A/N: Okay. This is a really long chapter, guys. Sorry 'bout that...
Again, thank you to everyone who's reading this and to everyone who has reviewed/favorited/story alerted this.
Disclaimer: If this were mine, the show would consist of nothing but chick-flick moments and brotherly schmoop. But as it is, Supernatural has a plot. So clearly, it does not belong to me.
AU after episode 7x04
It all started very calmly. Or rather, as calmly as a situation like this possibly could.
The leviathans began to chant and one side of the warehouse was sucked away, Purgatory appearing in flashes within the space. It was dark, a black-green and a strange color Dean wasn't sure existed in the natural world. A leviathan started yelling at Sam to get the door to Hell open and Dean watched as Sam closed his eyes, body suddenly going very still.
And just as the first rank of leviathans was about to step into Purgatory, all Hell broke loose.
Literally.
Actually, that was when all Hell and all Heaven and all Purgatory broke loose at the exact same instant.
And okay, yeah. That was more than a little impressive.
The roof was gone, just gone. A mass of black clouds circled above them, randomly dipping, growling, as if it were being pushed at from above, as if it were alive itself. And though he couldn't be positive, Dean figured it was a safe bet that that was Heaven. Then, in a trench right below where Purgatory met the warehouse, the ground separated, the floor shifting and falling into the hole of red and black and burning.
Hell.
Taking a deep breath, Dean tried to calm his fight-or-flight response as the world began to disintegrate around them, rocks, bricks, entire blocks of cement flying through the air, falling to the floor, crashing into the walls. Metal panels and pipes zipped around them, and the outraged cries of a thousand leviathans filled the air. If there was any air left. Which he really wasn't sure there was.
But then, that definitely was not the most of his problems.
Rather, as everything opened, Sam hadn't quite managed to tether them both to the ground. So Dean suddenly found himself thrown through the air, back slamming into a metal wall twenty feet away. And you'd think he'd be busy checking himself for damage, would think he'd be trying to keep himself on the ground. But no. He was too busy realizing that he could only barely make out his brother, standing in the middle of the room. His brother who was making absolutely no move to escape from the growing vortex of building materials.
Staggering back to his feet, he shouted, "Sam!?" Because that was all that mattered. That and only that. Dean's movements were heavy and uncoordinated, becoming worse with every step he took towards Sam's outline. Like moving through water.
If he had paid attention, he would have seen the way the leviathans were being torn apart, thrown in all directions, dragged into Hell and into Heaven and into Purgatory to be shredded.
However, he did see the last one go, grabbing and scrabbling at the disintegrating ground as an invisible force yanked it into the Hell-gate. And he did hear the screaming stop.
All in all, he figured it was kind of anti-climatic. After all of their careful planning, their holier-than-thou, thou art inferior attitudes, it had taken less than a minute to destroy them all. Eject them from the planet. Tear apart their very ability to exist.
And that was totally awesome. When was anything ever this easy for them? Never. Absolutely never.
Never...
...So...
...why were there two outlines across the room?
Last he had checked, Sam was only one person. Sam was one person and Dean had tried relatively hard to keep him that way. So... if there were no leviathans left... and if Dean was here and Sam was supposed to be here... who the hell was the other person?
His mental calculations were derailed when something hard, overly hard, slammed into his shoulder, sending him staggering backwards, undoing any progress he had made in the forward direction.
Note to self: Pissed off bricks did not pull their punches.
Distantly, he found himself wondering if his shoulder could just snap right off. If it could just be torn away and thrown around the room like any number of things already had been. Because it wouldn't be long until it all was torn apart. All of it. And then where would any of them be?
"Sammy!?" He tried to be loud enough to be heard over the whirring, the crashing, and the general destruction that surrounded them. But instead, he found himself choking on rock and smog and ash, lungs burning and seizing.
Then Sam was right there. Right in front of him. Even through the black cloud that filled the room, even through the dust and dirt, he could see only Sam. And his entire world narrowed, focused solely on getting his brother out.
He took another step forward, one more, before he found himself staggering to a stop, conflicting images welling up in his brain. The world was flickering. The world was friggin' flickering. And last he checked, it wasn't supposed to be doing that. It was supposed to stay still. Because when it wasn't still, it was particularly difficult to move or think or breathe or do anything even vaguely normal.
One moment he could see the warehouse. And the next, he saw someplace completely different and the warehouse was gone.
A destroyed city, like the one he had seen in the post-apocalyptic future. And there was Sam. There was Sam, standing across from him, not too far away, almost near enough to touch.
Snapping back to himself, he dragged in lung-fulls of air and distantly realized that he was on his knees, bent over at the waist. And that wasn't right. When had he gotten there? Where- Where was he even supposed to be...?
Warehouse.
Right, warehouse. Crossroads.
Okay.
Looking up, the two silhouettes stood out so clearly against the dark light from Purgatory. The two silhouettes. And he had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Something important. Something crucial. Something he should know.
All around him, the world was falling apart. The doorways were all eating at the warehouse, swallowing it piece by piece. Heaven pulling everything up, metal scrap after metal scrap disappearing into the dark; Purgatory spreading, working around the outsides; Hell pulling down at the floor. And he could see the Sam here, the one that was still standing too far away. The one he could only see through his physical eye. But through his mind's eye, he saw Sam, the one still trapped in his head.
"Sam!?" he called, both in and out of his head. And he didn't want to think about which one was more likely to answer. "Sammy!?"
The Sam in his mind turned to look at him, a shiver wracking the younger's body. Too violent for it to be anything normal. Like he was being yanked in two directions, jolting one way, then the next. "Sorry," Sam said, voice low. "You weren't supposed to get dragged in here. I'm... I'm having a hard time- controlling it..."
And then Dean's head was bouncing off of the concrete ground. He had fallen sideways at some point, something crashing into his ribs and he couldn't breathe. Couldn't breathe hardly at all. And again, it wasn't like there was all that much air in there in the first place. The fact that his lungs had decided to revolt probably wasn't making things any better.
His side was burning, his throat fried within an inch of its life, and he had to wonder if he had somehow gotten sucked into the Hellfire. Because he could see it, the fire, flying out through the ever spreading crack in the ground. And he could see straight into the cage, the one place that had only existed in his nightmares.
A place he had seen only through Sam's eyes.
And he was there.
As everything went quiet, he watched as Lucifer and Michael turned to face him, ever so slowly. So slowly, like they had all the time in the world. Which Dean supposed they did.
Lucifer's smile was gleeful, Michael's calculating. And Dean wanted to throw himself at the walls until someone let him out. But there were no walls, were there? He wanted to yank on that damn rope in his brain until Sam pulled him up. But he didn't know how to do that either. And a part of him wondered if this was how it was going to end. Karmic retribution. For all the Hell he had put Sam through, for the fact that he had essentially sent Sam back here himself, he figured he kind of deserved this.
"Oh, don't worry, Dean," Lucifer sighed. "We won't touch you. You're too boring." Picking at his nails, he absently muttered, "Good thing we have Sammy."
Dean's entire body jolted. Sam. Sammy. Not Sammy. And Dean realized right then why this place was so horrifying. The cage was built from hopelessness, had had that emotion all but melted into its metaphysical bars. Dean should have known he wouldn't be left here. Dean should have known there was no way Sam would leave him alone down here, no way Sam wouldn't find some way to get him out.
...But Dean didn't get Sam out, did he? Not for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years...
Stop!
Wrapping an arm around his chest, he growled, "You don't, you bastard. You don't have Sam and you're never gonna have Sam. Never again." And even through the constant pounding against his brain, the never-ending failure, wrong, couldn't save him, he knew that. Because he didn't have to have hope to believe that. Just like you didn't need hope to know the sky was supposed to be blue. It was just a fact. Something no amount of self-doubt could change.
"Really?" Lucifer answered, pursing his lips as he raised his gaze. "You should really talk to Sammy about that." In that moment, Dean's mind went silent. The growing sense of desperation pausing in its spread, because his mind wasn't able to process both that statement and everything else at the same time.
He watched their smiles grow with a sick sense of emptiness in his chest, and just as he opened his mouth to respond, the world in Dean's mind melted and all he could see was wreckage.
"Sam!?" he shouted, almost growled. Because first, it was a bit concerning that he could reach Lucifer in his mind just as easily as Sam could. Second, they had to get out of the warehouse, had to escape before they ended up worse off than the leviathans. And third, he needed an explanation. Because Lucifer was a bastard and Dean needed to know what the hell he was talking about.
But then, as he took in his surroundings, all other thoughts vanished. There was Sam, standing across from him in the middle of a destroyed city. Buildings were crumbling, bricks slipping into the street as he stood there. It was so much like the future he had seen it was terrifying. Yet this time, Sam wasn't Lucifer. He wasn't Lucifer and this entire world was dreamed up between them.
But then, there was a warehouse. Somewhere. Wasn't there? He had just been there. There were leviathans and bricks and... That's where he was supposed to be... Right?
And then he could see it. His mind divided, the worlds layering on top of each other, the city and the warehouse stacked, fading through each other in his vision. "Sam?" he shouted again. "Sammy!?"
"It's hard to shut off, Dean," the Sam in Dean's head said, turning to look at him, not even flinching as the building behind him crumbled and collapsed. "Sorry about that. The cage wasn't... and you aren't... I'm working on it..."
Dean could see a wound, sluggishly leaking blood on Sam's forehead. And it took him far too long, longer than he figured they had, to determine that it was there on both the physical and the mental Sam. "You're bleeding," Dean returned, cutting him off. Because Sam seemed to be having a difficult time forming sentences. And the less strain Dean put on him at this point, the less possibility there was that their bond would disconnect and one of them would be thrown into Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory.
Sam shrugged, lips quirking upwards. "Lucifer doesn't like us much," Brain-Sam answered, explanation enough.
Pushing himself up, ignoring the pain that lanced through his body, Dean resumed his trek forwards. But it hurt. Because his arm was throbbing and he could feel the cage, could feel the box built of pain and agony and desperation and hopelessness. And it wanted him there. It wanted him there and Dean had to try impossibly hard not to think about how much of that pain and agony and desperation and hopelessness belonged to Sam.
"Sammy..." Dean whispered and the Sam in his head nodded, eyes scanning out over the wasteland of a city. Though Dean wasn't sure what question it was Sam thought he was answering, what he was nodding for, but he knew it was important. It was always important. Finally, the physical Dean reached his brother's side, wind whipping at his face, slapping him harder than any number of women he had unintentionally insulted. He gripped at his brother's shoulder, shaking him with one hand as his other hand stayed tightly wrapped around his ribs.
But Brain-Sam laughed, humorless and empty. "I'm not... not really there right now, Dean. You wanna talk, you gotta come in here."
And before he had even considered that a possibility, Dean went, falling completely into his mind. And there he was, standing next to his brother in the middle of a destroyed city.
As his gaze slipped across the space, he realized his previous descriptions had been wrong. The city wasn't completely demolished, wasn't as destroyed and rundown and screwed up as the city he had seen in the future. Rather, only some of it was. The rest of it was beautiful, skyscrapers stretching upwards in ways that would shame even the best of architects. Intricately perfect in their designs. But before his very eyes, the buildings nearest to him started to decay, the bricks turning old and unstable, decades of neglect passing in less than a second. Any building still standing was being ripped down, torn apart brick by brick by brick. Explosions rang through the air, the sound of metal slamming into concrete causing Dean to flinch.
Shaking his head, Sam sighed, "Shut up. We can't all have forests for brains." Forests for... Forests... Dean hadn't realized he'd said any of that out loud. Actually, he was pretty positive he hadn't. And now he was more than concerned by the fact that this, this collapsing wasteland, was Sam's brain. "Kinda pulled you in here 'cuz I don't really have the juice right now to stop it so just... hang tight for a minute..."
Hang tight?
Hang tight.
Yeah. That was totally going to happen. Dean was awesome at that.
"What're you doing, Sam?" he breathed, following the track of Sam's eyes. Rubble stretched out from where they were standing, as far as he could see in front of him, melding into the yellowish-brown sky so that it was almost impossible for him to tell where one stopped and the other began.
A small smile appeared on Sam's face, one so fake that it actually hurt to look at. "I know you're worried, but don't be," he said, quietly, calmly. As if this was the most normal thing he could possibly be doing while the world outside was busy imploding. "It's my head. I'm pretty used to it even if it's not... usually in such a physical form, but..." His words drifted away and Dean was about to poke him or hit him or do something to drag him back to the present. If this was the present. But then Sam continued, "Y'know, if you can get dragged into the cage through your mind, it's so easy to push yourself into different corners of your brain. Had to figure that out for myself. So I guess this is what my memory banks look like..."
Memory banks.
A city. And as Dean stood there, he heard the deafening sound of another building collapsing, the sound echoing away through the space. Flipping around to stare at what was left of the city, he whispered, "You're tearing it down..." Honestly, tearing down your memory banks didn't seem like that great of an idea. Actually, it sounded like a frickin' terrible idea. "Why are you tearing it down, Sam!? Stop it! We've gotta get outta here!"
Grabbing his brother's wrist, he tugged at him, as if it were physically possible for him to pull Sam out of his own head. Though he knew it wasn't. Not like this. "Y'know the world? That place we always gotta save? Yeah, well it's literally collapsing around us out there! Sam!" he demanded again, though even to him, it sounded more like pleading than an order.
He flinched as another building caved in on itself. The entire place looked like a bomb had gone off, like it had been set on fire and then had the fire put out only for a demolition crew with a trigger-happy foreman to come through and slam holes into everything. "Just shut it down, Sam." Though he knew it couldn't be that easy. It couldn't possibly be that simple.
"You don't get it, Dean!" Sam shouted over the ringing of an explosion. "Lucifer's pissed. He's pissed and he wants out! He's never gonna let go of his side of the door from here to Hell! The only way to make it stop is to cut the bond! That's the only way we can get out!"
"But you can't cut it," Dean returned. "You've never done it before!"
"No time like the present, right?" And that was definitely not what Dean wanted to hear. After weeks of trying, of not being able to do it, how the hell was Sam supposed to just be able to do it now? Right now? With no preparation, with no practice. How was he supposed to manage it before they both died?
As Dean watched, the skyline of the city completely fell apart, debris setting through the air, spreading in a cloud across the fallen remains of the city. And somehow, it all looked more morbid than any of the bodies he had ever seen, more grim than any of the graveyards he had ever walked through. "Dean?" Sam suddenly said, like that fall had triggered something in him. But all Dean could see as he stared at his brother's profile was the defeated look on his face, the pain burning deep in his eyes. "I've... I've done something... and you're not gonna like it."
Okay. When Sam started admitting that he'd done something bad, when he got that godforsaken kicked puppy look on his face, Dean knew there had to be something wrong. More than wrong. He took an aborted step forwards, flinching as a blast of heat hit him from the side. "I mean, it wasn't like it didn't need to happen," Sam continued quickly, crossing his arms over his chest. "I just wish there was another way, y'know? And I don't know if I can do what I've promised." It wasn't until then that Dean realized that Sam's mouth had stopped moving, that he was actually reading his brother's thoughts. And when the next sentence came, he knew Sam wasn't even aware he had heard it. "I'm scared."
"Sam-" he started, reaching his hand out towards his brother's elbow, but then Sam's head snapped up, eyes darting out across the distance. And he was off, tearing through the wreckage. "Shit." Really, Dean had no choice but to run after him. Though even if he had had another choice, he would have run anyways.
After what felt like miles, Sam finally staggered to a stop and Dean gasped air into his burning lungs. "Sam, what the hell is-"
But Sam wasn't paying any attention to him. He was too busy pushing back layer after layer of debris, digging down into the ground. And honestly, Dean didn't even want to think about what that meant saying as this was Sam's brain. "Found it!" Sam shouted victoriously, yanking a cable out of the ground. From where Sam held it, Dean could see it stretch far away from them on either side, traveling for miles underneath the dirt and the debris and the everything that cluttered Sam's mind. Going on forever and ever. Driving down through the very-
That was when Dean got it.
"It's the connection," he whispered, staring into his brother's face. "To Lucifer." Sam's smile grew as he nodded and pulled, yanking up another foot to either of his sides.
Glancing up at him for a moment, Sam wiped one hand on his thigh. "Help me cut it."
Dean knew he should have come up with something to say. Probably something along the lines of "God, I'm so goddamn sorry, Sammy." Because there it was. The source of all of his brother's pain and agony and suffering. Right there in the most physical form it could be.
The cable burned a deep red and Dean had seen blood, Sam's blood, enough times to know that the color of the outside of the tether matched it exactly. And he had seen bone enough times - on dead bodies, after a particularly bad dislocation - to know that beneath all of that red, there was pure white. Ivory. Blood and bone, stretching on to leave Sam forever connected to the devil.
Yes, he should have said something. Probably would have too. But as he took a step forwards, one step, a horrible, ear-piercing scream sliced through the air.
Slamming his hands over his ears, his eyes darted around, realizing that first, he wasn't screaming, and second, Sam wasn't screaming...
So who the hell was it?
"You ruined everything!" a very distinct, very familiar, very female voice shouted. "You screwed it all up, you bastards!" Dean flipped around and somehow, he wasn't surprised when he found that standing right there, right in front of them, was Kathleen, fury and hatred painted across her face. "You're gonna die for this. You're both gonna die again and again and again!" And then her hand flew out and they were both thrown backwards, away from the tether.
Dean gasped as his back once again slammed into metal and shrapnel and he knew that that really couldn't be good for him. It took longer than normal for the world to stop spinning but once it finally did, he gasped, jumping backwards. Because she was right there with absolutely no consideration for his personal space. "How the hell are you even here?" he demanded, gripping at his aching side. The one he hoped was still vaguely in tact.
Kathleen smiled, cold, cruel, and so downright terrifying that Dean knew that if he managed to survive, he was going to have nightmares about that for a long time. "Dean, Dean, Dean," she sighed. Just sighed. And he found himself grabbing at his neck, airways constricted as he was lifted up into the air. "The mind is my playground. I can do whatever I want, make whatever I want in here. And I've been working bonds longer than you've been alive. They're so easy to manipulate. Even easier than people."
Her words cut in and out as his vision grayed, fading away. But before it could go completely, he was on the ground, scrambling backwards, hoping to god he wouldn't catch tetanus by cutting himself on something in his brother's brain. Because that would be particularly difficult to explain.
But instead of cutting himself, his hand hit something warm and Sam-like. "Sammy?" he hissed, shoving at his brother's side. Sam didn't respond though. Only silence. And it was with a sick settling in his stomach that Dean turned around to look. Sam was grabbing at his head, blood streaming and dripping from his nose. "Sam!" The panic in his voice was so clear, so obvious even to him, as he pressed his hand into Sam's back. But Sam didn't hear him. Probably didn't even know he was there. Because Sam was babbling, breath coming out in strained pants. And though he really didn't know what was going on, Dean did know that Sam couldn't last much longer like that.
Even then, the world around him dimmed, went hazy, like Sam wasn't able to maintain it. Like the mind that held them both was fading away.
"Oh, the poor dear." Flipping around, Dean placed himself between his brother and the psycho-bitch who wouldn't leave them alone. "Seems his brain can't handle supporting three bonds. Yours, mine, Lucifer's... It's being torn apart. Must hurt really bad," she said, bottom lip pursing, oozing with fake sympathy. And then Dean could feel it. Dean could feel Sam's pain, like a switch had been flipped, allowing it all to shoot through his brain. He doubled over, unable to see anything, to feel anything except the pounding agony. And in his mind, all he could think was that this was what Sam was feeling. That this is the pain his baby brother had been suffering through for who knew how long.
But it stopped.
It just stopped and Kathleen was in his face again.
"See what I can do, Dean? Minds are so changeable. That block little Sammy put up between his pain and yours might as well be paper in my hands. I can make any bond do whatever I want." Pulling back, she seemed to consider something and then shrugged. Sadly, regrettably, she added, "Except for yours and Sam's. After you started to rebuild yours, I couldn't touch it. Which was really disappointing because do you have any idea the kind of things I could have done with a bond that strong? But see-" she knelt in front of him, tapping his forehead, "-I can do whatever I wanted to Sam and Lucifer's. Make it stronger. Suggest what Lucifer makes him see."
All to weaken his and Sam's bond, Dean realized. All to keep it from growing back. And then-
No way.
Oh, no way in Hell.
As he clutched at his side, pain settling deep in his bones, he rested his hand on his brother's back and growled, "You made him afraid of me." It wasn't a question, didn't need to be because Dean knew. "You made me- You made me hurt him, you bitch!" Next thing he knew, he was on his feet, pressing his forearm against her throat.
He wasn't sure what he had planned to do after that, probably nothing at all, but he had needed to do something. Because he wasn't sure there was a single moment in his life - aside from the numerous times Sam had died - more agonizing than when Sam had recoiled at the sight of him, had curled up in that corner and screamed every time he went near. Because Sam was never supposed to be terrified of him. Never.
She laughed, sending him to his knees as pain shot through his head. "You snapped the bond all by yourself, Dean. You started the ball rolling and you made it so easy to keep rolling. You laid the groundwork so perfectly that I really didn't need to do much of anything. Well, until I needed you to leave. And you wouldn't do it." No, he wouldn't. He wouldn't leave Sam. Never again. Never again was he going to leave Sam and never again was he going to hurt him.
As the pain doubled and everything started to go dark, he thought he heard Sam scream his name. As if from the end of a tunnel, he thought he heard his brother whisper that it was all going to be okay. He wanted to tell him that that was his line. But then the heavy weight of a gun fell into his hand and the pain stopped.
There was a moment of confusion on everyone's part, both Dean and Kathleen staring at the newly appeared weapon in his head. Then the strong, "Take that, bitch," came from Sam and Dean smirked, firing straight at the woman's heart.
At least, where her heart would have been had she been where she was a moment ago. But she wasn't.
She had disappeared.
"Where the hell did she go?" Dean demanded and Sam shrugged, pushing himself up onto his elbows, eyes flickering around. And Dean wanted to let it go at that. He was about to call it over and done with and pretend that they had won.
But then Sam had to go and yell, "Dean!" and point behind him.
He was firing before his eyes had even locked onto a target. But he had seen a glimpse of her, just a flash, and she was gone again, bullet flying through the empty air. "Go, Sam! Cut the tie!" Dean shouted, standing knees bent as he prepared for the next attack.
There she was, just out of the corner of his eye.
Then she was behind him.
At his left.
Right.
He shot again and again, but he never hit.
"I can do this forever," she said, voice echoing all around him. "But the warehouse won't last that long. And unfortunately - for you... neither will Sam." Freezing, muscles locking, Dean flipped around to face his brother. Sam was staggering, blood running from his nose in streams. And Dean knew that being conscious, being able to move at all without screaming and somehow, still keeping Hell at bay, was killing him. It was clear in every step Sam took, and when he knelt, pulling at the bond, Dean knew that they had to end this. And they had to end it now.
Kathleen's laughter shook the air and Dean lashed out with his elbow, managing to catch her right in the face. Sure, it was a lucky shot, but it had hit, and that was what mattered. She staggered back, gripping at her nose as she growled, like a rabid animal. And Dean was shocked that someone that little and originally nonthreatening, someone who had originally looked so nice, could even make a sound that terrifying.
She lunged at him, slamming into his shoulder with enough force to send him crashing into the ground. Raising the weapon, he had it pointed at her chest, was about to fire when her hand tightened into a fist. And that was all it took to have Sam screaming and the gun flickering before it disappeared completely. "Sammy!?" Dean shouted, kicking her off of him, his booted foot landing against her side. "Sam!?" Rolling to his feet, he glanced over at his brother who was hunched over, one hand pressed to his forehead while his other frantically tugged and pulled and tore and did everything it could to destroy the cable in the ground.
Before Dean could take another step, make a move in any direction, he felt his feet leave the ground and he was thrown through the air, breath forced from his lungs as white spots danced across his vision. "Shit," he swore, shaking his head as he forced himself to his feet once again.
She was gone.
But not for long.
And neither one of them could keep doing this.
Looking up, Dean met his brother's gaze and tried to say everything he possibly could in that look, everything he had always meant to say and had somehow, run out of time to. And in that one instant, in the minute nod he gave Sam, they communicated better than if they had talked for a thousand years. It was, "I know you can do this," and, "I'm sorry," and "I know," and, "Whatever happens, it's okay. We're okay."
And a part of Dean really wanted to think that that had something to do with the sudden strength, the sudden light of confidence that appeared in his brother's eyes.
But then the end came.
And it came faster than he had expected.
One moment, he was staring at his brother.
In the next, the bond to Lucifer was separating, thread after thread unraveling, spinning away, deep into the base of Sam's mind. And Dean wanted to be relieved, wanted to thank whatever gods he could think of.
But Sam was staggering. Sam was weaving like a drunk but totally wasn't drunk and Dean was forced to watch, shock freezing him in place as his brother fell to his knees, blood pouring from his mouth. "No!" he shouted, running forwards as Sam's body collapsed sideways. "No, Sammy!"
Sliding to his knees, he was just about to grab his brother's shirt when Sam started to convulse. He started to shake and jerk as the heavy weight of a gun landed back in Dean's hand.
Before he had even fully registered the weapon's presence, he pushed himself up on his knees, flipping around and firing. And in doing so, it took him several seconds to realize that the pain that came with that, that the sudden air sucking agony that spread through his abdomen wasn't normal.
The bullet had made contact though. The bullet had hit her because she was staring down at him, eyes wide and surprised, mouth hanging open as she gripped at the wound in her chest. And distantly, Dean wanted to tell her that it was better now. That maybe, if Heaven was particularly forgiving, she could be with her brother now.
But he didn't. He didn't say anything.
Because he was too busy staring down at his stomach and at the knife that stuck out of it.
His hand slid in the blood that pooled around the wound, caught in his shirt. His hand slipped across a metal panel below him that was now covered in red. And he almost wondered what the side-effects were to having blood fill your memory banks. Not that it mattered all that much anymore. They were both dead or dying anyways.
Gasping, he realized that his lungs weren't working right either, that they burned and that with every inhale, deep shudders ran through his entire body.
And as his eyes raised to the skyline, he watched the last building in the city fall and Sam's mind disintegrated around him.
It happened so abruptly it was like being hit.
He snapped back to the outside world and if his body wasn't already so preoccupied, he probably would have puked. But as it happened, his body was too busy do to any such thing. Curling in on his side, he spat blood out onto the ground. Though it didn't do him any good. More blood welled up in its place, clogging and filling his throat.
And he had to think that maybe he was drowning.
Right before he had come back to himself, he had hoped that if something happened in Sam's mind, it wouldn't actually be that way in the real world. That if it was all metaphysical, then it couldn't hurt the physical. But then, he had seen what had happened to Sam with Lucifer. He had seen the blood covered car what felt like forever ago. Which meant that of course, he was wrong. He couldn't have it any other way.
Coughing as opposed to swallowing, he squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't want to die. And that wasn't really a strange or miraculous or shocking thing for a person to think at a time such as this. It was just one of the things that filtered through your mind, distantly, when you knew what was about to happen. And honestly, you'd think he'd have died enough to be used to the whole thing. You'd think he'd be used to the terror that came with it, the denial, the knowledge that he was about to leave the only place he had ever really known. But he wasn't.
He wasn't...
Peeling his eyes open, his breath hitched, caught, and a strange calm overcame his body.
He wasn't used to it at all.
But Sam was there.
Sam was right there, lying on the ground next to him.
Sam was there. Sam was with him. And really, wasn't that all he had ever needed?
The warehouse was gradually falling apart, the doors to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory slowly sliding shut as the bond holding them open was severed, but none of that was what he focused on. None of it even registered because none of it mattered anymore.
So as he felt his life drain away, quickly, too quickly, as he coughed the blood out of his lungs and body, he used what little energy he had left to push himself a few inches further across the floor, refusing to look back and see the trail of blood he knew he was leaving.
Just to reach Sam.
Lifting his arm, he draped it across Sam's chest, twisting and latching his hand in his brother's shirt. To ground him, he supposed. And he guessed that made sense. Because Sam had always been his anchor. The world could spin away, the floor beneath him could fall, and all he'd ever need to be grounded was Sam.
A tear slid down his cheek as his brother's eyes flew open and met his. And he could see the acceptance there, the acceptance he knew was mirrored in his own gaze.
They had saved the world over and over again. They had kicked ass and taken names. They had carried on the family business.
And now they were done.
With some of the last strength he had available, he used his grip to drag himself even closer to his brother's side. And Dean pressed his cheek against the top of Sam's head, just holding him there, as if he could still protect him. Even now. Even at the end.
And Sam stared up at him as if he believed that he actually could.
Tightening his hold, Dean started humming, hardly able to hear himself over the whirring and screaming around him. But he knew that Sam would be able to feel it reverberate in his chest. And he knew that Sam would know what he was humming and what it meant.
"And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world on your shoulders..."
As he sang, he waited. Just held Sam and waited.
Waited as Sam's body jerked and seized beneath his arm.
Waited as he choked and gasped, heaving up more blood than he knew he could afford.
Waited as he felt Sam's breathing stop, the comforting, familiar rise and fall of his brother's chest stilling.
Just held on as a final tear slid down his cheek.
See ya on the other side, Sammy.
...And he died.
A/N: One chapter left. Hope this conclusion isn't too disappointing.
P.S. If you didn't already know, the lyrics to "Hey Jude" belong to The Beatles. Not me. Shock!