I haven't met a whole lot of people, but he's the most stubborn one by a long shot.
Sam just doesn't leave stuff alone you know? I saw him stay up for two whole days once cause he was trying to figure out a spell. He had the front part and the back part, but not the middle, and other hunters needed it bad so they could kill something. He didn't leave it alone until he filled it in and they could use it.
He doesn't give up on monsters. I didn't talk when I first got here cause I was scared, but he kept talking to me until I had to talk back. He never hurt me or yelled at me and he never got mad, but he didn't leave me alone and if I hadn't talked then, I don't think he ever would have. He has to figure things out and he has to finish them.
He'll do things just cause other people told him he can't. A hunter left a big box outside on the porch and told Sam he couldn't bring it inside himself cause it was too heavy and he had to lift with his legs. Well guess what? Sam brought it inside with his legs. He had to use his cane for a week after but he did it.
And another hunter told him there wasn't any way to kill an okami but with a bamboo knife with some stuff done to it. Guess how Sam killed the okami that hunter brought him? I don't know cause he won't tell me but not with bamboo.
He just doesn't leave stuff alone and he doesn't walk away. I think maybe he can't. There's something in him that won't let him. It's like how he can't stop being a creepy researcher and asking me weird questions even when I'm just talking to him. I don't mind that and it's partly cause I know he can't help it.
I don't know if he ever would stop doing something he'd already decided to do. Or do something he'd decided not to. Maybe. But I don't know what would make him.
It would have to be something pretty big, I think.
- Personal journal of Vaughn McClure Winchester, c. 2008
Sam didn't know what Bobby's latest foxhole was, or where, or how long it took them to get there. He passed out in the van soon as Bela started the engine, laid across the second row of seats with his head in Dean's lap, Vaughn staring at him, Alastair chained where Bobby's chair would usually go. Sam would eventually learn he didn't wake up until four days later.
When he did, it was like no time at all had passed. Dean was above him, eyes black and squinted, the lights behind him flickering heavily. He had sigils painted on his temples, forehead, cheekbones, and the stubbled dip of his chin. Actually, they might've been drawn in Magic Marker. Hard to tell because they were glowing.
Sam made a noise. It'd been intended to come out as a word, but his mouth didn't move like he wanted it to. Soon as he heard it, Dean's intense look of concentration dissolved, along with the light from the sigils. His eyes stayed black.
"Hey, there he is." Dean smiled wide, grinning like he couldn't control himself. There was equal amounts relief and regret in the expression. "And after only a hundred-hour coma. Nice going, kid."
Sam tried to focus past Dean's face. His vision was blurry. The lights had stabilized, but they were still flickering, fluorescent. The buzz grated in his ears alongside a ringing, and a faint beeping. The ceiling was concrete, low. He felt cold, even under something heavy, and whatever he was laying on was hard.
"Jai-uh?" he managed, half-rasp, half-whisper. Dean tipped his head, looking around.
"I mean, close."
"Wha…" He looked at the sigils again. Dean pointed to them.
"What, these? Yeah, the Scooby Gang helped me put my face on to boost my powers. Don't know all the ins and outs of 'em so I'm gonna brute-force it. Probably would've needed it anyway, with all the warding on this place."
Dean's words stood on Sam's skin in cool drops, feeling good but not soaking in. He felt almost like he didn't speak the language.
There was something on Sam's face, too, uncomfortable. Something in his nose, a hard line against his cheeks, something holding it there. It was tight, it itched. He scrunched against it. His arm shifted under an impossible weight, a futile effort to pull the hard, itching thing off and out of him. He didn't realize he was touching it until Dean shook his head at him.
"You're gonna wanna leave that alone, champ."
"'Kay." He was thirsty. It felt like he hurt even beyond his body. Moving his arm forced him to realize that something in the crook of it was wrong, a stiff and burning ache there. He moved his other hand towards it.
"Yeah. That one, too."
Sam dropped his hand.
"Trust me. Important both of those stay in." Dean rolled his eyes. "'Good as a hospital' my ass, but...guess between me and her, it's working."
"'Kay," Sam said again, then fell asleep.
It was real sleep this time, not a blacked-out blink. He was in and out as the deep bone sear of yet another high fever rolled its way through him. When he was under, he saw a thousand broken futures, only a few of the shards he happened to pick up even remotely bright and peaceful. He didn't know how to reach them, wasn't sure he'd have the strength to follow through even if he had a map.
He woke to Vaughn reading to him, Dean with glowing sigils on his face again, Bobby staring down at him, Dean wiping a sponge over the washboard slats of his ribs with a businesslike air, Bela hanging hex bags and herbs around him.
She paused, like she could feel Sam looking at her, and looked down. He blinked, eyes feeling swollen and liquid.
"You know, Bobby told me all kinds of stories about you," Bela said, almost conversational. "You and Dean. I think I've mentioned that before. I always thought he was exaggerating." She shook her head, went back to work. "You better pull out of this, Sam Winchester. For everyone's sake."
He closed his eyes again, dreamed of winged stars falling from the sky, setting fire with their footprints.
Sam could've sworn he saw Castiel. He knew it couldn't be real. He wondered if Heaven caught him, if Zachariah and Annanel had pulled his wings off one feather at a time. Sam prayed to him, apologized. But of course there was never any answer. He didn't really expect one.
He gathered, in snatches that drifted to him awake and asleep, that they were underground. They were safe, for now. Dean was healing those few hairline fractures in Sam that he could, staples and Elmer's glue, unable to touch the giant, gaping chasms the Trials had torn in him. He closed the wound on Sam's neck, sealing the poison inside, and then the worst pain in him came from his chest and the throbbing muscles of his left calf.
Dean didn't touch him beyond what he had to do, to heal him and clean him up. It was like he was afraid to or wouldn't let himself. Like he thought Sam didn't want his hands on him. Sam both did and didn't, even drifting in his current twilight. It was hard to be mad at somebody, when you felt like you were dying without their skin against yours and their smell in your throat.
When Sam finally woke up, without a fever and with a little strength in him, he assumed he was dead. It was so different from what he'd gotten used to. But this wasn't Hell, and he doubted the lights would buzz and something else would beep in Heaven. He turned his head to the side on a flat pillow, caught sight of a heart monitor. As if on cue, the leads on his chest began to itch. So did the IV in his arm, and the oxygen tubing taped to his face. He wanted to rip it all free, but remembered what Dean had told him...what, a week ago?
Speaking of Dean, Sam heard the scuff of boots against a concrete floor, and then Dean was in his field of vision, holding a water bottle and a plate. His face looked fresh-scrubbed, but still had traces of marker on it. He smiled. It was jittery around the edges.
"There we go," he said approvingly. "Guess that last session really did the trick." He sat down with a sigh, next to the cot Sam realized he was on. "Either that or the sponge bath. Hungry?"
He offered Sam the plate. The smell of plain toast simultaneously turned his stomach and woke up a roaring hunger. Sam pushed himself up, not as weak as he'd expected to be, and took the water first. Toast would just turn to cement in his mouth without it.
He looked around. Wire shelving full of cans and vacuum-sealed packages, close on either side of him, dotted with hex bags, herbs, charms and talismans. Storage room.
"You keep that down, the IV can come out," Dean added over the beeping of his monitor. "And the...oxygen thing."
He tapped his nose. Sam reached up to feel at the tape and tubing as he slowly sipped the water. He had several days' scruff on his jaw and cheeks, and his skin was greasy. He took a bite of toast. Dean just watched him eat for a while, then shook his head and stated, "You still don't look great, man."
"Don't feel great," Sam rasped, talking for the first time in...again, however long. He rubbed tentatively at his neck with his free hand. The X-and-circle was scarred completely over. The tissue was new, puffy and stretched and itching, but definitely not open and oozing. No more thudding, dripping pain. "Better, though. You healed me."
"Much as I could," Dean agreed, and then there was a silence, empty and awkward. Sam broke it.
"Thank you." He finished his toast, handed the plate back. More strength was returning, voice clearing up. He still felt like he'd just woken up from a coma, which he guessed he literally had, but the constant, throbbing wrongness in him, the certainty he was dying by inches, had faded into the background of his body. "So...where are we? What's going on?"
"Well, apparently, in addition to all the cabins I didn't know about, Bobby also had a bunker this whole damn time." Dean looked around. "Bought it off a doomsday prepper. Built to withstand an atomic blast. Steel vault door, two-foot-thick walls, six feet underground. Which means that after you add in all the crazy warding Bobby put on this place, pretty much angel and demon-proof, too. All kindsa magic proof." Dean shook his head. "Getting me and Alastair in was like cramming a camel through the eye of a needle, dude. Oughta be glad you were asleep for that."
"Wait." Sam's brain caught on one detail. "Alastair's here?"
"Course he is. Don't know how to kill him, can't exactly let him go." Dean avoided Sam's eyes. "He's locked up tight. And gagged. Can't talk to me and can't get out, don't worry."
Sam didn't answer, mostly because he didn't know what to say. The monitor beeped. Dean moved on.
"Speaking of 'out,' entire East Coast's a mess. Storms, mass shootings. What people think are serial killers. Demonic activity, all of it. Through the roof." Dean pointed upwards. "Lotta angel sightings, too. Lots of people exploding...guess that's them trying out vessels that don't work. And, of course, they're not helping out with the demon shit. Seems like they're just looking for you."
"Any sign of Cas?" Sam asked quietly. His stomach twisted when Dean shook his head. "H-he's probably dead, isn't he?"
"Or wishes he was," Dean replied, then, immediately, "Sorry."
Sam didn't say anything for a while. The heart monitor picked miserably up.
"Y'know, he didn't wanna do it. Boost my powers, I mean. I made him. And before he did, he…" Sam rubbed at his forehead. His sinuses felt thick and full, painful shapes embedded in his face. "Told me to see it through. Make it worth it."
"Hey." Dean adjusted his chair, metal, folding. "Whatever happened to him, it ain't your fault. It ain't on you. He made his choice, and I know it was one he was proud of, way the grunts said he was shining when he came to get you." He blinked. Eyes black. He blinked again, and they were clear. "It was one I'm proud of, too. 'Cause even what he did to you, it was his decision. That's free will right there. It was what he thought you needed and wanted. You oughta be happy for him, he got to think for himself, take shit by the horns. Not a lotta angels do."
Sam let the words sink in, the pain behind them. He sucked in as deep a breath as he could bear before he was buried under it, sweeping a hand back through his hair. It felt just a little longer than he remembered, and he immediately regretted touching it, the sensation of the greasy tufts refusing to come off his fingers.
"How 'bout the other hunters?"
"You'd think they'd have given up on you, with all the bigger problems they got to choose from," Dean started, "but nope. Still want your melon on a stick."
Sam wasn't surprised to hear it, dully mad as it made him. "How're Ellen and them holding up?"
"Fine, last I heard. Most of 'em wanna throttle you after your little Dear John letter, though...and Bela let me listen to it, and I can't say I blame 'em. Hell of a goodbye, Sam."
That was one of a few things Sam absolutely couldn't discuss right now. He changed the subject back. "Are you sure they're okay? D'you think there's any way to get them down here with us?"
Dean snorted. "No. We've got, like...negative room right now." Sam looked around again. Now he thought about it, it looked more like a pantry than a room. A closet. "They're safe, but I get why you're worried. Lotta fucked-up crap going on out there right now. Hunters are gunning specifically for everybody with any connection to you...probably doesn't help somebody started the rumor you're the Antichrist."
Sam couldn't help it: he looked sharply at Dean, who sat back and put his hands up.
"I deserved that," he began, "but it wasn't me. For once. Just...idiots and conspiracy theories. Apparently Gordon had a Jesus-freak buddy who really hates you. One in a million he was halfway right." There was a pause. Sam didn't realize he should've said something until, more forcefully, Dean stated, "It wasn't me."
"I know," Sam assured, "I know. Sorry."
"Don't be." Dean smiled tightly. "Like I said, I deserved that. Would deserve it if you never trusted me again, honestly."
Sam looked down at his hands. The spaces between the bones were deep, shadowed. Ever so faintly, they shook in time with the beeping.
"I know you explained, back in the convent," he began quietly, looking back up at Dean. "What happened with Alastair. But I still don't get it. That's not you, I - I know you, Dean. And that's not you."
Dean closed his eyes. Sam noticed that he still wasn't wearing his amulet. It'd only been on him a few months, but it was weird to see him without it anyway.
"That's the problem though, isn't it?" Dean opened his eyes again, and they were black. "I am like that. Selfish, scared, can't say no to my old boss, only look out for number one. Which, for the past year, has been you. But I didn't care what you wanted, I just figured you'd come around once you saw the outcome. And it didn't matter what I had to do to get there. Lie, put you in danger, hurt you…"
He shook his head. "I knew the entire time it was gonna blow up in my face. Spent a thousand goddamn years learning I can't trust Alastair. But I couldn't walk away from him, it was the only way I could see you surviving. And maybe I...maybe some part of me's stupid and weak enough to believe that this time, somehow, I wouldn't wind up roasting on a spit made outta my own spine.
"I hate this," Dean stated after a second's pause, looking directly at Sam. "You know I hate it, talking it out. But I damn well owe it to you. You know I haven't told anybody else down here? Not like Alastair's gonna spill the beans."
Sam swallowed. His left calf hurt, and he realized vaguely he was squeezing it, through the layers of mismatched blankets that'd been draped over him.
"I should've figured a way out of it but Alastair, what he is to me - "
"I know," Sam interrupted softly. "I saw, when I was healing you. In the middle, those three symbols...those are your masters, aren't they? Lilith, and Azazel. And the big one's Alastair. That's where you're bound to them. Right at the root."
Dean didn't answer. Eventually, weakly, he commented, "Nothing slipped past you with the god-goggles on, huh?"
It was meant to be a joke, Sam could tell. But the delivery was all wrong.
Silence, except for the beeping, one that felt like slowly tightening a fist around a razor blade. Had there always been silences this awkward between them? Had there ever? Sam couldn't remember.
"It was like cheating," Dean said.
"Dean - " Sam started to shake his head.
"No, Sam, it was cheating." Dean cut him off. "Worse than, even, 'cause of what Alastair is, and the kinda danger it put you in."
Sam was quiet, waiting for another protest to come out of him. It didn't. So he sighed.
"All right," he told Dean. "Then...I already know about the beach house, and the Prince. But I wanna know the rest. Every time you went, every time he called you."
He'd expected a bad reaction, but Dean just nodded, then drew in a breath so deep that even watching it made Sam cough, just a little. There was blood in the hand he covered his mouth with and they both saw, but neither of them commented on it. Dean just handed him a paper towel, ripped off a roll on a shelf.
"There was the beach house, like you said. The seagull, that was the first time." Dean wasn't looking at Sam as he talked. "But the ones holding the other end of my leash, they can...summon me, I guess. Feels like tugging. Gets worse the more they want me, the longer I wait, 'til I'm almost being pulled out of my meat. First time he did that to me was when I went to get you a pizza, on our way down to Bobby's place. That one was just a quick check-in. Guess he wanted to make sure I was still on track."
He didn't say anything else, so Sam prompted, "Then the Prince."
"Yeah, that was the next time," Dean agreed. "Up at Bobby's cabin, he left me alone, mostly. To start with. He thought I was working on you. But after you did the Second Trial...he wanted me while you were still outta commission. I didn't go, but. The scout in town? The one I told you I killed?"
Sam nodded.
"I talked to her. She talked to Alastair. And after that, he started pulling me three, four times a week. He started leaning on me. They were all getting impatient, they wanted their King." Dean spat the word. "I kept putting him off, 'cause you were in such bad shape. That's when he dangled the whole 'healing-you-even-if-you-didn't-buy-into-the-plan' thing."
Sam remembered how he'd felt back then, how he'd looked. He thought about Dean listening to that kind of proposal from Alastair between spikes in Sam's fever and uncontrollable, bloody coughing fits.
"I went after the other hunters showed up," Dean went on, almost dispassionately, "when you and me fought about doing the Trials in that motel room. He could tell I was mad at you, getting desperate about saving you. He pushed me, I told him I'd think about it, and then I get back and Castiel's sworn his undying angel loyalty to you or whatever and you're both hellbent on doing the Trials, and...I...I-I didn't have a choice, Sam." A second later, Dean corrected himself. "I felt like I didn't."
When Sam said nothing, Dean huffed out a bitter chuckle.
"There were so many times I could've told you, so many times I could've fixed it. And I just didn't."
After a few seconds had passed, Sam roughly offered, "We make bad decisions on our own."
Dean looked at him. His eyes flicked green. Sam cleared his throat, hoping he could get through this without coughing.
"I'm just as selfish as you are," he pointed out. "Except I'm worse, 'cause I didn't do everything I did to save you. I wasn't even thinking about you most of the time. I just wanted to close the Gates, no matter how many times you told me you didn't wanna lose me. I...I've lied and screwed up just as much as you have, and you already know about all of those. And every single time, every stupid thing I did, it was because I was alone. Same as you were, when Alastair contacted you the first time. When you talked to him every other time after."
He hesitated, and then he reached for Dean's hand, making a move to touch him for the first time since he'd woken up. When Dean let him, his eyes stung. Sam squeezed his hand between both of his own, hard as he could, and Dean's skin against his own felt so much better than he'd even remembered. A completed circuit, a closed feedback loop.
"We're stronger together," Sam said, voice thick. "We need each other. I'm never gonna lie to you again, or make any kinda major, life-altering choice without taking you into account."
"Yeah." Dean squeezed Sam's hand back, grabbed his shoulder with his free one. "Same."
He leaned in. Sam pulled back, mouth opening in protest, but Dean's hand moved up to the back of his head and fixed him in place so he could kiss him, long and slow and sweet even with the oxygen tubing awkwardly in the way. Sam relaxed into the kiss after a second, tears he didn't want beading under his lashes. When Dean finally let him go, he croaked, "How long's it been since I brushed my teeth?"
"You kissed me," Dean replied, and Sam knew he was talking about his real face. The rotting skin, the exposed fangs. They kissed again.
"I love you," Sam gasped against Dean's full lips when they broke.
"I know." Another kiss. "I love you too, Sammy."
Dean gently peeled the tape from Sam's face. It stung, but Sam stayed still, and he set the tubing aside. Painstakingly, Sam scooted to the edge of the cot, feeling the metal frame under his ass, and Dean moved the chair so that Sam could lean against him and he could wrap his arms around him. It was awkward, Sam taller, the heart-monitor wires and IV pulled taut, but neither of them moved. The raw, ragged wounds that had opened in Sam when he realized what Dean had done, what he'd been doing for months, weren't even close to healed, but...they'd been cleaned out, at least. Stitched and bandaged.
Chin on Dean's shoulder, Sam closed his eyes, just soaking in Dean's heat and solidity. He was desperately, pathetically pleased that, however tiny and crowded this place was, they were able to have even this much privacy. He owed everybody a lot of thank-yous.
But the heart monitor was still on, and very, very concerned about how the kissing had raised his rate. Eventually, he had to mutter, "That beeping's driving me nuts."
One of Dean's hands lifted off Sam, and it cut out.
"Thanks."
"Sure thing." A second later, Dean cleared his throat then, with all the reluctance of somebody bringing up something he'd rather lose limbs than talk about, said, "So...back to you closing the Gates."
"We don't have to talk about it," Sam replied quietly. "I'm not doing the Third Trial."
"What?"
Sam straightened, slowly, so he could look at Dean. "You asked me to choose between you and the Trials, so...I chose." He smiled, felt one side of his mouth go higher than the other. "I won't make you go through that 'cause, awful as it is, if I've gotta pick between the entire world and you, I'm gonna pick you. Just like I said I would."
Dean closed his eyes, and a certain, strange kind of tension in him relaxed. He smirked.
"You're just saying that 'cause you haven't been outta bed in a week and a half."
Sam wasn't in the mood for jokes. "I mean it, Dean. Everything you said in the church…" He trailed off, shaking his head. But when Dean let go of him, pulling back some, he could tell something was wrong. "What? What is it?"
"You have to do the last Trial. You gotta close the Gates." Sam must have looked as stunned as he felt, because Dean went on. "You heard Alastair, how invested they all are in this. In getting you, using you - they're never gonna stop, Sammy, they're never gonna back down. The only way out is to seal all of 'em away forever."
Sam was about to point out he could die doing this, probably would die, maybe even before he finished the Trial. Dean seemed to read his mind.
"If you don't make it, then...you dying's better than you being the thing Hell wants to make you into." A muscle in Dean's jaw jumped. "I know what it feels like, watching yourself turn into something like that. Knowing there's no way out. Starting to like it, eventually." His eyes fixed on Sam. "I don't want you to be like me. I like that you're not. And I'm sorry, for how long it took me to figure out that I don't want you alive at any cost." His mouth twitched. "I sure as shit don't want Hell on Earth either, even if literally all they do to you is glue horns to your head. I mean, you know, you've been to Hell, it fucking sucks. And no offense, but no matter how much you mean to me, I don't wanna honeymoon there."
Dean took Sam's hand again, rubbing his knuckles with his thumb. Time passed. Sam could hear people moving around, outside where they were.
"C'mon, man," Dean said softly. "Talk to me."
Sam took a breath, looked at Dean. "It's just. A lot to take in."
"Yeah, well." Dean smirked. "It was for me, too, but I've been doing a whole lotta personal growth here recently."
Sam smiled softly back at him. "We'll have to get you a trophy."
"Damn right you will."
They sat there for a second. Wrenching himself forcefully back into the task at hand, Sam tried to figure out how to approach it, finally settled on something.
"So, the Third Trial," he began. Dean shook his head.
"We can hammer it out later. After the conversation we just had, you need to rest. Hell, it wore me out and I'm not sick."
"Hell's ripping the country apart looking for me," Sam pointed out. "Heaven, too. And the angels are gonna be pissed once they figure out I'm...ruined." He put his hand to his neck, the scar. Dean's eyes followed it, and there was something in them, a little broken and a little bright all at the same time. "We can't afford to waste any time, Dean. How long d'you think we really have? Even in a place like this?"
"Yeah, yeah, all right." Dean patted Sam's hand, looking away. "Fine. Activate nerd mode, Sammy."
Sam let a beat of silence pass then, tentatively, asked, "D-do you want me to use you?"
The answer was immediate and not unexpected. Dean shook his head emphatically. "No." He let go of Sam's hand, sat back. "I'm sorry. I am. But I can't. I've been a demon for thousands of years, or close to one. I was only human for barely more than thirty, and what I remember of it…not sure I miss it all that much." He looked at Sam. "You already changed me much as I wanna be changed. I think. I like who and what I am right now, much as I can. And I wanna stay this way."
Sam nodded, slowly. "I get it. I get not wanting somebody to turn you into something you don't wanna be." Dean's eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn't look away. "And...if it comes down to it. If I had to choose between demon you and human you protecting Vaughn and Bobby and everybody else, I think I'd choose demon you."
Dean didn't respond.
"But - I am worried about one thing," Sam went on. "What if you get sucked back into Hell when the Gates close? We don't know exactly what's gonna happen."
"It'll be fine," Dean replied. "Trust me. I'll stay."
"Dean, you can't know that."
"I do. I'll stay put, no matter what."
"But you can't just - "
"Sam." Dean interrupted him, implacable, calm. "I'm not going back to Hell."
Sam chewed on the inside of one cheek, frustrated, but he didn't exactly have unlimited strength or time to argue about this right now. He let it go.
"Then I'm gonna have to use another demon," he stated. "A scout'd probably be easiest, won't be hard to find. Probably even a few within driving distance, but it'd be be better if - "
Dean interrupted him again. "You're gonna use Alastair."
Sam blinked at him. "Are...are you sure?"
"I am," Dean confirmed. "Bobby and Bela wanna kill him, soon as they know how, but no reason he can't be useful. 'Sides...I don't really want him dead." He leaned forward, and his eyes were burning bitter when he looked up at Sam. "I want him to hurt. And nothing will ever hurt him like being turned back into a human, and being used to close the Gates. No Hell on Earth, no Lucifer rising, no King. None of it, ever again. No hope." He grinned, teeth fully bared. "Now I think about it, might kill him anyway. I'm fine with that."
Sam thought about the way Alastair had spoken to Dean in front of him, what he'd said. How he'd found Dean when he went back to the convent. The symbols he'd seen inside him. He nodded.
"I'll use him."
"Thanks."
"I'm just...worried, I guess. Will it work with a Lord?"
"Ritual doesn't specify a breed, does it?"
"No, but...what about me?" Sam touched his neck again, and looked at the geometric lace of blue veins on his other wrist, thinking about the infernal blood pumping in them. "I'm…"
Dean found his hand again, both of them. He brought them down, clasped them hard and firm and warm. He told Sam, "You're gonna try. No matter what, you're gonna try. And I'm gonna help you."
Sam looked at him. "Will you stay with me? The whole time. All the way through."
"Of course I will," Dean replied. "Least I can do. 'Sides, couldn't leave you if I tried."
A weak laugh spilled out of Sam, followed by a cough. "Guess it's a plan, then."
"Yeah. It is."
The silence that followed was soft, gentle. It felt fragile and heartbroken to Sam, resignation to loss and grief and lifetimes of pain. He wanted to say something that would make Dean feel better, make himself feel better, soothe the ache they both had to be carrying behind their ribs. Nothing would come, though. All he could offer up was the mundane.
"Think I could get a shower?"
The bunker was small. Four rooms small. Sam didn't get the feeling that, when Bobby had been preparing it as a last-resort bolthole, he'd thought there'd be four extra people in there with him. Or that he'd be in a wheelchair. But it was better than the alternative.
Dean pulled the leads off Sam's chest, the IV out of his elbow, and wouldn't respond when he asked him where all the medical equipment had come from. He helped him out of the storage room, Sam weak and shuffling and leaning most of his weight on him, and out in the main room, Vaughn was instantly ecstatic. Dean practically had to knee him back to get him to leave Sam alone.
"He'd love to hang out with you," Dean told him, "but right now, he's gotta take a shower and a nap, in that order. Hey, how 'bout you go put fresh sheets on the cot?"
Bela moved her things out of the tiny bathroom, where she'd been sleeping. Mercifully, there was an actual shower stall; they had access to a well-hidden rainwater cistern, according to Bobby. Sam scrubbed weeks of grime off himself and out of his hair while Dean stood right next to him, getting wet, grabbing him every time he so much as wobbled. Sam might have complained if it hadn't made him feel so safe.
Afterwards, in clean clothes and with clean bedding around him, Sam was tired in a hollow, drifting sort of way. He was sitting up, Dean right next to him, and he had Dean's hands in his lap, holding, touching, slowly tracing the whorls and creases Dean had rebuilt himself years ago.
"Need to sleep, Sam," Dean told him quietly. "We'll take a few days, get you built back up. Then we'll go."
"Uh huh," Sam agreed. He should have laid down, but brought one of Dean's hands up to his mouth instead, kissed crushed knuckles. Every inch of his skin cried out for Dean's. He knew Dean could feel it.
He knew Dean knew how little time they really had.
Dean pulled him in, kissed him. It was gentle, but in a restrained kind of way. He didn't want to hurt Sam but there was a desperate, gasping hunger behind the self-control. Sam kissed him back, harder, begging for more. Dean barely hesitated before giving it to him.
Sam touched Dean, hands under his shirt, on freckles and wiry hair the color of old honey, stomach flat with no real definition, pecs swelling into his palms, nipples hard chocolate nubs under the rough pads of his fingers. He smoothed thumbs over the bows of ribs, found the dip of sternum. He touched collarbone and stubbled throat, Adam's apple, strong jaw, slipped a finger between wet and heaving lips to feel a mouth spit-slick and bee-stung. Sam grabbed Dean's ears, big and jutting against the shaved sides of his head. Dragged his fingers through thick hair cropped short. Whisper fringe of long eyelashes. Shoulders, arms, and he already had the hands, but he touched them again, too, corded tendons and thick fingers with square tips.
Eyes squeezed tightly shut, he tried to make a picture for himself in his mind, touch and sight coming together, a perfect memory of how Dean looked and tasted and felt and smelled. He didn't know if he'd be able to bring anything with him into the nothingness of soul-death. But if he could, he wanted this.
All of this. Bowed legs and stocky hips, strong, broad back, muscles flexing as Dean turned them so he was underneath, Sam on top to thrust up into. Sam wanted the grunts, the groans, all of it swallowed and quiet so no one would hear him. He wanted the smell and taste of sulfur. He wanted Dean's cock, pushing thick into a hole that'd been molded to it, demon imprint all over Sam's insides. The push and pull of their bodies linked together.
Dean touched him, too. Like he was doing the same thing. Sam's hair where it was already curling shaggy over his forehead and ears. Sharp points of his wide cheekbones, his nose, his chin. Slicing hips and hollow stomach, doorknob knees and a hundred moles. Dean cupped him at the join of his legs, then devoted both hands to feeling every inch of Sam's cock and balls and pubic hair. Sam leaned into it, and not just because he was hard.
The orgasm, when it came for both of them at the same time, ripped and juddered and satisfied. It made Sam's teeth ache, and he wasn't sure if it was really that good or if it'd just been that long. Hands braced on Dean's chest, he panted above him, and felt moisture falling out of his eyes, still closed, even though he didn't want to cry.
He went to wipe his tears off Dean's face, after Dean had turned out the lights and the two of them were crushed together in the cot, on their sides, chest-to-chest, arms and legs hooked so no one would fall. But there were too many there for them all to have come out of Sam alone.
