CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Hope
in Hell
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"Sam? What are you doing here?" Dean's voice was as empty as his eyes.
Sam wasn't sure what to do. Dean didn't seem violent. He seemed confused. Maybe he wasn't as bad as John and the demon had implied. "I'm here to help you," he told Dean carefully.
Dean stared at him. "Help me what?"
Sam didn't like the way his brother sounded. There was a tenseness in the air that was impossible to ignore.
"Help you get better," Sam replied. "We have to destroy the Braken, remember? Then you'll get better. Back to normal."
Dean laughed, but it was a cold laugh. "Normal? What's normal?"
If it hadn't been for Dean's stark eyes, Sam might have found it funny too.
"Why are you here, Sam?" Dean repeated. He wasn't confused. There was accusation in his tone.
"The Braken has attacked you, it's taken your soul. We need to get it back." Sam put his hand in his pocket to reach for his cell and waited for the right moment to dial. He was going to need help if Dean wouldn't cooperate. From the sounds of it, Dean didn't want to go anywhere.
"Maybe I don't want it back," Dean said. "What did ever get me except pain? Now... now I feel great. I don't care. Do you have any idea how it feels not to care anymore? Not to give a shit about people and their pathetic lives that I get no thanks for saving, not to care about you and dad and your sorry ungrateful asses...I gotta tell you, it's liberating."
"You're not thinking straight, you don't mean that." Sam tried not to let Dean's words get to him. After all, he wasn't himself.
"Why do you even care? Isn't this what you always wanted, for me not to complicate your life?"
"No, of course not," Sam denied.
"I mean, without me you can get back to that 'normal' you love so much, and not feel guilty about it," Dean continued, hatred lacing his words. "That's the only reason you stick around, right? Guilt? Or maybe it's because you can't go back. You can whine and bitch about it, but deep down you know. This, this life will find you, just like it found you at Stanford. Just like it found Jess."
Sam couldn't help flinching at her name.
"Face it," Dean said acidly. "You're a curse."
That was the trouble with family. They always knew exactly where to stick the knife.
Sam couldn't listen any longer. Dean wasn't himself, he was just trying to get a rise out of him. "Stop it. You're coming with me, whether you want to or not."
Dean shrugged. "I'm thinking not."
Both brothers acted at the same time, attacking front on. It wasn't the first time they had fought, but it was certainly the first time under these conditions. Usually neither of them wanted to cause any real damage. This time Dean wasn't fraught with such a burden. He attacked with fury, while Sam just tried to get the upper hand and subdue him.
Various hits connected on both sides. Their fighting styles were similar, but Dean had always been better at controlling the situation. Dean somehow managed to use Sam's own momentum to swing him around, tripping him as he did so. Sam fell flat on his face, with Dean still holding his arm. Dean then put all his weight onto Sam's back, using his knee as a focus point.
Sam cried out as Dean wrenched his arm and felt it come out of its socket. His body was on fire with pain, and it threatened to pull him under.
"You shouldn't have come looking for me," Dean said viciously. "I don't need you anymore."
Sam was still reeling when suddenly the force Dean had been putting onto his back and arm disappeared, and Dean fell to the ground beside him.
"You alright?" John said as he helped Sam turn over.
"My shoulder..." Sam choked out, exhausted both emotionally and physically.
John took one look and knew it was dislocated. It hadn't been the first time that it had happened, which made it worse. Because Sam knew what had to happen next.
"Ready?" John asked, as he took Sam's hand.
Sam nodded in reply and screwed his eyes tightly shut.
John put his foot under Sam's arm to brace himself. Then he pulled.
Sam shouted out as the pain flooded through him, but felt the joint go back into place. He knew from experience that it would only feel better from this point, but that didn't stop the act from hurting like hell.
"Alright?" John asked.
Sam held his arm and ignored the question, looking over at Dean instead. "What did you do to him?"
John was checking on Dean too. "He'll have a nasty headache when he wakes up," he told Sam. "But he'll live."
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The warehouse was disused. There was no electricity, but the light from the coming dawn was just enough to illuminate most of the large space. Sam wasn't sure it was the best location, but understood that they wanted to attract as little attention as possible, and as John had put it; when Dean woke and the Braken showed up, things might get noisy.
Dean was handcuffed to one of several pipes that went from the floor to the ceiling. He was sitting slumped over on the floor. Sam had cleaned up the cuts on his face, and was troubled to find that most of the blood had not originated from them. Dean's knuckles were busted up, and Sam knew exactly how wounds like that came about. He couldn't help thinking that Dean was already gone. The way he talked, the hate in his eyes when he spoke...it was like another person.
Dean was still unconscious. It would be a while before the Braken showed up. John had told him it didn't like crowds, and usually only showed up when others were there as a last resort. There wasn't much to do but wait.
John caught Sam just staring at his brother. "There's still a chance," he said, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder.
Sam turned and moved away. "He attacked me. He didn't hold back, he was going to kill me."
"You know he isn't in a rational state of mind," John told him firmly. "Dean left because he wanted to protect you from this. Remember that."
Sam tentatively rubbed his shoulder. It was still aching and sore from the dislocation. "Where have you been, dad?" he found himself asking. He was tired and in pain, and everything that had occurred in the past few weeks was slowly caving in on him. He needed an outlet, and unfortunately Dean had busted up his right arm, so that ruled out punching a wall.
"Do we have to talk about this?" John replied.
"There's not much else to talk about."
"Sam..."
"Have you found it yet? The demon that killed mom and Jess?"
"I had its trail," John admitted, "but I lost it. I'll have to pick it up again after I'm done here."
"So you're just gonna go back. Without me and Dean, right?"
"That's right. I told you, you can't be a part of this."
"That's bullshit. You think you're the only one who wants the demon dead, the only one who's got something to want vengeance for?" Sam snapped. "I want to kill that thing as much as you do. You can't exclude me from this, I'm a part of it and so is Dean. We all are. That thing took something from all of us, not just from you."
"Yes, it did, and I can't let it take anymore," John argued. "I can't."
Sam was about to protest some more when another voice joined the conversation.
"Would you two mind just shutting the hell up? My god, you're so whiny."
Sam and John turned to Dean, who was now very awake and rolling his eyes.
"Dean..."
"How are you doing, son?" John asked, keeping a safe distance.
"I'm just great," Dean replied, looking past John and staring at Sam. "I told you not to call him. I asked you. But you did it anyway. What a surprise."
"I know what you did, Dean, and why you did it," John said, trying to stop Dean from playing on Sam's guilt. "But the Braken tricked you."
Dean's eyes shifted from Sam's to John's.
"It can't take a soul unless it's offered." John crouched down by Dean, but didn't let his guard down. "It was never going to take mine."
"So this is what it took to get you here," Dean said bitingly, ignoring John's attempt at connecting with him. "Wow. Maybe I should have tried selling my soul earlier, then I wouldn't have wasted so much time looking for you."
John looked at the floor, guilty and sorrowful. He was reminded of the times Dean had made him feel this way by telling him the cold truth in one of his drunken angers. There was no way of getting through to him then, either. "We're going to make things right," he told Dean, and stood up again. "Just hold on."
"'Cause you're such an expert at making things right," Dean spat, but his anger was suddenly cut short when he drew a sharp breath and leaned his head back as if he was in pain. "I'm sorry...please..."
Dean's eyes roamed around, scared, and his breathing became erratic.
"Just kill me..."
Sam looked away in revulsion, hearing his brother talk like that was never going to leave him, no matter how this turned out.
"Sam, this is going to be okay, you have to trust me on this," John assured, grasping Sam's shoulders and forcing eye contact.
"You said it might not even work, that he might be like this forever," Sam argued, the beginnings of tears starting in his eyes. "So I think it's asking a little much to trust that everything's going to be fine."
"Dean needs you to fight for him," John stated firmly. "And so do I."
Sam bit his lip and nodded resolutely. "I wanna burn this son of a bitch."
John smiled. "That's what I wanted to hear."
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Two hours passed. Dean had been drifting in and out of consciousness, and when he was awake his outbursts had been as disturbing and violent as the previous ones. Sam and John had to work hard to try and ignore the scathing words and pleas for death.
John had prepped Sam on destroying the demon. They had it all planned. If the demon possessed either of them, or Dean, John had a spell to purge the thing from its host. Then when it was in its natural form, the banishing ritual came into play. If everything went to plan it would be cast into the ether, trapped between and eventually starve to death. As John had put it; the bastard deserved nothing less.
"It came to me," Sam suddenly said, breaking the silence.
"The Braken?"
"Offered me a deal. My soul for Dean's."
John looked worried. "You didn't..."
"I didn't," Sam told him. He had clearly been giving this issue some deep thought. "I had a chance to save him, and I didn't. I mean, what does that say about me?"
"It says you're smart enough to know when you're being played," John told him. "The Braken is demon. It lies, and it deceives. If you'd offered it your soul, it probably would have taken it along with Dean's as well."
Sam didn't respond, but he didn't look very convinced by his father's assurances.
"Do you really think that if there was a solid chance that you could save your brother, that you wouldn't take it? Of course you would. We're saving Dean right now, Sam, the best way we know how."
Sam let out a slight laugh. "Yeah, I guess we are."
"Touching, really," Dean said from behind them.
The sarcastic and harsh tone of his voice was nothing new, but it was what Dean said next that caught Sam and John's attention.
"But you really should have taken me up on my offer, Sam."
Dean's eyes were swirling with grey mist once more. The Braken was back.
"Sam..." John said, silently ordering him to start the purging spell.
"Well hi there, John. I thought about making an offer to you, too. But you're too smart for that, aren't you?" the demon said with Dean's voice. "Not smart enough to take me out last time we met, though."
"I learn from my mistakes," John told it, reaching for the Holy Water.
"But not nearly fast enough, John. It's too late to save him. It was too late from the moment he offered his soul to me. Say goodbye to your son."
John watched and Dean screamed as the Braken started to take what was left of his tortured soul from the inside out.
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End
of Chapter Thirteen
Next
Chapter: Overdue