the thirty cars that crashed get untangled and sent for scraps.
So simple that, for the rest of world, it was like it didn't even happen at all.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
"… and the shocking news that left America in deep grief since the past weekend, still remain shrouded in mystery. Almost a week after controlling the fire that threatened to consume the old Bentley & Assoc. Offices in downtown Chicago, the over two hundred bodies discovered inside are still being recovered. Authorities have yet to advance any additional comments on the tragic events of last Sunday. Hours after the fire department's gruesome discovery, Superintendent of Police John Weiss' talked to the press, assuring the citizens of Chicago and the families of the discovered victims that all in his power would be done to provide a swift identification of the bodies and efficient restitution of the remains to the stricken families. Despite the delays verified, official authorities maintain the initial reports that this was not an act of terrorism. Mass suicide and cult related crimes are still on the table as possible explanations of why this many people were lock inside the abandoned building. Group representatives, despite the reports of occult engravings and other paraphernalia discovered both inside and near the building, have denied satanic connections and take no responsibility for the occurrence. The Chicago Fire Department is still investigating the possibility of arson with a strange chemical as to the origin of the strange fire. We remind our viewers that, despite burning for most of Saturday's afternoon and part of Sunday's dawn, the building as suffered little to no dama-"
Bobby killed the TV' sound when he saw Sam coming downstairs.
"They still talking about it?" Sam asked, a plate with untouched scrambled eggs and toast in one hand and a glass full of orange juice in the other.
"Yeah… that was quite a mess we left behind. People will want answers for this one, and I doubt the authorities will be able to provide much," Bobby said, scratching his beard. For two days straight that was all the news would talk about. The strange fire in Chicago, the unburned building and the massacre that was found inside. There had been no mentions of dangling chains or tortured people, but Bobby figured that that would be the one thing that they would keep tightly under wraps. "He still not eating?" He asked, pointing at the full plate in Sam's hands.
Sam sighed, doing a quick detour through the kitchen to drop the offending food before he joined Bobby in the older hunter's living room. "It's been three days since he got out of the hospital, Bobby, and he still hasn't eaten a thing." he said, running a hand through his unwashed hair. "He can't keep this up for much longer…"
"We don't know all of what happen, Sam," Bobby offered, the implication that, for all they knew, this could all be perfectly normal, clear as if it had been spoken. "Just give him some more time."
"I just got him back," Sam said, words sounding dangerously close to a sob. "And now I'm losing him all over again."
It was Bobby's turn to sigh. If this was what victory tasted like, he was scared to know what defeat would look like.
He and Sam had been there in the end, but to be honest with themselves and with one another, none knew exactly what had happened.
Sam had told Bobby about the trap set by Lilith and Ruby, told him about what he'd almost done to Dean and what he had done to Lilith. After that, things were a little fuzzy to him, but Sam knew that his actions had veered in the opposite direction of his intentions and he knew that, somehow, Dean had prevented Lucifer from crossing over.
What Sam didn't know was how Dean had managed it: What price had his older brother paid so that the world wouldn't suffer the consequences of Sam's foolish actions?
Remorse and shame were heavy competitors with whom the young man had to struggle everyday after that final battle, but the not knowing, the not being able to feel Dean's familiar pat on his shoulder telling him that everything would be alright, that was worse, so much worse.
What Bobby had seen, he still had trouble believing or even putting in to words. Still he told Sam the basic facts and let the younger man draw his own conclusions as Bobby had been doing ever since he had had time to stop and think. What he left out were the things that were neither his place to tell, like Dean's mounting abilities, or the things he had felt, like the feeling of that evil presence in that warehouse that had just vanished when Dean had literally burst in to light.
Castiel had been there too, in the end, but he had offered little information. Other than assuring the older hunter that the seals were now safe and that the end of the world had been avoided for now, he had but assisted Bobby in taking the boys to the car and after had simply vanished.
And Dean…
"Has he said a word to you yet?" Bobby asked, even though he could already figure the answered by Sam's defeated posture.
"He barely looks at me," Sam said, closing his eyes against the worry and shame. They should be celebrating; they should at least be taking it a little easy. Instead, they couldn't catch a damn break. "Do you think something happened to him, to Dean's mind?" He asked, absentmindedly biting a nail. Wide, frightened eyes suddenly met Bobby's as a new though entered his concerned mind. "God! Do you think I did something to him? Maybe that's why-"
"Take it easy Sam," Bobby said, his tone quiet and undemanding. It was eating at his curiosity too, to know how the light that he'd seen had stopped the end of the world, but Bobby had seen enough to know that there were some things that he would never figure out. Sam would not accept that fact as easily. "Whatever happened in the place, we'll just have to wait and see and be there for your brother when he's ready for us to be there for him. And he will need you to keep it together, Sam."
Bobby knew that he was playing dirty, using the brothers' love for each other as a weighting point, but after the week he'd had, Bobby would take anything.
After Castiel's disappearance, Bobby had been left with two unconscious grown men in the Impala, a city that was in high alert for anything strange and the unwavering notion that, despite the urgency of the wounds he could see on Dean, he would have to drive them out of there before anything else.
His mind still reeling from everything that he had seen, Bobby reverted to his safe grounds and had splashed holy water over the two Winchesters, sighing in relief when, at least that, revealed them as normal.
But the older hunter knew that they were anything but normal. He wasn't even sure if they were human at all, at that point. Still, they were family and they needed help. Despite what Castiel had said, Bobby didn't take them home, he drove them to a small hospital outside Chicago, pushing the car's engine to the limit.
The staff at the clinic had frowned a little at the origin of the boys unusual wounds, particularly Dean's, but refrained from taking action when Bobby flashed them an FBI badge. That did it... well, that and one look at Dean's damaged wrists. No more questioning glances ensued as they immediately whisked Dean away to surgery.
Sam, as it turned out, was in much better shape. Aside from the small cuts and bruising he was 'just' suffering from deep exhaustion, which, judging by the number of bodies that Bobby had encountered and by Sam's vague retelling of how he fought his way to Lilith, he wasn't a little bit surprised at the boys' need for rest.
The sunburns on both Dean and Sam's faces were something that no one could really explain.
After that it had all been a game of 'just in case'.
The orthopedic surgeon that had been in charge of Dean's case had been cautiously optimistic about the amount of lasting damage caused by the wrists' wounds, advising 'uncle' Bobby to take Dean -Justin- to a neurologist 'just in case' his nephew lost any feeling or movement in his hands; Sam had refused to lay in a proper bed and give himself the rest he so desperately needed, stubbornly remaining at Dean's bed side, 'just in case' his brother woke up from the anesthesia coherent enough to recognize him.
On the dawn of the third day at the hospital, Bobby had sneaked a very drugged and semi-conscious Dean out of the hospital, 'just in case' someone wised up to the fact that FBI agents had access to their own medical facilities and didn't needed the undercover crap story that Bobby had fed them and called the cops on them anyway.
The journey back to Bobby's place had been a silent one, with Sam finally catching up on his rest and Dean, blessedly, in morphine-dream-land. Neither had talked much after that and Dean, although conscious, hadn't spoken at all.
"How are you holding up?" Bobby asked Sam when the younger man finally stopped his fidgeting and sat on the couch next to him with a tired sigh.
The dark smudges under Sam's eyes had yet to soften, deep grooved valleys competing with the lines of concern looking forever carved in his forehead. The growing stubble, result of Sam's lack of patience or willingness to grab a good shave, added too many years to a face that was supposed to be young. In contrast, the sunburn that had eventually graduated in to a slightly peeling tan, made it look like Sam had returned from a Caribbean vacation.
Sam refused to meet Bobby's eyes. He did not wanted the older man to see the guilt there, did not want him to see the shame, because then Bobby would've tried to argue that none of this had been his fault and that he shouldn't blame himself. Right now, guilt and shame were the only things that Sam had, and he was clinging to them with the despair of a drowning man. Because if he couldn't feel those, he wouldn't feel anything at all and that scared him more than anything.
Sam couldn't remember how it had all ended, but he could not forget how it had all begun. When he closed his eyes, all that he could see was Dean hanging from the ceiling. When he looked at his own hands, all he could see was red from all the blood he had shed in that warehouse. So many had died by his hand, in so many horrible and brutal ways and yet all that he had to show for it was peeling skin...
"I'm ok Bobby... I'm just fine."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Bobby knew that Dean wasn't asleep even though the young man had his eyes closed. It wasn't like this was the first time that they played this game.
"Don't bother pretending," he said point blank. Bobby had never been one to coddle anyone, particular those he loved. "Just came to give this back," he said, idly running his thumb over the ridges of the amulet's face, the trinket warm from his palm. With Dean's back to him, Bobby put the golden necklace on the bedside table. "Forgot about it, you know, in all that confusion of end of the world and mad rush to the hospital, not knowing what was wrong with you or Sam."
Dean remained silent, his back rising and falling methodically in mock slumber.
Bobby sighed. "Sam's getting all worked up, you know," he said, hoping to coax the young man out of his shell using his brother. "Heck, between my bad acting and your mind reading, I'm sure you know that I'm worried too."
The old hunter's gaze roamed the room a moment, searching for more, anything that would break the self imposed silence that the elder Winchester seemed determined not to break. He sighed tiredly when the peeling wall paint and the mess of discarded cloths offered no inspiration.
"We won, kid! Against all odds, against all prospects, we won... and now we need you to find the strength to come out and celebrate with us, Dean."
In a sudden and rare display of raw emotion, the words came out husky and worn. Not since Dean's death, had he felt this sense of hopelessness...
But to no avail, his words seemed to hang idly in the quiet of the room. Finally, he lay a gentle hand on the younger man's shoulder before leaving. "Just come out and celebrate with us... or this won't feel like a victory at all, Dean."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
The door closed and Dean opened his eyes. The pull to answer his brother and Bobby, to accept the food and comfort that they were offering, to connect with them somehow, some way, was strong, almost impossible to resist. But right now, Dean couldn't.
He knew his brother needed him with his shit together, and he certainly knew that for someone that had prevented the world from ending, he was being a whinny bitch. But Dean. Could. Not. Helped. It!
Every emotion, every shattered feeling, every single piece of crap revelation that he'd been dealt for the past few days, on top of his returning memories of Hell, had just come crashing on him the second Dean woke up in the hospital. Emotionally disoriented and half crazy with pain, the other half just lost in the haze of drugs, he struggled to understand the hours before he awoke in the hospital. Through it all, Sam's presence, Sam' smell and familiarity was all around him, driving him back to the last thing he could remember: A kid who looked just like Sam, lying dead in his arms.
It had just been too much to handle and Dean reacted the way he knew best. He shut down. To the world, to himself, to anything that might add to his distress. And the fact that that was a reaction that he could not control only added to Dean's distress.
'I know you're there, you know,' Dean thought, sensing the presence inside the room even before Bobby had left.
"It was not meant to be a secret," Castiel answered anyway, crossing his arms and leaning against the window ledge.
The early morning light streaming through the window surrounded the angel, hugging his form. He looked taller than Dean remembered him, his skin darker, the hair longer. The voice, the familiar cadence that the angel always imprinted in his speech, those remained the same. But there was something otherworldly about his looks now, a light of his own that seemed to counterbalance the one coming from outside. His wings, feathers of a clear grey color, were almost visible behind his back.
'So that's how you really look,' Dean ventured, guessing that he was looking at Castiel's true form. 'What happened to the holy-tax-accountant?'
Castiel smiled, the gestured more real now that he was using his own lips. "He went to feed his fish."
Dean chuckled despite himself. Normal lives, normal stuff to do, like feeding your pets. And he was having a conversation using his mind, with the angel in his room. The two realities seemed hardly related. Dean cleared his throat and forced his lips to form words. "So... you've came to say goodbye?"
Castiel nodded, leaving the window and closing the distance between him and Dean's bed. He sat at Dean's feet, hands in his lap, eyes on the double casts in Dean's wrists. "My mission here is complete."
After struggling upright, Dean lay his head back against the headboard, his eyes following Castiel's gaze to the white casings that encompassed his still healing broken limbs; Dean sighed. The appendices lay on either side of his reclined body, swelling from the surgery still evident; the limbs were useless for the moment. Maybe forever.
It was a bitch to try and do anything without the use of his hands but somehow, that was the least of his problems now. "So, back to Heaven, hum?" He asked, shifting uncomfortably under the angel's quiet scrutiny.
"How is Sam?" Castiel asked, deflecting Dean's question. "He looked burdened last I saw him."
The move was not lost on Dean, nor was the sadness that he felt hidden inside the angel. "Sam is safe," was the first thing that came to Dean's mind. "He is safe, isn't he?"
That at least had to be true. Dean had felt when the light bursting out of him had pierced Sam and destroyed the demon's hold on his brother' soul.
"Lucifer was pushed back behind the seals, the lock is secured and your brother's powers are gone," Castiel reassured him. "But that does not make him safe... that does not mean that your mission is complete."
"My mission," Dean whispered. His mission had been to keep Sam safe from harm and he had failed so many times. He could feel the flesh giving away beneath the pressure of the blade in his hands, could see the surprised look in young eyes as life ebbed away in less than a blink. "My mission is too big for my abilities."
Castiel's hand closed around Dean's covered calf, the warmth and comfort of the touch losing none of its strength despite the sheet and blanket in between them. Dean looked at the angel, finding the contact strange and familiar at the same time. The darkness that had been his constant companion ever since Chicago receded, if only a bit.
"You stopped Lucifer from entering this world, you stopped your brother from becoming his slave, from losing himself in a pit of darkness from which he would have never climbed out... and still you think you failed."
"I stabbed Sam in the chest... I killed him," Dean said, cursing his cast hands that didn't let him use his fingers to squeeze and push back the tears that were falling down his eyes.
"Not all that Lucifer showed you was real, not all that happen was an illusion, but it was Lucifer whom you stabbed, no matter who's appearance he was wearing at the time," Castiel reminded him.
Dean sniffled, disgusted at himself for reacting like this. "Yeah, well, he happened to look a lot like Sam at the time."
Castiel lowered his head and sighed before he got up, a gesture that Dean could swear the angel had learned from him. The wings on his back shook, translating the same frustration that he would not allow to show on his face.
"I never got to thank you," Dean said quietly. If this was the last time he was to see Castiel, some things shouldn't be left unsaid. "For what you did in the warehouse."
Castiel paused, his face looking out the window.
"Bobby told us that all the demons were dead by the time he got there. Last I recall, there were still quite a few ready to rip my lungs out..." Dean stopped himself, watching the way in which the angel's shoulders stiffened and his feathers literally ruffled.
Castiel remained silent, knowing that Dean would draw his own conclusions.
And Dean did, because he could remember Castiel telling him that he could no interfere, that in fact, he'd been ordered not to. All of a sudden, Dean knew why Castiel had changed the topic when it came to his return to Heaven. "You ain't going back to Heaven, are you?"
"I am not."
"You're actually being punished for helping us?" Dean angrily asked. The idea seemed as absurd to him as blaming a bald guy for not using shampoo.
"I am not being punished," Castiel said, finally turning to face Dean. The look in his eyes told a different story from his mouth. "I disobeyed an order and I am being given the time to ponder on the wisdom of my actions."
"Sounds a lot like being punished to me," Dean mumbled, pissed at the fact that really no good deed went unpunished. And that the good deed was responsible for saving his and Sam's lives, not to mention the rest of Humankind, only made him feel guilty about it.
"Maybe the Big Guy was actually rooting for us to lose, you know," Dean said dejectedly.
"It is not a game of win or lose, Dean," Castiel said, turning to face his human charge once more. The last time. "It is about fulfilling each ones part in the web of events that makes life, existence possible."
"Fate sucks, Castiel," Dean offered petulantly. His certainly seemed to. What happiness could one take of a fate that forced him to go against everything that he had fought his whole life?
"Fate sucks," the angel agreed, much to Dean' surprise, "but it is also inescapable."
Dean smiled. An angel saying stuff like fate sucks was not something he ever thought to see.
"Why do you smile?"
Dean looked fondly at the heavenly being that he'd grown to respect.
"No wonder the Boss is giving you a time off… I think we broke you, man."
Castiel smiled in return. Not all sorrow is met with tears, not breaks are regretful. It was a pleasure to have met you, Dean Winchester.
And in the next blink of the eye, he was gone.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"He's gone!" Sam announced out of breath. Bobby's head emerged from the red Ford pickup that the man was working on.
"Wha'd'ya mean 'he's gone'?" Bobby asked, cleaning his oil-black dirty hands. "He could barely move to go to the bath room by himself… he can't be gone."
If at all possible, Sam's face lost even more of its color. He'd been out of his mind thinking that Dean had finally had enough and left him. But, what if Bobby was right, what if Dean's vanishing act hadn't been voluntary?
"Dean's not in his room," Sam said, this time in realization that something terrible had surely happen. "I looked everywhere in the house, Bobby… do you think something came here and took him?"
"This is my house you're talking about, boy! Not the grocery store down the street," Bobby was quick to reply, the sharp words doing more to assure Sam than a comforting hand on his shoulder ever would. If there was one thing that they could be sure of was that nothing evil could get inside Bobby's house without serious repercussions. "Did you search everywhere in the house?"
Sam nodded, his head bouncing emphatically like a bobble-head.
Bobby took off his cap and scrubbed his hair. The amount of white that he had collected ever since reconnecting with the adult versions of these kids had been ridiculously enormous. He watched as Sam absentmindedly nibbled his fingernail, a gesture Bobby was sure he had picked up from Dean when he was a kid.
"You know," Bobby started, his gaze taking on a far away look. "There was this time when your father dropped both of you here with me on his way to a hunt. That one time, your brother was sulking particularly hard about John not taking him along, so, no sooner I turned my back and that little brat disappeared on me for a whole day. I nearly went insane with worry, thinking that he'd took off after your dad anyway."
Sam dropped his nail biting and scrunched his nose. "I don't remember that."
"No, you wouldn't. You had just started learning how to read. Spent the whole time glued to my books, completely mesmerized. We had to drag you kicking and screaming just for meals."
"And Dean? He really went after dad?"
"Nah... brat wouldn't leave you behind for nothing in this world," Bobby said, his voice serious enough to make Sam understand that that was as much true then as it was now. "Found him by the river, up in a tree, sulking like a little girl," he said with a snort. At the time, Bobby had not found the situation funny at all; feelings of worry about something happening to the boy on his watch competing with the dreadful knowledge that he would have to call John and tell him he'd lost his son.
"By the river?" Sam confirmed, feet eager to run and see if Dean was really there.
"Yeah... just follow the path and you'll see it for sure," Bobby pointed. "I'll go check the yard. And if I find him fiddling with that car of his or any other, I'll be the one sending him to the hospital this time."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
On a second thought, he probably should've left a note explaining to Sam and Bobby where he was. Dean looked at his fingertips, peeking from a cloud of hard white and closed his eyes. Yeah! A note...
Now, without a phone and too far away to go back and at least warn them, Dean felt a pang of guilt at the worry that he knew he would undoubtedly cause the two men.
Truthfully, he had only gone as far as the stream that ran behind Bobby's property, but the small walk had left Dean exhausted and shaky. Pale and sweating, he just managed to lower himself to sit and lean back against the chopped remains of a long dead tree.
Something, he just needed something –anything- but the stifling bedroom where he'd been stuck ever since getting out of the hospital. A small change was all he wanted, a break from the feelings of curiosity and worry that had been slowly suffocating him at the house.
Sam and Bobby meant well, Dean knew that; knew that their actions were nothing but a natural reaction to all that had happened, knew that no matter how curious, neither would ever question him about what had happen, but still… it felt like a vise, griping his head and squeezing tighter and tighter.
The sound of water had attracted him there. It had always attracted him. Water, always free flowing, knowing no bounds or restrictions.
Unstoppable.
Memoryless.
Always changing, always remaining the same, like Missouri had told him.
Water, the opposite of fire.
Lucifer's mind had been made of fire. Fire and light and despite both things being associated with warmth, there had been neither there. It had only been a small glimpse, and still Dean could feel himself chilling from the memory alone.
No matter what Castiel told him, no matter what reason told him, Dean remembered. He remembered that he had spent forty years in Hell to learn how to defeat Lucifer and that the only way to do it had been to bring his own personal Hell on Earth. Seeing Sam die by his own hand; feeling the blade as it entered that Sam-like child and watch his eyelids close to hide the look of betrayal.
Every time Sam entered the room to offer him food, or a drink, or a change of clothes or a trip to the bathroom, it was that little kid that Dean was looking at again; those innocent and trusting eyes that he saw and Dean could not bare to look at them.
If given the chance to forget only one set of memories, Dean wasn't sure which he would pick: the forty years of torture or the forty seconds of Hell.
He closed his eyes and looked up, to a sun that was as it was supposed to be, bright and warm and let its light color his face and chase away the chill inside.
"Does it hurt?" A male voice that hadn't quite yet hit puberty, asked, startling Dean from his sunbathing.
"What?" He asked, looking for the source of the voice. Dean could've sworn that he was alone in here as he could possibly be. Bobby's place wasn't exactly known for its proximity to civilization, something that not only suited the hunters but was actually cultivated by them. And yet, there it was in front of him, a boy no more than twelve.
Honey blond hair tucked behind a baseball cap, upwards curls framing the hat like tiny golden clasps. The team blue jersey that he was wearing didn't match the team on the cap. Dean didn't put much mind to sports, but he was pretty sure it didn't even match the game.
"Your broken hands… does it hurt?"
Dean looked at the white casts covering both his hands from elbow to middle hand. After he'd woken up in the hospital, disoriented and mind fuzzy with painkillers, Dean believed that he couldn't move any of his fingers. For a couple of terrifying hours, he was sure that he would have to live the rest of his life without use of his hands. Now, supported by the plaster wrappings, he could move most of his fingers and had regained feeling on all of them. He guessed he should be grateful for that too.
"Only when I scratch my nose," he answered the kid.
The boy looked in confusion from the arm casts to Dean's nose, measuring the distance and not quite getting how one could be related to the other.
The kid turned clear green eyes on him, looking for an explanation. Dean was struck by the familiarity in that look. Sam used to look at him like that, searching for answers that he was always sure his big brother would have.
Dean lifted one hand and, adding an extra clumsiness to his already clumsy gestures, pretended to bump his nose with the double sized appendice.
The boy giggled, an honest sound that sounded to Dean as fresh as the water running in the river behind them.
"You here alone?" Dean eventually asked. If he remembered right, there was a public camp ground about a mile from there, but still, that was a long way for a kid that young to be walking alone. Specially one prone to talk so openly with total strangers. "Won't your parents worry?"
The kid shrugged, like he knew that parents would always worry, no matter what he did. "I'm with my brother," he said, crossing his legs at the knees and allowing himself to crash graciously on the soft ground. It was a practiced move born both of natural agility and young bones.
Dean looked around again. Other than a pair of red-throated ducks playing in the water and the constant sound of a passing train, the place was deserted of life. "Where is he? I can't see him."
The boy pointed to beyond the place where the ducks were smoothing their feathers with their orange beaks, across the river's waters, where the woods got deeper. "Just over there... he likes to play hide and seek."
"He your big brother or little brother?"
The boy pondered the question, like it wasn't one with a simple answer.
"Both, I suppose," he finally answered.
Apparently not.
"He can't be both," Dean returned, looking at the kid, trying to figure if he was pulling his leg.
"I was born first, so that makes him the little brother," the kid explained with as much seriousness as a Harvard teacher lecturing on quantum physics. "But he's grown taller than me, so that makes him my big brother too."
Dean let out a laugh, the sound so foreign to his own ears, along with the feel of the muscles surrounding his mouth as they pulled to a wide smile. God, he couldn't even remember ever laughing that hard. It was the kind that started so deep in your belly that you had to bend backwards to allow it to fully exit. It felt good.
"Guess there's no arguing that," Dean agreed, wiping tears of joy from his eyes with a shrug of his shoulder. Dean Winchester was not a guy who cried over anything and everything, so this - this he was blaming on the meds.
At least, they were tears of laughter, this time around.
"I got one of those too," he eventually told the kid. "A big little brother."
The kid's eyes grew round, his turn to search around. "Wow... he must be a giant! Is he here too?"
Dean shook his head. He'd come here to be alone. The kid didn't need to know that.
"You should be with him, you know. Little brothers worry too," the kid said, eyes a darker green as he looked ahead, in to the water.
"What?" Dean wasn't sure he'd heard it right. It seemed such a grown up thing to say.
The kid shrugged, suddenly back to his twelve year old self. "Well, at least that's what my brother keeps on telling to me."
"Sounds like a smart kid."
The kid shrugged again, a repetitive gesture that he seemed to favor.
"He is," he agreed nonetheless. "He just messed up big time a while ago and doesn't want to admit that it was all really his fault," the kid explained, sneakered feet digging small rocks from the loose soil and moving them around like little chess pieces. "Dad says we have to be patient with him and give him the time and support he needs to understand."
Dean looked hard at the kid. Such a solemn way of telling that his brother had probably broken a window or something. Were kids really that dramatic these days? He decided to play along, give the kid the importance that he was giving to his brother's mistake.
Who ever this father was, he should probably pay more attention to where his kids were, instead of playing deep psycho-nonsense on young kids. The river wasn't particularly dangerous this time of the year, but still... Maybe he should take the kids to the camp site himself, make sure that they got there ok, even if the prospect of a two mile walk to the camp and back was something that he knew was way out of his league at the moment. Maybe he could talk the kid in to going to Bobby's and drive from there...
"I'm sure he'll get it eventually," Dean said with a smile that was meant to be more supportive rather than mocking. "Are you sure your folks aren't worried about you and your brother being all by yourselves this far out?"
The kid shrugged again. "They always worry. But me and my brother, we can take care of ourselves."
Dean knew the feeling. Just him and Sam, two against the world and some days, when they were younger, that was all that they needed. But then Sam had needed more than that, had needed a 'normal' life and then it was just Dean and his broken father. And then it had been just Dean.
It had taken them both so long to get that feeling back, the feeling that they were brothers and that they could trust each other with everything, hang together through the thick and thin, battle the demons of the world and each other's.
And then fate, destiny, just fucking bad-luck, had intervened and they were back to where they had started. Apart, unable to look each other in the eye, hurting and licking their wounds when the other couldn't see. Dean wanted that feeling of security, of family back.
"Sometimes that's all that's needed," Dean said to the kid, wondering why he was having such a conversation with a stranger, a child stranger, for that matter.
But the kid nodded, like that had been his point all along and it was Dean who was just slow on the uptake. "Little brothers sometimes need to be reminded of that, no matter how big they grow or how much they want to take care of their big brothers. Your job is never really done, is it?"
Dean knew he was staring, but he could not help it. It wasn't like he had many conversations with twelve year olds, but this boy was hitting levels of strange that he wasn't sure were that normal.
And then, on top of that, there was that sense of familiarity, that odd feeling that he knew the kid from somewhere. Maybe he was the son of someone they had helped before, some hunt that had slipped his memory.
Dean suddenly realized that, for all the time that they'd been talking, he still didn't know the kid's name.
"I'm Michael, by the way," the kid announced out of the blue, like his thoughts had been following the same line as Dean's. "But all of my friends call me Mike."
"And what should I call you?" Dean asked, a growing suspicion inside of him getting larger and larger with each new word out of the kid's -Michael's- mouth.
Michael got up from the ground, dusting his jeans with one hand while he offered the other to Dean. "You can call me brother," he said, looking the older man in the eyes. Suddenly, the kid's eyes looked so much older than twelve years, older than anything Dean had ever seen before. Timeless. "It was a pleasure to have met you, Dean."
Dean didn't have time to take the kid's hand and shake it properly, or feel surprised that Mike knew his name even though the hunter had never introduced himself. He could hear the sound of feet running up the path and the strong sense of family and love that he'd learned to associate with Sam hit him before his brother was visible.
"Who were you talking too?" Sam asked as soon as he could see Dean, relief filling every inch of his face. His voice, however, was laced with unspoken betrayal and accusation. Dean was speaking, just not with him.
Dean looked around. The kid was gone, the ground undisturbed like there never had been a second person in there.
"An old friend, I guess." Another one that had come to say goodbye.
There was only one path to and from that little pocket between vegetation and the river, and Sam knew that he hadn't seen anyone around there. He looked at his brother, taking in the unlaced boots, the barely zipped jeans and the unbuttoned shirt that he had hastily thrown over his shoulders. It was hard to tell how much of all of this was just the normal weirdness of their lives and how much was a sign that Dean just wasn't well enough for a stroll in the woods.
"We were worried sick about you, you shouldn't even be out of bed," he ended up saying, his voice taking on a scolding tone that he hadn't really planned for.
"Sorry about that," Dean said, sounding honestly chastised about it. "I just needed some air."
"You're talking again." It sounded like such an obvious a thing to be pointing out, but Sam had been waiting too long to hear his brother's voice, waited too long to see some return to normalcy that he couldn't let the fact go unmentioned.
"Yeah..." Dean scratched his short hair, a slight blush creeping up his neck. "...sorry about that too. Didn't meant to go all brooding and moody on you guys."
"Stop saying you're sorry," Sam said, his voice defeated, pleading. With a sigh he sat, unknowingly taking the same place Michael had just vacated. Instead of the lithe grace of a twelve year old, his landing looked a lot harder, with inertia enough to punch through a wall, rather than a simple graceful action of seating down. He gently nudged Dean's shoulder, his voice softening but weighted and edged with the sadness he was attempting to hide, "You have nothing to be sorry for."
Dean' shoulders sagged under the weight of his brother' sorrow. As it had been for all of their lives, he would do anything to make that tone, that feeling go away. He just wasn't sure if he still had what it took.
But he had to try, "Sam... I-"
"Look, I get it," Sam cut ahead. "I get it that you're disgusted with what I did, that you can barely stand having me around after what happen... I mean, I can barely stand myself," he said with a dry chuckle. "But don't risk your health because of that, because of me, ok man? Just... just tell me and I'll go, I'll get out of your hair and you can stay quiet and safe with Bobby and then you can fin-"
"What the hell are you yapping about?" Dean asked, genuinely surprised by Sam's outburst. Had his brother really been living under the assumption that Dean was mad at him for what had happen? "I didn't came here to be away from you," he said. God, nothing could be farther away from the truth than that. He'd come here to think about what Castiel had said, to find the courage to pull his head out of his own ass, not to escape his brother's presence.
"Then why? Why haven't you said a word to me ever since you woke up? Why are you here all alone, talking to thin air instead?" Why wont you talk to me?
The unspoken words bit harder than the shouted questions. His brother was scared, hurting and part of it was the distance that Dean had unwittingly created between them. The distance that the secrets between the two of them had started to create a long time ago.
"Castiel came to say goodbye," Dean offered.
Sam bent his knees and circled his arms around his bony legs. He looked as far from his twenty-five, six feet four self as he could be.
"Oh," he let out, caught off guard by the mention of the angel that he had never met. Somehow, that fact saddened him, made him feel even more unworthy of the attentions of a heavenly creature. "You two grew pretty close." While I was out, fucking things up with Ruby.
"Sam, there's no point in thinking like that. What Ruby did was..." Dean stopped himself. Sam was looking at him in a funny way and for a moment Dean thought that his brother was going to storm away like he had done in the motel when Dean had slipped up, revealing his mind-reading abilities. He relaxed when Sam's confusion was replaced by quiet understanding.
"I'd forgotten you could do that," Sam said with a humorless smile. "I'm gonna have to be more careful about the secrets I keep from you from now on," he added in a failed joke.
The words felt like a slap in the face, even though Dean knew that was not Sam's intention. "Look, there are some things about me, about us that I never got to tel-"
"You don't have to tell me anything," Sam cut through. After what he had done, Sam felt he couldn't be trusted with anything bigger than a rubber band. It was shaping up to be pretty obvious that there was something more to his brother than what the eye could see, but it wasn't Sam's place to know it. He was probably the last person on Earth that deserved to know it.
"No!" Dean said without bite. "Look, Sam, secrets and us not talking to one another is what started this mess in the first place. I'm not going to make that mistake again," Dean pressed on despite Sam's wide, teary eyes. "I'm not letting us fall for that mistake again."
Sam looked down. There was a family of ants, running around his shoes, carrying something on their backs, something unidentifiable to him, but probably of the utmost importance to those ants.
He took in a shuddering breath.
"I fucked up, Dean," the younger Winchester confessed, the words feeling like razor blades in his mouth but doing wonders for the weight in his chest. "I fucked up so bad and I don't know how, but you made it all better, made it all go away like you always did when we were kids, only this time, this time the shadow of what could have been is just too fucking big for me to forget and let go."
Dean fought the urge to get up and comfort his brother. Sam was right, this was too big to just let it go. "You're right, you did fucked up."
Sam looked up, red eyes swimming with fresh tears. He looked surprised and hurt before a smile creeped up his face.
"What?" Dean asked. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy the shy smile that seemed to have been forever lost from his brother's face, but Sam had that look about him, the one in which he's just gotten a joke that Dean hadn't.
"Nothing," Sam said, using his shirt' sleeves to clean his face, like he did ever since he was a little kid. "It's just that this was when you were suppose to tell me something along the lines of it wasn't your fault, that you did the best you could, or my favorite, we can't save them all," Sam counted the phrases out of his fingers. He'd really had heard them all before, and he couldn't thank his brother enough for not taking the easy way out and brushing this under the proverbial carpet.
"Screw that!" Dean echoed his brother's thoughts. "You're big enough to deal with the consequences of your actions and, hopefully, learn from them."
Sam turned serious, avoiding Dean's gaze. Learning from his mistakes would be the easy part, if he could just get over the consequences that might have been. If it weren't for Dean...
"No... I wasn't alone in there Sam," Dean corrected him. "It sucked that you didn't believe me when I warned you about Ruby and it was dumb to let yourself be blinded by revenge like that, but I. Was. Not. Alone. In. There. Sam... if it weren't for you, for your strength and presence, I never could've... what I had to..."
Dean couldn't go any further. He looked down, willing the images of little Sam dead in his arms to go away. Big Sam's hands filled his field of vision, solid against his shoulders.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry for not listening to you, for... for everything," Sam said, leaning his head to touch Dean's bowed head. No matter what happened, no matter what happens from now on, I'm just glad that I have you, and I just want you to know that you have me, Sam thought, knowing that Dean would get both the silent words and the feeling behind them better than anything that he could've said.
Dean let that feeling wash over him, clear away everything else. "We can't let this thing define us, Sam, we can't let this change who we are," he said to Sam shoulder, not trusting himself to look any higher and risk meeting Sam's eyes. "We were just pawns, fucking pawns in a game that started way before we were even born, a game that will go on for a long time after we're gone and turned to dust."
Sam nodded against his brother's head, not wanting to let go. It sounded so easy when Dean said it like that. Just... let go. "My powers are gone, you know?"
Dean nodded. Even now he could feel his brother as he had always was supposed to be. Untainted, generous and good. "You get a fresh start Sammy. A chance to do things your way, with no demon plans, with no Heaven or Hell interfering in our lives."
Sam closed his eyes. So easy... "I can feel them, Dean... I can feel their blood in my hands, I can see every single face before I used my powers to destroy them. How do I move on... how do I live with that?"
Dean shuddered, Sam's words and tone so similar to Lucifer's when he had told how Sam had tried to kill himself when Dean was gone. Lies... Dean had to remind himself that those were all lies. His brother was stronger than the version that Lucifer had given him.
"One day at a time, Sammy," Dean said, finally lifting his head to face Sam. "You live one day at a time, you try your best each time and if it ever gets too hard, if you ever feel like you can't take another breath, you trust in me and Bobby to have your back."
Sam opened his eyes, nothing ahead of him but the green of Dean's eyes. They offered sanctuary, safety, home.
"When did you ever turn in to such a girl?" Sam joked half-heartedly. I'm here too, you know. I've got your back whenever you need me too, he offered silently.
Dean chuckled, finally releasing Sam from his gaze. "Yeah... I'm starting to learn that little brothers can be big too."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
It was getting late and by the second time that Bobby had phoned Sam's cell to tell them to get their bony asses back, neither brother could really ignore him much longer. But neither was really willing to leave their pocket of safety just yet.
"Hey, do you remember this?" Dean asked as he carefully picked up a pebble between two fingers and tossed in to the water, satisfied look on his face as he watched it skip the surface three times before sinking.
Sam chuckled and Dean was happy to realize that the sound had none of the eerie effects that Lucifer's chuckle had stirred in him. It was a clean sound, a happy sound, a memory of safer times and Dean rejoiced in it.
"Yeah," Sam said, picking a pebble of his own and sending it across the still waters. "I asked you what you were doing and you said you were hunting water pixies," he added with a smile, watching as his pebbled touched the blue water four times before disappearing, caterpillar-like trails spreading out long before the rock hit the bottom of the river. "I thought you were pulling my leg."
It was Dean's turn to smile and throw another pebble. There was no way his younger brother was getting away with a bigger score on water-skips. Cast or no cast.
"I wasn't," Dean said, slightly annoyed as he watched his rock since after only two skips. "Sneaky bastards had stolen my baseball card."
"Yeah, I figured you were serious about it a few years later," Sam voiced, facing the river now but lost in the images of another river, another Sam and another Dean. "I was confused all summer of why you wouldn't step in to those waters… why you wouldn't let me in either. It was a damn hot summer, that one."
Dean was looking at the water too, his and Sam's shoulders almost touching, a forgotten rock in his fingers as he remembered the rare days when they got to be like every other kid and spent whole days just playing in the warm sun and cooling themselves in the fresh water. "No pixies here," he said after a while, challenging look in his eyes, pebble tossed back to the ground.
Sam tore his eyes from the water and faced his brother. "Are you serious? This river looks like it can barely reach eighty on a hot day!"
But Dean wasn't even paying attention to Sam's words. He had already kicked away the boots that he had never bothered to string up, tossed away the baggy shirt that had been about the only thing that he had managed to find that could actually allow his casted wrists to pass and was in the process of pulling his jeans and shorts down using only his thumbs.
"You're serious about this," Sam stated, unable to keep the smile off his face at seeing Dean's face glow with a child like amusement. Before he could even warn Dean about not getting his casts and bandages wet, Sam watched as his brother tested the water temperature with one toe, hiding the shudder at the temperature. The hesitancy passed and suddenly jumped in. "Dean!"
Five seconds later, a wet, grinning head popped out of the water. "Come on in, you pussy. T'water's fine!"
It really wasn't that he believed Dean's report of the water's temperature. It was the sudden lightness and freedom of the action that suddenly struck Sam. This was who they were, this was what they had in common, this was what would never change.
Sam made short work of stripping naked and joined Dean in the water, walking, rather than jumping like his out-of-mind brother had done.
"Shit!" Sam yelped, as the water hit more sensitive areas. "Dean.. Th.. This is freezing!"
"Such a baby," Dean mocked. Goosebumps covered his half submerged arms, the weight of the casts making it harder to float more freely. Still, he had a cheek-to-cheek smile on his face. "Think warm thoughts… maybe that will keep little Sammy from disappearing all together," he added with a wink before tossing a arm full of freezing water on his brother.
Sam gasped, eyes like daggers watching his grinning, evil brother. The war was on!
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
On the other shore, two little kids watched. Hand in hand, one blond the other brunet. One light and one dark. They were quietly watching the brothers' antics in the water, smiling as they identified the same brotherly love that bonded them too. They were still smiling when the setting sunlight cut though the treetops and shone on them. When the leaves shifted again, they were gone.
The end
AN: Well, this was quite a journey! I want to thank everyone that was kind enough to share their thoughts and comments with me, I want to thank everyone that took the time to share this story with me.
And to JackFan2: this story is yours too. You made it better; you made my writing easier than it had ever been – Thank You!