Chapter title: by Kansas, of course.

84

Carry on Wayward Son - Kansas

It got like this sometimes. Dean hadn't said a word to him since Bozeman, hadn't done more than grunt the bare necessities at him, for months now. Yes, no, fine, okay, when clearly nothing was fine and nothing was okay.

He'd screwed up bad.

He wanted to say something, but he didn't know how. Didn't know how to break the ice for fear it might shatter, didn't know how to patch things up when things couldn't be patched over. He looked out the window into the dark.

"I screwed up." It should have been easier to say, easier to admit. He took a deep breath, the air cold and dry up in the Beartooth Mountains. "I should have let her go, after Cody. I should have listened to you, after Dolgeville. If I hadn't wanted to follow her, or Toby, they could have lived their lives. None of this would have happened. This is all my fault."

His voice creaked at the stony set of Dean's face. "I'm sorry."

He shifted in his seat. He'd gambled and lost, and what he had gained, came at too high a price. He stared out the window at the sheer bedrock wall that was one side of the mountain road. It was a road Zee would have loved, all switchbacks and zigzags with a sheer drop off one edge, winding into the night. Involuntarily he glanced into the rearview for the ghost of headlights, but there was nothing there.

Dean had clenched his jaw so tightly that a muscle started ticking at one corner.

"I'm sorry." Sam repeated, for all the good it did, which was none. It didn't begin to make up for any of it. He fisted his hands in his lap. "It should have been me." He stopped when Dean lanced a sharp glance sideways. "Cain said." Sam looked down at his hands. "After you left, Cain said the spell was the one secret he'd kept back from Colette."

He'd wanted to look Dean in the eye when he said that, but he was afraid to.

Dean heaved a sigh, the weight of the world in it. He eyed the road ahead to check they were on a straight stretch, before Dean turned to look at him, eyes starlight bright in the darkness, patient like there was something he just didn't get.

"It wouldn't have worked for Colette."

What?

"What?"

"The spell." Dean said slowly. "It wouldn't have worked for Colette. It wouldn't have worked on Cain."

"What?" He ogled, uncomprehending.

Dean went back to staring straight ahead, hands tight at ten and two, clutching the steering wheel.

"Cain had already lost the thing that would have saved his soul, Sam. The hell that's in Cain's heart; there ain't no erasing that."

Abel.

Zee had already told him, but he hadn't understood.

Look after him, Sam. Keep him safe. Keep his soul safe.

"Dean." It was a broken word, crushed by the weight of everything Dean had given up for him, everything they had lost, and for what? To fight the good fight, when he was slowly but surely losing himself? If sacrifice was the cost of keeping him alive—Benny, Kevin, Zee, Mom—Dean—he couldn't pay it. It was too much.

Dean sighed.

"No, Sammy. I'm sorry."

"What?" He asked blankly for a third time, completely lost now, because why the hell was Dean apologizing to him?

"For putting all this on you. For keeping you in the life. You were right. I couldn't…" Dean shook his head briefly. "… not you. Not again. This thing we do, saving people, hunting things? The family business? I think it's the right thing to do. It's the thing that I do. And what does any of it mean, if I can't save you?" Dean paused. "But in the end, I haven't saved you, have I, Sam? Not in the way it really matters, Sammy. Not for yourself."

"Dean."

"Let me finish. When Cas was human, I told him to walk away. This wasn't his fight anymore. But you've never really had that choice, have you? And you should. You've done good, Sam. You've done enough."

He gaped at his brother. He tried his best not to, but he gaped anyway. His hand itched toward his flask of holy water or toward the holy oil, because …

Was he getting fired?

"I tracked her." He blurted. "I know you told me not to, but I tracked her. When we found her again, at that churchyard in Trappe, that wasn't an accident."

Dean's hand tightened on the wheel, but there was no surprise on his face. Dean kept his eyes straight ahead and unblinking on the slick asphalt, and Sam braced himself. If anything, Dean just looked resigned, as if talking was a thing they were doing now, and he was in for both the dime and the dollar.

"Sammy…" Dean paused, lips pursed, before he sighed. "Back at Trappe -that wasn't an anti-telekinesis hex." Dean said abruptly. "It was a bind."

A….

Cupid's bowstring.

Never did like the wanker. Don't worry about that.

The third element to break Metatron's spell.

"I didn't…. I didn't think…." Dean ground out, low, squeezing his eyes hard shut for a second. "The spell shouldn't have worked, dammit. I was supposed to be a friggin' job. A useful weapon, at best. " Dean inhaled like he couldn't get enough air. "I thought—maybe—despite everything—that you might try. You, or maybe Cas. But I never thought … I never expected…" Dean stopped and breathed fiercely through his nose for a full minute. "She should've exorcised my ass from the word go."

The next breath Dean took was broken. "Why?"

Saving people, hunting things, when they had first met Zee in Dolgeville, in that clearing.

She had hesitated; her hand on the hilt of her katana.

Wolf eyes, somehow both fire and ice. In a dark alley, a wise man steered clear.

What had she seen?

"I think," Sam said slowly, "Somehow… she saw you, Dean, even when I didn't. Back in that clearing in Dolgeville, she saw you. Not a demon. Not a hero." Dean winced. "Just a man." Sam stopped, because he knew what Zee would have said, and the words felt right in his heart. "A righteous man."

Dean's breath hitched.

"Sam, I…"

And Dean cut off there, because, yeah.

The road wound on out into the darkness, a blur of black under the Impala's wheels. The windshield was misted with rain, and the center yellow bright under the headlights. There was still a lunatic archangel on the loose, hell bent on reshaping the world, on top of the everyday monsters and demons and lost souls.

He had dreamt once, of a different life, of being normal. Of someday, being just a person.

But maybe he had had this backwards all along.

Sam sank deeper into the seat and leaned his head against the side, finding a familiar uncomfortable angle between the window and the seat. Dean shot him a glance just as he closed his eyes and settled himself in to sleep.

"Wake me up when it's my turn to drive." he said to his brother. "We've got work to do."

FIN

Except, this is Supernatural, and the end is never really quite the end? There is one more chapter. :-)