"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Dean cautioned as he landed silently behind the young man with spiked blue hair.
The boy turned, a bit startled, and almost lost his footing on the railing of the bridge. "Who are you?" he asked.
Dean grinned, still a little surprised that he could understand the kid. He was, after all, in the middle of France. "I'm your guardian angel," he said in perfect French, spreading his wings out behind him, smile widening as the kid's jaw dropped.
"You-?"
"Oh, yeah. And let me tell you, you really don't wanna do that. See, if they don't find your body, it'll get all bloated and disgusting. Aw, who am I kidding? That'll happen whether they find you or not. You really want your folks to remember you like that, all bloated and wet and probably full of fish eggs?"
The boy let out a short laugh before turning back to the rushing river beneath him. "I don't think they'd care. They don't like me much."
"That's not true," Dean argued, stepping up to the railing, "I know it for a fact."
"How?"
"I was there once. Would you believe my dad pinned me to a wall and tried to rip my guts apart once? Or that my brother followed me into a gorge and crushed my leg with a boulder before moving in for the kill?"
The kid cringed. "You sure you're an angel? Because your family sounds kind of demonic."
"Well, yeah, I guess they do. Let's just say things got better, OK? Sometimes life looks bad, but you've gotta take it as it comes. My brother and I share a little house in Michigan now, out in the country. He hasn't tried to kill me in 55 years."
The boy's eyes went wide and his jaw dropped again. "55 years? How old are you?"
"About 83, believe it or not."
To Dean's surprise, the kid jumped off the railing and back onto the bridge. "You don't look it."
"What can I say," the angel shrugged, draping an arm around the young man he'd just saved, "I was cursed with beauty."
o0o0o0o
He opened the door to the bungalow only about an hour after he'd left and walked in. "Honey," Dean called out, "I'm home! Had an errand to run in France, if you'll believe it. Some little punk kid tried to jump into a river. I saved him, and my French's gotten better."
He walked toward his brother's room, expecting to find Sam sprawled out on the bed with a book or the laptop open in front of him. "Hey, remember that haunted house in Canada," he said, "and we were talking to that chick at the restaurant, and we walked away and you told me I'd been speaking-"
Sam wasn't in his bed. He wasn't anywhere in the room. In fact, there was no indication that he'd been back in his bedroom since that morning's heart attack. "Sammy?"
He took off through the house, nearly running into a couple of doors as he searched every nook and cranny and closet. There was no sign that Sam had been anywhere in the house recently, but his things were still there, so he couldn't have left.
Finally, Dean decided to check the kitchen, because after the discussion they'd had that morning, he could totally see Sam sitting at the table, eating a sandwich, while his brother frantically searched the house. Oh yeah, Geek Boy was probably laughing it up.
Dean stepped into the kitchen and knew by the amount of blood on the floor that it wasn't a joke. The note taped to the table just confirmed that. It was dated, and timed, and revealed that Sam had written it less than five minutes before. So maybe there was still time.
Slipping in fresh blood, the angel knelt down by his brother's body, pushing the hunting knife away without a second glance. He placed one hand on each of Sam's wrists, right over the long slashes.
"Dean,
Don't even think about it. This is what I want. It's been fun,
-Sam"
A line. That was all he'd written. Well, Dean had never been one to heed his elders, and he wasn't about to start now, not with Sammy's life in the balance. No, he couldn't back down now.
On the floor, surrounded by blood, Sam began to stir, began to breath again, and then began to shout. Dean couldn't even catch half of it before his brother was up and storming into his room.
The angel sat in the kitchen, his brother's blood soaking through his clothes, as the other room erupted into a cacophony of bangs and shatters, followed by defeated sobs.
Slowly, Dean got to his feet to find the mop and try to clean up a little. Sam would come around. He was sure of it.
o0o0o0o
Dinner, for the first time in a long time, was eerily quiet. Normally it was all 'how was your day?' and 'is this pizza delivery?'. There wasn't anything to talk about now, though. The pizza was delivery, and the day had been rough, and both brothers knew it.
Dean wasn't about to let the meal go by in agonizing silence, though. "So," he began slowly, staring down at his greasy piece of pizza, "saved a life today."
"Twice," Sam nodded, his voice bitter.
"Not you, princess. Some spiky-haired kid in France. I tried to tell you before, but you were passed out on the floor."
"I was dead, Dean."
"So, this kid was trying to-"
"Don't change the subject. I was dead, and you should have let me stay dead. At least, that was your opinion 55 years ago. What's dead should stay dead."
"That was different," Dean pointed out, "that was me."
"And now you can't die, and I realize that, but it was your own stupid mistake that made you like this, man, and-"
"You think I don't know that? You think I'm flying around the freakin' globe stopping people jumping off freakin' bridges and blaming someone else? I'm not stupid, Sam. I know whose fault it is."
"Then why don't you let me go?"
"You think I haven't tried that? Man, you try just standing by and watching your only brother die when you know full well you can save him. It ain't as easy as it sounds."
Sam sighed, glancing down at his plate before turning his failing eyes back up to his brother. "Look, I'm sorry, all right. I guess I didn't think-"
"Whatever," Dean muttered, standing up and heading for the door.
"Hey," Sam protested, "you can't just leave in the middle of the fight. You've gotta finish it."
"This isn't about the fight, Sammy. This is about the girl who's about to hang herself in her home on Oak Street."
"You should probably go, then."
"Duty calls." The angel shrugged and turned back to the door. "Oh, and Sam? Stay away from the knives, will ya? Just until I get back."
o0o0o0o
"Stay away from the knives, will ya," Sam mocked as he scrubbed stubborn pieces of cheese from the plates before setting them into the dishwasher, "honestly. How old does he think I am?"
That was when he noticed it. It was sitting right out in the open, out where he could easily spot it. He had to do a double take to make sure he was seeing it right, but it was there. He blinked a couple of times, but the offending item stayed stubbornly where it was.
Rolling his eyes, Sam took the padlock in his hands and silently cursed his brother. Apparently, while the younger, yet older-looking, man had been throwing a tantrum in his bedroom, the angel had decided to avoid a repeat of the day's attempted suicide and locked up the silverware drawer.
Curious, the aging hunter headed down the hallway that led to their little closet armory. The door was locked and chained and boarded over. "I can't believe him," Sam muttered, heading into his own bedroom to find that, somehow, Dean had been there, too. Everything the old man had kept hidden around the room was gone, probably locked up in the closet.
On a whim, Sammy decided to check out his brother's room. Chances that Dean would strip his own private sanctuary of all weaponry were slim to none, and though Sam wasn't about to try and take his own life again (at least not that night, anyway), it couldn't hurt to check.
The door creaked open slowly as the hunter entered and looked around. About a foot of dirty clothes was piled on the floor, blocking any view of the light blue carpet. Mismatched sheets lay crumpled around the bed, which apparently hadn't been made in the past decade or so. Odds and ends cluttered every visible surface of the room. They were obviously things that had piled up over the years because Dean really had a problem letting go of anything.
Sam made his way carefully to the bed and stuck his hand under the pillow, expecting to find the hunting knife his brother was known to hide there. Nothing. He checked the mattress, the closet, even under the mounds of clothing. Still, nothing. The angel had cleaned out his own room, as well.
Sighing, the younger brother stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned to exit the room. He was half-way to the door before he noticed the wooden box sitting atop his brother's unused clothes hamper. Sam wouldn't have thought anything of the small chest, and might have left it alone, had a large Devil's Trap not been etched cleanly into the lid.
He struggled to the box and picked it up, examining it carefully. It was certainly big enough to hold a knife, or even an old fashioned gun. Taking a quick look around the room, Sam popped the latch up and opened the box. He gasped at what he found.
It was the Colt, sitting all snug and cozy, safe and sound, and shocking to see after so many years. He hadn't even known that Dean had kept it, could barely even remember that long-ago trip to the more mountainous region of Colorado to find the gun. But here it was, solid and real and deadly, the only thing Dean had neglected in his sweep of the house.
Or had he?