Chapter Four

Since Dean was wearing nothing other than boxers, Sam couldn't very well grab him up by tee and flannel shirt—or tee, flannel shirt, and jacket—and drag his brother into the corridor.

Or even, for that matter, clutch at his clothes in bunched up fists and hurl him against a wall right here in the bunker, in the dungeon, in front of Crowley, much as he wanted to.

Before Crowley, who'd said in that supercilious way: "It's always such fun watching the children play."

So Sam clamped one big, broad, long-fingered hand around the hard biceps of Dean's left arm, and—because Sam understood the art of leverage when it applied to his brother—hitched him around and off-balance before Dean could settle his center of gravity into something approaching a boat anchor. Because he could do that. Dean was shorter by three inches, but he was every bit as broad and actually heavier through the shoulders, and his quick-twitch muscles fired far faster than Sam's, who had always felt that with his wing-span and leg length it took the nerve impulses from his brain longer to engage his limbs. Which was why Dean could give up those inches as well as thirty pounds and still win. Sam knew this from long, hard, often painful personal experience.

Boat anchor. Yeah.

Sam clutched at the anchor chain—arm—and swung the entire apparatus. Just enough that it gave, wobbled, fought for balance, and then he shoved as hard as he could to aim that damn anchor through the dungeon door and over the side of the boat into the hallway.

"—dammit, Sam—"

Sam yanked closed the door marked 7B and spun to face his brother, to block him with his body. "We are not doing this!"

Dean paused on an immediate come-back, assessed his brother. "You aren't doing anything," he replied, in the smug, amused way he did when he knew he'd won. Or would win.

Because if he'd lost, Dean would be pissed. A not-pissed Dean, who'd been physically, forcefully, angrily shoved by his baby brother out of a room and through a door in front of the King of Hell, would not sound so, so . . . sanguine.

"We—you—are not doing this. You're just not." Sam poked a finger into Dean's shoulder at collar bone-level, into the meat just above the tattoo, ignored the twitch in his brother's jaw. "Hear me?"

"I did just go down there," Dean reminded him, still sounding mild, and smug, and older to younger. "You know, to hell."

"Yeah, and you didn't wait for me!" Sam yelled, who in that moment felt all of the years between them and didn't care. Or maybe he cared more.

"No, you didn't wait for me!" Smugness, amusement, and mildness evaporated. Dean, who was now doing his boat anchor impression with legs slightly spread, shoulders loose and poised, yelled back. "Jesus, Sam—maybe we are in some kind of asshole, testosterone-powered, screwed-to-hell competition. You go to hell, to the damn cage, without me, and meet with Lucifer. Hell, you do more than meet with the guy! You end up in the cage with him! And me? There I go rescuing you again—"

Sam couldn't help but throw it in his face, now that they were down to it, because he fought dirty when he was angry. Always had. "He nearly choked you out, Dean. That's hardly a rescue."

In front of Dad, Dean never got furious, never did much more than throw an arm, a shoulder between them. But once wound up with Sam, with Dad out of the picture, he didn't slow down. Didn't much listen. Single-minded, yeah. Inexorable as an avalanche, once up to speed. "—and now here we are with the former King of Hell sitting in our very own devil's trap, and he says he knows a way to destroy Lucifer and the Darkness. Hello? Isn't that what we do? Isn't that the bumper sticker?"

Sam spread both arms out to his sides, and in one hand he still clutched Ruby's knife. "He wants to hitch a ride, Dean! Get up in your head! Crowley!"

The angel blade glinted in Dean's grasp. "Yeah? So? He did it with you, you moron! He's the one who clued you in to Gadreel camped out in your skull—"

Anger, coupled with resentment, kindled. "—and why was that, Dean? Tell me again why Gadreel was there. I didn't invite him in!"

"You consented—"

"I was tricked! You said it yourself. You tricked me. Well, this time it's Crowley tricking you. Jesus, Dean, are you totally nuts? Do you have selective memory? Because I remember what the Mark did to you, and how it made you into a demon, and how you chose the King of Hell over me!" Sam gulped painfully, felt the sting in his eyes. "I remember every word of it. What you said. I know it wasn't you, but those kind of words you just don't forget. Crowley did that. He set you up. And he's doing it again."

"Pot, kettle," his brother said sharply, with the kind of icy hostility that set the hair rising on the back of Sam's neck. Dean flared hot, but a sustained burn was cold.

"Dean, you can't do this! " He caught his breath again, choked back the sob. "I spent time with Lucifer. A lot of time. My body was back topside, but I wasn't, and I remember every second, every hour—"

"So do I!" Dean roared. "I wish I couldn't remember a damn thing, but I do!" In the bunker's dim lighting, his eloquent eyes were occluded behind the sheen of moisture. "At least when I was a demon, I had an excuse. You know? But then—then? I crawled off that rack and became a monster, and it was all me. I traded those four decades for your life, Sam, and I'd do it again. In a heartbeat. Wouldn't think twice about it. The least I can do now is to trade a few hours to save the world."

Sam shook his head vehemently; he couldn't give up, couldn't give in. Too much depended on it. "We don't know that Crowley's right—or that he's telling the truth. Or that he isn't setting us up for something else. He plays the long con."

"Grandmother, eggs," Dean bit out. "Can't you trust me to know what I'm doing? Can't you put some faith in me?"

"No!" Sam shouted, and without thinking slammed a stiffened palm against his brother's chest, shoved him backward. Moved the anchor again, because he had to. "I saw you, Dean. What you were. I saw those black eyes. And it made me remember something you said to me all those years ago: 'If I didn't know you, I would hunt you.' Dammit, Dean—I don't want to lose you again. I don't want you to do something stupid like taking on the Mark of Cain as a means to an end. I don't want to hunt you. But if you go darkside again, I will hunt you. Because that's what Dad taught us." Sam's mouth jerked. 'If you can't save him, you'll have to kill him.' Two-way street, Dean. God dammit, you stubborn asshole, it's a two-way street!"

His brother's eyes were so wide, and so black, with the pupils blown in fury, that Sam saw an echo of the demon in them. "Well, then," Dean said, "I guess we know where we stand."

"Dean, wait—" Sam reached out.

His hand was struck down. "Don't you touch me."

"Dean—"

"Can't you understand?" His brother's voice rose out of its rumble; and in his tone was pain, and guilt, and despair. "It's bigger than you and me. You told me, in that hospital, that we have to remember what we were, that we can't keep making it about us. This isn't, Sam. This is about Lucifer, who is so frightened of the Darkness he's willing to do anything to stop it. Lucifer, Sam! The angels, the demons—hell, even the monsters are afraid. It's not Crowley. It's not Crowley at all. It's everything, Sammy. And we have to do something about it. This is our screw-up, from the time I took on the Mark and you got it off me. We have to clean it up. Whatever it takes."

Until that instant, Sam hadn't truly comprehended. Probably when Dean had come clean with him, had placed the burden of destroying Amara on his younger brother's shoulders because he knew he lacked the answer, the ability—and just what did that knowledge, that admission, do to his control freak of a brother?—Sam should have seen it, but he didn't.

Dean was afraid.

Dean was desperate.

He'd jump-started the apocalypse. How does a man live with that?

He stops the sequel.

They'd both, in their own ways, loosed the Darkness. But Sam saw it as a by-product, while Dean took it on as guilt.

"You are not," Sam said, as his voice broke, "responsible for everything."

Dean's eyes were dark, but no demon lived in them. Only the human. "I'm responsible for this."

This time when Sam reached out, when he briefly pressed the heel of his hand against the sweep of his brother's collar bone, just for a moment, and as his fingers curved over his shoulder, Dean did not knock it away. It wasn't intimacy. It was contact, and contract, and the unspoken bond of men in a foxhole. "I can't," Sam said. "I can't lose you again. I've been alone. I thought I could make it work. But I can't . . . and I don't want to be there again."

~ tbc ~

If you have enjoyed up to this point, THANK you. I do hope to finish this within the next couple of weeks. Please check back, or "Follow" for regular updates. If you're so inclined, let me know what you think! 8-)