Author notes: First off, I have to say I am SO SORRY for all of you here, that you had to wait so long for this chapter. It was not my fault; I had this chapter ready to post right on schedule, but fanfictionDOTnet experienced a site-wide error that would not let me post, though I checked it almost every day for the last two weeks.
BUT here it is now! The last chapter of Part One.
As we warned you, we're going on hiatus for a few weeks after this - we need to gear up for Part Two. A lot of it's already written, but we have to fill in some gaps and make sure everything's ready to go.
Enjoy!
Chapter Thirteen
Just another Wednesday in a long line of Wednesdays. Sam entered the Director's office and knelt against the wall as he always did. He still felt numb, hollow, stiff from his near-death, but he could feel it wearing off and that threatened to terrify him more than anything else. The Director could have him beaten—he had done that last week, because Sam had hesitated too long before responding to one of the Senator's commands during his bimonthly blowjob, but he had barely felt it—but nothing could hurt more than the return to feeling.
Still, some of his survival skills were returning, and he supposed he should be grateful, even if he wasn't—though if the Director asked, he would lie, he would beg and plead and thank because that was what he did, that was his response now, if the Director would give him that opportunity—and he didn't even need to look at the Director. Just his hands were enough, and Sam wasn't even conscious anymore of watching his hands. It was like each long finger was buried deep into his brain, locked into his spine where all the nerve impulses radiated out, and any twitch of his finger, any snap of his wrist could make Sam act without conscious thought. Come here, pick it up, stop, sit, kneel, crawl, and Sam would find himself moving, on his hands and knees, quickly, without needing to think about it anymore.
Sam would have felt relief if he had been feeling anything at all. Responses so ingrained as to be instinct were responses that wouldn't earn him a beating, responses that would keep him alive without requiring him to feel, think, or process.
Victor stood stiffly on one side of the door. True to the Director's word, Crusher had never been a part of their sessions again, though other guards had learned just as quickly what the Director liked, what he wanted, what his little nods and hand gestures meant. Today, the Director sat at his desk signing his scrawling but distinctive signature over a pile of pale red forms. He used a dark fountain pen that gave his J's a particular swooping look and bled through the sheets onto the plain white paper he always kept beneath them.
Sam recognized the color of the papers. He had been assigned, three or four times, to sort piles of old ASC paperwork, and execution permission requests were always that exact shade. He had been grateful, at the time, not to come across his or Kayla's numbers on the papers. Now, he wondered dully who was going to die in the next few days and if they had been in Special Research for very long already, or if part of what the forms authorized was their induction there.
The Director let Sam sit there for a while, the scratch of his pen the only sound in the office, and then he glanced up and made a tiny scooping, jerky motion with his left hand. Stand and come here.
Sam stood and walked forward. He stopped when the Director's hand told him to stop.
The small table that usually held the Director's interrogation tools stood in the middle of the room; a small black handgun rested on top of the pristine white sheet. Sam carefully didn't look at it, didn't let his hands stray.
The Director signed the last sheet with a particular flourish and then dotted an imaginary i with enough force to punch a hole in the paper. Sam flinched, slightly—he had scrubbed the Director's desk once, trying to get those little black dots worn out of the hardwood—but otherwise gave no sign.
"Good," the Director said. "That's done." He turned the full force of his grey eyes on Sam, and Sam felt a dull throb of terror deep inside him, below the hollow, below the numb. So deep he couldn't quite feel it, but the memory of it was there nonetheless. The Director's eyes flickered to the gun and then back to Sam's face. "Pick it up," he said.
Eyes locked on the clawed feet of the Director's desk, Sam picked up the gun. His hands were shaking slightly. He willed them to stop.
"Put it to your head and pull the trigger."
It was an awkward angle, and Sam couldn't manage it as smoothly as he should have. The fumbling gave him time, too much fucking time, and thoughts tumbled through his head like rain rushing down the slanted aluminum roofs of the barracks, like broken bodies thrown out of a black van.
Was this really it, the moment of death, the moment of release? Should he angle the blast so that brain matter moved more toward the less expensive—and easier to clean—area around the conference table, or be sure to move it so that Victor wouldn't catch any of the gore What would Kayla do if he wasn't there? Would it hurt? Would he still be numb in hell? Oh God, would the Director really make it this easy? Would Dean know that he was dead? Would he care? Had he asked that Sam be put down, because he couldn't come to get him ever ever ever?
Did the Director wait until he signed my execution permission form to give the order? was Sam's last thought before he pulled the trigger.
The empty click of the gun was very loud in the room, and Sam felt the vibration of the hammer through his skull. He clenched his eyes shut—they had been open, fixed on the Director's desk, locked onto the Director's hands—and fought to keep any other reactions off his face, any other sounds from coming out of his mouth.
Of course the Director would never make it that fucking easy. Would have done it in the yard, or in his interrogation room, not in his office. Sam had been a stupid, stupid freak to even guess, to wonder, to hope.
He should have known better from the start than to wish the gun was or wasn't loaded. That was the lesson.
He forced his eyes open again, homing in instantly on the Director's hand. He kept the cold barrel of the gun pressed against his temple and hoped his expression gave away nothing of what he had been feeling, even though the Director knew it all.
"Clean it. Put it back. Get out," the Director said.
Sam quickly and silently used the plain white sheet to rub down the gun—get the filthy monster fingerprints off the shiny black—placed it back in the middle of the table, turned and left. He didn't stop or change his pace as he walked out of Administration, across the yard, into the showers. He made his movements there as methodical, impersonal, and obedient as they had been cleaning the gun. Just another piece of the Director's property.
The general came into Jonah Campbell's office without knocking. The Director glanced up, smiled, and put aside the report he had been reading.
"What did you think?" he asked.
The general glanced at the camera in the corner and back. "I'm impressed."
The Director was not a man who would preen, but his smile deepened, and he gestured graciously at the chair in front of his desk. "I assume you're impressed by the subject's response and not by the FREACS security system."
"While the latter is certainly impressive—I am newly resolved to be on my best behavior when inside the facility, given that I'm sure you have dirt on half the idiots who visit you with their heads up their asses, and I have no intention of being one of them—you are correct." The general took the chair and leaned back in it. "You've certainly been talking about your pet project for long enough, but I never quite believed you until that demonstration came up on the screens. That freak...he didn't even think about using that gun on you, and for all he knew it was loaded. He didn't even consider that a possibility."
"Didn't even consider not obeying my instructions," the Director agreed, just a hint of self-satisfaction in his voice.
"Exactly. You talk a good game, but now...I'm a believer."
The Director smiled. "The program funding will go through, then?"
The general waved a hand. "Yes, absolutely. You have Senator King's support, and most of Homeland Security will agree with me. You'll get your money."
"And you, general, will get trained monsters, if I have anything else to say about it."
Sam sat in the library, hunched over the massive spellbook, occasionally checking that the camera in the corner was still in the same position and that the notes in his folder were still clearly written, in spite of how his hand had been cramping up the entire day. He took a brief breather, closing his eyes and massaging his right hand, ignoring how the healing flesh screamed at him in favor of keeping the tendons stretched and loose. He was off computers for the week since he had failed to report a possible demon sighting. The Director didn't want him back on the electronics until his hands healed enough to be decently fast on the keyboard.
"Why did you not report the weather changes?" the dry voice asked him once he had gotten the involuntary whimpering under control.
Sam gasped against the thin cords that bound him to the chair, his hands palm up on the table, and kept his eyes fixed just over the Director's shoulder. "There wasn't enough data to conclusively prove any kind of supernatural activity. It was a micro-irregularity and had not been confirmed with non-weather data, or even confirmed as something other than a mechanical malfunction."
"You don't have the qualification to make that call," the Director said calmly. He nodded at the guard, a new one—Victor was on vacation, and Karl had barracks duty—who pressed the electric prod into his shoulder again.
After he stopped shaking, the Director came over and laid a thin switch over his wrist. "88UI6703, you have no right, no ability, to accurately judge what is and is not important. You find a solid sign like that, you report it. I don't care if it is supported. I think you honestly though that you were doing what you had been told, but you didn't. The next time you allow a sign like this to go unreported, I will assume you are protecting the enemy and your punishments will reflect that fact. Do you understand?"
Sam dragged in a ragged breath. "Yes, sir. It was an accident, sir. I will report everything, sir."
"Good." The Director handed the switch off to the guard. "I'm pleased that you understand your failings. Because this was a simple result of your stupidity, your punishment will be light." He nodded at the guard. "Beat his hands like I told you. Make sure the damage isn't permanent. And muzzle him first."
After the ball was in his mouth, Sam bit down hard and did his best not to give the guard the satisfaction of his whimpers.
No, Sam wouldn't be on a computer for a few days, but that didn't mean he couldn't continue to research; he was just back to the books.
He liked the smell of the library, the plastic coatings and the books, sinking into him. Even being forced to memorize the information in pile after pile of books—and the beatings he earned when he was too slow at learning what the Director demanded—couldn't completely whip that out of him. He hid it better now. He did his best to keep that same blank look on his face whether the Director said he was serving him dinner, or Victor was giving him a choice, or they said that he was in the library again. He thought that it worked. The beatings had become fewer since he stopped...wanting this place, this feel of the pages turning under his hands, the words coming into him. He wasn't sure why he hadn't given it up completely, hadn't truly let it go—like he had long ago stopped hoping that the Wednesdays would stop, or that his stomach would ever feel full—unless it was because this was the one place, the one time, that he could pretend that Dean would come back, that the books would keep him safe, that it was just his life like it had been before the Director.
A dangerous illusion, but one that kept him going. Though he wasn't even sure why he wanted to keep going.
The other reason he liked the library, at least now, was that he was often alone. Not that that would keep him safe if he were doing anything wrong, but the little camera in the corner was not close enough to catch him closing his eyes, rubbing his hands, or taking the time to think of nothing at all. As long as he actually got the work done, no one caught him at it.
When the door opened, he didn't flinch right away. I'm just rubbing my hand as I read, he thought, very hard, hoping to put that entire thought into his body language and his face. Not doing anything you can hurt me for.
It was Pete.
"Freak, you're going!" He didn't even come all the way into the room, just stood at the door and casually hit his billy club against his thigh. "The Director says you put everything away, you're not coming back."
Sam's jaw clenched. That could mean anything from He doesn't need what you were researching to You're not coming back to the library for the next three months. Or worse.
But he didn't say any of that, didn't let it show on his face. He just closed his books and put them carefully, methodically on the shelves, making sure that he would remember the pages and the notes in case the Director—or any real, he was supposed to respond to any real in the same way, the Director had said—asked. He closed his notebook and put it on the shelf with the rest of the research documents.
The first inkling Sam got that his luck had run out was when Pete took a heavy lead line from his belt and snapped one end onto Sam's collar.
He froze completely, too shocked and horrified not to let it show.
The guard grinned at him. "I told you, freak, you're going," and he jerked the stick in his hand down hard, sending Sam crashing to the floor.
He caught himself, but what was the point, what was the purpose of keeping himself together when his luck had run out so absolutely? Eleven years of surviving, eleven years of keeping it all together, clawing onto nebulous hopes, and there the result was, broken off, hopeless.
You're going.
Only one place Sam could possibly be going. Special Research, where witches went for their executions, where the monsters went that couldn't stop themselves from ripping other monsters apart. The place freaks went so that the hunters could "study" them until they left in the salted smoke of the great incinerators.
Following the guard down the familiar Administration hallways, Sam couldn't stop himself from shaking. What did it matter? What the fuck did it matter anymore? He could feel everything shutting down, trying to brace for...everything. He'd wished for death so much in the last six months, but since the Director had had him put the gun to his own head, he'd understood that was something too good for him to want or have any control over.
The guard pulled him out of Administration, but instead of turning deeper into FREACS, deep into the worst parts of hell, they turned the other direction, toward Reception. When Sam stumbled, sheer terror making him unsteady, the guard reached over and pulled him up by the collar. Sam welcomed the more normal, usual distraction of pain. He had been here before. He had walked this way to interrogations and those brief, lightning-flash moments with Dean.
When they arrived at Reception, Pete stopped at the resource room, ducked in for a second, and came out with a pile of clothes that he shoved into Sam's arms. Without waiting for any kind of reaction, he set off, towing Sam deeper into the dark corridors—there were hallways in Reception for the important visitors, the ones through which senators and civilians walked, and scratched, florescent-flickering ones like this for freaks and hunters—than he had ever been, than he could ever remember being. Paperwork, Sam thought. Monster comes in, monster goes out, you have to have the right forms with the right numbers.
At the last door in the hallway, a heavy metal one with sigils keeping demons from crossing the threshold, the guard turned to Sam. "Clothes off."
Sam couldn't tell what he wanted, fast obedience or a show—Pete could go either way, depending on the day and his mood—so he compromised by going fast, but facing him.
When he was naked and shivering under the fluorescents, old grey clothes neatly folded in one pile, the clothes Pete had given him in another, the guard strung the lead line through a bolt and pointed his club at the second pile.
"Put on those," he said.
Silently, Sam crouched for the new clothes. The boxers and jeans—like a hunter wore, like a fucking hunter wore, just the thought made his hands shake—were just like his usual pants, until he got to the flaps and buttons and zippers. He'd opened enough flies that he knew the theory, but doing it to himself was a very different thing, made his hands stumble on themselves. The shirt almost gave him a panic attack, too, when he realized there was no way it was coming over his head with the leash fastened to the wall—and he had seen a monster lose a hand trying to free himself from the leash. But then he realized that the shirt had buttons. They took a long time to open and then meticulously hook together again, but the guard showed no sign that he was going to start hitting him with the club he tapped against his thigh.
When Sam was dressed, head down, hands still, Pete turned to the door with a grunt and pushed a string of numbers into the key box. He waited a few minutes, muttered something into the intercom, and then the light above the huge iron door turned green. Sam only vaguely listened. He could probably remember both the conversation and the number sequence if he had to—lately anything he saw went straight to long-term memory, a Director-induced survival skill—but at the moment he could care less about what Pete had done.
He didn't know what sick game they were playing with the clothes. Maybe they were dressing him up as a hunter, preparing to beat him to death while he was pretending to be a real person. That would at least be better than being "studied."
Rebecca had told him never to fear death but to look forward to it as something that would bring him to an infinitely better place, where none of the guards would be able to touch him, but Sam had stopped believing that sometime while the Crusher had been branding him in response to the Director's cool voice. It was too much to hope for, and he had learned well her other lesson, that it was better not to believe in anything that sounded good. Death sounded too nice. He didn't really expect that moment of peace and darkness. Much more likely was the hell of Special Research sliding seamlessly into the hell after life. He doubted there could be much difference.
But when Pete unclipped the line from the wall and jerked Sam through the open doors, he felt everything he had expected, everything he had assumed about this moment, shattering away to a vast and uncertain lightness.
Because standing nervously in the bare white room beyond the door, face in profile, hands in his jean pockets, was Dean.
And Sam could not ever imagine death, or hell, or true pain if Dean were there.
When the guard came in with Sam trailing him on the leash, Dean's jaw almost dropped in shock.
It hadn't occurred to him that he had never seen Sam in anything but the gray shirt and pants provided by the facility. In jeans and one of Dean's button-up shirts, Dean saw him as a new person, one with the look of a long-term survivor that didn't have the resources to survive much longer, a half-grown boy with not enough meat on his bones. The shirt sleeves—one of Dean's older ones, from before he hit his last growth spurt—were a little too short, but the rest of the shirt was baggy, several sizes too big for Sam's skin-on-bones frame.
He'd grown again, too, during those damn months Dean had been away, though Dean doubted that he'd gained so much as half a pound of weight. They would have been eye to eye if Sam had been standing up straight. Or if he had been willing to take his eyes off the floor.
"Brought him to you, Winchester," the guard called as he shoved the door closed. He carried Sam's leash like it was just another weapon, like the club he held in the same hand. "Dressed up and pretty like you wanted. Madison get that paperwork to you yet?"
"Not yet," Dean said.
"Can't leave until you get that," the guard said. Then he grinned. "And always better to inspect the merchandise before you sign the contract. 'Specially secondhand goods." He slapped Sam on the shoulder, and Sam winced, slightly, from the touch.
Dean swallowed, hard, his hands clenched. He wanted to get a look at Sam, a good look. He looked rail thin, as always, and pale, like he hadn't been getting as much sun as he used to, and there was something else about him, something fragile and nervous that Dean hadn't seen the last time he saw him, six fucking months ago. Dean wanted to know, needed to put his finger on the distance, but first he needed this asshole to go away. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to get Sam to look at him, wouldn't be able to see if Sam could forgive him for taking so goddamned long, for not even being able to tell him where he had gone. He was getting Sam out, that wasn't a question, but whether or not he would come with him, would stay...that was up to Sam.
"Can you leave us?" Dean asked. "Maybe check on where the forms are?"
The guy's grin faded, but only slightly. "Yeah. Sure. Hey!" He extended the leash. "You want this, or should I check it on the wall?"
Dean felt his jaw jump, and the guard must have seen some of the rage in his face because he backed up to the door, ran the leash through the bolt there, and went through another set of doors to where the Reception desk waited behind the bulletproof glass. Sam's head followed the lead, his body leaning a little bit back toward the door, but he didn't move his feet, didn't move in any way that wasn't necessary.
Dean waited until the guard was really gone before he moved forward. Sam cringed away from his hands, a slight movement that Dean might not have noticed if he weren't looking, but he didn't care how Sam felt about him right now. He caught his face between his palms and pushed Sam back with the same movement, moving him closer to the door so that the leash wasn't twisting his head around.
"Sam, you okay?" You okay? Seriously, that was the best he could do when he had just left him? But Dean had nothing better.
Sam stared at him, some kind of shock in his face, and then almost smiled. It was a slight flicker in his mouth, in his eyes, gone in an instant, but even that softening notched Dean's tension down a mile. But after that slight expression, he couldn't keep his eyes on Dean's and they fell to about the level of his shoulders. "Dean," he said.
Dean figured that was about the best he was going to get. "Let's get this fucking rope off you, Sam," he said, and reached up under Sam's chin for where the line connected to the collar.
Sam took a deep, shaky breath, but tipped his head up, eyes closed, while Dean's hands fumbled with the clips. When he got the head of the leash off Sam's collar, Dean threw the fucking thing as hard as he could against the wall.
When Sam jumped, Dean kept his hand on his shoulder and smiled at him. "You never have to wear one of those fucking things again, Sam. I promise."
Sam nodded, tightly, and then smoothly stepped away from him, out from under his hand, when the door opened and the original guard, Madison, and an older man with his hair fading to gray at his temples and a small smile just barely reaching his eyes, entered.
Sam didn't know the woman—pretty, well fed, dressed in a business jacket and skirt, carrying a pile of papers—but with the Director and Dean in the same room, he was having a hard time breathing. It had been easy to forget, if just for a second, what he was and what he could expect when Dean was touching him, sliding his hand beneath Sam's neck, resting his hand on his shoulder—not to restrain him but, as far as Sam could tell, for the contact alone. He had been able to forget the next logical step after a hand on his shoulder—the fist in his gut, the order to go to his knees—and let the small voice in his head say Dean's name over and over again, the shock, the joy so overwhelming it almost hurt.
Oh my God, you're seeing Dean again. Even one more time was more than he had allowed himself to hope for in at least four months.
But now, impossible, unthinkable, to forget anything with the Director in the room.
Dean looked at the strangers, tension in the line of his neck, but not the kind of stark panic that Sam was feeling. Dean looked ready for a fight, a fight he knew he would win. It was the same brash confidence that had characterized him from the first day they met, the first time that Dean had smiled at him and made him feel almost like a real person.
The secretary hung back, eyeing Sam warily, but the Director strode forward and it was everything Sam could do not to run, not to call attention to himself. He had already pulled away from Dean—the Director hurt everything he loved, Sam couldn't risk Dean being too close to him—but it was hard not to run, to drop to the floor like a good dog, or to fumble the leash back around his neck to prove that he hadn't meant to pretend to be something he wasn't.
To Sam's relief, the Director ignored him completely. To his tight-throated horror, the Director reached out a hand to Dean, smiling, and Dean took it automatically, still tense, but not even realizing what it was he was touching, realizing how close he was to pain, death and a calm, calm voice directing the whip.
"Dean Winchester," he said, pumping Dean's hand and never dropping the smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you at last. I've heard good things about you, all the way around. Mary's son, yes?" When Dean stiffened slightly, the Director's face fell into the clear lines of sympathy, mouth down, eyes sad. "I'm sorry, that was callous of me. Jonah Campbell, Director of FREACS and ASC. May I call you Dean?"
Dean nodded. "Yes, Mr. Campbell."
The Director laughed, and Sam shivered. "Please, call me Jonah. Though most around here just call me Director. It seems I gave up first names when I stepped into Uncle Samuel's shoes." The Director's smile invited Dean into the joke, shared with him the pressures of responsibility. "Some days I wish I could just get back out there where the worst I had to worry about were a mated pair of wendigos and no backup. Now I have to deal with politicians and law enforcement."
The more the Director talked in that bright, conversational tone he reserved for reals he wanted something from, the more Sam had to fight the urge to flinch or whimper, but the words seemed to loosen something in Dean, made a line of tension ease in his shoulders. "Cops," Dean snorted.
Sam wanted to scream at Dean to run, to let go, not to believe a single word said in that cold, smooth voice, but he was afraid to break the illusion the Director was creating. He didn't give a damn what happened to him, but what if Dean did something that made the Director see him as a threat? Dean was strong and had fought monsters stronger than Sam would ever be, but there was no way that he could defeat the Director. Sam lowered his head and fought to give no sign that he knew the false cheer and charm was a lie.
"Indeed." The Director changed conversational directions smoothly, his face tightening a little. Sam recognized the tone as one that asked questions, that looked for the right answer. Any other answer ended in pain. "You can imagine, I don't have much time anymore for hands-on work, but when I heard you were requesting a permanent removal of one of our inmates, I showed a special interest. I assure you, from our end, there should be no problems with your new charge, but if there are, know that we can always take him back or give you support. At any time, if the monster proves to be unmanageable, we will take him back. Just because you are signing for permanent responsibility for his actions doesn't mean that we aren't here for you, Dean."
Sam didn't dare look up to see Dean's reaction, and his voice betrayed nothing. He could have been anything from angry at the suggestion to honestly grateful. "I appreciate the thought, Jonah."
"Good." The Director sounded less than pleased, but he waved the woman forward. "Then I'll leave the rest of the details to Madison, who is so much better keeping the forms together than I. Without her and the rest of the administrative assistants, I think this organization would combust faster than a salted ghost. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to contact me through anyone here or at HQ. Good luck."
With that the Director smiled at Dean, squeezing his hand again for one last friendly shake, and then turned to go back through the door.
Only in that second did Sam realize that Dean wasn't just there for a visit, but that Dean was taking him away.
It was true, it was absolutely true. The Director had talked to Dean, the Director was walking away, and Sam was still just standing there beside Dean, not leashed, not being dragged back through the doors to Special Research. The Director hadn't even said a thing about Sam, not making it clear to Dean just how much of a waste of time he was, how much of a disobedient, useless dog. Dean was signing papers. Dean was taking him away. It was real, all real, not a bad dream, not a daydream, and Dean was taking Sam away.
Sam closed his eyes, dizzy and breathless and so so afraid he was showing everything he felt, everything he had never really expected to feel. Only as a side note did he notice the Director pulling Pete's shoulder over, whispering a few words, before he left. Only vaguely did he see the frightened glances the woman kept shooting him as she handed Dean page after page to sign. Every time she took the signed document and settled it back in the folder, Sam felt lighter and lighter. It was as though he could feel Dean taking him, lifting him up, creating for Sam—for the first time—a future that did not lead to another anonymous blowjob, another beating, and end on a rack in Special Research. Sam felt drunk and light, imagining days upon days with Dean, every day being with Dean, every day being a good day where there was only one person who could hurt him—Dean never had, but he could and Sam wouldn't care—only one person he had to please, and being willing, no, happy, to give that person any fucking thing he wanted.
Sam kept from passing out only by taking a deep breath and reminding himself that this wouldn't be forever. He was, basically, worthless—he knew that, it had been made clear—with few assets or abilities that would hold the interest of a man like Dean. But even a year, a month, a week, any moment spent with Dean would be a time he could hold onto for the rest of his life. It was even easy to believe in death, in peace and contentment, when heaven had come for him.
Dean and the secretary moved to one of the tables to finish the paperwork, but Sam stayed where he was, watching Dean from under his hair, overwhelmed by the idea that Dean's promise was coming true, that Dean had come back. He didn't even notice Pete coming up next to him until he grabbed Sam's collar and pulled Sam's ear down to his mouth.
"Don't fool yourself Winchester's gonna make you a pampered pet," he whispered. "He's a hunter, and he'll treat you exactly like you deserve—which means pimping you out to his dogs. And when you stop being a good little bitch you'll end up right back here."
Sam didn't even flinch. He knew that Pete was just trying to rattle him, and it wasn't going to work. He knew it wasn't forever, he knew he wasn't good enough for Dean to keep, but he wasn't going to be thrown off by a threat that wasn't even true. Unless something had radically changed in the last six months, he knew that Dean didn't even own dogs.
Finally, the last paper was signed, and the woman put on the last seal and gave Dean a tense, hopeful smile. "That's it, Mr—Dean."
"We free to go now?" Dean asked, glancing back at Sam.
She nodded, marking something down on the edge of one form.
Dean smiled at her. "Good. Come on, Sam."
Sam hurried to Dean's side, slowed enough so he wouldn't run into him, and they kept a steady pace through the last few corridors.
Leaving Freak Camp, taking those last few steps outside the facility, were so unreal that Sam kept having trouble putting one foot in front of the other as he followed a few careful feet behind Dean. When they left the last door and passed through the barbed wire gates and the wary guards with machine guns, Sam had to fight to keep his eyes down. The sky seemed more blue, the dry desert air fresher, even though he knew it was the same air, the same sky, that he had had his entire life. And yet it was wholly new.
He would have known the Impala anywhere, from Dean's loving descriptions, but the sleek black car looked more dangerous, more alive when he could see the real thing gleaming in the sunlight.
He saw Dean's smile out of the corner of his eye. He liked Sam's reaction. That meant Sam was safe showing that he was happy. Just the concept of it being safe to be happy felt so fucking good. "I'm really glad you get to see her at last," Dean whispered as they walked. "Description does not do her justice."
And then they were past the last gate, past the last guard. When they stopped next to the Impala, Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Being able to show happiness was one thing, but this feeling, this rush...he was still close to passing out, and Dean hadn't done a fucking thing to him but smile.
Dean was leaning against the Impala, arms crossed, grinning at him, when he opened his eyes again. "Well, Sam," he said. "I did it. I got you out. Sorry it took so long."
"It's okay," Sam managed to get out past the lump in his throat, the lightness in his body. "You came back."
He loved to see Dean smile. He couldn't believe that he was here, standing beside Dean's car, staring at Dean without fear because the guards were back behind the razor wire and he was all Dean's now.
Dean couldn't seem to stop smiling either. Then his eyes flickered down, and he frowned and pushed himself up from the car. "Hey, we should hit the road, but before we put this shithole in our rearview mirror, there's something we have to take care of."
He went to the trunk and withdrew a pair of heavy-duty wirecutters, as long as his own forearm. Sam's brain immediately shut down as it braced him for pain. Not a new reaction or one he could help—it was the same automatic response he had when he saw the electric prod or the Director handling a whip. He was about to lose—a finger? Maybe. Probably not his nose, Dean wouldn't want him to look any more of a freak. He briefly considered his genitals—he'd been told often enough he didn't need them to be useful, in every way, to a hunter—but everything he knew about Dean told him he wouldn't cut something off Sam just because it wasn't useful to him, just because it would hurt. He wasn't a sadist.
Probably just an ear, then. That was likely. Even assuming that Dean cut into the ear canal and damaged something internal instead of just taking off the outer skin, he'd still be able to hear orders fine with only one. Even better, this might mean Dean wanted him for more than just a couple weeks' hard ride, wanted to mark Sam as his. And that was more than okay. If he was Dean's, Dean was much more likely to salt and burn him somewhere when he got tired of him than to let an old possession get passed around FREACS.
Sam could deal with losing any body parts right now, if it was something Dean was doing to claim him as his own. And even if he was too hopeful, if Dean had no problem dumping him back at Freak Camp after he'd had his use of him, at least it would be a reminder that he had once been Dean's.
Sam's whole automatic reaction had taken less than two seconds. By the time Dean walked around the Impala to where he stood, Sam's heartrate was back down and he watched Dean and the wirecutters almost hopefully, trying not to let his daydreams fly away with him.
"Tilt your head up," Dean said. "I want to get a good angle so I don't hurt you."
The last sentence didn't make any fucking sense, and it almost shattered the edge of Sam's happy calm, but he obediently closed his eyes and tilted his head up, hoping Dean hadn't noticed how the blood beat harder in his jugular.
The slide of the wirecutters' cold metal against his throat and the sharp snap next to his ear made his jaw clench. The lack of pain almost made him panic because oh God what happened that I can't even feel it?
And then something hit the ground. Something that sounded too heavy to be an ear.
Sam opened his eyes and Dean was smiling at him, the smile that always made his heart rate go up in a way that had nothing to do with pain or fear. Dean shoved the wirecutters in a belt loop and reached up, making Sam flinch slightly, and rested a hand against his neck. His bare, pale throat.
Sam looked down, Dean's hand warm and gentle against the naked skin of his neck, and saw the collar in the dirt by his feet. Slowly, hardly believing that he wouldn't touch blood and bone, he reached for his neck on the side opposite where Dean's hand rested, brushing his own fingers over the bare skin.
He looked up, so filled with emotions he couldn't even name—was this shock, terror, wonder, amazement?—that he stared straight into Dean's eyes, incapable of hiding himself, of not looking and looking his fill. He couldn't read Dean's face, but what Dean saw in Sam's expression made his eyes flicker to something that Sam couldn't put a name to, that made him nervous without being afraid. Then Dean raised his other hand over Sam's and pulled him close.
Dean's lips met his, warm and soft against Sam's mouth—and Sam felt the point of contact through his jaw, spreading through his chest and pooling hot and overwhelming somewhere in the area of his stomach. Dean was so close that when he took a breath Sam breathed with him, and in that sensation—almost like electricity running through his body but absolutely without pain—Sam felt warm, protected, safe, as he had never imagined he could be. Dean's hands held his face gently, anchoring him there with him, and Sam could think of nothing else that there would be in heaven.
It ended. Of course it ended, and left Sam shaky but smiling, not afraid to smile. Dean smiled back, and Sam couldn't stop looking at his mouth, hoping heaven would come again. For maybe the first time in his life he was not afraid to tremble under Dean's hands and have him know that it was not fear or pain, but a wanting so intense that Sam had to bite his lip to stop himself from asking for more.
"Come on, Sammy," Dean said, sliding around him and opening the passenger door of the Impala. "Let's blow this popsicle stand."
Sam got in and couldn't keep a silly grin off his face. And he didn't care. He ran both hands down the leather seats while Dean walked around to the driver's side, savoring the smell of Dean's car, the feel of Dean's life beneath his hands, the knowledge that Dean had come back for him, had taken him away from hell. He had really truly kept his promise.
No matter how long it lasted, no matter what happened to him after this moment, Sam didn't think anyone could take that joy, that peace, away from him.
END OF PART ONE