Chapter Twenty-Four: Back In
South Dakota summers weren't the same as Kansas summers.
They baked warm, sometimes, but just as often there would be a downspurt of cold Canadian air that called for jackets. Those dramatic shifts in temperature often brought on violent storms that barred them all inside.
Close quarters was not an easy thing for any of them; Dean almost felt sorry for Bobby, who'd carried a glorified view of family life and company, and had the most dysfunctional group of people dropped into his lap at the darkest point of their lives. Days when they were all trapped under the same roof became the days they all dreaded, because tempers collided like logs swirling downstream, out-of-control, sending vitriol sprays jetting out from wherever they touched.
Dean learned to avoid John on trapped days, and John and Bobby had their separate floors of the house to rule, when every conversation short-circuited into an argument. Mary was caught trying to keep the peace while her instinct was to join in the debate with a vengeance, and Sam folded himself onto the nearest stable surface and didn't say much of anything.
None of them mentioned how the stock in the refrigerator was running low, and when Dean checked Bobby's subterranean freezer in the sound-proofed basement, he found the supplies in there were rapidly depleting, too.
No Handlers were coming by to trade, to buy or sell; Bobby's shed out back was barren, mocking in its silence, and with every day that passed Dean felt the gnawing sense of trepidation that they were about to be right back where they started: no food, no money, and no monster to carry them through the fights.
There would've been enough food to last Bobby alone for months; but with four extra mouths to feed, that counted for nothing. Their presence in his life was ripping his routine right out from under him, and Bobby endured it with minimal complaint, because Dean knew that underneath his gruff exterior and fighting words, and the way he challenged everything they said or did, Bobby loved them; loved all of them, even John when he was a pain in the ass, and Sam with all his flaws and the fact that he was Faceless and couldn't carry his own weight anymore.
It was Dean who felt like his hold was slipping; Dean whose reality had been turned upside-down. From the inside, watching, his family was falling apart. Dissolving into microburst confrontations because, really, what else was left to keep their blood flowing? They were in stasis, frozen deep in the sedentary grip of isolation in Sioux Falls, and with a punch of anger to the gut Dean realized he'd almost prefer to be back out on the circuit, at this point. Toe-to-toe with the demons; challenging Lilith on her own hunting grounds.
It was where he belonged, where he had to go in order to pay his dues. Because no one else was going to do it; because Gordon Walker had forty-nine notches in his belt and if he made it to the Leagues, it would be for power and prestige and money. Not to tear a hole in Lilith's world; not to prove a point.
Not to prove Dean's point: you screwed with Sam, with any of the Winchesters, and you signed away your own life.
But Dean was just as rooted as the rest of them; because even if he'd had the Colt, he couldn't bring himself to leave the hollow shell that was Sam.
Dean took to sacking out on the floor by the foot of Sam's bed, because it made getting to him easier during a nightmare. The first time Sam's choppy movements thumped the loose baseboard against his back, Dean would roll over upright, move to the bedside on his knees and rest a hand over Sam's heart, feeling the hysterical attempts it made to vacate his chest.
On a good night, that touch alone would be enough to quiet Sam, eventually; his hand would find Dean's wrist, squeeze hard enough to hurt, then slowly release as he slid past the nightmare and into deeper sleep.
Sam didn't have many good nights.
Bad nights, which were more nights than Dean really cared to count, he would stir fitfully with punctuated, painful breaths like he could still feel Lusiver's knife or that braided, barbed whip peeling his skin off in strips. Those were the nights when Dean would have to haul himself onto the edge of the bed and talk Sam back to the world of awake, and Sam would always ask, Real?
Dean was starting to doubt himself when he'd reply, Yeah, Sam, it's real. He started to doubt which of them was having a worse nightmare.
After one particularly violent dream that left Sam shaking, his hair smeared wetly against his forehead, Dean scooted over with his elbow on Sam's pillow when Sam rolled over to face the wall. Back to back, Dean slouching forward, wrists on knees, they didn't say anything for several long minutes.
"Man, it wasn't supposed to be like this." Dean addressed the empty void of the room, but he knew Sam was listening. "Things were supposed to go back to normal when we got you out."
He felt Sam take a shuddering breath. "'M'sorry, Dean."
"It's not your fault, dude. It's not your friggin' fault, it's Lilith's. I'm gonna tear that bitch in half."
"You can't. Can't shoot her, can't stop her. She'll win, Dean, because she always wins. That's the only thing she knows how to do." Sam's voice was quiet, and Dean could hear him picking at the bedspread again.
"Cut it out." He elbowed Sam's back, gently, and Sam stopped. "I'm not afraid of her. Bottom line, she's just a supersized version of all the evil, crawly crap my dad taught me to hunt when I was a kid. That's all demons are. And if they can bleed, then we can kill 'em. So that's what we're gonna do."
"You don't know what you're talking about, Dean."
"Yeah, we'll see." After a breach of silence, Dean cleared his throat. "I was kinda hopin' you'd still have my back on this."
He felt it when Sam swallowed, a ripple moving down his spine. "I'm sorry."
It was a different I'm sorry, this time. It was I can't do that, it was, I'm not the person you remember; more than that, I've lost everything. There's no one left here to help you.
And Dean realized that, somewhere along the way, he'd lost Sam.
-X-
The noose of tension around Dean's neck snapped tight that week.
It was a consequence of everything: the arguments, the perpetual cabin fever, Sam's nightmares and finally, the day Bobby's antiquated suit of armor broke.
Dean wouldn't remember, by nightfall, how it happened; all he knew from the jump was being jolted violently awake by a resounding crashing like a china cabinet full of dishes spilling onto the floor. He tossed his blanket off and rubbed morning-shy eyes on his way through the door and down the stairs.
The suit of armor was from the Dark Ages, tarnished and uniform, and it had been standing sentry by the front door since Dean had been old enough to cultivate conscious memories; he remembered being carried in on John's shoulder after a long, sweltering day of summer training and nearly panicking at the sight of the beaked helmet, certain something was lurking just inside the house, waiting to attack them. It had taken John half an hour of back-rubbing and a gentle mantra of, "You're all right, Dean, it's not gonna hurt ya, it's just a suit of armor," before Dean had been quieted enough to acquiesce going indoors.
That timeless gargoyle watchman was scattered now in bruised pieces all over the foyer, with Sam standing in the middle of it all, looking like he wasn't sure exactly where he was or how he'd gotten there.
"What in the name of God—?" Bobby stomped in, drying his hands on a towel, and that seemed to snap Sam to attention.
"I'm sorry, Bobby, I'm sorry…" He got down on his hands and knees and started scooping belted arm cuffs toward his chest. "I just bumped into it, sorry, I—"
"It's just a thing, son." Bobby crouched beside Sam, stalling his hand in mid-reach. "You can replace just about any-damn-thing. People, on the other hand, the good ones only come once in a blue moon."
Dean crossed his arms on the railing of the stairs and rested his chin on them, watching as Sam slowly withdrew his hand from Bobby's grasp. "I don't know if I'm one of your good ones, Bobby. Lilith must've taken me for a reason."
And right then, it snapped: everything, all that he'd been bottling up, drowning, choking down, and it erupted. Dean almost slid down the stairs, winging around the banister and grabbing Sam's elbow, hauling him to his feet.
"You. Me. Outside. Now."
He led the way out the front, the reddish haze of fury in his eyes coloring the cloudless sky a deep mauve. He was aware of Sam on his heels, with the kind of razor clarity of rage that he was used to feeling toward John.
He wound his way deeper into the sea of cars, Sam keeping pace behind him, until the house was lost somewhere out on the acres, and Dean turned to Sam.
"This stops. All of it. Right here, right now."
"Dean, what are you talking about?" Sam's face was pinched with confusion.
"I'm talking about you, Sam!" Dean's voice arched louder. "I'm talking about the friggin' apologies, and the way you blame yourself for every damn thing that went wrong. It wasn't your fault. You hear me? It wasn't your fault."
Sam regarded him in silence, his expression crunching with emotion, his eyes growing wet. "I know that."
"Then quit playing the martyr, for God's sake! It's like living with a ghost in the house, you don't eat, you barely sleep—you're not all there, man."
Spinning Sam's words from Portal, turning them back on him. Sam twitched, slightly, like he understood as much. Then he said, simply, "Okay."
Dean felt something cascade over him that wasn't resignation, wasn't winning. It was the perilous icy calm before the storm. "Okay, what?"
"Okay, I'll try to do better. I'll try not to wake you up anymore, I'll eat, whatever you want me to do."
Dean gave Sam a flat-handed shove to the chest, slamming him against the nearest car door. "That's what I'm freaking talking about! Don't do this because I'm asking you too, dammit, do it because it's killing you! Fight back!"
"I can't."
Dean shoved him again, left his hands on Sam's chest this time, fisting in the front of his shirt. "Yeah, you can. I know you, Sammy, and this isn't you. This is Lilith, man, she's crawling inside you. She's taking you down to studs and you're not even tryin' to help yourself."
"Because I can't."
"Bull!"
"Dean. I can't." Sam latched onto Dean's wrists, detaching his hold, pushing his hands down to his sides. "I'm not what you think I am. I'm not human, not with what I went through. I don't—maybe I am Faceless, maybe I'm a freak, I dunno. But I do know I'm not like you. I'm cursed."
"Just shut up!" Dean punched the rim of the window beside Sam's head. "Quit saying that! You're not cursed, Sam."
"Then I'm a monster. I'm not really seeing the difference, at this point."
"Son of a bitch, Sam. You're not dying, you're already dead." Dean pulled his hand back, stepped away. "And maybe you're right, y'know, maybe I can't help you. 'Cause you don't want my help, man." He held up both hands disarmingly. "Hey, I get it. A few weeks with the demons force-feeding you their elitist crap, and you forget everything we worked out. No, that's…awesome." He turned his back, walked away.
The surprise almost tipped Dean off balance when Sam grabbed a fistful of skin and sleeve on his left arm and whipped him around. "You know what? You can go to hell, Dean! You don't know what happened out there!" Sam's voice shot through a few octaves, his eyes spitting sparks.
"You're right, I don't, 'cause you're burying this crap so deep you're digging your own grave, Sam!" Dean gestured, talking with his hands in broad sweeps. "I thought we were supposed to take this crap and figure it out together. Spirit and guts, right?
"You don't understand what that place was like. It was hell."
"And, what, life was a bed of roses back in Kansas? I almost lost my mind trying to find a way to get you back! So what if I didn't have Lilith's hand jammed down my throat every day? I would've taken that bitch's beatings if I could've gotten between her and you. I screwed up, I dropped the ball, and now you're barely treading water. How the hell is that fair?"
"Who said anything about fair? That's now how demons work. And we're lucky we got out alive."
Dean swiped his tongue across his lips, looking away, toward the house; deep blue clouds were rolling in from the west, bringing a low tumble of thunder rolling across the empty South Dakota plain.
"Did we? Get out alive?"
Sam's eyes narrowed fiercely, deliberately, and he moved into Dean's path. "Fight me."
Dean blinked. "What?"
"I said, fight me, Dean!" Sam spread his arms wide. "You want to know what I've been through? Then come on!"
"Sam, I'm not gonna pound on you, okay, you just got back from Lilith'splayground. You're still not up to snuff."
"I've fought worse than you when I felt worse than this." When Dean didn't move, biding his time, Sam's mouth cut into a sudden, unexpected and ill-adopted sneer. "You're a coward."
Dean launched himself forward, grabbing Sam by his collar and spinning him around, slamming him into the front fender of the nearest car. "Shut it, already, just shut the hell up!"
And Sam said, "About time."
When his fist sailed for Dean's face, Dean ducked it, swiping Sam's arm aside and jabbing a knee toward his gut. Sam blocked Dean's leg with his, tripping him and sweeping around behind him, hooking Dean's ankles and shoving him down chest-first on the hood of the car, torquing his arms behind his back.
"Come on, man, are you really that rusty?" He taunted.
Dean cussed, slamming his foot down on Sam's and earning an undignified yelp of pain for his effort. He slithered one arm free and jammed his elbow into Sam's gut, ripping loose and twisting around. Sam was almost straddling him on the fender, close enough to smell, sweat and bed-sheets and a few days dirty.
Dean feinted a punch, let Sam catch it like Sam always caught it, he was that fast; Dean brought his free hand up and tried to snap Sam's hold with an elbow to the inner arm. Sam blocked that, too, trapping both of Dean's hands. Dean heaved his weight in, catching Sam off guard, reeling him backwards.
And every sense of rhyme and reason fell away, fluidity and grace lost as Sam doubled himself over Dean's back, hammered a knee into his stomach, and slammed him onto his side. They fell into a deadlock of wrestling, glancing nearly-painless blows, but not pulling; needing this, the thunderstorm of their blood and adrenaline, that forgotten crunch of bones against skin, painting pockmark bruises on their torsos, arms, legs.
Flipping each other, tussling in a mad haze of dry gravel dust and stunted grass kicked up by their flying feet. Dean fought just to feel, to lay all of his troubles—anger, sorrow, regret, frustration, helplessness, hopelessness, caring—into Sam. Sam absorbed it without question, trading back his own unspeakable sins—giving up, laying down, guilt, mistrust, despair, and a bleak, broken kind of love that came out in every single strike of his fists on Dean's body.
That, Dean realized in a dizzy whirlwind, was all they'd ever known as friends, companions, soldiers; as brothers, if family was more than blood. Every single thing that mattered was spoken in silence or glances or, sometimes, if the need called for it, out loud; with violent shoves and knotting fists in each other's jackets, shirts, forcing attention, claiming understanding.
But when it came down to it, this was the easiest thing to say; I missed you, with Sam's weight compressing Dean's chest; I'm sorry I let Lilith get her hands on you, a punch to the eye that gave Sam a shady welt on his cheekbone; what's the point of all this, when Sam crushed Dean's face into the gravel, digging small flecks of it into his cheek.
Puffing out breath, Dean almost chuckled.
Surviving. He flipped over, cracking his knee into Sam's shoulder and bucking him off. In a second he had Sam pinned, one hand on his collarbone, the other on Sam's half-cocked leg, holding him down. We all survive because we need each other.
Sam lay under him, staring up, the reflection of the blue dish of sky over their heads turning Sam's eyes from hazel to almost a cobalt shade of their own. He breathed raggedly, mouth open. "Dean…?"
"Don't space out on me." Dean warned.
"I'm not…let me go." Sam angled a blow for Dean's face, but the awkward positioning took the edge off his strength, and Dean batted his fist down without any trouble at all. "Dean!"
Dean laughed, out loud this time, slapping Sam genially on the knee. "Gettin' a little slow there, pal."
Sam smiled, for the first time since he'd come home. "I don't think so."
Dean felt Sam's foot nudge his armpit.
"Oh, crap—!"
Sam kicked Dean's hold loose from his collarbone, sitting up in the same fluid motion and elbowing Dean hard in the chest. His weight surged over after, following through with the strike, nailing Dean down on his back and holding him there, bracing the bar of his arm over Dean's throat.
"Pinned you, Dean."
"I can see that, genius. Now get offa me!" Dean coughed.
"Nope."
"Sam—!"
Sam stared down at him, intent, his eyes moving like he was solving a puzzle written out across Dean's face. Uncomfortable, Dean squirmed.
"C'mon, man, this is awkward."
Sam sat back on his heels, giving Dean the leverage to push himself upright. His eyes, guarded, almost mistrustful and adopting their normal hazel sheen, watched Dean. "You're not going to let me go down quietly, are you?"
"Ah, Sammy, I'm not gonna let you go down at all. Thought you'd have that figured out by now." Dean peered up at him, gauging his response. "Braniac."
Sam twitched a smile. "Jerk," then got to his feet. "Dean, how come—?"
"How come what?"
"How come you care this much? I mean, since day one, you've been fighting John about this. Fighting every other Handler out there." Sam shook his hair from his eyes, his expression a rictus of disbelief. "And for what? It's not like I'm some big-shot monster. Hell, I got my ass kicked, every single time."
"Sam." Dean cut him off firmly. "Man, I don't know what you are. Human, monster, the friggin' Mothman. All I know is, we've been at this for almost a year and you've never given me a single freakin' reason to believe you're one of those things my dad used to hunt. It's DNA, it's not who you are. Bottom line, as long as you're with us, you're family. The rest of it's just a huge ball of semantics."
Sam stared at him, the disbelief never leaving his expression, but Dean saw something cracking and falling to pieces behind his eyes.
Sam stretched a hand down to him, suddenly, and Dean accepted it with a certain amount of trepidation. Sam clapped him on the forearm and hauled him up in one mighty tug, steadying Dean with a firm grip on his sleeve once his feet were under him.
"Sammy, you good?" Dean asked.
Without a word, Sam boxed him into a hug.
Dean froze, arms at his sides, not sure at first that this wasn't an attack of some sort; then, realizing it wasn't, he couldn't find a means to unstick himself. Even narrowed down and hollowed out from his stay with Lilith and his resultant lack of appetite, Sam had four inches on Dean, and a strong grip when it counted.
"Sam?" Dean put as much hinting into the word as he could. Let go of me, you're strangling me, and yeah, okay, I'll give you a speech about family and stuff, but I draw the line at hugging.
Sam's chin scraped Dean's spine, his hair tickling the inside of Dean's ear. "Thank you."
"Okay? You're welcome, I guess." Dean managed to slip an arm between them and give Sam's stomach a shove. "Can't breathe, Sam."
"Right, right, sorry." Sam pulled back, but he kept his hand on Dean's shoulder, and Dean had a sudden overwhelming sensation of being viewed as the center of somebody's source of gravity; a revolving star.
"Sam—?" Dean prompted him again, feeling like a broken record.
Sam's brows dipped with confusion, his gaze darting. "Wow. That felt good."
"You take hugging way too seriously, dude."
"No, not the—I mean the training." Sam shook his hair back again. "Felt like old times, right? Wow," His frown intensified. "That was…really awesome, actually." And then his attention riveted, and he shifted his jaw, his expression blanking. "Dean, where are your dogtags?"
Dean blinked at him. "Sam. Seriously? What the hell?"
"What do you mean—?"
"I haven't had my tags since you got back!"
Sam stared at him. "You're kidding me! How come I didn't notice?" When Dean didn't offer an explanation, Sam's expression tipped into a dry smile. "You're screwing with me, right?"
"I could ask you the same question, Mister Sunshine."
Sam laughed. "Not screwing around, Dean, I'm serious. What happened?"
"Uh, Gordon Walker's what friggin' happened. After he almost blew a hole through dad's liver, he—"
"Wait a second, dad got shot?"
"Oh, you gotta be kidding me! Seriously?"
Sam gripped Dean's shoulder again. "Okay. You gotta catch me up, Dean. Tell me…everything. Everything that happened after I left." He hesitated, coming to attention suddenly, laying a fist against his gut. "On second thought? Food first. Answers later."
"You're scaring the hell outta me, man."
"Yeah," Sam's voice went suddenly softer, reflective. "I was scaring the hell out of myself." He rubbed his thumb across the cuts on his wrists, then seemed to shake it off. "I'm starving, seriously. Tell me Bobby's got some real food."
In spite of himself, Dean grinned. "Oh, man, he's got French Toast, spaghetti, ravioli…the works."
"Ravioli? What the hell is that?"
"That, that right there, is blasphemy." Dean cuffed Sam's shoulder, pushing him toward the house. "Inside, let's go. I'm not gonna tolerate your uncivilized eating habits, Sam. You're gonna eat a bowl of ravioli and you're gonna love it."
"Yeah, okay, sure." Sam sounded skeptical, but amused, and that concerned Dean more than anything. It seemed impossible that Sam could go outside one person, timid and apologetic, and suddenly straighten up, gain height in confidence, return to the house a changed man; not only that, but with apparent gaps in his memory bank.
The whole thing was unnerving.
He let Sam go up the porch steps first, and was glad he did, because when Sam opened the door and saw Bobby, he launched at him with the kind of hug Dean wouldn't have wanted himself caught in the middle of.
"A little warnin' might be nice, ya idjit!" Bobby barked as Sam clapped him solidly on the back. "What's got you in a cuddly mood?"
"Thanks for letting us stay here, Bobby." Sam pulled back, keeping his hands on Bobby's shoulders. "I don't know why we're here, instead of Lawrence, but I know you didn't have to take us in. So, really, thanks. For everything."
"Try sendin' a card next time," Bobby groused, but Sam was already moving past him, to the fridge. He opened the door and nodded inside.
"You mind if I—?"
"Help yerself." Bobby's eyes were trained on Dean. "Got a minute, kid?"
"Absolutely." Dean followed him into the branching hallway that led to the stairs, out of earshot of Sam, and Bobby rounded him with a ferocious glint in his eyes.
"You wanna tell me what the hell happened out there? Didja lobotomize that boy, or what? 'Cause that ain't the same screws-loose basketcase I watched you haul out that door half an hour ago."
"Hey, I'm clueless too, Bobby." Dean shrugged widely. "One second he's scared, the next thing I know, he's asking me to fight him. And now he's—"
"Can I heat up some of this beef stew?" Sam called.
"Me casa es su casa." Bobby replied, and there was a beat of silence before Bobby rolled his eyes and amended, "My house is your house."
"'Kay, thanks,"
"—he's like a totally different person." Dean finished. "Oh, yeah, and did I mention all that crap we told him about why we're here and what happened with Gordon, none of that stuck?"
"What, like he got his slate wiped?" Bobby demanded skeptically.
"You got a better diagnosis?"
There was a sudden, prolonged silence from the other room, followed by Sam's audible, deep breaths. "Hey, Dean?"
His tone was different, slightly curious, almost defenseless. With one last cock-eyed glance and a shrug at Bobby, Dean joined him in the kitchen. "What, am I missing the big feast, here?"
Sam looked away from the microwave, the bowl inside making its slow, steady revolution, and he grinned. "Not really, I just wondered if you were hungry."
"Think I'm good."
Sam's mouth tipped down at the corners. You sure?
Dean rolled his eyes. Yeah, Sam, I'm sure.
Sam carried his bowl to the table and started devouring, with just a hint of manners and all else banished for the sake of hunger. Dean gripped the back of the chair across from him, studying him, trying to parse out what was different, what had changed; why Sam was suddenly smiling, eating, acting like his old happy self.
Sam glanced up at him through long lashes, then blinked. "Uh, Dean, why're you staring at me? It's kinda…creepin' me out."
"Yeah, well, feeling's mutual, pal." Dean drew the chair out and sat across from him, and a second later Bobby joined them, taking post in the third seat at the head of the table with his arms folded over his broad belly.
"Right." Sam flicked a smile into his beef stew. "Hey, can you hand me that bread?" He nodded to the loaf on the counter and Dean reached back for it, passing it over. With a nod of thanks, Sam ripped into the bag and started sponging up the broth with two slices squeezed together. "So, what about Gordon?"
Dean leaned his elbows on the table. "Look, I'm not keeping secrets from you, Sam, all right? I'll bring you up to speed." He let his tone hang open-ended, implying there was more to this, and Sam looked up questioningly. "But you gotta level with me, man. I wanna know where this whole new you came from. And don't give me some crap about the fight changing you back. I know you better than that."
Sam watched him, equal parts amused and thoughtful, and then he set the bread down and crossed his arms on the table, mirroring Dean's posture. "You're right. I'm not a different person." He slid a glance toward Bobby. "I mean, I really have—no freaking clue what happened with Gordon. I don't even know what day it is." He pulled one of those infamous sheepish lopsided smiles. "And I've still got Lilith's prison screaming in the back of my head."
"Okay, so, what changed?" Dean prompted.
"I just decided that none of that crap matters."
Sam's quiet honesty left Dean speechless. "Come again?" And when Sam didn't answer immediately, Dean added, "You can't just swing across the board like that, it's totally friggin' dysfunctional and it's gonna bite you in the ass."
"Look, I'm not saying I can pretend it didn't happen. I still hear things—I mean, the beep on the microwave," Sam shook his head. "And the next thing I know I'm not sure whether this is the dream I keep having, or if I'm just flashing back on Nashville."
"Sounds like a heavy load to be carryin' around." Bobby said with brusque sympathy, and Sam shrugged.
"It's not so bad. I just—for however long I've been back, I think I haven't been trying to figure out what's really real, or…what even matters. I just sort of let my head tell me that the important stuff was what I remembered, not what was happening right in front of my face."
"And—?" Dean drew the word out, still looking for a concrete conclusion.
"And I was wrong." Sam frowned. "What happened, happened. And, y'know, it wasn't pleasant. It's not something I can forget, and I still don't want to talk about it. There's still no way you could ever understand," His eyes were apologetic, and full of conviction. "But I can't let that stop me. I can't let Lilith walk all over me when she's not even here." He gave his head a slight shake, ruffling his hair. "So, I'm gonna do this right."
"Yeah, but why?" Dean insisted, gesturing sharply with his hands. "What made you change your mind?"
"What you said back there, about how it didn't matter what I was." Sam's eyes were wide, wet, and passionate. "Lilith told me about how she murdered my parents. Everyone I ever knew and, I guess, loved. She took everything else." His voice was steely with resolve. "But this…you're my family. All of you. You guys are mine, and you're real, and I'm not gonna let her have you."
Silence hung in the wake of the words, and Dean realized this was a side of Sam he'd never dealt with before; this wasn't a Sam who could be rattled by the stroke of keys, by the mealy-mouthed taunts of a demon. This was Sam with his feet planted in the swirling current, hardened by certainty, melted into something indestructible by his own sheer will.
This was Sam, taking a stand against his past, deciding for himself that it didn't matter half as much as his present or his future.
"It's gonna be a bumpy road between here and bein' safe," Bobby warned him. "Demons are gonna rain down fire on all our heads."
"So, let 'em come." Sam said, his face masking into a flat expression of a challenge. "I could use a little action."
Parroting off Dean's words from the cellblock in Nashville; Dean couldn't staunch a grin.
"I can get behind that." He stretched.
Sam smiled and went back to his beef stew, pacing himself this time. After several more bites, he looked up and swallowed. "What about Gordon?"
Dean started on into the story, recapping everything for Sam that had happened at the homestead. Unlike the last time Dean had told this story, when Sam had picked and stared at the bedspread and nodded absently, now he was engaged. More often than not, forgetting to take a bite, or talking with his mouth full.
Sam, Dean realized, was the best kind of audience, because on a good day no matter what you were talking about, he treated it like holy writ. Fiercely interested, asking all the right questions, keeping Dean as occupied into the telling process as Sam was into the listening process. Eventually, Bobby left them to it, with a cranky mumble about being a third wheel. Dean tossed an irreverent, "Hey, I love you, old man!" after him, earning a backlash of "Pound it up your ass, Romeo," that had Sam spitting beef stew back into the bowl and coughing violently against this elbow.
When Dean reached the part of his story about John and Mary actually getting around to kissing, Sam's mouth dropped open, and then he cracked an incredulous grin. "Dude—no!"
"Look me in my eyes and tell me I'm lying." Dean kicked his feet up on Bobby's abandoned chair. "They are full on lovey-dovey with each other. Except for the, uh, fights that they get into at least once a week."
"Wow." Sam scoffed lightly. "I missed a lot." He spooned up the rest of the ravioli that Dean had retrieved for him while he was explaining how Mary had threatened to castrate Gordon with a shotgun. "I'm sorry about Maggie, Dean. She sounds like a really decent girl."
"Only the good die young." Dean tried to be flippant, shrugging it off, but some part of his hands remembered the cooling feeling of her skin, the sound of her death rattle still an echo in his ears. "Never got to pay her back for the Twinkies."
Sam's forehead whorled with sadness. "Yeah."
Footsteps shuffled down the stairs, and Mary joined them, her sleepy eyes finding the three empty bowls in front of Sam, and widening.
"Hey, Mary." Sam greeted her almost nervously, rubbing his palms over the knees of his jeans.
"I think I liked it a little better when you were calling me mom," Mary teased gently, brushing his hair back from his ear. "What's all this?"
"Sam's working crap out," Dean replied proudly.
Mary looked surprised, looked at Dean like she wanted an explanation, and Dean shook his head slightly. Retrieving a cup of coffee for herself, Mary let the subject slide with, "Do you mind if I join you?"
"No, by all means." Sam knocked Dean's feet off the other chair, ignoring his protest, and pushed it out for her.
"Thank you, sweetheart." Mary lowered herself into the chair, wrapping her hands around the steaming mug. "What were you two talking about?"
"Dean's catching me up on everything." Sam scraped ravioli sauce out of the bowl and licked his fork. "He just told me how you sent Gordon Walker running with his tail between his legs."
Mary looked a little mollified. "Well, his tail wasn't tucked."
"But he was pissing himself." Dean added.
"Language—"
"Mom, no offense, but I've heard you call Lilith a bitch every other day for the last, I dunno, month?" Dean said. "You kinda don't have a leg to stand on, here."
Mary regarded him with motherly disdain, and Sam hid a laugh by tipping his head down and studying his empty bowl.
"You make an excellent point." Mary said, finally, and Dean flashed her a megawatt grin.
"So, you were saying that John got shot." Sam stacked the bowls and took them to the sink. "But he's okay?"
"It scooped out a whole lotta flesh, but he's pretty much back to normal." Dean shook his head. "Never seen anyone bounce back the way you two do."
"I guess we're just lucky."
"If it wasn't for bad luck, we wouldn't have any luck at all," John's voice, coming from the study, brought Sam to a turn, and Dean sat up at attention. Rubbing sleep from his eyes with the knuckles of one hand, John lumbered in to join them, yawning.
"You're right about that, sir." Sam agreed.
John stopped behind Mary's chair, observing Sam with a calculated eye, and Dean tensed. Things had been even-keeled between John and Sam for weeks, but their family lived on an open rocky plain of involuntary eruptions, and Dean never knew when he'd have to intercede; or when he would be the one slinging punches.
"Feelin' all right, Sam?" John asked, and there was more to that than just the question itself.
Sam nodded. "Yes, sir." He glanced down at his wrists and added, "Thanks for patching me up."
"Wasn't any trouble." John said, brisk sincerity in his voice, and the bubbling tension of the situation dissipated. "Dean can wash those dishes, Sam, I want you to head upstairs and get yourself cleaned up."
"Yes, sir." Sam dropped the wet, moldy sponge into Dean's lap.
"Aw, gross, Sammy!" Dean protested, picking it up by one relatively-clean corner. "This thing's probably got a hundred diseases living on it."
"Make sure the water's hot!" Sam taunted.
"Good thing Lilith left him alive, 'cause I'm gonna kill him." Dean muttered.
"John?" Mary said, suddenly, her voce tinged with concern, and Dean shifted his focus as Sam left the room.
Rubbing his temples, standing by the sink, John had never looked so far away; his eyes distant, clouded, his shoulders hunched with defeat. When Mary addressed him, he looked over his shoulder, and Dean noticed for the first time that the gray at his temples was reaching back, and dapples of salt-and-pepper were spiking his beard.
"We need to talk. The three of us." He nodded to Mary and Dean. "I spoke to Bobby this morning. Money's almost run out." He scrubbed his eyes again. "If we don't have a source of income by the end of this month, Bobby's gotta shut down."
-X-
Sam let the warm spray of the shower heat the knots out of his muscles and roll its way down his bare back.
He stood with his arms braced before him, hands flat against the wall, head hanging, and from that angle he could see the scars traveling up his wrists. He remembered the event; Lusiver's knife carving into his skin. He also had a vague recollection of sitting in this bathtub trying to pick his stitches out.
He didn't want to ask Mary about it, because his own thoughts at the time had been jumbled, and looking back now was like trying to read a mishmash of anagrams in a foreign language; but Sam wasn't sure how he would come to grips with it if she looked him in the eye and told him he'd probably been trying to make himself bleed out again.
He slammed the door on that thought; it didn't matter. The only thing that was relevant was that he was back with his family, and as long as he had that much, Lilith couldn't break him. Faith in Dean, in John and in Mary had kept Sam alive while he was in that cage; faith in them now was the only thing he knew of to keep himself out; he had to stay in control.
Sam let his eyes slide shut, lost in the feeling of the warm water swirling its way down his spine; and then anticipating, suddenly, a feeling like life was about to take another steep plunge for him, for all of them.
The idea nestled itself in his chest, a fledgling thought huddled against the cold, making room for itself just beneath his heart. Sam's eyes bounded open and he felt a slow finger of uneasiness drawing loops across his naked back.
Mostly because those feelings, when they'd come to him while he was being held by the demons, had often proved themselves out. He'd almost known, instinctively and sometimes hours beforehand, when Lilith would be taking him into a fortified room to be another fighter's training apparatus. Whether it was an extension of his déjà-vu, or if he was just sensitive to the changes of the wind, Sam couldn't be sure; but it left him chilled in a way that the warm water couldn't chase out.
He reached over, gripping his right forearm with his left hand, shaking the long wet hair against his cheek with a slap. His time in Lilith's clutches had left him with more questions than answers; he couldn't put his finger on what it was, exactly, but something deep inside of him had shifted. It left him feeling trapped, a stranger held ransom in his own skin. He wanted out, but being out left him no place to go.
Turning back, like always, to his family.
His world felt like it had been wrung inside-out, solarized with the brightest colors Sam had ever known; almost too bright, shredding the gauze of blankness that had cocooned him for weeks. Being back inside himself was like waging a war on his own battleground; but at the same time, the unsettled sensation remained.
Something, fundamentally, had changed.
He showered the shampoo and soap from his hair, steaming his skin clean, then stepped out, slinging a towel around his hips and scrubbing his fist across the mirror. When the hot-water fog had cleared, Sam could see his face echoed in the tinted glass: cut across with fragments of multicolored lights from the pastel, stained-glass top of the window, his expression was faintly pinched with every worry brewing near the surface.
Sam didn't know when he'd last looked in the mirror; but he was sure he hadn't had these scars, toothmarks of pale, puckered flesh against the otherwise ruddy tone of his skin. Places he could remember feeling the jab of a knife, the abusive kiss of a needle lapping at his blood. They'd drawn blood, the demons, searching for something.
Maybe for what he was. Maybe so he wouldn't be—he gritted his teeth at the word—Faceless, anymore.
Sam tugged on his jeans, and was reaching for his shirt when he caught a whiff of it and wrinkled his nose; it had trapped the dirty smell of his body inside of it. Tossing it into the hamper, he headed downstairs, toweling off his hair.
The sound of whisper-yelling stopped him at the foot of the stairs; the classic rough hiss of Dean trying to keep his voice modulated.
"—pack up and move! Again!"
"And where the hell do you expect us to go, Dean?" John's rejoinder was equally tempered. "Back to Lawrence?"
"Some place where we're not gonna screw Bobby over! If this family's goin' down, then we're not taking him down with us."
Sam had to grip the railing as a flush of shame and anger cascaded under his skin. Holding the towel to his head with one hand, he craned to listen in.
"We can't make this decision while we're angry." Mary interrupted firmly. "It'll only hurt us in the long run."
"We don't have time to sit around twiddling our thumbs." Dean protested. "You heard dad, the money's gone. Again. Best thing for all of us is if we break off and let Bobby get his life back."
"No. The best thing would be if we could find a monster to get us through the rest of the Prelims and into the Leagues." John muttered.
"Where Lilith is, John. The demon who almost killed our son." Mary snapped.
"I'm not scared of that black-eyed skank." Dean snorted.
"That's beside the point." John said wearily. "Lilith or no Lilith, the fact is no one will make a bet on this family, because they know we can't win. No monster's going to fight for us."
And that alone, the utter desolate conviction in John's voice, the surety in their doom, solidified Sam's stance, digging his feet into something concrete and sure and real. It resolved him, the realization that while he'd been crumbling, the Winchesters had been crumbling around him; and if nothing else, if he couldn't do anything for himself, to change what had happened, he could do this.
Sam stepped into the doorway, shoulders back and head up. "I will."
From where he sat on the couch, hands clasped and elbows on his knees, John looked up; Mary rested a hand against her throat. Dean stood up from his perch on the edge of the desk.
"Sam?" His tone was cautious, his eyes scouring Sam's body, and Sam realized that, for the first time, they could see his scars; the ones he'd hidden under layers, pockmarks of old wounds across his chest, half-moons of vampire fangs and permanent indentations of punches.
Standing that way, he had nothing to hide. "I'll fight for you. I want back in."
John stared at him. "You want back into the fight." Flat, no inflection. Sam let the towel fall, hanging over his shoulder.
"Yeah. I do."
"No." Dean's voice was firm, unbreachable. "Not a chance."
"Dean—" Sam began, exasperated.
"No, Sam, this is not up for debate. We'll find some other way, some pint-sized monster to put through the Prelims. I'm not tossing you out to the wolves again."
"You keep saying you want me to make my own choices?" Sam reminded him sharply. "Well, this is my choice. I want to fight."
"Why?" Mary asked, and the question was sincere.
Sam couldn't say, at first; for the spill of his blood, the bittersweet taste of adrenaline, the way he could lose himself in the ability to foresee an opponent's strikes before they'd even begun to move.
"This is all I have." He lifted one hand in a gesture to encompass all of them, then dropped his arm back to his side "And I'll fight for it. With whatever I've got, I'll fight for it. If that means going back into the Pits," He tipped his head. "Sign me up."
John smiled, a brief, dry expression.
Dean shook his head. "I don't like it. It's not happening."
Sam heaved a sigh. "Look, Dean, I know how you feel. You're just trying to look out for me. I get it, and I'm grateful. I really am. But you said it yourself, this family's going down. And I can't let that happen. Not if there's one thing, one thing I can do to stop it."
Dean shook his head, studied the shaggy rust-red carpet, then glanced up at Sam. There was some sinking, unreadable emotion in his eyes. "Sam, no."
Sam felt himself softening, eyes, voice, his posture relaxing him completely as he stepped closer to Dean. "It scares the hell out of me, too, man. If there was some other way…" He shrugged helplessly. "But I don't think there is. Whether you like it or not, I'm the best hope you've got right now.
"So you'd face Lilith?" John asked.
"If you guys can watch my back," Sam glanced at him and nodded. "Absolutely."
The words came across with more conviction than he felt; but he was willing, right now, in this moment, to stand against anything.
"None of you will be safe." Mary said, the voice of logic in the storm of choice. "It's not just Dean in a big city anymore; all three of you will be targets." Sam could see, too, the fear that blazed in her eyes; not fear for herself, but fear for them.
"What good's sitting on the sidelines while Lilith is untouchable?" John slid a glance toward Sam, and Sam met his eyes without feeling a trace of unease. Somewhere along the way, he and John had found their common ground, their protection and purpose and a row of stitches on each of Sam's arms.
"This is a bad idea," Dean threw in.
"Then give us a better one." John challenged.
Silence prevailed, the grandfather clock in the hall steadily ticking. Eventually, John shoved himself to his feet.
"I'll look in the papers, talk to Bobby; see what's around."
Flopping the towel more securely over his shoulder, then draping it around his neck, Sam glanced at Dean. Staring after John, mouth puckered slightly, Dean's expression warred between doubt and acidic frustration; when he caught Sam watching him, he moved seamlessly into a lazy, lounging grin.
"Take a picture, it'll last longer." Dean yanked the towel up and rubbed it over Sam's hair until Sam ducked his hold, protesting.
But the brevity of the moment was wreathed with the knowledge that Sam had finally made his choice, and it was the one that contradicted everything he'd ever really wanted; but he found, suddenly, that it was everything he needed in the moment.
He was going back to the Pits.