The second Yellow Eyes smokes out, leaves Meg to drop like a puppet with its strings cut, Dean falls to the floor, is crawling, scrambling to Sammy's side, holding his little brother, steadying him as he shakes, seizes, falls apart, body and soul, face twisted in pain as he shudders, shatters, on the frigid, unforgiving concrete in the wake of whatever the hell it was Yellow Eyes made him see.
And this can't be it, can't be how it ends, the ground falling out from under Dean as Sammy shakes himself to death on cold floor of a Tennessee cabin, Yellow Eyes in the wind as whatever the hell that monster did to his baby brother rips him apart from the inside, because the look on Sammy's face, that look when he heard about the blood, when that smirking bitch told him that Dean knew, knew everything John knew...
It can't end on something like that. It just can't.
Not without Sammy understanding, knowing how much it burned Dean, made him sick not telling. Not without them fixing this, getting a lock on whatever's going on with Sam and justice for Mom and Jess, and not without Sam waking up, waking up and giving him the bitchface to end all bitchfaces, calling him a jerk and sulking in the passenger seat, playing whiny emo crap on the radio until Dean's served his goddamn time.
But none of that can happen if Sam doesn't wake the hell up already, doesn't do somethin' other than convulse himself to death on the floor of this fucking basement and Sammy just keeps shaking and keeps shivering and keeps groaning, harsh, punched-out gusts like he's getting his insides torn out, like Yellow Eyes is still there, landing hit after hit straight to Sammy's gut and and there's not a damn thing Dean can do, not a damn thing, outside of holding Sammy tight as he goddamn can, pulling him close and digging his forehead hard into the place where tangled, sweat-soaked curls meet the stiff, straining cords of Sammy's neck and just holding on, holding on hard and fast to his one last good goddamn thing and if he loses this, if this is it-
He fucking swears, swears that if by some miracle they both find their way through this, he's never keeping another damn thing from Sam again, not one. And maybe Dean's an idiot, maybe he's stupid as all hell and seeing things that aren't there, lying to himself, seeing what he wants instead of what is, but it feels like the shaking's getting better, passing a little more with each frantic, stuttering beat of Dean's heart, but that doesn't do a damn thing go for the cold sweat that's sprung up at his hairline, does fuck all for making thinking or blinking or goddamn breathing any easier as he holds Sammy tight against the shudders still echoing through him, fists a hand in his stupid, girly hair and just wills him, pushes with everything he's got for Sam get through this, to wake up, to just wake up and be o-fucking-kay, because without that? Without that, none of it matters.
None of any of it matters.
"Sammy," Dean demands. "Sammy, come on. Open your eyes, man." His bark breaks, shaking and shivering with Sam to fade into a beg, scared and unsteady as Dad stays nothing but a dark, silent shadow at his shoulder.
"He usually like this after a vision?" Dad demands tightly, practically spitting out the word as Dean checks Sam over for bleeding, feels frantically for a pulse, fever, something, anything that he missed, anything outside of Yellow Eyes fucking with Sammy AGAIN that'd explain why the hell his baby brother won't stop shivering, won't open his fucking eyes, won't just wake the fuck up.
"That- what Yellow Eyes did to him?" Dean shakes his head, not looking at John, not looking anywhere but Sammy, his universe narrowed down to closed eyes and shallow breaths and his fingers, tamped over pale, clammy skin and faint, sluggish pulse, Dean's world turning on that one slow, steady beat. "That wasn't normal. Wasn't what it's usually like."
"Good," Dad nods, moving to toe over the pale, bleeding blonde on the floor, "Means Yellow Eyes hasn't been feedin' him tips."
"You wanna forget about the fucking demon for a second and worry about your goddamn son?" Dean snaps.
And he doesn't have time for the sharp, shocked look Dad shoots him, because Sammy's heaving in his arms, coming to with a jolt and a gasp, his eyes shooting wildly around the basement.
"Sammy, thank god," Dean breathes, crushing his little brother to him and shaking, dizzy with relief when the first thing Sam does is clumsily wrap his arms around him, weakly dig his face into the crook of Dean's neck. "Don't scare me like that again."
He huffs out on a weak laugh, pulling Sammy back and checking over his face, his temperature, his heartbeat, making sure, making damn sure that yellow-eyed bastard didn't do anything to him.
Didn't do anything else to him.
"Yellow Eyes," Sam pants, eyes darting to the girl who was Meg as he braces himself against Dean, moves to stand up.
"He's gone," Dean assures, holding Sam steady as he lumbers to his feet. "Hey, hey, take it easy, Sammy."
But Sam's not listening, half-stumbling, half-falling across the basement to get to the girl taking faint, rasping breaths in a bloody heap on the floor.
"Meg? Come on Meg, open your eyes, look at me," Sam mutters, cradling her face and checking her pulse, and for a second, Dean thinks Sammy's really lost it, is crawling after the black-eyed bitch that's made their lives merry hell for the past few months, and then he realizes that's not the black-eyed bitch's name. Sam's calling out for the blonde girl from Amherst, the poor, sad civvie who had her body hijacked by the Hell crowd, used up and worn out, beaten and broken on behalf of a demonic bitch and her yellow-eyed bastard of a boss.
"Sam…" she whispers, cracking her eyes open and gripping Sammy's hand weakly. "I'm sorry. So sorry."
Meg, but not Meg. The real Meg. The girl Meg stole, gasps, chokes, forces the words out through blood and bile and the pain of months of being used and abused by that black eyed bitch.
"Hold on, just hold on. Help's coming, okay? You're gonna be okay," Sam assures her, but he's gotta know, just like Dean knows, what it means when someone's chokin' up blood that color, when they're this far out in the middle of nowhere and she's been put through who-knows-what by Meg-but-not-Meg for who knows how long...
"Her name-" she gasps, stubbornly making the words come out, fighting it despite the fact that her face's getting paler by the minute. "I heard her- her name-"
"Ssh, shh," Sam hushes, hands skating over the girl's body, trying to find a wound to apply pressure to, trying to do something, anything to help. "Don't try and talk."
"Sa- Salome," she breathes, just as her eyes get distant, as they fade, fall dark as the shivering stops, the pain stops…
As everything stops.
"Get up," John barks after a second, snagging a duffle from by the basement steps and making for the stairs.
"What?" Dean blinks stupidly, eyes darting from Dad to Sam, still holding the body of the girl Meg was, hand halfway to closing her eyes for good as he glares up at their dad.
"We gotta get a move on," John gravels, jerking his head at the steps. "Wastin' time here."
"But Dad-" Dean protests, looking helplessly between Sam and Meg on the floor, Sam crossing her hands on her chest, and Dad, standing as forbidding as a thunderhead on the first step.
"I said move, son," John repeats icily. "We have the lieutenant's name. We gotta move, get ready to summon her before she can lock herself into a new body."
"Before she can what?" Sam bites out.
He steps forward to stand at Dean's elbow before he stiffens, remembers. Before his eyes narrow, and he takes another step, faces John directly, and Dean doesn't know why that hurts as much as it does. He knew it was coming, 'cause Sam knows everything now, and he knows Dean knew before he did, kept it secret for three long, lonely days, and why did Yellow Eyes have to shoot his goddamn mouth off? Why'd he have to get Sammy pissed and off kilter and steppin' straight into the line of fire as they set up for the biggest fight of their lives?
"Binding link," John answers shortly, snatching a battered book from the duffle and smacking it open to a post-it noted page showing an etching of a brand, a circle with a single hash through it. "If she burns it into whoever she's ridin', there's no summoning her ass, name or no. Now you wanna stand around here askin' questions or you wanna get a move on and call up that goddamn demon?"
"Let's move, then." Sam nods, setting up the stairs after John without looking behind him, leaving Dean in the dust with dead Meg and all their damn secrets, dug up and left to rot in the open air.
"Keep your phone on. I'll send you coordinates," John snaps when they reach the cars. "In the meantime, we need a body. Hit the county morgue, get somethin' fresh, and be quick about it."
"Come again?" Dean demands, clearly missing somethin' here.
"You two're so dead set on not hurtin' a livin' soul, guess we gotta find a workaround," John shrugs, firing up the truck. "Get a move on, and remember to cover your tracks. Last thing we need is a side of bacon with this fuckin' fiasco."
"Get the gun," Sam orders as soon as their dad peels off, jerking his chin at the trunk before snatching open the door to the Impala and flinging himself inside. "We're not goin' up against that thing shooting blanks again. I don't care what Dad finds out."
"Sam," Dean tries, but Sam just cuts him off.
"I don't wanna hear it, Dean," Sam snaps, and Dean just sighs hard, stalks to the trunk and digs out the Colt, shoving in the inside pocket of his jacket before getting in and firing his girl up in the weak dawn light.
"Sammy, come on," he tries again as soon as they get goin', but Sam's still not lettin' him go that route.
"I don't wanna hear it, Dean," Sam grinds out, punching in a number on his phone, his face stone hard and tight with anger.
"Sam," Dean starts, but Sam cuts him off, tossing the phone to the floorboards.
"Demon blood, Dean?!" he explodes. "I've got demon blood in me? But no, not just that! I'm supposed to go Dark Side, help Yellow Eyes wipe out the world, and you knew! You knew, and you don't- you didn't—"
His eyes narrow, his face hard and twisted with anger.
"How long have you known?" he demands. "Since we met up with Dad? Longer?"
"What?" Dean sputters. "Sam, no. He only told me a few days ago, Sammy, I swear."
"You've known I was part demon for days, and you didn't—"
Sam breaks off, swallows hard, and Dean can see him fraying, see him swallow down on the fear and the tears and the need to just fly apart in a hundred different directions. Sees him latch on to the anger and hold tight, hold on to being angry, angry at Dad, angry at Dean, angry at himself and Yellow Eyes and the whole damn universe instead of being scared, of letting the fear take over.
"Were you ever gonna tell me?" Sam grits out, squeezing his eyes shut, every inch of him tense to the breaking point.
"Sammy- Sammy, of course I was," Dean protests, but it sounds weak even to his own ears. "I was just… I was gonna. Swear to god, the night he told me? I was gonna tell you that night, I swear, but then you came in with the Colt and started poppin' visions, and then there was Little Rock and—"
"So this is my fault?" Sam explodes, disbelieving.
"No, dammit,," Dean snaps because this is wrong, it's all happening wrong, so wrong. "It's mine. It's all mine, and I should have told you. I should have, Sammy, but you were always, always on the edge, and then shit just started happening and I couldn't and I'm sorry."
And when Sam opens his mouth, starts to protest, it's Dean who cuts him off. It's Dean who sticks to his guns, because he's the bad guy here. He fucked up. He owns to that, but if he's gonna hang for this, goddammit, Sam's gonna stop to hear him out before he strings up the rope.
Even cowards get last words.
"I'm sorry," Dean fumes. "Sorry I was too chicken shit to tell you. Sorry that when Dad said you were a monster I wouldn't believe him. Sorry I couldn't buy it for the world. Sorry that instead of tellin' you the thing that killed Mom and Jess fucked around with you when you were a baby, gave you visions and a draft card to the Devil's own army, I kept my mouth shut. Sorry I couldn't look at the stack of shit you deal with on a daily basis and add 'demon blood' to the pile."
Sam's mouth is a tight, straight line, but Dean keeps pressing, keeps spilling his guts all over the floorboard, because what the hell does he have to lose?
"I'm sorry," he spits out, "that I would rather have killed this thing, have it dead and damned and for all this to be over without you ever knowin' what that sick fuck was up to all those years ago."
He swallows, punching down harder on the accelerator.
"I'm sorry," he repeats, quieter this time, fainter.
Sam's face twists, still hard, still angry, but whatever he has to say about that is cut off by the shrill ring of his cellphone from the floorboards.
"Yeah?" Sam growls into the receiver, smacking the speaker button as an afterthought as he slaps the phone onto the dash and digs a legal pad out from beneath the seat.
"Well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the goddamn bed," Bobby snaps from the other end of the phone. "Don't usually hear you this full of sunshine and daisies, Sam. Who shit in your cornflakes?"
"Dad. Dean. The whole fucking universe," Sam snaps. "We're about to steal a body from the Morgan Country Medical Center, Bobby. You get a call, can you cover us?"
"Yeah," Bobby tosses back, "and as a special favor, I won't mention your piss poor fuckin' attitude. What the hell happened to you boys?"
"We had a run in with the demon, Bobby," Dean cuts in before Sam can open his mouth. "It went bad."
"How bad?"
"Bout as bad as it could go with no one endin' up missin' limbs or dead," Dean hedges, eyes darting to Sam, still tight with fury in the passenger seat. "While we got you Bobby, you got anything on a demon named Salome?"
"Salome like New Testament Salome?" Bobby asks. "Herodias's daughter? With the seven veils and the head of the Baptist?"
"We don't know," Sam cuts in, "but it's the only name we got for this thing, and Dad's dead set on summoning it tonight."
"Well, I'll see what I can do." Bobby huffs, books already rustling in the background. "You boys be careful."
"We will, Bobby."
"Thanks," Sam adds before hanging up the phone, and it's softer, quieter, the least angry he's been since… well, since.
"You coulda told him," Dean offers softly. "It's Bobby. He wouldn't care."
"Or he could care," Sam snorts bitterly, "and we'd be shit out of luck when the MEs do a head count and come up one stiff short."
"Sammy—"
"Don't 'Sammy' me, Dean," Sam bursts out. "You didn't tell me! I have demon blood in me, and I'm gonna end the fucking world. You knew, and you didn't tell me!"
Dean looks away without meaning too, eyes scanning over the radio, the dash, his own hands gripping tight on the steering wheel.
"You know that's what I saw, right?" Sam presses. "What Yellow Eyes made me see? The vision that felt like it was gonna kill me back there? It was his fucking plan. My fucking destiny! Me, eyes black and skies burning, leading the goddamn army that ends the world and stepping right over your dead body to do it!"
Sam flings himself back in the passenger seat, scrubbing a hand over his eyes.
"I thought if anyone," he mutters, "anyone in the world would- And you were pissed that I didn't come out to you?! While you were sitting on this?!"
"Sam," Dean tries again, sick and miserable and so, so stupid. "Please."
"No," Sam refuses, shutting him down. "No. Not now. Not today. Maybe not ever."
"Sam," Dean begs, because they'rethem. They're who they are, and Sam loves this talky bullshit, and if they can't get past this, if his stupidity has lost him his little brother, if they go into this fucking fight pissed at each other and one or both of them don't make it out-
"I don't wanna hear it, Dean!" Sam snaps. "I wanna break into this fucking hospital. I wanna do our fucking job. I wanna summon Meg or Salome or whatever the hell her name is and get some goddamn answers, because as I'm sure you've guessed, I've got a few questions about the goddamn demon blood inside me and my apocalyptic goddamn destiny. You know, all the shit you and Dad both knew about, but didn't bother to share with me!"
He throws himself back against the seat again.
"God!" he bursts out. "So much for knowing whose goddamn side you're on."
"Sam, it wasn't like that," Dean pleads quietly, even if it sets Sammy off again, because this was never, ever about choosing Dad over Sam. "I—"
He stutters, feels the fucking heat rise in his cheeks, and can he just get the fuck over it? Just this once?
"I did this for you," he forces out, fighting the urge to squeeze his eyes shut, because he is driving, dammit, and they've had enough close goddamn calls tonight. "I was trying to protect you."
"By lying to me," Sam snap. "By throwing in with Dad, of all fucking people, and lying to me."
Dean's already said he's sorry.
He's already said he's sorry, and he can't say that he was never not gonna tell Sam the truth, because that'd be another goddamn lie, so Dean just presses down on the accelerator, burns rubber to the hospital and lets Sammy stew it out in the fucking passenger seat and hopes like hell that somewhere between here and the morgue, somewhere between here and wherever the hell Dad is sniffing out to call up not-Meg and pry what they need out of her, somewhere between here and finally facing off with the goddamn demon, he and Sammy can fix this.
Somewhere, somehow, he's got to be able to fix this.