Madison was losing. Sam's hellhound was bigger than her, stronger than her, hungrier than her. He had been trained to do this, to hunt, to kill.
He was Sam's weapon, and she could see the burns and the scars that Sam had inflicted upon the creature to forge him into that weapon.
She didn't want to add more-but she didn't want to die either. Nor did she want anyone else to die.
So she ran until her wolf-heart burned.
People had wanted to kill her when she had been bit before she even knew that werewolves existed. No one had asked her if she had wanted to become the monster in the woods-but someone had decided that she was worth giving a second chance to.
Pamela and Missouri had actually been the ones to find her beside her first corpse-before she'd learned enough control to shift all the way from human to wolf-when she'd been more human with the heart of a wolf, the jowls of a wolf, the eyes of a wolf-confused and scared, blood in her mouth. They'd fed her. They'd laid a kind hand on her. They told her it would be okay.
It'd only been a deer, sweet thing, just a deer.
Madison had cried even harder after that because she'd been vegetarian. She didn't kill people, she didn't kill things, because she wasn't a killer.
She broke through the forest into a small glade-a stag grazed, his antlered head bowed in the grass. They must have been upwind because he didn't move, or perhaps the general lack of predators had made him feel untouchable, safe in this serene meadow glade.. Either way, he didn't try to run until it was too late, until Madison had him by the throat, ripping it away, staining the green lawn with his blood, and then jumping over the body, licking her lips and leaving the still hot deer as a gift for the hellhound.
Whether he would be distracted by it, she didn't stop to find out. She dug her paws into the soft earth and bolted for Pamela's and Missouri's as her heart burned heavy within her. Once she was hidden in the forest, she paused to unleash a long howl, a howl she sang for Pamela, for Missouri-they had heard her once before, they had seen her once before, they had saved her once before.
Fire singed her fur as the hellhound lunged for her flank and she barely escaped in a spray of dirt and pebbles, which cut her howl short.
Guess her gift hadn't worked as well as she thought she would.
She ran-a little slower than before, a little heavier than before. Her pink tongue lolled from her mouth.
She wouldn't be able to keep this pace up for much longer.
"Did you hear that?" Missouri said, pausing as she raised her porcelain teacup to her lips. Jasmine tea steamed from it-her favorite.
Pamela stood straighter. "I'm blind not deaf."
Missouri went towards the window, and pulled the lace curtains apart so that she could see into the forest. "We're going to have company."
"Madison?" Pamela said. She joined Missouri at the window, and they held hands, so that their perceptions would be strengthened.
"And another," Missouri said.
"I can hardly call a hellhound company," Pamela said. "It's going to ruin the furniture."
Missouri squeezed Pamela's hand a little harder. "I'm sure she has her reasons, which she will explain to us in due time. But we need to make sure the hell pup has a place to stay where he won't hurt anybody."
"I thought that once a hellhound had your scent, that was it."
Missouri bit a short laugh. "Of course, if they're following the laws of their existence. Hellhounds were bred to return the souls of humans who dealt with devils at a crossroads. Nothing can break a contract like that-like that part in The Little Mermaid, did you ever see that-" Pamela rolled her shoulders, seriously, who hadn't seen the Little Mermaid?- "But I don't think this hell pup is acting on a contract."
"You mean it's gone rogue?"
Missouri nodded. "I believe so. And that will help us, I think." She went to her cupboard and began pulling out her holy oil and a candle. "Why don't you prepare a sleeping spell while I prepare the circle so the poor thing won't hurt himself?"
The two witches worked quickly so that that they were already waiting on the rocking chairs on their verandah, Pamela smoking a cigarette, and Missouri still sipping her jasmine tea, hot as ever when the underbrush rustled and snapped.
Missouri bit her lip when she saw Madison stumble from the forest into the clearing of their little cottage. Blood stained her paws and her mouth-though she didn't think that was hers, probably the hell pup's-but her flank was scorched, the fur still smoking, and she was more limping than running, her pace faltering even as flames caught her fur again, and she yelped as a red gash tore through her skin.
Missouri stood from the rocking chair, her hands held out. "C'mon, honey," she called out. "I'm right here!"
Madison's ears flicked forward, and it looked as if she gathered what energy remained to her for one last sprint, and this time Pamela joined her as they told her she could do it, that they were ready for her, and that she needed to trust them and jump.
And Madison did-she leaped into Missouri's arms, paws around her neck, back paws for an instant on her thighs before they scraped down her skirt and she was reared up on her hind legs instead, too big for Missouri to carry properly, and her wolf-head rested on Missouri's shoulder, brown eyes closed, as she whimpered softly while Missouri rubbed soothing circles in her back and she told Pamela, "Now-" when she sense that the hell pup had stepped on the ground they had consecrated.
Pamela dropped her cigarette, its hot embers catching the holy oil, and a wall of blessed fire surrounded the pup-or so Missouri assumed. She could not see the hound, of course, but there was a red crested shadow prowling the center of the circle, a flickering shadow who howled with anger when the heat, hotter than hellfire, pushed him back, always back, towards the center-but that didn't deter him for long, and he tried again.
Acrid smoke filled the air as Pamela cast the sleeping spell. It struggled to take, but as the pup staggered under the weight of it, as it tottered into the middle of the circle to try once more to break through the flames or to gather enough strength to leap clear over them Missouri didn't know which-his eyes finally fell closed, and he fell into a deep sleep.
"Good job," Missouri said, to Pamela and Madison both.
She sank back into her chair, and Madison nuzzled Missouri's face.
"What, no love for me?" Pamela said.
Madison whimpered and licked Pamela's hand but froze when they heard the distant bang of an explosion.
Madison started guiltily, and she looked back towards Missouri, tongue still lolling from her mouth. "Don't you dare go back out there without something to drink," Missouri said, offering her tea. "Then you're going to get in the back seat of the car, shift, and tell us what is going on. The witch has blinded our sight," she said, frowning. "They are very powerful."
Madison jerked back, and barked something that was clearly a no and a not happening.
"Are you sure?" Pamela said.
Madison nodded and, before they could protest, she was off through the woods. Not as graceful as she usually was, but still fighting.
"Do we listen to her?" Pamela asked as she disappeared through the woods.
Missouri stood and smoothed her skirts. "Hell no. I'll go get the car. Can you hold the fort down here? I don't want the hell pup to be on his own."
"I got it. You go on and save the world or whatever is going on over there," Pamela said.
It only took a few minutes for Missouri to gather a few supplies, such as her healing salve, and to get in their little jeep rover and to make her way downtown. It was about a ten minute drive, but Madison was on her way-would in fact, be able to get there before her since she could cut through the woods, and Missouri was confident that Madison would be able to handle anything that happened in the interim.
Maggie jerked awake when an explosion shook the walls of the newspaper office, and she clutched at something (which turned out to be Cassie's leg, she realized a little later with a flush of embarrassment) as her ears popped from the noise. Once she realized whom she was clutching, she dropped her hands and instead grabbed her own knees, barely even wincing at the pain from the fading bruises. "What the hell?"
"Nothing good," Cassie said, unplugging Maggie's camera from her computer and handing it back to her. "You wanna go find out what it was?" She swallowed hard, and Maggie noticed the way her cheeks had paled, the slight tremor under her skin as her pulse quickened.
They were both scared shitless.
"Not really," Maggie said. It was safe here in the office. No one expected them to come here.
Cassie breathed a steadying breath that wasn't quite a sigh and hitched a smile to her face. "I understand. But I can't-just stay here. Not when all of this happening. Not when-" her voice faltered.
"I get it," Maggie said. "But I'm not about to just watch you go off on your own. Buddy system, you know? Besides," she said, trying to make her voice light, "don't you need a cameraman?"
"I'm a journalist, not a reporter." But Cassie smiled at her anyway. "But I won't mind the company."
"I hope you're wearing your running shoes," Maggie said, "because I think we're probably going to end up doing just that, like we're in an episode of Doctor Who or something, which was this show that Ed used to..." her voiced trailed.
Cassie squeezed her hand. "I know. I'm familiar with it."
A tower of smoke, like a ghostly spire, rose up over the town from the direction of the church, and they jogged towards it quickly. Maggie tried to think of what they would do when they got there, but when she pulled out her phone to dial 9-1-1, she still had no connection. Her face twisted as she shoved it back in her pocket. There was no way the two of them could contain a fire-especially this fire, as they turned the corner towards the church, and heat roiled out to hit them in the face.
Cassie flung up her arms to shield herself, and Maggie lifted the camera to her own, to stare at the scene from the eye of the camera.
She didn't even see the wolf until a bone-chilling howl split her ears, and Cassie cried out in surprise-but there it was, a grey, bloody thing, almost, and it paced the entrance of the church, whimpering and howling like it was working up its nerve before it flattened its ears against its skull, and dashed in under where the smoke poured out, and under what might have been the flames.
"Oh my god," Maggie said. "Oh my god."
It took only a few seconds for the wolf to return, dragging someone by the collar of a smoking plaid shirt, and it was dragging him towards them, away from the fire, laying him at their feet.
It was Gordon.
Cassie dropped to her knees beside him, checking his pulse and unbuttoning his shirt so that he could breathe more easily, more freely.
Little flames of fires burned in the coat of the wolf, and Maggie, even as she was telling herself that this was crazy, this was a goddamn wolf, why the fuck would she even think about stopping a wild animal, stepped in front of it, stopping its way from going back into the church, so she could pat them out with her coat.
The wolf stood impatiently, then butted Maggie out of her way before going back into the church.
Maggie watched the entryway she had disappeared down like a hawk while Cassie tended Gordon best she could.
Maggie didn't know shit about how to tend people who had just barely managed to escape a burning fire. She figured they needed oxygen-but where could they find oxygen? She turned back towards Cassie, the camera shaking in her hands.
Ed would be so pissed off.
"We need to take him farther from the fire," she shouted over its roar. "There's too much smoke here."
Cassie nodded and she gripped him by the arms while Maggie took his legs, and they struggled to drag him farther down the street, where the air was clearer.
There was another surge of heat, another explosion, and Maggie screamed as her grip slipped on Gordon, and because the wolf was still inside-but no, she wasn't, she was dragging someone else through the smoke and the fire, dragging him after Maggie and Cassie and towards a jeep that was definitely speeding up the road towards them, and then passed them.
Maggie heard Billie Holiday as Missouri climbed, and touched the foreheads of both Gordon and Victor. The wolf sat beside Gordon, paws on his arm, sometimes leaning forward to lick away the smoke that ashed his cheek. "They'll be fine," Missouri said. "Maybe a little burned but they would have been a lot worse for wear, wouldn't they have?" She gently pushed the wolf aside, and began to apply a salve to their burns-which were minor. Maggie would have thought they would have been suffering major burns but they weren't. Maybe they had been lucky. Maybe the wolf had just gotten to them in time.
"The wolf did it," Maggie said.
Missouri smiled. "You're talking about Madison? I'm not surprised. She's always been brave like that."
Maggie looked around them-there were still people missing. Where was everyone? Why weren't they at the police station? "They weren't even supposed to be here." Guilt soured in her gut. Something had gone wrong-and she had been hiding. "Wasn't there anybody else in the church?"
The wolf lifted her head-shook it.
The camera fell from Maggie's hands as she covered her face. Someone was crying no, no, no over and over, and it was in her voice, but she couldn't stop. She jerked away from Cassie, from Missouri, even from the wolf-Maggie guessed she wasn't brave enough, not like Madison, to keep it together because this was just like the panic attacks she used to get, and why she'd join the roller derby because she hadn't wanted to feel them anymore, had wanted to learn to get a grip.
But there wasn't anything to hold onto now. Her family was dead.
Dean came back to consciousness with his back against a tree-there was smoke in the air, and Sam stood on the ledge, looking down on the town. Dean shifted, experimentally, and saw that his wrists and legs were bound.
"Don't try to move, Dean," Sam said, his voice soft. "There's nowhere to run."
Dean's mouth twitched. "Why are you doing this, Sam?"
Sam turned back towards him, for the first time. Smoke streaked his face. His hair was dirty. There was blood on his clothes and his hands. Not his blood, Dean knew, but the blood of people he had once called his friends. That Dean had been friends with.
Loss carved at his heart, his stomach, his voice.
There weren't any words but, "Why?"
"Because I asked him to," Azazel said, stepping from the shadows to stand with Sam.
Dean looked up at the face of his father, the father he hadn't seen for seven years. The father that they'd buried when the sheriff had shot him, before she'd taken him in like he was one of her own-and then, just as soon, sent him off, turned her back on him same as his father had done years and years ago.
It would have been better if he could have said, Azazel took him, but John Winchester had left years before they'd met Azazel - quit the job before he'd even been born.
"And Sam is a good son," Azazel with John's voice said. "And I am so proud of all that he has accomplished."
They embraced then, a bone gripping hug that was more like they clutched each other to their hearts and Dean felt a pain-a pain of something because John had never hugged Dean like that and he knew it wasn't John but it still-it still hurt like hell.
They separated, and Sam pulled something from the back of his jeans-a gun, an old gun. "I found this with the demon who forgot her name," he said. "It's spelled against you."
Azazel smiled, laughing that low, slow chuckle that Dean could still remember even after all this time. "And you brought it to me. You never disappoint me, kid, you know that?" Azazel cocked it, finger heavy on the trigger as he pointed it at Dean. "Do you think you could make me proud, one last time?"
Sam hauled Dean up by the collar, breaking the ropes that had bound him, and forced him to his knees before stepping behind him to stand beside Azazel.
This was it. This was the end. Dean's heart sped up, fear turned sour in his belly. He could barely breathe. Even now, even after all this time, even after the death of-everyone-he still wanted to live, though apparently not enough to actually fight for it because he was tired of running, tired of fighting.
Maybe Adam had been right-maybe he was selfish. Maybe he was weak. Maybe he did deserve this.
He squeezed his eyes shut as he heard Sam take the gun from Azazel.
"Do it," he said. "I believe in you, boy."
His breath came in hollow rasps as his muscles told him to run and his heart told him the futility of it and his body cried out for peace, for rest.
The gun banged and Dean jumped.
Azazel in John's body fell heavily beside him, and Dean jerked back, away from the blood pooling on the forest, the yellow light in his eyes finally fading to black, as his gaze lifted towards Sam, who stood over the body, cool, detached. "I would have thanked her before I killed her myself," he said, "but she was already dead."
Dean scrabbled away, trying to run through his bonds, but Sam gripped him by the throat. "No you don't," he hissed as he slammed the butt of the colt against his head.
Gordon opened his eyes slowly. It hurt to breathe, and it felt like his lungs had been barbequeued and then stitched up back inside him with a third grader's skill. He coughed, and tried to rise, but something pushed him back down again-a light touch, more a suggestion than anything, but it irritated him all the same.
His vision cleared, focused, and he saw that it was a wolf, and that her paw was on his chest. "Madison?" he said, his voice rough and hoarse.
"She saved you, you know," Missouri said, somewhere out of sight.
He raised his hand, weakly, and Madison rubbed her head against it.
"Why she still a wolf?" he asked.
"Because she hasn't changed back, obviously," Missouri said back, and it sounded like she was rolling her eyes when she said it.
"Victor?"
"Still sleeping." Missouri kneeled over him. "Madison saved him too. He's right there beside you, on your left1."
Gordon turned his head, saw Victor. He looked almost peaceful. Gordon took his still hand in his and squeezed. His skin was warm, and there was a slow pulse too. "Hello, brother," he whispered.
"And lest you think," Missouri said, "that Madison did all the saving, I wasn't able to extinguish the fire, but I did manage to contain it so no other buildings will be harmed, but the church is a lost cause. But we can rebuild. And maybe get some nicer stained glass while we're at it."
He sat up, and this time Madison let him. "I agree. Maybe get a Jesus who looks Hebrew this time."
Missouri nodded.
Gordon turned back towards Madison. "Thank you," he said. He winked at her, then held out his hand for her to shake, but she just pressed up against his side, and licked his forehead once, mirroring the spot he'd once given her the kiss of peace, before she gave him her paw, which he held until she slipped away back towards the forest.
"She gonna be alright?" he said.
"Are you gonna be alright?" Missouri said.
Gordon shook his head. "I don't know." He looked around, taking a head count. "Where is everyone?"
"Dead, I think," Missouri said, her voice quiet.
"What about Dean?" Gordon said. And then he remembered, and he tried to rise unsuccessfully to his feet. "It's Sam, Missouri. The witch is Sam, and he's in league with Azazel."
Missouri's face spasmed. "Oh my lord," she whispered. "I taught that boy almost everything I knew when he was here for the summers. No wonder-" and her voice failed. "No wonder he could so easily turn our sight."
"We need to find him," Gordon said. "We need to end this."
"You need to stay put and heal," Missouri said. "Besides, where do you think Madison's gone off to again? You think she stays in a wolf form just for shits and giggles? She'll let us know, and then we're gonna be smart about this. But for now? We wait until we receive word from her."
Gordon couldn't argue with that, and he didn't even try. He was okay with waiting. They couldn't afford to make a mistake.
Dean woke for a second time in a room that he didn't recognize. He wore soft, flannel plaid pajamas that smelled new. His body felt like it had been washed. The thin skin over his pulse smelled of lilacs.
His hand shook as he looked down the length of his body. The way his nails were clean under the nails. How smoke no longer ashed his skin.
How did he not wake up when the water splashed his face? When somebody washed all his dirt and blood away?
Dean's stomach roiled and he saw a small room that might be a bathroom and he lunged toward it, and he was right, there's a toilet and a small tub and he threw up right in the bowl, threw up until he dry heaved, until he thought he might not breathe right again.
The water turned on easy, got hot fast, and he let it get hot enough so that it fogged the mirror so that he couldn't see his face, his face shaved smooth, the face that should have had two days worth of scruff on it at least.
He smelled the shaving cream now, the tang of it still in the air.
The razor was gone though. He couldn't find that anywhere.
Then he splashed his cheeks, eyes squeezed shut as the water scalded his skin. Reached for the toothbrush-it was the one he'd brought with him-and how did it get here, how did it- right, and there his favorite toothpaste, cinnamon sweet.
His hands still as the deer he'd seen in the woods those few days ago. He'd brought the travel size toothpaste, the one he could only find in mint flavor.
His heart rabbitted in his throat. He brushed his teeth, to get the taste of himself from his teeth, his tongue, before he went back to the small room he'd woken in.
His boots were by the bed, tucked neat at the foot, laces untangled and unknotted. There were no windows, and only one door. There was nothing in the room that could be used as a weapon. There was a glass of water and two aspirin beside the bed, but the glass was plastic-utterly useless. He swallowed the pills down because his head ached horribly, and then tested the door.
It was locked.
He wondered if he should call out. If he should say, hello. If he should make demands of release.
What if there was no one there to listen? What if it would be better to sit tight, to hold his cards close to his chest.
He sat on the edge of the bed, pulled on his boots so that if he needed to kick, it would hurt like hell.
His heart refused to calm down. It was hard to breathe. Every noise, every bird call, had him half out of his seat, out of his skin.
The coverlets on the bed were red, like the ones at home. The one he and Benny had slept on the night he left for the island.
Dean's throat burned raw.
He'd seen too many dead bodies. No time to give them a proper funeral, to give them the proper respect that they deserved.
He still had his phone though, and he pulled it from his pocket now. Still no signal, still no way to call for help which was, of course, the only reason he had it. He scrolled through his contacts, sees their name.
Anna. Adam. Sheriff Jody.
Before, she'd been listed under Mom.
Wondered, maybe, if he should change it back, but then decided not to.
Everybody he would ever have called for help, was dead, and the only one who remained, Sam, Sam his best friend, dear to him as any brother, was the one who had done this to him.
Skin clammy cold, he slid his hands under his thighs to stop their shivvering.
Irrationally, he thought that this wouldn't have happened if Jody hadn't sent him away. If she'd told him what was going on, so that he could help her.
And now, he had to carry this, those dead faces those dead eyes, dead because of him because why else would he be alive?
He hung his head until the light dimmed to darkness. He fell asleep with his boots on.
Kevin and Tamara succeeded in making it to the mainland, but when they brought the cavalry, they were unable to find the Island again.
Tamara suspected even more witchcraft-with the island effectively in exile, Azazel and his witch protege could do whatever they wanted.
The coastguard gave them trouble. Rufus got them out of it.
They tried to come up with a plan over the table. Kevin studied spells and wondered how much he had to learn before he became a witch himself.
Tamara read with him.
When Channing flew up, demanding answers, Kevin gave them to her, then she was reading too.
Eyes shifting from each of them, she wondered how many witches they'd need to qualify as their own coven.
She raised her brows. Wow. Who'd have seen that coming.
When Dean awoke, he saw that Sam was sitting with him, reading a magazine, the kind with glossy leaves and pretty people staring from the front. He was wearing the purple shirt, the one with the silver dog. The one he'd been wearing the first time Dean had seen him again after all those years.
Dean gave up trying to read the title of it. His eyes kept drifting toward Sam, and it took him a few minutes to realize that Dean was awake.
When he did, he smiled eager, like he had when he'd first seen Dean on the ferry, and tossed the magazine aside with a flip of his wrist. It rustled through the air, and Dean winced at the noise the leaves made as they twisted and rolled on themselves as they hit they hit the wall.
"Oh good, you're awake," Sam said, getting up from the chair and sitting beside Dean on the bed.
His weight made the bed dip, shifted Dean so that his thigh brushed Sam's thigh. He held himself still, focused on the spot of wall over Sam's shoulders.
His boots were gone.
"Where are my boots," he said.
"I took them off," Sam said. "You fell asleep with them on. You know you don't have to do that anymore."
Dean thought there was something like reproach or pity in his voice. He stiffened. "What else did you do?"
Sam held out his hands in surrender even though it was Dean in the locked room. "What do you mean what else did I do?"
Dean wondered if he could take him-all six feet five inches of him, all muscled mass of him. Realized that he didn't want to take him, that Sam had been his friend.
But Sam had the upper ground anyway. He could see the fight unfold in his head. Sam throwing him down on the bed, using his weight and leverage and height against him, could almost feel the way Sam would hold him down, the way he'd straddle his chest, the way he'd pin his hands to his side or above his head or- "You know what I mean."
Sam buttoned his lip over his teeth like he was nice and proper. Like he wouldn't just go around doing those kinds of things, and yet. "I can't believe you think I'd do that to you."
"Well, someone undressed me, washed me," Dean said. He folded his hands behind his back to hide how they were shaking.
He missed his too-big jacket with the large pockets. Sam must have taken it.
Sam smiled at him, beatifically like he was a saint soldered in stained glass. "People do that all the time for each other. In hospitals. When we were kids. Come on, don't you remember? When we'd played so hard we'd collapse? And we'd help each other out of our dirty clothes and fall asleep?" His face fell a little bit but the smile stayed. "C'mon-don't you remember?"
Dean said nothing.
Everything sounded very reasonable.
Sam nodded, with that air of injured grace as he stood up and dragged the chair after him. "Well. If you'd rather be alone, then I understand. I know how hard this must be for you. But before you judge me, you should at least hear the whole story."
"I know everything I need to know," Dean said, seizing onto the bloodbathed last few days. It helped remind him that not everything was so reasonable. "You killed everyone."
"Not everyone," Sam said, his voice earnest. "I didn't kill you." He abandoned the chair,and knelt beside Dean at the bed. "And he wanted me to kill you. Azazel wanted me to kill you, Dean, and I didn't."
Dean wanted to ask him why, why me, but he didn't. He just stared down at Sam, there on his knees.
Even when he knelt they were still almost even.
Sam was so tall.
"I did it because I love you, Dean," Sam said. "I've loved you since we were kids, since before I knew we were brothers-"
"What'?" the word escaped Dean before he could call it back.
"I know, it's wrong isn't it that we never knew?" Sam's face settled in again, hard and disdainful. "You know who knew? Jody knew. She lied, kept it from us."
Dean shook his head. No, she wouldn't have-she wouldn't have.
"Mary knew," Sam said, voice resolute. "Our birth mother. And she gave me away, but she kept you." His mouth twisted. His hand fell on Dean's knees in soothing circles. "But we're in this together now, and that's all that matters."
Dean tried to flinch away, but Sam's grip was too heavy.
"But I don't blame you for that," Sam said, his voice soft. "I could never blame you for the sins of our parents."
Dean swallowed. "Well, that's comforting."
Sam smiled. "I knew you'd see it that way." He patted Dean's leg. "I'll come by tomorrow, okay? Maybe we'll have lunch together."
Sam was almost gone. Dean had to stop him. "Wait," he said, his voice cracked. Sam turned around, the smile back. "If you feel like that-" Dean wet his lips with his tongue - "then why don't you let me go."
Sam's face faltered, and his eyes blinked rapidly. "You don't want to stay here, Dean?"
"I have a home. In Los Angeles," Dean said. His hands were folded loose in his lap. The ring of paler skin the ring had left behind was almost gone. His thumb pulled at the skin there, and he wondered if Sam had taken the ring too. If he should ask for it back.
"That can be sold," Sam said.
"I have family and friends," Dean said, voice desperate. "They'll want to know where I am."
Sam looked at him sadly. "No, you don't, Dean," Sam said with a sigh. "We all had the same friends, don't you remember? And I invited them all to the wedding. And now they're dead. There's no one waiting for you because I'm here, Dean, and you don't have to wait for me any longer."
"Someone will look for me," Dean said, thinking of Benny, but no-he had come to the island. "You were the one that messaged Benny." He closed his eyes against the realization, struggling to breathe, fingers twisting in the covers.
They're dead. They're dead. They're dead. The words loomed over Dean.
"I know you have to mourn for them," Sam said. "I read that in the books. So I get it, Dean, I get it. You can take as long as you want. I'll be right here, waiting for you. We have all the time in the world-no one's finding this island, and no one's leaving, not as long as I'm alive."
The door closed softly behind him, and Dean waited until he could no longer hear the clump of his boots.
He got up, softly, his socked feet making almost no noise as he reached for the handle and gently tried the door.
It was locked.
He patted himself down, wishing he still had his jacket, but Sam had taken that and anything else that could have been used to pick the door.
Dean lifted his leg to kick at it, to beat it down, but then stilled himself. He didn't know where Sam was. He didn't know the layout of the house. He didn't even know if he was still on the island.
Panic rose in his heart, his throat, as he forced himself to sit down.
He had to think about this.
He had to trick Sam.
He knew that Sam didn't trust him, not really. Not with a locked door and almost nothing of his own that hadn't been screened first by his own watchful eyes.
He flexed his hands against his knees to keep them from trembling, fighting against the nausea churning in his belly.
This must have been Sam's whole plan.
Because they were dead, they were dead, they were dead.
He fell onto his side, his knees drawn up against his belly. He closed his eyes and saw their dead faces.
He opened them and still saw them in the patterns of the walls.
It was going to be a long night.
Maggie tried to leave the island, but the boats were burned. Cassie stood beside her, holding her hand. "We'll get you home, somehow," she said.
Maggie nodded, words shriveling on her tongue. "It's not over, is it?"
"We should write it down," Cassie said. "People need to know."
"Not just about this, though," Maggie said. "I didn't know anything about this until Ed got got interested in it and dragged me along for the ride. But-how would this have turned out differently if we knew about demons and angels and monsters? They use our ignorance against us."
Cassie nodded. "I get it. We'll change the world. We'll teach people to protect themselves."
"Yeah," Maggie said, "something like that."
Sam brought grilled cheese sandwiches for Dean. Dean looked at the plate on the red-wood tray and folded his hands under the wood.
It wasn't made from the velveeta processed squares. It was the real deal. It smelled like melted gouda. There were warm slices of tomatoes and spinach and what smelled like garlic.
His mouth watered, but he did not move to take it.
"What's the matter?" Sam said, around a bite of his own. "I remember you liking grilled cheese sandwiches well enough."
"Just not hungry," he said.
Sam nodded, like he understood. "Maybe tomorrow."
Dean didn't say anything back.
The next day Sam brought sushi. Then peanut butter sandwiches. Celery dipped in nutella.
Everything on paper plates. Everything that could be eaten with their fingers.
Sam knew too much about their life as hunters.
They'd grown up with monsters, and you didn't need Ludo to tell them that anything could be a weapon if you were holding it right.
Dean got hungry though. He caved when Sam brought him a cheeseburger-though where he got it was anybody's guess.
The meat was rare, juicy. It flooded his stomach and trickled down his chin.
It was the best burger he'd ever had.
It was the worst burger he'd ever had.
He loved it.
He hated himself for it.
Guilt settled heavy in his gut.
Relief warmed the hungry hollow of his treacherous belly.
Sam smiled at him, and was right there with a napkin to wipe the mustard and mayonnaise and the meat juice from his chin.
He'd eaten too much too fast after fasting too long.
He threw it up.
He brushed his teeth.
He was hungry again the next day, and he ate whatever it was that Sam brought him then.
He focused on the act of chew and swallow. Did not think about the taste of it. The texture of it.
Those things didn't matter not a single bit, not with Sam sitting beside him, watching every bite he ate, smiling so proud when he ate every, single, bite.
Victor and Gordon prepared their guns before setting out in the woods with Madison at their heels, sniffing the wind.
The island was small, but somehow they couldn't find Sam or where he had taken Dean.
The first night of their search, they came across the corpse of John Winchester and it looked like the demon inside of him had died too. They salted and burned his bones, though Gordon was of the private opinion that John Winchester did not deserve the honor of a hunter's death.
As they watched the flames consume him, he said to Victor, "Sam Winchester must die."
Victor said nothing and Madison's eyes gleamed gold in the light.
Every night, they returned to Pamela's and Missouri's house empty handed. Pamela and Missouri communed with the spirits and they tried to tell them where Sam had hidden himself, but their sight was blind as well.
It was a very frustrating time. The only good news was that some of the spirits told them that Tamara and Kevin had made it alive to the mainland.
They celebrated with alcohol, the good stuff, Johnny Blue.
Dean remembered the first and last time that Sam hit him with bell like clarity.
Sam had tucked himself behind Dean on the bed, long knees against Dean's back, huge hands on his shoulders, rubbing the muscles there. "You're so stressed," he whispered, his breath hot against Dean's ear.
"I can't imagine why," Dean murmured back. He licked his lips. He had to be careful. But he needed information-it was the only way out. "I want to hear your side of the story, Sam. I want to understand."
Sam's grip tightened almost painfully, but Dean didn't let a sound betray his pain. Then his hands relaxed. "The angels wanted to use us. Lucifer wanted me, Michael wanted you."
Dean's eyes fluttered close and he went still.
"It's okay," Sam said. "I got rid of him for you, didn't I?"
"Yeah you did," Dean said. "Nice job, Sammy."
He thought that Sam was smiling, but he didn't look around to see.
"It was going to the be apocalypse," Sam said. "The real end of the world. The end of everybody. The end of us. I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't just let that happen."
"Neither could Jody," Dean said.
Sam took his hands off Dean's shoulders.
Wrong thing to have said. He should have been able to relax now that Sam wasn't touching him, but he couldn't, not when Sam was so close, not that he knew that Sam was angry. He tensed, wondering if he'd be able to slide to the foot of the bed without Sam pulling him back.
"She went about it the wrong way," Sam said.
Dean nodded. "Right. I guess it's hard knowing what to do in a situation like that."
"It is," Sam said. "It's really hard knowing what to do. So many things can go wrong."
Dean slid an inch to the left, away from Sam.
"Azazel hated that Mary tried to welch from her deal. I don't think anybody's ever fought for me as hard as Azazel did." Sam shook his head, looking down at his hands, curled open against his knees. "I don't think anybody's ever killed before like Azazel did for me. Until me, of course."
Dean raised his head, saw the way that Sam was looking at him expectantly. "It's really something," he said weakly. "Really makes you feel a certain way."
Sam smiled. "It does. But he wasn't able to get you too. I don't think Lucifer would have let him anyway." He frowned, and crawled from the bed, pacing in circles. "I lived in hell in the winter, and came to earth in the summer. I came because Azazel let me. Because he knew how much I loved you, Dean. He didn't have to do that-but he did."
"I'm touched," Dean said.
Sam shook his head, then paced even more quickly. "But then everything just went to hell. Lucifer and Michael didn't care about us, not like Azazel cared about me, or how I cared about you. And then Jody trapped Azazel and sent you away and made everything so much more difficult. She made deals with angels, demons, and monsters to keep us apart, Dean." Sam's lips settled into a thin red line. "I couldn't let that go. And it wasn't going to work anyway."
Dean licked his lips, eyes darting Sam's face to the walls of the room, not quite so clean as they first were, now layered with dust. "Seems to have been working out just fine until someone started murdering everybody."
Sam's fist slammed into Dean's face, and he staggered under the blow. "She took you away from me-" he shouted. His limbs trembled as he lowered his fist. "I'm sorry-I didn't mean-I was just." He pressed his palms together and spoke slowly, as if he were explaining something to a child. "I'm just-she shouldn't have done that, you know? She sent you away, even though we're brothers, and you got this whole new life that didn't have me in it, and it's just-that's not how we're supposed to be as brothers, you know?"
"They were my friends," Dean said. His jaw hurt. He thought there was blood in his mouth. Maybe it was on his lips, because Sam's gaze was focused on a spot there, just there and he wanted to hide from it, from those eyes. "They were my family."
Sam shook his head. "I'm your friend. I'm your family. I'm your only real family, by more than just blood, because family don't end or begin with that." He went to the door, palm on the silver knob. "I'm the only person you have left."
Because everybody else was dead, dead by his hand.
But Sam was already gone, and Dean was left alone with his aching jaw.
Pamela and Missouri cared for the hell pup. They fed him. They healed his wounds best they could.
When Madison shifted, she could see him with her wolf eyes.
He mirrored her, and they would stare at each other for hours, noses in their paws. Help me, Madison thought. Help me find him.
When she watched the pup as she drank her morning coffee, she told him about Charlie. How she had found her body in the woods, and how she had burned her bones.
It was hard not to cry, and sometimes, she'd find herself crying as she washed the dishes, and sometimes she found herself howling up at a clear blue sky and always, she found herself missing Charlie.
She let the pup hear Charlie's voice, because she had found the phone, batteries all dead, by the radio. Mayday, Charlie's voice called, mayday.
You would have liked her, she told the pup, who didn't answer back.
She put the phone away back into her pocket. She folded her hands in her lap, fingers clenched together.
Look here, she told the pup, sliding her fingers together. This is the church, this is the steeple, and-she spread her thumbs, waggling her fingers-these are the people-
She thought there were times the pup wanted to go back to Sam, and there were times where it seemed like he was content to stay in their yard, with her and Missouri and Pamela, though sometimes he disappeared in the wooden shelter they made for him, just for him.
They found out that he liked meat, bloody and raw, but that he also liked the canned pumpkin (Charlie liked pumpkin pie too, Madison told him because it sounded like it could be true as he licked the can empty and dry from her hand). They started keeping their pantry stocked, and they gave it to him when he didn't snarl at them and when he wagged his tail, and when he went out with Madison to hunt for Sam and Dean.
Once, when Madison fell asleep as a wolf in the yard after a long day of hunting, and woke as a human, she felt him pressed against her side, licking her fingers. She held very still and, after a few minutes, the rush of cold air and the sudden weight lifting from her side let her know that he had gotten up and walked away.
"Do you love me?" Sam said as he wiped Dean's lips with a white napkin.
Dean said nothing.
Sam left without saying a word back.
"Do you love me?" Sam asked again as he clipped Dean's hair.
Dean knew this would be an ideal time to escape. To run. To plunge those scissors into some space vulnerable.
But he couldn't. He could barely move. He could only sit there. He tried to wriggle his toes in his boots.
Sam very calmly explained it was a spell. "It's for your own protection, Dean," he said, "because I know you want these scissors, and I don't want to hit you again, and I'd rather just not have you force my hand like that."
Right. Of course.
"There are lots of spells," Sam said as the scissors went snip-snip. "So many spells. Spells of healing. Spells of summoning." He paused, his fingertips running through Dean's hair, skittering across his scalp.
Maybe it was a spell that kept him from shuddering.
"Love spells, even." The cold edge of the scissors pressed against Dean's neck. "But I'd never do that to you-I could, but I wouldn't. I don't."
Victor and Gordon shared their bed together. It felt good, Victor thought, sharing with someone again. It had been hard-he had left an angry string of boyfriends and girlfriends behind him in his quest for-not vengeance, he told himself, but justice.
But Gordon understood.
They found each other in the dark and in the sun and in the in between times. They were gentle with each other and they were rough with each other.
Victor wanted to talk about what would happen to them when they were finally able to leave the island, once this was all finally over. Gordon said they should just wait to see if they still survived because yes, he did find himself looking over his shoulder for Sam Winchester, and his neck was getting tired.
But after, Victor urged, lips against his cheek, rough with stubble and beard.
"I'll always be right here, Victor," Gordon said. "This is my home."
"And when I'm in the FBI," Victor said, mumbling into shoulder because he still had to believe that was what he was gonna be someday, that Sam Winchester hadn't screwed it to hell and back, "I'm gonna make sure you're always gonna be able to come home."
And they slept.
One day, Dean tried the door as was his habit-he always tried it after he woke, after he splashed his face with water, eyes searching his reflection even though it sometimes felt like he didn't recognize himself, as if he couldn't quite believe that was his face in the mirror, when it was Sam who shaved the scruff from his cheeks, when it was Sam that dragged a comb through his hair, when it was Sam-and here, he squeezed his eyes shut and counted to ten, his hands clenched around the bathroom sink.
Then he dressed himself in the clothes that Sam had picked out for him, and then he tried the door.
And it was always locked.
Except for today.
His stomach free-fell as the door swung slowly open. Dean looked from his feet to the empty hallway, wondered if this was really meant for him, if it was a trap, if it was a test, and what he'd have to do in order not to fail it, wondered what would happen if he did fail it-would Sam keep it locked forever, or would he just hit him again?
One careful step, and he was out of the room.
His skin tensed at the open space that surrounded him.
Carefully, he stepped down the stairs.
Someone was making noise below-something that sounded like a pan over a hot fire and smelled like eggs scrambling in bacon grease.
His stomach growled.
He found himself in the entryway of the kitchen, his eyes falling on the tools he could have used to escape, tools that had almost been in reach and yet had been so, so far away.
"You're up," Sam said, happily. "I'm making your favorite. You've been so good."
Dean nodded. "I love eggs and bacon."
"I wanted to tell you something, Dean," Sam said. A plastic spatula moved back and forth against the eggs. There were diced tomatoes beside a pile of chopped onions.
The knife, still gleaming with tomato and onion, rested beside the sink. And, beyond Sam, beyond the sink-another door.
Dean wondered if he'd be able to reach the knife in time. Wondered if there'd be any point. Wondered if he should wait for a better opportunity-a better moment.
"I need you, Dean," Sam said. "I need you because I realized something-you keep me good. I don't want to do bad things because I know you'll be disappointed." He raised his eyes. "I can't stop thinking about the time I hit you, and how I shouldn't have done that. You must have been so disappointed in me."
Dean remembered his father. "It's okay," he said, his mother's words coming to his tongue.
Sam shook his head. "It's not okay though."
"I forgive you," Dean said. He reached out for Sam, because that is what his mother had done when John came back, tearful and swearing and promising that he'd never do it again, to only please give him a second chance. "Brother."
Sam abandoned the eggs, which were beginning to lose their shine. They were going to burn any second.
He fell into Dean's arms, clutching him, scrabbling at his shoulder blades beneath his clothes.
Dean wondered how tight he should hug back-wondered if it would be good enough for Sam, whatever he did.
But then Sam pressed a kiss against Dean's forehead, Dean's hand shot out for the counter, warm from the heat of the stove, and clutched at the wood, muscles rigid under Sam's touch. "I choose you, Dean," Sam whispered in his ears. "I've always chosen you. I chose you over Lucifer, the king of hell, and I chose you over both my fathers-" Sam closed his eyes, brought his mouth close to Dean even as Dean's hands fumbled for the hot pan that he swung towards Sam's head, hot grease searing Sam's skin as he screamed and brought his hands to his eyes.
He ran out the door, plunging blindly towards the forest, before stopping up short against the cliff, arms windmilling to regain his precarious balance. "Fuck," he shouted.
He had been so stupid. He should have known that Sam would have safeguarded any possible escape.
"There's no escape, Dean." Sam's voice came from behind him. He hadn't even run after Dean, had just walked slow and sure and steady, shoulders square. Grease stained the floral pattern of his shirt. "I thought you'd be more grateful-but there's time. I've got all the time in the world for you to come and see it my way." He nodded. "That's the way it's gonna have to be, I guess." He smiled-slow, sad, yet dangerous too. "Even when everyone is gone, Dean, you'll always have me."
"I don't want you!" Dean said. "I want my family back, my friends back."
Sam flinched, and his face went carefully smooth and blank. "I am your family. Your brother."
He shook his head, feet even closer to the edge of my cliff. "You'll only have me over my dead body."
"Don't you ever learn, Dean? I'm a witch-I'd catch you before you even had a chance to hurt yourself." He smiled sadly, then raised his hand-to cast a spell, maybe-but Dean didn't give him the chance. He lunged forward, his fist catching Sam on the jaw, and then they struggled against each other on the edge of the cliff face.
Sam bruised Dean's kidney's with his knees, bloodied his face to a pulp with his fist, and Dean tried, but he was too weak, and Sam was too strong-before long, he was on his knees as Sam split his knuckles against Dean's face with blow after blow after blow, until Dean could hardly see, struggling with every strength that remained to him to hold onto his last scrap of consciousness.
Sam panted in between blows. "One day, you'll understand. One day, you'll thank me for this day, for stopping you from leaving a second time, stop you from making another mistake that you'd just regret."
A wolf howled, and Sam paused-his eyes lifting from Dean's bloodied face for the first time. His features twisted with surprise, rage. "Wait your turn, Madison," he snarled. "And the hellhound too, what's it gonna fucking take-"
And with the last of his strength, Dean reared up, pushed against Sam's legs, hips, and belly with his head and shoulders, so that Sam teetered along the edge of the cliff, dancing wildly along the side, trying to regain his balance-but Dean kicked his feet out from under him and he fell over the bluff, screaming for Dean, screaming for help, but Dean-didn't.
He crawled to the edge of the cliff, dimly aware of a wolf beside him, and stared at the long drop down into the ocean.
There was no Sam. There was no sign of the person who'd been his friend. Of the person who had been shocked at the news of each death, who'd been there with Dean as he grieved each and every one.
Dean could barely breathe.
The air was very still. The moon crested the horizon like it always did, like Dean's world hadn't been gutted by the person who had said he'd loved him.
Madison shifted into a human again, trying to catch him as he collapsed in the grass, curling his knees close to his chest, but it was as if he couldn't move towards her, as if water filled his ears, blurring the words she was murmuring to him -
Dean wept2.
Chapter End Notes
1: Captain America The Winter Soldier2: John 11:35