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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
When they got within a few blocks of the apartment building, Dean parked the car. They went to the trunk to arm themselves, just like it was a regular hunt. Except that as soon as Dean closed the trunk, he grabbed Sam’s shirt, using surprise and momentum to slam him back into the side of the car. “If you switch sides on me and get Dad killed—”
Sam felt his gun grind into the small of his back, bruising him. He looked down at Dean, still beautiful with his brows lowered in fury. Dean’s hands on him, in anger now, strong and unflinching. Dean’s weight against him, pressing him against unforgiving black metal.
If Dean let himself think about it, he had to know that John was probably dead, and that going into that building was likely to be a one-way trip.
“I’m with you all the way,” Sam said.
Dean’s face twitched as if Sam had just punched him in the gut. “Like you care if he dies,” Dean spat out.
Sam brought his hands up and out, the way he’d placate a gunman. “I don’t want anybody else to die,” he said, as softly as he could. “It’s time to choose, Dean. Trust me or ditch me, but pick one, or you’re not gonna be able to keep your eyes on the prize here.”
Dean’s fingers clenched, tugging Sam’s shirt tighter, then released. Dean stepped back, cutting his eyes away from Sam.
Sam followed him towards the Sunrise Apartments in silence.
When they got within sight of it, Sam frowned, dismayed. It was far too large for his comfort.
“Anyone in that complex might be possessed,” Dean said. His tone was neutral, as if he’d forgotten the previous conversation, or maybe even decided to put the issue aside for the time being. Sam felt a stab of hope, hot and painful as a knife.
“I can usually detect demons,” Sam informed him. “But sometimes it takes me a couple of minutes.”
“Well, that’s no good.” Dean ran his thumb over his lower lip, considering. “Set off the fire alarm, cut down on the number of civilians?”
“Fire department shows up, things might get messy.”
Dean shifted on his feet. “We’ll work fast.”
“I don’t have anything better,” Sam admitted.
Dean snorted. “Yeah. So let’s get straight on this: you want Azazel dead and so do I. We get that done, I’m through. You can go conquer the world like you’re supposed to.”
Sam took a couple of deep breaths, then gave up. “I know what you think of me. But—it’s not worth it, Dean. Azazel isn’t worth you dying.”
Dean headed towards the building. Sam followed.
They found the first demons on the second floor, charging at them with black eyes and crazed roars. Dean spewed out Latin, forcing them to cringe, while he and Sam pulled out the holy water and prepared themselves.
It was hard to get his hands on the possessed woman and pull her collar down to expose her neck, but once he’d managed that, it wasn’t that much more difficult to slap down the exorcism printed on the temporary tattoo paper that Dean had bought on a hunch. Make-your-own transfers with the Rituale Romanum printed out on them; only Dean.
The words adhered and the demon snapped the woman’s head up, screaming itself into the ceiling.
Dean’s target was also collapsed on the hallway floor. Sam spared a moment to stare at Dean in raw admiration, and then it was time to keep looking.
John was tied to a bed on the third floor. He was badly bruised, but there were no visible incapacitating wounds.
He was very badly guarded, Sam realized as they carried him down the stairs. He also wasn’t light. “I’ll bring the car around to the alley,” Sam told Dean when they’d left the building. Two fire trucks were already blocking the street, but the alley was clear.
Except that as he was reaching for the driver’s side door, a man barreled into him, sending him across the concrete in a stinging slide. The first punch snapped something in his left cheek; the second, on the right, sent the left side of his head rebounding against the ground, increasing the pain exponentially.
“That was my sister, you human stain.”
There was more, something about a king, but he didn’t really get it, what with having the shit kicked out of him.
And then there was a gunshot, and after that silence.
Sam heaved himself over on his side, threw up, and then managed to drag his head far enough off the ground to see Dean, pale and shaking, the Colt drifting down now that he no longer had anything to aim at.
Dean shook off his paralysis and hurried over to help Sam to his feet. He could feel that the bruises would be bone-deep, and he’d probably cracked a couple of ribs. “I ran out of exorcisms,” Dean said, not looking at Sam even though he was propping Sam up with an arm around his shoulder. “And I couldn’t—he was swinging so hard, I thought—”
“Two bullets left,” Sam managed. His mouth was salt-sweet with the taste of his own blood.
“You don’t get to check out before the end of this,” Dean told him.
****
Even though he had no obvious injuries, John stayed unconscious through the entire trip to some cabin in the middle of nowhere that Bobby promised would be a safe place to hide. Sam also passed out for some of the trip, but Dean prodded him awake every hour because, he said, Sam had taken a hit or two to the head. Sam didn’t remember that, but since every cell in his body, including the ones in his hair, hurt like fuck, he was willing to accept Dean’s story.
“You know,” he said once, when Dean had made him take another painkiller and drink a bottle of water, “he was alone with them for hours. He could be possessed.”
“Used the last of the holy water on him last time I gassed up. Nothin’ happened.”
Sam smiled. It hurt. “Should’ve known you’d have it covered,” he said, and let himself sleep again.
****
Leaving the car was almost as painful as the original beating, because of how stiff he’d gotten during transit. Dean took pity on him and carried John into the cabin and just let Sam limp in after. The place was a total shithole, paint peeling off of the wooden plank walls, piles of insect husks in every corner where years of spiders had dropped them, only a bare mattress for John.
Sam eased himself to the floor and fell asleep sitting up.
He woke to the sound of John’s voice, low and gentle. “I’m glad you saved him, even if it did take a bullet. You know how to take care of your own, son, and I’m proud of you.”
He blinked, hearing Dean shift and stand. On instinct, he pushed himself upright against the wall, ignoring the pain as best he could. “Wha’s goin’ on?” he asked, pushing his hair out of his eyes. Dean was on the opposite side of the cabin, backing away from John, who was standing in the middle of the room, his hands raised like the patriarch about to offer his blessing.
“That’s not my father,” Dean said, raising the Colt.
The gun flew out of his hand and hit the wall, bouncing down to the abandoned mattress. Sam reached out for it, but both he and Dean were flung back against the cabin walls. The impact rattled Sam’s bones and caused a nuclear bomb to go off in the back of his head. He fought to stay conscious; TK was as out of his reach as particle physics right now.
“The holy water,” he managed.
Father—of course it was Father—turned to him and sneered with John’s face. “You think something like that works on something like me? I’m not some corrupt ex-human or half-human. I am an angel from on high!” Father’s eyes flared yellow, and it was every terrified moment of his childhood all again, dry-heaving with the knowledge of the impossibility of escape.
“I hear the mighty have fallen,” Dean said from where he was pinned like a bug. “What the fuck do you want?”
Father strode over to Dean. He looked Dean over from toes to crown, the way a shopper might examine a cut of meat. Then he roughly undid Dean’s jeans, sticking his hand in and grabbing. Dean’s face grew impossibly whiter. “So this is what you’re proposing to abandon your father for,” Father said, his tone grave and disappointed.
“Don’t you touch him!” Sam snarled, terror a black clawing thing within him like another demon.
“Why not?” Father asked. Sam could see the muscles of John Winchester’s forearm moving. Dean gasped, then clamped his jaws shut. “We’re all family here.”
They both froze.
“What?” Father withdrew his hand and licked the palm. “Mmm, he is tasty. I foresee a threesome in our future. Do you mean to tell me you haven’t figured it out, Sam? Even with all the breadcrumbs?”
He smiled, too wide for John Winchester’s mouth. “I got a prophecy in hand, said my plan would take a psychic and a normal, bound by blood. I couldn’t have him in our little creche—one of you vicious lovelies would have eaten him alive. And then I didn’t want you to get confused about your loyalties when you finally met. Long-lost brothers sounds so heroic, doesn’t it? I needed to tawdry it up a little. So: you were born the night little Sammy Winchester died, and when I say born, what I really mean is more of a metaphor than the whole umbilical cord-and-squalling thing.”
“My mother—” Sam began. He’d stared at the photo of her for hours, looking at the shape of her face, seeing bits of himself there.
Father rolled his eyes. “You mean that picture I picked up in a thrift store?”
No. No and no and no and no.
Pinned up on the wall, Dean was also shaking his head.
“Oh yes,” Father said, staring straight at Sam. “Sam has two daddies, and they’re both right here. You’ve been giving it to your brother in every way you can think of—some that even impressed me--for months now. And knowing that, you still want him.
“Let’s get all our cards on the table. You are evil, my little seducer, and your desires are evil, while your big brother is good, and the only way you get to have him is chained to your throne in Hell. So embrace your destiny, and our little family can live happily ever after.”
He knew how truly stupid it was to take his eyes off Father, but it was like fighting gravity. Dean had left off denial and was working on horror. Even his lips were pale and his forehead shone with sweat. As Sam watched, he retched and just held back from vomiting all down his shirt.
Father chuckled, running his hands over Dean’s chest, his stomach. He leaned in and bit deliberately along the line of Dean’s jaw, John Winchester’s tongue flickering obscenely over Dean’s skin. “Don’t worry,” he crooned. “You’re so hot for little brother, it won’t take any time for you to get used to Daddy.”
Sam lunged against the power holding him pinned. He could feel that there was a weakness in Father’s grasp, an unevenness that could be exploited, if he could only pull enough out of himself.
“Dad,” Dean gasped. “Help me, please. Fight it.”
Sam wanted to explain: John couldn’t, no matter how much he loved Dean. Meg Masters probably had people to fight for too. It wasn’t about love or will, any more than surviving being hit by a train was. It was about power. Dean was ignoring everything he knew about possession because Dean had made John into his god, and Sam saw now how that must have weighed on John.
“You want to know the best part?” Father asked, turning to look back over his shoulder at Sam. “Dean here never really believed you loved him. Not because you’re not capable of it—he couldn’t know that--but because poor little Dean isn’t worthy of anyone’s love, even a bastard like you.”
“Daddy,” Dean tried again, the word bubbling out along with a fresh gout of blood. His head lolled on his neck. Blood stained the front of his T-shirt like sweat. Sam tried to shake his head, tried to come up with words that would make Dean hear the truth, but the pressure holding him in place was too strong. It was a cage, a mental presence made of barbed wire, bits and pieces sticking out all over, threads tangled up together, all wrapped around a central corkscrew that he could—just—reach—
Something tore, deep inside his brain. He thought he might be having a stroke. It was like his mind was made of layers of velcro, coming slowly apart, unwrapping itself until the pain was gone and the only thing left was one word.
He came off of the wall like a supermagnet had been shut off, landing on his feet just like Dean had taught him.
Sam held his hand out and the Colt smacked into his palm. The metal was all complicated angles and sharp edges. He found the trigger by trained instinct.
He aimed the gun.
“Whoa, I bet nobody saw that coming!” Father’s voice was as jolly and condescending as it had been when Sam was thirteen and had tried to run away. He remembered the punishment for that and his heart tripled its beats. Blood dripped steadily from his nose, and the skin under his eyes was wet.
Rage was the only corrective for fear. Father didn’t have the upper hand now. Sam reached for every iota of anger and resentment he’d ever felt.
“Kill me if you must,” Father said, “but I promise you, your work will be a lot easier to do with me around to help. There’s an army of demons waiting for you, and if you don’t take advantage of my experience they’ll put you on a spit and tear you apart an inch at a time instead of bowing to you.”
A neglected piece of glass exploded off to the side. Sam’s muscles locked tight, ready for a fight that couldn’t be physical.
“I’ll make it easier for you,” Father continued. “Let’s see what John-boy has to say.”
John’s face contorted as Father burrowed back under. The body twitched, still held rigidly under Father’s control. “Shoot me,” John Winchester begged.
Dean made a noise like a dog being sacrificed.
Then John was gone again, drowned under Father’s control. Sam could see the path the bullet would take, the way that gold lightning would wrap around the stolen body and split Father open.
The vision changed, sped up: Father fell dead, and Dean rushed to the corpse’s side, sobbing helplessly. He shook off Sam’s comforting hand, turned his back to Sam, wouldn’t listen or look until Sam made him. And then there were the Nephilim to deal with, so he had to keep Dean under control just until they were both safe, just until Dean calmed down. After that the competition grew more diffuse and varied: hunters, demons, a last-ditch stand by a coalition of witches and other practitioners. In the middle of it all, he noticed how Dean was hurting himself, and that was unacceptable. Applying the additional binding tattoos took time he couldn’t afford, and he had to sacrifice most of the Eastern seaboard, but it wasn’t like he had any friends there, or anywhere but right beside him. When it was over, Dean smiled again, for the first time in years it seemed, and his presence gave Sam the strength he needed.
Father was wrong. Chains were entirely unnecessary.
Sam blinked and the red-tinged images were gone. Father was still smirking at him. “You can take the high road or the low road, son. They go the same place in the end.”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “One’s got a hell of a lot better scenery, old man.”
Father laughed, full-throated; Sam heard Dean gagging. “That’s why you’re my favorite, Sammy, you give me lip. So what’s it gonna be, son? Lead or bleed?” Dean started to choke again, and Sam understood that Father was giving him a countdown.
Either way, Dean was lost to him. That made it impossible to allow Father to survive. But—
There were three people here. Three choices, only one of them that Father hadn’t been able to control. Fear and rage and love.
“I love you, Dean,” he said. “And I’m sorry I can’t do what you asked.”
Hatred flared for a second in Dean’s eyes, chased out by despair.
Sam lowered the Colt. Father raised his eyebrows, but his grin was as confident as ever. “I hope you won’t attribute it to bias when I say—”
Sam fired. The bullet took Father in the meat of the thigh, spinning John Winchester’s body back. Father screamed as the light crackled over him, howled as his true form reasserted itself, and rushed out in a torrent of black before John Winchester’s head hit the floor.
Without thinking about it, Sam began reciting Sue-Ann LeGrange’s binding spell. The altar and the rest of the trappings weren’t as important as will and understanding. The spell wasn’t enough to hold Father; he was far too strong for that. But Sam ripped power out of the cloud, grabbing it for himself. Father’s essence was like blackstrap molasses, thick and chokingly sweet, rubbing around Sam’s insides. He clamped down, winding it around itself. It was like twisting a guinea worm around a stick to get it out of a human body, slow and painful. Father was fleeing, and now Sam was only picking up shreds, but he still felt gravid with dark energy.
He looked at John and Dean, crumpled on the floor like mirror images twenty-five years removed from each other. Dean’s T-shirt was shiny with blood, sopping with it. Azazel’s power wasn’t a healing power, but it could be used to hold things in stasis, so that was what he set about doing.
****
No one could explain how Dean could have sustained such internal injuries without more severe external trauma, but the doctors pumped blood and drugs into him anyway.
John Winchester’s bullet wound, a straight through-and-through, was treated in the ER.
Sam refused an examination, claiming that their supposed carjacking had done nothing more than bruise him. Because he was in the best shape of the three of them, he was the one who talked to the police, explaining that John’s truck had been stolen by men with guns, but not before they’d all been beaten and John had been shot. He gave the police artist descriptions of Tom and Jake, because that couldn’t hurt either of them. John would have to change the plates on his truck, whenever he managed to pick it up again, but Sam considered that a small price to pay.
After Sam was through with the cops, he and John sat like grave guardians on opposite sides of Dean’s bed. The most conversation they managed was when Sam asked if John wanted coffee from the cafeteria. Getting it, he remembered how Dean used to bring it and dumped half a canister of sugar in.
When he got back to Dean’s room, pushing the door open with his elbow because both hands were full, John was leaning over Dean’s bed. The murmur of their voices fell silent and they both turned their heads to watch him get closer. Dean’s eyes were as blank as grass, free of judgment or forgiveness, and soon he’d slipped back into a state between sleep and unconsciousness.
John drank his coffee without comment.
Within forty-eight hours, Dean was coherent enough to check out AMA, even if he didn’t manage to fight off the wheelchair they made him use until he got to the door. Dean protested when Sam opened the back door of the Impala. Still, he laid down on the seat when Sam didn’t bother to respond.
John looked at the key in Sam’s hand like he expected Sam to offer to let him drive. If he couldn’t say it, though, he could just deal, like Sam was dealing.
Sam took them to the third-nearest motel, one with flags from dozens of nations out in front like a flat, cheap UN. He rented two rooms.
He brought Dean’s duffel into the first one (Italy) while John got Dean out of the car, and then they both helped Dean inside. It would have been more efficient and less agonizing for either one of them to carry him, but Dean wasn’t far enough gone to allow that.
Dean laid back on the bed, panting with pain and effort. He stared up at the two of them through the screen of his lashes. “Check in with you in a couple of hours, Dad?” he asked at last.
John started. Sam gave him the other key, unable to meet his eyes, and breathed for the first time in days.
****
Dean didn’t say anything to him when he brought his bag in. By the time Sam had made his mind up that they were going to talk, Dean was asleep again, open-mouthed, only the rise and fall of his chest signalling his continued presence.
Sam sat at the little desk across from the bed and got a good look, fixing the pale skin and the bruises in his mind. He’d done this. He’d done this to Dean.
There were too many things to say and not enough apologies in the world. He couldn’t even tell Dean that he’d meant well, because that would have been the biggest lie of all.
His brain simply refused to process Father’s—Azazel’s—revelations. When he tried to think ‘father’ or ‘brother’ the words just skittered away from every other thought like drops of water on a hot griddle. It wasn’t that the concepts were meaningless. They’d always meant danger and fear and pain. But now everything was worse, twisted and bloody.
Right before he’d left Azazel for Dean, one of his—one of the other psychics had just given up. Susan, who’d never been at the front of the pack or the rear, whose best talent was in creating illusions. She could make you smell roses while you were stepping in rot. One day, she simply stopped: stopped getting out of bed, stopped responding to Father’s orders, stopped resisting attacks. She’d been dead within three days, and Sam had been furious at her for behaving so incomprehensibly.
He hadn’t understood what it was like to find an impassible wall inside oneself, a blank space where reason and emotion both fell away.
Maybe Susan hadn’t wanted to die either. Maybe she just couldn’t figure out how to live.
Dean slept for over four hours, waking with a gasp as he tried to sit up, and then a sigh as he gave up and slumped back into place on the bed. Sam was instantly on his feet, wanting to come over.
“Near sunset,” Dean said, looking at the pattern the sun made against the side wall.
“Yeah?” Sam asked, not following.
“Help me outside? I wanna see it.”
As Dean obviously knew, Sam would have complied with any request up to and including ‘spoon-feed me your liver,’ so he was up and across the floor in moments, easing Dean to a sitting position, then supporting him so that he could stand and shuffle over to the door.
He had to leave Dean propped up against the outside wall in order to retrieve a couple of chairs from inside, but he wasn’t going to make Dean sit on the ground.
He put his chair next to Dean’s. If Dean told him to go, he would, but Dean was going to have to say it.
Dean sighed, letting his head fall back. “This sucks.”
Sam barked a laugh. “You want to specify?”
“Nah, I think that about covers it.”
“Dean—”
Dean straightened up, shuffled in his seat a little, and winced. “So I guess this is the part where we talk about what happens next.”
“That’s up to you,” Sam said cautiously.
Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “Dad—doesn’t remember. Not what Azazel did or what he said when he was in charge.”
“What did you tell him?” Sam sounded like a whipped dog in his own ears.
Dean’s shoulders hunched further. “That you used the Colt to save him.”
Sam waited, but that was apparently it. “And what are you going to tell him, when he asks for the whole story?”
Dean raised his chin and looked out towards the horizon, his eyes unfocused. “He needs to know about the psychic kids and the demon army. Needs to know the fight we’re lookin’ at. But my brother—” he stumbled, just a little—“he died with my Mom. Even if, without everything with us—I don’t think there’d be any way to get our Sam back, you know?”
Sam nodded, remembering the little headstone next to Mary Winchester’s. Some lies were necessary to keep you moving forward. He’d never hate John enough to want to force the truth on him, and more than that he’d never hate Dean enough.
“There’s going to be more trouble with Azazel, or whoever’s left in charge,” he agreed. “What I did left Azazel weak. If we’re lucky, one of the Nephilim will take him out.”
“Yeah, ‘cause what this family’s got a shitload of is luck.” After a minute, Dean shifted his weight, grunted, and put his hand right between Sam’s shoulders, over the tattoo. “That wasn’t fair.”
Sam couldn’t quite make himself shake off Dean’s hand. “Fair’s got nothing to do with it.”
Dean didn’t wait long before speaking again. “I really thought you were gonna kill him and take over, you know.”
Sam shook his head. “I haven’t wanted that for a while.”
Dean made a soft, almost amused noise. “I guess I—I wanted to believe in you too much to believe it, you know?”
That made no sense, except that it was perfect Dean-logic. “I know switching sides doesn’t make up for what I did.”
Dean took a while to answer, his fingers rubbing warm circles over the back of Sam’s shirt. “Azazel, he was wrong about you.”
Sam laughed, because Father’d known him for twenty-two years and Dean only for a fraction of that, even if Dean’s time with him did bracket Father’s tenure. He laughed until the sounds he was making stopped sounding like laughter. Dean’s hand stayed on him the entire time.
When he blinked his vision clear and looked up, Dean was still watching him. His expression was patient and not even a little freaked out, which Sam thought he ought to resent. “What possible reason would you have to think that?” Sam managed.
“’Cause he was wrong about me,” Dean said matter-of-factly. “He said the only way you could have me was chained, but it turns out that was a lie. You can have me any way you want.”
And wow was he in no condition for that, but his whole body ached with longing. All he wanted was to sink into Dean until the world disappeared. “Dean, I—” He turned, meaning to explain that Father had chosen his children well and that if Dean put a bullet in him now then the world would be ten times safer. But Dean tugged him closer, closer, drawing him over with a grip that had no strength in it. Their lips touched, not a brother’s kiss: a soft swipe of Dean’s tongue, the taste of metal, the inverse of chaste.
Dean broke the kiss by leaning his forehead into Sam’s, their noses brushing, Dean’s hand now cupping his cheek. “I’m not good,” he said, his breath going hot and wet right into Sam’s lungs. “And you’re not evil. We can be whatever we want to be.”
He felt like he was breathing through two-hundred-degree steam, heavy and scalding. He was a scared little kid again, dreaming of rescue, hoping for someone who would want only him.
He opened his eyes. In the thick end-of-day sunlight, Dean’s irises were almost black. Almost, but not quite. Dean’s face was calm, certain. Devoted.
Sam pulled back, slowly enough to let Dean know that he wasn’t running or refusing. He caught Dean’s hand before Dean could let go.
“You need to know, I didn’t do it just for you,” he said. He wasn’t sure Dean was going to thank him, when all was said and done, and he highly doubted that humanity in general would have reason to applaud his decision, but he wanted to tell the truth. Maybe he could start making a habit of it. “I wanted to put a bullet in Azazel’s head, but I couldn’t let your father die. I didn’t want to be the man who did that.”
Dean blinked at him, his lips still parted. “Sam—”
“Shut up and get better,” Sam said, because Dean had already told him everything he’d ever need to know. “We’ve got work to do.”
END
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
When they got within a few blocks of the apartment building, Dean parked the car. They went to the trunk to arm themselves, just like it was a regular hunt. Except that as soon as Dean closed the trunk, he grabbed Sam’s shirt, using surprise and momentum to slam him back into the side of the car. “If you switch sides on me and get Dad killed—”
Sam felt his gun grind into the small of his back, bruising him. He looked down at Dean, still beautiful with his brows lowered in fury. Dean’s hands on him, in anger now, strong and unflinching. Dean’s weight against him, pressing him against unforgiving black metal.
If Dean let himself think about it, he had to know that John was probably dead, and that going into that building was likely to be a one-way trip.
“I’m with you all the way,” Sam said.
Dean’s face twitched as if Sam had just punched him in the gut. “Like you care if he dies,” Dean spat out.
Sam brought his hands up and out, the way he’d placate a gunman. “I don’t want anybody else to die,” he said, as softly as he could. “It’s time to choose, Dean. Trust me or ditch me, but pick one, or you’re not gonna be able to keep your eyes on the prize here.”
Dean’s fingers clenched, tugging Sam’s shirt tighter, then released. Dean stepped back, cutting his eyes away from Sam.
Sam followed him towards the Sunrise Apartments in silence.
When they got within sight of it, Sam frowned, dismayed. It was far too large for his comfort.
“Anyone in that complex might be possessed,” Dean said. His tone was neutral, as if he’d forgotten the previous conversation, or maybe even decided to put the issue aside for the time being. Sam felt a stab of hope, hot and painful as a knife.
“I can usually detect demons,” Sam informed him. “But sometimes it takes me a couple of minutes.”
“Well, that’s no good.” Dean ran his thumb over his lower lip, considering. “Set off the fire alarm, cut down on the number of civilians?”
“Fire department shows up, things might get messy.”
Dean shifted on his feet. “We’ll work fast.”
“I don’t have anything better,” Sam admitted.
Dean snorted. “Yeah. So let’s get straight on this: you want Azazel dead and so do I. We get that done, I’m through. You can go conquer the world like you’re supposed to.”
Sam took a couple of deep breaths, then gave up. “I know what you think of me. But—it’s not worth it, Dean. Azazel isn’t worth you dying.”
Dean headed towards the building. Sam followed.
They found the first demons on the second floor, charging at them with black eyes and crazed roars. Dean spewed out Latin, forcing them to cringe, while he and Sam pulled out the holy water and prepared themselves.
It was hard to get his hands on the possessed woman and pull her collar down to expose her neck, but once he’d managed that, it wasn’t that much more difficult to slap down the exorcism printed on the temporary tattoo paper that Dean had bought on a hunch. Make-your-own transfers with the Rituale Romanum printed out on them; only Dean.
The words adhered and the demon snapped the woman’s head up, screaming itself into the ceiling.
Dean’s target was also collapsed on the hallway floor. Sam spared a moment to stare at Dean in raw admiration, and then it was time to keep looking.
John was tied to a bed on the third floor. He was badly bruised, but there were no visible incapacitating wounds.
He was very badly guarded, Sam realized as they carried him down the stairs. He also wasn’t light. “I’ll bring the car around to the alley,” Sam told Dean when they’d left the building. Two fire trucks were already blocking the street, but the alley was clear.
Except that as he was reaching for the driver’s side door, a man barreled into him, sending him across the concrete in a stinging slide. The first punch snapped something in his left cheek; the second, on the right, sent the left side of his head rebounding against the ground, increasing the pain exponentially.
“That was my sister, you human stain.”
There was more, something about a king, but he didn’t really get it, what with having the shit kicked out of him.
And then there was a gunshot, and after that silence.
Sam heaved himself over on his side, threw up, and then managed to drag his head far enough off the ground to see Dean, pale and shaking, the Colt drifting down now that he no longer had anything to aim at.
Dean shook off his paralysis and hurried over to help Sam to his feet. He could feel that the bruises would be bone-deep, and he’d probably cracked a couple of ribs. “I ran out of exorcisms,” Dean said, not looking at Sam even though he was propping Sam up with an arm around his shoulder. “And I couldn’t—he was swinging so hard, I thought—”
“Two bullets left,” Sam managed. His mouth was salt-sweet with the taste of his own blood.
“You don’t get to check out before the end of this,” Dean told him.
****
Even though he had no obvious injuries, John stayed unconscious through the entire trip to some cabin in the middle of nowhere that Bobby promised would be a safe place to hide. Sam also passed out for some of the trip, but Dean prodded him awake every hour because, he said, Sam had taken a hit or two to the head. Sam didn’t remember that, but since every cell in his body, including the ones in his hair, hurt like fuck, he was willing to accept Dean’s story.
“You know,” he said once, when Dean had made him take another painkiller and drink a bottle of water, “he was alone with them for hours. He could be possessed.”
“Used the last of the holy water on him last time I gassed up. Nothin’ happened.”
Sam smiled. It hurt. “Should’ve known you’d have it covered,” he said, and let himself sleep again.
****
Leaving the car was almost as painful as the original beating, because of how stiff he’d gotten during transit. Dean took pity on him and carried John into the cabin and just let Sam limp in after. The place was a total shithole, paint peeling off of the wooden plank walls, piles of insect husks in every corner where years of spiders had dropped them, only a bare mattress for John.
Sam eased himself to the floor and fell asleep sitting up.
He woke to the sound of John’s voice, low and gentle. “I’m glad you saved him, even if it did take a bullet. You know how to take care of your own, son, and I’m proud of you.”
He blinked, hearing Dean shift and stand. On instinct, he pushed himself upright against the wall, ignoring the pain as best he could. “Wha’s goin’ on?” he asked, pushing his hair out of his eyes. Dean was on the opposite side of the cabin, backing away from John, who was standing in the middle of the room, his hands raised like the patriarch about to offer his blessing.
“That’s not my father,” Dean said, raising the Colt.
The gun flew out of his hand and hit the wall, bouncing down to the abandoned mattress. Sam reached out for it, but both he and Dean were flung back against the cabin walls. The impact rattled Sam’s bones and caused a nuclear bomb to go off in the back of his head. He fought to stay conscious; TK was as out of his reach as particle physics right now.
“The holy water,” he managed.
Father—of course it was Father—turned to him and sneered with John’s face. “You think something like that works on something like me? I’m not some corrupt ex-human or half-human. I am an angel from on high!” Father’s eyes flared yellow, and it was every terrified moment of his childhood all again, dry-heaving with the knowledge of the impossibility of escape.
“I hear the mighty have fallen,” Dean said from where he was pinned like a bug. “What the fuck do you want?”
Father strode over to Dean. He looked Dean over from toes to crown, the way a shopper might examine a cut of meat. Then he roughly undid Dean’s jeans, sticking his hand in and grabbing. Dean’s face grew impossibly whiter. “So this is what you’re proposing to abandon your father for,” Father said, his tone grave and disappointed.
“Don’t you touch him!” Sam snarled, terror a black clawing thing within him like another demon.
“Why not?” Father asked. Sam could see the muscles of John Winchester’s forearm moving. Dean gasped, then clamped his jaws shut. “We’re all family here.”
They both froze.
“What?” Father withdrew his hand and licked the palm. “Mmm, he is tasty. I foresee a threesome in our future. Do you mean to tell me you haven’t figured it out, Sam? Even with all the breadcrumbs?”
He smiled, too wide for John Winchester’s mouth. “I got a prophecy in hand, said my plan would take a psychic and a normal, bound by blood. I couldn’t have him in our little creche—one of you vicious lovelies would have eaten him alive. And then I didn’t want you to get confused about your loyalties when you finally met. Long-lost brothers sounds so heroic, doesn’t it? I needed to tawdry it up a little. So: you were born the night little Sammy Winchester died, and when I say born, what I really mean is more of a metaphor than the whole umbilical cord-and-squalling thing.”
“My mother—” Sam began. He’d stared at the photo of her for hours, looking at the shape of her face, seeing bits of himself there.
Father rolled his eyes. “You mean that picture I picked up in a thrift store?”
No. No and no and no and no.
Pinned up on the wall, Dean was also shaking his head.
“Oh yes,” Father said, staring straight at Sam. “Sam has two daddies, and they’re both right here. You’ve been giving it to your brother in every way you can think of—some that even impressed me--for months now. And knowing that, you still want him.
“Let’s get all our cards on the table. You are evil, my little seducer, and your desires are evil, while your big brother is good, and the only way you get to have him is chained to your throne in Hell. So embrace your destiny, and our little family can live happily ever after.”
He knew how truly stupid it was to take his eyes off Father, but it was like fighting gravity. Dean had left off denial and was working on horror. Even his lips were pale and his forehead shone with sweat. As Sam watched, he retched and just held back from vomiting all down his shirt.
Father chuckled, running his hands over Dean’s chest, his stomach. He leaned in and bit deliberately along the line of Dean’s jaw, John Winchester’s tongue flickering obscenely over Dean’s skin. “Don’t worry,” he crooned. “You’re so hot for little brother, it won’t take any time for you to get used to Daddy.”
Sam lunged against the power holding him pinned. He could feel that there was a weakness in Father’s grasp, an unevenness that could be exploited, if he could only pull enough out of himself.
“Dad,” Dean gasped. “Help me, please. Fight it.”
Sam wanted to explain: John couldn’t, no matter how much he loved Dean. Meg Masters probably had people to fight for too. It wasn’t about love or will, any more than surviving being hit by a train was. It was about power. Dean was ignoring everything he knew about possession because Dean had made John into his god, and Sam saw now how that must have weighed on John.
“You want to know the best part?” Father asked, turning to look back over his shoulder at Sam. “Dean here never really believed you loved him. Not because you’re not capable of it—he couldn’t know that--but because poor little Dean isn’t worthy of anyone’s love, even a bastard like you.”
“Daddy,” Dean tried again, the word bubbling out along with a fresh gout of blood. His head lolled on his neck. Blood stained the front of his T-shirt like sweat. Sam tried to shake his head, tried to come up with words that would make Dean hear the truth, but the pressure holding him in place was too strong. It was a cage, a mental presence made of barbed wire, bits and pieces sticking out all over, threads tangled up together, all wrapped around a central corkscrew that he could—just—reach—
Something tore, deep inside his brain. He thought he might be having a stroke. It was like his mind was made of layers of velcro, coming slowly apart, unwrapping itself until the pain was gone and the only thing left was one word.
He came off of the wall like a supermagnet had been shut off, landing on his feet just like Dean had taught him.
Sam held his hand out and the Colt smacked into his palm. The metal was all complicated angles and sharp edges. He found the trigger by trained instinct.
He aimed the gun.
“Whoa, I bet nobody saw that coming!” Father’s voice was as jolly and condescending as it had been when Sam was thirteen and had tried to run away. He remembered the punishment for that and his heart tripled its beats. Blood dripped steadily from his nose, and the skin under his eyes was wet.
Rage was the only corrective for fear. Father didn’t have the upper hand now. Sam reached for every iota of anger and resentment he’d ever felt.
“Kill me if you must,” Father said, “but I promise you, your work will be a lot easier to do with me around to help. There’s an army of demons waiting for you, and if you don’t take advantage of my experience they’ll put you on a spit and tear you apart an inch at a time instead of bowing to you.”
A neglected piece of glass exploded off to the side. Sam’s muscles locked tight, ready for a fight that couldn’t be physical.
“I’ll make it easier for you,” Father continued. “Let’s see what John-boy has to say.”
John’s face contorted as Father burrowed back under. The body twitched, still held rigidly under Father’s control. “Shoot me,” John Winchester begged.
Dean made a noise like a dog being sacrificed.
Then John was gone again, drowned under Father’s control. Sam could see the path the bullet would take, the way that gold lightning would wrap around the stolen body and split Father open.
The vision changed, sped up: Father fell dead, and Dean rushed to the corpse’s side, sobbing helplessly. He shook off Sam’s comforting hand, turned his back to Sam, wouldn’t listen or look until Sam made him. And then there were the Nephilim to deal with, so he had to keep Dean under control just until they were both safe, just until Dean calmed down. After that the competition grew more diffuse and varied: hunters, demons, a last-ditch stand by a coalition of witches and other practitioners. In the middle of it all, he noticed how Dean was hurting himself, and that was unacceptable. Applying the additional binding tattoos took time he couldn’t afford, and he had to sacrifice most of the Eastern seaboard, but it wasn’t like he had any friends there, or anywhere but right beside him. When it was over, Dean smiled again, for the first time in years it seemed, and his presence gave Sam the strength he needed.
Father was wrong. Chains were entirely unnecessary.
Sam blinked and the red-tinged images were gone. Father was still smirking at him. “You can take the high road or the low road, son. They go the same place in the end.”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “One’s got a hell of a lot better scenery, old man.”
Father laughed, full-throated; Sam heard Dean gagging. “That’s why you’re my favorite, Sammy, you give me lip. So what’s it gonna be, son? Lead or bleed?” Dean started to choke again, and Sam understood that Father was giving him a countdown.
Either way, Dean was lost to him. That made it impossible to allow Father to survive. But—
There were three people here. Three choices, only one of them that Father hadn’t been able to control. Fear and rage and love.
“I love you, Dean,” he said. “And I’m sorry I can’t do what you asked.”
Hatred flared for a second in Dean’s eyes, chased out by despair.
Sam lowered the Colt. Father raised his eyebrows, but his grin was as confident as ever. “I hope you won’t attribute it to bias when I say—”
Sam fired. The bullet took Father in the meat of the thigh, spinning John Winchester’s body back. Father screamed as the light crackled over him, howled as his true form reasserted itself, and rushed out in a torrent of black before John Winchester’s head hit the floor.
Without thinking about it, Sam began reciting Sue-Ann LeGrange’s binding spell. The altar and the rest of the trappings weren’t as important as will and understanding. The spell wasn’t enough to hold Father; he was far too strong for that. But Sam ripped power out of the cloud, grabbing it for himself. Father’s essence was like blackstrap molasses, thick and chokingly sweet, rubbing around Sam’s insides. He clamped down, winding it around itself. It was like twisting a guinea worm around a stick to get it out of a human body, slow and painful. Father was fleeing, and now Sam was only picking up shreds, but he still felt gravid with dark energy.
He looked at John and Dean, crumpled on the floor like mirror images twenty-five years removed from each other. Dean’s T-shirt was shiny with blood, sopping with it. Azazel’s power wasn’t a healing power, but it could be used to hold things in stasis, so that was what he set about doing.
****
No one could explain how Dean could have sustained such internal injuries without more severe external trauma, but the doctors pumped blood and drugs into him anyway.
John Winchester’s bullet wound, a straight through-and-through, was treated in the ER.
Sam refused an examination, claiming that their supposed carjacking had done nothing more than bruise him. Because he was in the best shape of the three of them, he was the one who talked to the police, explaining that John’s truck had been stolen by men with guns, but not before they’d all been beaten and John had been shot. He gave the police artist descriptions of Tom and Jake, because that couldn’t hurt either of them. John would have to change the plates on his truck, whenever he managed to pick it up again, but Sam considered that a small price to pay.
After Sam was through with the cops, he and John sat like grave guardians on opposite sides of Dean’s bed. The most conversation they managed was when Sam asked if John wanted coffee from the cafeteria. Getting it, he remembered how Dean used to bring it and dumped half a canister of sugar in.
When he got back to Dean’s room, pushing the door open with his elbow because both hands were full, John was leaning over Dean’s bed. The murmur of their voices fell silent and they both turned their heads to watch him get closer. Dean’s eyes were as blank as grass, free of judgment or forgiveness, and soon he’d slipped back into a state between sleep and unconsciousness.
John drank his coffee without comment.
Within forty-eight hours, Dean was coherent enough to check out AMA, even if he didn’t manage to fight off the wheelchair they made him use until he got to the door. Dean protested when Sam opened the back door of the Impala. Still, he laid down on the seat when Sam didn’t bother to respond.
John looked at the key in Sam’s hand like he expected Sam to offer to let him drive. If he couldn’t say it, though, he could just deal, like Sam was dealing.
Sam took them to the third-nearest motel, one with flags from dozens of nations out in front like a flat, cheap UN. He rented two rooms.
He brought Dean’s duffel into the first one (Italy) while John got Dean out of the car, and then they both helped Dean inside. It would have been more efficient and less agonizing for either one of them to carry him, but Dean wasn’t far enough gone to allow that.
Dean laid back on the bed, panting with pain and effort. He stared up at the two of them through the screen of his lashes. “Check in with you in a couple of hours, Dad?” he asked at last.
John started. Sam gave him the other key, unable to meet his eyes, and breathed for the first time in days.
****
Dean didn’t say anything to him when he brought his bag in. By the time Sam had made his mind up that they were going to talk, Dean was asleep again, open-mouthed, only the rise and fall of his chest signalling his continued presence.
Sam sat at the little desk across from the bed and got a good look, fixing the pale skin and the bruises in his mind. He’d done this. He’d done this to Dean.
There were too many things to say and not enough apologies in the world. He couldn’t even tell Dean that he’d meant well, because that would have been the biggest lie of all.
His brain simply refused to process Father’s—Azazel’s—revelations. When he tried to think ‘father’ or ‘brother’ the words just skittered away from every other thought like drops of water on a hot griddle. It wasn’t that the concepts were meaningless. They’d always meant danger and fear and pain. But now everything was worse, twisted and bloody.
Right before he’d left Azazel for Dean, one of his—one of the other psychics had just given up. Susan, who’d never been at the front of the pack or the rear, whose best talent was in creating illusions. She could make you smell roses while you were stepping in rot. One day, she simply stopped: stopped getting out of bed, stopped responding to Father’s orders, stopped resisting attacks. She’d been dead within three days, and Sam had been furious at her for behaving so incomprehensibly.
He hadn’t understood what it was like to find an impassible wall inside oneself, a blank space where reason and emotion both fell away.
Maybe Susan hadn’t wanted to die either. Maybe she just couldn’t figure out how to live.
Dean slept for over four hours, waking with a gasp as he tried to sit up, and then a sigh as he gave up and slumped back into place on the bed. Sam was instantly on his feet, wanting to come over.
“Near sunset,” Dean said, looking at the pattern the sun made against the side wall.
“Yeah?” Sam asked, not following.
“Help me outside? I wanna see it.”
As Dean obviously knew, Sam would have complied with any request up to and including ‘spoon-feed me your liver,’ so he was up and across the floor in moments, easing Dean to a sitting position, then supporting him so that he could stand and shuffle over to the door.
He had to leave Dean propped up against the outside wall in order to retrieve a couple of chairs from inside, but he wasn’t going to make Dean sit on the ground.
He put his chair next to Dean’s. If Dean told him to go, he would, but Dean was going to have to say it.
Dean sighed, letting his head fall back. “This sucks.”
Sam barked a laugh. “You want to specify?”
“Nah, I think that about covers it.”
“Dean—”
Dean straightened up, shuffled in his seat a little, and winced. “So I guess this is the part where we talk about what happens next.”
“That’s up to you,” Sam said cautiously.
Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “Dad—doesn’t remember. Not what Azazel did or what he said when he was in charge.”
“What did you tell him?” Sam sounded like a whipped dog in his own ears.
Dean’s shoulders hunched further. “That you used the Colt to save him.”
Sam waited, but that was apparently it. “And what are you going to tell him, when he asks for the whole story?”
Dean raised his chin and looked out towards the horizon, his eyes unfocused. “He needs to know about the psychic kids and the demon army. Needs to know the fight we’re lookin’ at. But my brother—” he stumbled, just a little—“he died with my Mom. Even if, without everything with us—I don’t think there’d be any way to get our Sam back, you know?”
Sam nodded, remembering the little headstone next to Mary Winchester’s. Some lies were necessary to keep you moving forward. He’d never hate John enough to want to force the truth on him, and more than that he’d never hate Dean enough.
“There’s going to be more trouble with Azazel, or whoever’s left in charge,” he agreed. “What I did left Azazel weak. If we’re lucky, one of the Nephilim will take him out.”
“Yeah, ‘cause what this family’s got a shitload of is luck.” After a minute, Dean shifted his weight, grunted, and put his hand right between Sam’s shoulders, over the tattoo. “That wasn’t fair.”
Sam couldn’t quite make himself shake off Dean’s hand. “Fair’s got nothing to do with it.”
Dean didn’t wait long before speaking again. “I really thought you were gonna kill him and take over, you know.”
Sam shook his head. “I haven’t wanted that for a while.”
Dean made a soft, almost amused noise. “I guess I—I wanted to believe in you too much to believe it, you know?”
That made no sense, except that it was perfect Dean-logic. “I know switching sides doesn’t make up for what I did.”
Dean took a while to answer, his fingers rubbing warm circles over the back of Sam’s shirt. “Azazel, he was wrong about you.”
Sam laughed, because Father’d known him for twenty-two years and Dean only for a fraction of that, even if Dean’s time with him did bracket Father’s tenure. He laughed until the sounds he was making stopped sounding like laughter. Dean’s hand stayed on him the entire time.
When he blinked his vision clear and looked up, Dean was still watching him. His expression was patient and not even a little freaked out, which Sam thought he ought to resent. “What possible reason would you have to think that?” Sam managed.
“’Cause he was wrong about me,” Dean said matter-of-factly. “He said the only way you could have me was chained, but it turns out that was a lie. You can have me any way you want.”
And wow was he in no condition for that, but his whole body ached with longing. All he wanted was to sink into Dean until the world disappeared. “Dean, I—” He turned, meaning to explain that Father had chosen his children well and that if Dean put a bullet in him now then the world would be ten times safer. But Dean tugged him closer, closer, drawing him over with a grip that had no strength in it. Their lips touched, not a brother’s kiss: a soft swipe of Dean’s tongue, the taste of metal, the inverse of chaste.
Dean broke the kiss by leaning his forehead into Sam’s, their noses brushing, Dean’s hand now cupping his cheek. “I’m not good,” he said, his breath going hot and wet right into Sam’s lungs. “And you’re not evil. We can be whatever we want to be.”
He felt like he was breathing through two-hundred-degree steam, heavy and scalding. He was a scared little kid again, dreaming of rescue, hoping for someone who would want only him.
He opened his eyes. In the thick end-of-day sunlight, Dean’s irises were almost black. Almost, but not quite. Dean’s face was calm, certain. Devoted.
Sam pulled back, slowly enough to let Dean know that he wasn’t running or refusing. He caught Dean’s hand before Dean could let go.
“You need to know, I didn’t do it just for you,” he said. He wasn’t sure Dean was going to thank him, when all was said and done, and he highly doubted that humanity in general would have reason to applaud his decision, but he wanted to tell the truth. Maybe he could start making a habit of it. “I wanted to put a bullet in Azazel’s head, but I couldn’t let your father die. I didn’t want to be the man who did that.”
Dean blinked at him, his lips still parted. “Sam—”
“Shut up and get better,” Sam said, because Dean had already told him everything he’d ever need to know. “We’ve got work to do.”
END
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a great ending...
a wonderful retelling of the story as a 'what if'...
i really enjoyed this a lot, you dug down deep into sam and really 'got' at a possible way he could have been...and dean as well...
and took us on a remarkable emotional journey...
thanks again for writing this.
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Re: a great ending...
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oops, that was lj auto unsigning me up there...
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Brilliant, just brilliant the whole way through. From the first installment to now. I loved the flow, the pacing, the characters, and the storyline. I loved how they were so flawed yet so perfect together, how easily they teamed up - in and out of the bedroom. I loved how effortlessly the story weaved and moved and continued, moving the character development and plot along with every monster they fought.
*sigh* I adored this fic, it could possibly be my favourite Sam/Dean ever! Thanks heaps for sharing and regular posting!
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hugs
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I think that was true for the series too.
What a roller coaster ride! I prepared myself for a major melt-down, hoping all the while it wouldn't be that way. I can't believe you managed to twist the ending into a happy one. The confrontation between Sam and Father was very satisfying in an icky kind of way. I loved this story, it was exciting and told so beautifully! Thank you!
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Like everyone else is saying: brilliant.
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Canon is just so tragic that I couldn't compete; essentially any AU is going to be better for these boys.
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INTENSE AND POWERFUL AND JUST WOW!
When Sam told Dean to shoot him, I gasped. Then when Dean said he didn't care if he died, he only cared if YED died, I thought I'd cry. I read the entire thing holding my breath.
This is a work of art. I loved every bit of it.
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Second off, omg yay. Sam and Dean are together again. I feel like I should say more, but that's all I got right now. (Except for a sneaking suspicion that despite agreeing not to be brothers, that little factoid is part of what reconciled Dean to Sam.)
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And I couldn't deny them their happy ending, or happy middle anyway. My personal suspicion is that Dean is deep in denial; he really doesn't want to hear the word "brother" ever again, and who can blame him? But there's too much between him and Sam, one way or another, for him to reject Sam.
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I also love that Sam never became saintly, and that his turn around was as much about being selfish-about hating Azazel, about not wanting to rule the world, and wanting Dean as it was about helping people, and being the good guy.
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Sam is no saint, that's for sure, but I think he did grow to appreciate the virtue of, well, virtue, at least the virtue of saving people. I don't think he's ever going to stop putting Dean ahead of the rest of the world. But I'm actually okay with that.
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I really, really liked it. Sorry that I'm not leaving a better comment.
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Your Sam, especially, was so chillingly believable--especially in the first part of this--and I loved it because the calculating analytical bit is definitely a part of canon Sam, but seeing him apply it to "Winchester" made my blood run cold, at least in the beginning. And canonical Sam is also a survivor, so I could definitely see this Sam fighting his way to the top of the sibling rivalry chain.
And Azazel's training methods were kind of startlingly parallel to John Winchester's--especially the John of this story, who I am more angry at than canonical John, because I remember reading the scene with Dean describing his failure at drawing a devil's trap at 11 and thinking Oh John, even without the Sammy-and-the-shtriga-story you manage to fuck Dean up but good--and then later in the story we find out that no, he still counts the shtriga thing as one of Dean's failure. OUCH.
And meanwhile Dean is surprisingly socially crippled without the presence of Sam--I guess because he was always with John and never had to fend for himself/his brother? Also interesting that Dean isn't as much of a player in this 'verse, I guess for the same reason?
Anyway, I loved seeing season 1 canon through the eyes of scary!Sam, and I have to say I took a sick kind of delight in seeing the reinterpretation of certain events (like Burkitsville! and the Benders! Apparently I have a bloodthirsty streak when it comes to people who hurt Dean). And all the Sam/John confrontations were entirely made of win, as was the wonderful conversation Dean and Sam had post-Cassie. Like Dean, I really *love* jealous!Sam. Especially when he gets all possessive and territory-marking.
And I was very impressed by the ending of the story, because I was really wondering how on earth you were going to get to a happy ending after all the devastating reveals, but you did it in a very satisfying and convincing way. *Happy Sigh*
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I agree with you on the reinterpretation of events being wonderful. And I totally adored Sam giving the creepy towns-people what-for. They DESERVED it. And Dean deserved to live in blissful ignorance, while Sam had his happytime vengeance. I love Sam's fury when Dean is hurt - it's beautiful, how protective he is. (Even the part about the healers -- he mentions that they were right about fixing Dean -- which is SO something which left canon!Sam all conflicted.)
I love this hardened version of Sam in the same way that I loved the changes Sam went through in season three. ("Who holds the contract?" "I can't tell you." "BLAM!" One of the most satisfying moments ever.) A protective Sam is more appealing -- which is not to say that he wasn't protective in the actual series, but Sam-seeking-vengeance? Exacting retribution for wrongs done to Dean? _SO_ my favourite type of Sam.
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YESSSSS <3
Uhm. Thank you for writing this.
Also? I'm so glad that Sam shot John. I wish he would've done something like that in the series. John ended up dead anyway (though they couldn't have known that) and -- yeah, it would've been so much easier if they'd just cut their losses earlier on and shot him. Which is awfully callous of me, I'm sure, but it's one of those "if you could go back and do it again, do it this way, m'kay?" type of notions.
I love. Love. LOVE this. Sam and Dean's relationship -- and how it changes Sam, and how it's killing Sam when Dean stops believing in him, and how it remakes him when it's all over, and Dean is able to believe again, and they can put aside the notion of blood without a lot of angst -- because that wasn't the big problem, the problem was that Dean had stopped trusting Sam in some ways, and now he was trusting him again, and trusting him with all of him.
And they're going to hunt, and they're going to be the best. Hunters. Ever.
And John will hopefully realize that he doesn't actually have anything on Sam that Dean doesn't know -- and maybe he'll get his act together and be a more functional father, now that he isn't obsessed with the death of his family members. (I always wondered what he'd be like if he lived past Azazael's destruction; I still can't picture it, somehow. Without the drive to kill the yellow eyed man, what is John's motivation? I figure that he can't give up hunting -- it's too much a part of him, now -- but I don't know if I can picture him hunting with Sam and Dean. Eh, doesn't matter. I'm not dying to know this kind of thing -- it's more like a vague wondering. You got the important burning questions covered: demon is dead, Sam and Dean are going to go on and Kick Major Ass. And also be lovers, which is totally important, too.)
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Re: YESSSSS <3
They are going to be awesome hunters. It's not over with Azazel and the demons, though, so John has plenty to angst about even if he's not required to sell his soul to save his son.
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