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Track 1
“And Dean,” Cain said. “You can’t speak for yourself?”
“Sammy’s the smart one,” Dean said, his lips twitching in something that didn’t know if it wanted to be a smile or a snarl. “Practically a lawyer. I’m liable to insult you, which isn’t the vibe we’re going for.” He kept his neck bent. His shoulders were tensed like rocks. Even now, so scared that Cain would deny him, he wanted to challenge Cain. See whether it was the new blood or the wise old man who would come out on top.
“You’re turning down all the power in the world. Give it some time and you could be the King of Hell.”
Dean wondered just how crazy a thousand years of mourning had made this guy. “Who the fuck wants the paperwork? I’m not the kingly type.”
Cain tilted his head, like he was seeing something he hadn’t before. “The current King of Hell won’t be happy if his favorite new toy gets broken.”
Dean shrugged. “He can bill me.”
“You won’t be able to protect your brother. And if you think that worm is going to let you live after you slip through his fingers—”
Dean nodded, the way he would’ve agreed with Dad diagnosing one of his fuck-ups. He knew there was a good chance they’d both die ugly if he unilaterally disarmed. “I wish, I wish so bad I could just … keep Sam and Cas and everyone safe. But that’s not how this works. Look at you—you got it under control, but you’re out in the middle of nowhere. That’s not in me to do. I was wrong. I’m not the right guy for the Blade.”
“You mean you’re too weak,” Cain said.
“Maybe,” Dean told him. Most days he agreed, but it didn’t matter. Strong bones broke too, hit right. “But I’m not you. I gotta fight like me. And that means I gotta be human.”
Cain didn’t look impressed. Dean was losing him. For Sam, he had to believe that a do-over was possible. If death could be taken back, why not this? Dean took a deep breath and put it all out there. “Look, Crowley ain’t the let-the-world-burn type, not like Abbadon or Metatron. So we’ll figure it out or we’ll die. I just—my brother wants out. I owe him that, and so much more. But he’s never gonna get there if I’m still a nuclear bomb. So I’m asking, I’m begging you: take it back.”
Cain rose from the table, turning away. He went to the old-fashioned refrigerator and began to pull out ingredients—eggs, milk, butter.
“Uh,” Dean said, bewildered and halfway to angry at the dismissal. He didn’t even mean to reach for the Blade. It was in his hand, so hungry, loosening his muscles and heating his blood at the anticipation of a fight. Sam’s hand shot out and gripped his forearm hard, shutting him up.
“After I take off the Mark,” Cain said, and maybe his eyes twinkled a bit as Sam sagged back against the counter in relief and Dean staggered a little himself, “I insist that you stay for breakfast. Fresh honey on pancakes—there’s nothing better.”
****
Sam didn’t hear what Dean said in his message to Castiel, but it was said softly and haltingly into the phone, which meant that he wasn’t being a flippant asshole. Sam leaned against the car while he waited for Dean to finish, soaking up the warmth from the metal. The day was bright and the fields outside of Cain’s house seemed to go on forever.
Dean hesitated in front of the driver’s side door, his fingers frozen on the handle.
“What’s wrong?”
Dean looked quickly at him, then away. “Nothing. You ready?”
Sam nodded, and they opened and slammed their doors in unison, the firm thunk a reminder of all they’d shared in the car. Dean reached for his sunglasses, then left them on the seat between them, squinting into the sun as they wheeled out.
The silence billowed between them like sulfurous clouds. It wasn’t right and Sam couldn’t figure out why. The mood should be celebratory, comfortable.
“Where do you want to go?” Dean asked, after the tension ratcheted up so high that Sam was ready to scream. “I can swing by the Bunker if there’s stuff you want.”
Oh. Sam thunked his neck back against the headrest. “I haven’t made any decisions,” he said. That depends on you went unsaid.
Dean sucked his lower lip between his teeth. “Here’s the thing,” he said at last. “If you think stopping the Trials by talkin’ you out of killing yourself was wrong, then there’s nowhere for us to go. I’d do it again.” He paused. “Gadreel—I thought that was right. You weren’t exactly in shape to consult.”
Sam slumped back into his seat. He didn’t have the energy to try to explain, again.
“But,” Dean said, like the word was being dragged out of him on hooks, “you got such a raw deal, ever since the beginning with Azazel feeding you his blood, and I didn’t—I get why you hate me. I thought if you said yes to Ezekiel, it was okay, but it wasn’t. I knew how angels get their yeses and I did it anyway.” His hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and he was staring ahead like there were razors preventing him from turning even a fraction. “If it happened again, I—I’d let you go. Then I’d eat my own gun.”
Sam couldn’t help himself. “So, you’re essentially blackmailing me to keep me alive.” It was one thing for Dean to follow him into mortal danger; that was the life, or should’ve been if Dean would have let him die. It was another level of fucked-up to promise suicide if Sam died.
Dean shrugged, faking nonchalance. “I told you before. You found your line, I found mine. You choose, I choose.”
The highway signs flashed by. Dean was pushing the Impala to its limits, hurrying them towards whatever future Sam gave them.
He’d been so angry for so long. Mostly, he was tired of it. He wanted his brother back. And, weirdly, he thought he could believe Dean this time. Dean’s contingency plan wouldn’t leave Dean alone, and Sam was willing to trust a promise like that.
He put his hand on Dean’s forearm, where the Mark had been. Dean shuddered, and the car shook with him as Dean eased off the gas. “You have to stop doing stupid shit unilaterally. From now on, our stupid decisions have to be together or not at all.”
“Sam—”
“We can’t be what we were,” Sam continued, ignoring Dean’s heartstruck grimace. “But what we were was broken. We can start again.”
****
Dean didn’t know what he was supposed to do now. Sam said he wanted to start again. Did that mean he was going to head back to school, expect Dean to pick up another construction gig, and get some Odd Couple apartment?
But Sam didn’t make any move to pack up his stuff, little as it was. He seemed content to catalog the weirder shit the Men of Letters had left behind, entering it into a database Charlie had set up for him before she Ozzed out, and to eat the food Dean cooked for him.
Dean didn’t do walking on eggshells well. It was a relief when the next set of monsters showed up just outside of Wichita. Sam’s email alert system popped up a bunch of cellphone videos with brown blurs snatching steaks off of grills and dogs off of leashes. When a baby disappeared from a porch, they knew it was time to roll.
Sam found where the things were holed up by some boring method Dean didn’t care about, and they broke into the abandoned McMansion, just like old times.
By the time they hit the great room (Dean would never admit he knew the name to Sam, but sue him, Lisa’s friends had talked a lot about real estate) there were thumps coming up the basement stairs, and they froze as five—no, six—things poured into the room and stopped. They didn’t attack, and Dean didn’t shoot just yet, unsure how many more there might be.
“What the fuck are these?” Dean asked, seriously curious. That was a shitload of hair, even by comparison to Sam. Even, frankly, by comparison to Cousin Itt. How did they not trip over it walking?
“We’re boggarts,” the one in the lead said, looking as offended as a talking horse-shaped lump of hair with beady black eyes could look. Dean thought it was tilting its nose up and sniffing. “And no, Harry Potter got it all wrong.”
“Right,” Sam said, in his humor-the-monsters voice, unfazed by the fact that a freaking animal-shaped thing was talking to them. “I guess our question is, what are you doing here?”
“Moving in,” the boggart said. “You’re the Winchester brothers, right? You did us a solid, cutting off the demons like that. So walk away. We’re not greedy, but we’re at the top of the food chain now.”
“No, you aren’t,” Dean said, and shot it right between its shiny little eyes.
The room erupted; Dean emptied his magazine into the next one lunging at him and grabbed for the machete hanging at his hip as he tucked into a roll that took him past the two boggarts converging on him. Claws raked a line of fire across his arm, but it was nothing incapacitating. Gunfire behind him indicated that Sam hadn’t yet run out of ammo.
He came to his feet in front of one that looked more like a tiny giraffe made out of hair and teeth than anything else. Dean lunged forward and chopped off its head, which fell away from the body and thudded onto the carpet before the boggart’s knees got the message and collapsed. Damn if that didn’t still feel satisfying even without the Mark.
“Stop!” Sam yelled, and Dean spun to see Sam shoving his gun back into his waistband, like the peace-loving freak that he was. Fortunately, the remaining two boggarts were cringing back against the wall, so Dean didn’t have to take immediate action to save his Gandhi ass.
“Here’s how it’ll be,” Sam said calmly, as if the floor weren’t already splattered with monster guts. “No food chain. But we have no interest in destroying anyone or anything who’s leaving humans alone. Leave the civilians alone. If you want us, come at us.” His knife appeared in his hand. Even Dean hadn’t noticed the movement, and he’d taught the kid. “Before you do, make a list of our kills, and make absolutely sure you’re better than every one of them.”
Silence. Dean tried to get a read on the boggarts, but he wasn’t exactly an expert in boggart body language. In a moment Sam was going to break and give them a friendly smile, trying to deal with the awkwardness of the moment. Dean cleared his throat. “Might wanna leave now,” he suggested, triggering the surviving boggarts’ hasty exit and preserving Sam’s badassery.
****
“We’re going to have to keep running cleanup like that,” Sam mused as they drove through the night towards the Bunker.
“And someday we’ll be out of the game, and those assholes will be back Meryl Streeping someone else’s baby,” Dean agreed.
That was a depressing but accurate thought. Not that Sam wasn’t grateful that they were back to the ordinary ghostbusting that had been so bizarre and odious to him as a kid, but this was like being Sisyphus, only with more vampires.
Maybe it didn’t have to be. They’d been coasting, taking a breather after surviving the latest round of atrocities. But they didn’t have to stay stuck.
“Soldiers and firefighters and cops have dangerous jobs, and they still have families and lives,” he said, testing out the thought. “They can do that because there’s an organization behind them, because they help each other out.”
“And because people know what they do,” Dean protested, sensing where he was going. “Some djinn starts stalking you, you can’t call the FBI for help.”
“The Men of Letters were equipped to handle that,” Sam said, talking faster as the idea grew. “Yeah, they weren’t equipped to handle Abbadon, but she’s gone, Dean. The demons are gone. What’s left—a secret society, working together, could absolutely take out a bunch of djinns. Even the Campbells managed that. The archives prove it—the Men of Letters were powerful. We’ve got their records and their bank accounts. We should use them.”
Dean didn’t say more, which was because he knew Sam could out-argue him, but his face remained set with disapproval until they arrived back at the Bunker.
Sam followed his brother into the kitchen as Dean methodically began setting out pancetta, tomatoes, onions, and peppers and setting water to boil for a very late dinner. “Look,” Sam continued as if there hadn’t been three hours between their last words, “you love this place.” Dean’s shoulders hitched, and then he picked up a knife. “People built this together, Dean. It’s not meant for just the two of us.”
Dean chopped in silence for a few more minutes. Not turning away from the vegetables or pausing in his preparations, he asked, “So, what? You call up Garth and tell him we’re recruiting? That’ll go well.”
“Yes,” Sam agreed, “Garth will want evidence of good faith. But we’ve got it, and there are other hunters. We can create something here.” You’re a natural leader and teacher, he didn’t say, because Dean would fight him on that. But from prisons to movie sets to Purgatory, Dean was a social animal. And Sam wanted all their sacrifices to make the world a better place, not just save it from annihilation.
Dean wouldn’t meet his eyes through dinner. Half a dozen times Sam saw him formulate some objection, open his mouth, and stop, already working out the answer for himself. Hope fluttered in Sam’s chest; they couldn’t leave the life, but they could make the life more than an unending stream of suffering and isolation. Once Dean was on board, even dubiously, Dean would make it happen.
They ate, cleaned up, and retreated to their rooms. Dean hadn’t said no, not outright. Sam could wait him out.
He’d ninety percent expected the knock, which came just after three a.m. Scratching at his belly over his sleep pants, he opened the door and waved Dean in.
“What happens when I have to choose, Sam? Them or you, what happens to them?” Dean sounded wrecked, like it had already happened. And of course it already had.
Sam took Dean by the arm and guided him so that they were sitting side by side on Sam’s bed. “That’s where our deal comes in. There are risks I’m willing to take, and you have to let me take them.” There was even some chance that, worst came to worst, Dean would decide to stick around to protect his students if there were any when Sam died. Sam couldn’t deny that the thought of giving Dean an incentive to outlive him was part of the attraction of his plan.
“This is what you want,” he told Dean. “A home, and a purpose, and the two of us working together.”
“Yeah, there’s just this one little catch,” Dean said, jagged.
“Letting me make my own decisions isn’t a catch, Dean.”
Dean’s fingers clenched on the bedcovers. His chin dipped towards his chest as he rocked back and forth. Sam put his hand on Dean’s back, feeling the warmth and the strength of him through his black T-shirt. Dean breathed in deeply, only the faintest hint of a hitch. “No stupid sacrifices,” he said, and the anger in his tone didn’t disguise that he was giving in.
“No stupid sacrifices,” Sam agreed; he wasn’t going to get into a debate over the meaning of stupidity just now. Dean leaned into his arm, raw animal comfort, and the world was unfolding in front of them in all its darkness and wonder. A new start, but honoring and building on the past instead of running from it.
Sam wasn’t going to run again.
“Dean,” he said, and moved his hand to Dean’s jaw, turning Dean’s face towards him.
“Sammy, what—” Dean stammered, his pupils dilating in a way that showed he knew very well what.
“I want to try something,” Sam told him, library-quiet, and Dean shuddered all over and closed his eyes.
What they were before was broken. Hell was all sealed up, and he already knew who was in his Heaven. Dean’s mouth underneath his was dry and soft, a little cool. Sam licked across his lips, and Dean opened up, leaning backwards and taking Sam with him until they crashed down on the mattress.
Dean was incapable of shutting up; he moaned into Sam’s mouth even as his hips pulsed up against Sam’s. His hands slipped over Sam’s back with skill learned on a thousand strangers, pressing his palms against Sam’s shoulders as if he wasn’t quite sure whether this was only a mirage. Sam felt too large for his own skin. Dean’s T-shirt was abrasive against his bare skin and he pushed it up, tangling around Dean’s armpits. Dean’s skin was fever-hot. His dick was hardening against Sam’s, a thick pressure through layers of cotton.
Sam was already sweating, desperate to lose his sweatpants, and as if Dean read his mind Dean’s strong hands were tugging at the waistband, helping Sam wriggle out of them without losing his place on top of Dean. Sam braced his hands on Dean’s pecs and levered himself up, breaking their kiss so he could look at Dean. Predictably, Dean colored and turned his head, even though Sam was the one who was naked. Sam leaned down and licked the exposed stretch of Dean’s neck, sweat-bitter, and Dean yelped, turning his head so fast that their noses nearly collided.
Sam chuckled into his ear and brought his hands to Dean’s biceps, squeezing the solid flesh. Dean moaned, quiet and hungry. Sam had to kiss him again.
Dean wriggled his hand between them, and then there was the hot shock of flesh as he pulled their cocks together, captured in his hand. His knuckles dragged against Sam’s stomach as he began to jerk them; he couldn’t get his hand all the way around them both. It was thrilling and frustrating—Dean in a nutshell—and Dean couldn’t do it on his own. Sam shifted his weight and freed his own hand to help out, pressing their sensitive heads together with his fingers and enjoying how they both gasped in unison, like the clunk of the car doors closing as they both got in.
If they were going out together, Sam thought, it might as well be in a real fireball.
END
(or there's this)
“And Dean,” Cain said. “You can’t speak for yourself?”
“Sammy’s the smart one,” Dean said, his lips twitching in something that didn’t know if it wanted to be a smile or a snarl. “Practically a lawyer. I’m liable to insult you, which isn’t the vibe we’re going for.” He kept his neck bent. His shoulders were tensed like rocks. Even now, so scared that Cain would deny him, he wanted to challenge Cain. See whether it was the new blood or the wise old man who would come out on top.
“You’re turning down all the power in the world. Give it some time and you could be the King of Hell.”
Dean wondered just how crazy a thousand years of mourning had made this guy. “Who the fuck wants the paperwork? I’m not the kingly type.”
Cain tilted his head, like he was seeing something he hadn’t before. “The current King of Hell won’t be happy if his favorite new toy gets broken.”
Dean shrugged. “He can bill me.”
“You won’t be able to protect your brother. And if you think that worm is going to let you live after you slip through his fingers—”
Dean nodded, the way he would’ve agreed with Dad diagnosing one of his fuck-ups. He knew there was a good chance they’d both die ugly if he unilaterally disarmed. “I wish, I wish so bad I could just … keep Sam and Cas and everyone safe. But that’s not how this works. Look at you—you got it under control, but you’re out in the middle of nowhere. That’s not in me to do. I was wrong. I’m not the right guy for the Blade.”
“You mean you’re too weak,” Cain said.
“Maybe,” Dean told him. Most days he agreed, but it didn’t matter. Strong bones broke too, hit right. “But I’m not you. I gotta fight like me. And that means I gotta be human.”
Cain didn’t look impressed. Dean was losing him. For Sam, he had to believe that a do-over was possible. If death could be taken back, why not this? Dean took a deep breath and put it all out there. “Look, Crowley ain’t the let-the-world-burn type, not like Abbadon or Metatron. So we’ll figure it out or we’ll die. I just—my brother wants out. I owe him that, and so much more. But he’s never gonna get there if I’m still a nuclear bomb. So I’m asking, I’m begging you: take it back.”
Cain rose from the table, turning away. He went to the old-fashioned refrigerator and began to pull out ingredients—eggs, milk, butter.
“Uh,” Dean said, bewildered and halfway to angry at the dismissal. He didn’t even mean to reach for the Blade. It was in his hand, so hungry, loosening his muscles and heating his blood at the anticipation of a fight. Sam’s hand shot out and gripped his forearm hard, shutting him up.
“After I take off the Mark,” Cain said, and maybe his eyes twinkled a bit as Sam sagged back against the counter in relief and Dean staggered a little himself, “I insist that you stay for breakfast. Fresh honey on pancakes—there’s nothing better.”
****
Sam didn’t hear what Dean said in his message to Castiel, but it was said softly and haltingly into the phone, which meant that he wasn’t being a flippant asshole. Sam leaned against the car while he waited for Dean to finish, soaking up the warmth from the metal. The day was bright and the fields outside of Cain’s house seemed to go on forever.
Dean hesitated in front of the driver’s side door, his fingers frozen on the handle.
“What’s wrong?”
Dean looked quickly at him, then away. “Nothing. You ready?”
Sam nodded, and they opened and slammed their doors in unison, the firm thunk a reminder of all they’d shared in the car. Dean reached for his sunglasses, then left them on the seat between them, squinting into the sun as they wheeled out.
The silence billowed between them like sulfurous clouds. It wasn’t right and Sam couldn’t figure out why. The mood should be celebratory, comfortable.
“Where do you want to go?” Dean asked, after the tension ratcheted up so high that Sam was ready to scream. “I can swing by the Bunker if there’s stuff you want.”
Oh. Sam thunked his neck back against the headrest. “I haven’t made any decisions,” he said. That depends on you went unsaid.
Dean sucked his lower lip between his teeth. “Here’s the thing,” he said at last. “If you think stopping the Trials by talkin’ you out of killing yourself was wrong, then there’s nowhere for us to go. I’d do it again.” He paused. “Gadreel—I thought that was right. You weren’t exactly in shape to consult.”
Sam slumped back into his seat. He didn’t have the energy to try to explain, again.
“But,” Dean said, like the word was being dragged out of him on hooks, “you got such a raw deal, ever since the beginning with Azazel feeding you his blood, and I didn’t—I get why you hate me. I thought if you said yes to Ezekiel, it was okay, but it wasn’t. I knew how angels get their yeses and I did it anyway.” His hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and he was staring ahead like there were razors preventing him from turning even a fraction. “If it happened again, I—I’d let you go. Then I’d eat my own gun.”
Sam couldn’t help himself. “So, you’re essentially blackmailing me to keep me alive.” It was one thing for Dean to follow him into mortal danger; that was the life, or should’ve been if Dean would have let him die. It was another level of fucked-up to promise suicide if Sam died.
Dean shrugged, faking nonchalance. “I told you before. You found your line, I found mine. You choose, I choose.”
The highway signs flashed by. Dean was pushing the Impala to its limits, hurrying them towards whatever future Sam gave them.
He’d been so angry for so long. Mostly, he was tired of it. He wanted his brother back. And, weirdly, he thought he could believe Dean this time. Dean’s contingency plan wouldn’t leave Dean alone, and Sam was willing to trust a promise like that.
He put his hand on Dean’s forearm, where the Mark had been. Dean shuddered, and the car shook with him as Dean eased off the gas. “You have to stop doing stupid shit unilaterally. From now on, our stupid decisions have to be together or not at all.”
“Sam—”
“We can’t be what we were,” Sam continued, ignoring Dean’s heartstruck grimace. “But what we were was broken. We can start again.”
****
Dean didn’t know what he was supposed to do now. Sam said he wanted to start again. Did that mean he was going to head back to school, expect Dean to pick up another construction gig, and get some Odd Couple apartment?
But Sam didn’t make any move to pack up his stuff, little as it was. He seemed content to catalog the weirder shit the Men of Letters had left behind, entering it into a database Charlie had set up for him before she Ozzed out, and to eat the food Dean cooked for him.
Dean didn’t do walking on eggshells well. It was a relief when the next set of monsters showed up just outside of Wichita. Sam’s email alert system popped up a bunch of cellphone videos with brown blurs snatching steaks off of grills and dogs off of leashes. When a baby disappeared from a porch, they knew it was time to roll.
Sam found where the things were holed up by some boring method Dean didn’t care about, and they broke into the abandoned McMansion, just like old times.
By the time they hit the great room (Dean would never admit he knew the name to Sam, but sue him, Lisa’s friends had talked a lot about real estate) there were thumps coming up the basement stairs, and they froze as five—no, six—things poured into the room and stopped. They didn’t attack, and Dean didn’t shoot just yet, unsure how many more there might be.
“What the fuck are these?” Dean asked, seriously curious. That was a shitload of hair, even by comparison to Sam. Even, frankly, by comparison to Cousin Itt. How did they not trip over it walking?
“We’re boggarts,” the one in the lead said, looking as offended as a talking horse-shaped lump of hair with beady black eyes could look. Dean thought it was tilting its nose up and sniffing. “And no, Harry Potter got it all wrong.”
“Right,” Sam said, in his humor-the-monsters voice, unfazed by the fact that a freaking animal-shaped thing was talking to them. “I guess our question is, what are you doing here?”
“Moving in,” the boggart said. “You’re the Winchester brothers, right? You did us a solid, cutting off the demons like that. So walk away. We’re not greedy, but we’re at the top of the food chain now.”
“No, you aren’t,” Dean said, and shot it right between its shiny little eyes.
The room erupted; Dean emptied his magazine into the next one lunging at him and grabbed for the machete hanging at his hip as he tucked into a roll that took him past the two boggarts converging on him. Claws raked a line of fire across his arm, but it was nothing incapacitating. Gunfire behind him indicated that Sam hadn’t yet run out of ammo.
He came to his feet in front of one that looked more like a tiny giraffe made out of hair and teeth than anything else. Dean lunged forward and chopped off its head, which fell away from the body and thudded onto the carpet before the boggart’s knees got the message and collapsed. Damn if that didn’t still feel satisfying even without the Mark.
“Stop!” Sam yelled, and Dean spun to see Sam shoving his gun back into his waistband, like the peace-loving freak that he was. Fortunately, the remaining two boggarts were cringing back against the wall, so Dean didn’t have to take immediate action to save his Gandhi ass.
“Here’s how it’ll be,” Sam said calmly, as if the floor weren’t already splattered with monster guts. “No food chain. But we have no interest in destroying anyone or anything who’s leaving humans alone. Leave the civilians alone. If you want us, come at us.” His knife appeared in his hand. Even Dean hadn’t noticed the movement, and he’d taught the kid. “Before you do, make a list of our kills, and make absolutely sure you’re better than every one of them.”
Silence. Dean tried to get a read on the boggarts, but he wasn’t exactly an expert in boggart body language. In a moment Sam was going to break and give them a friendly smile, trying to deal with the awkwardness of the moment. Dean cleared his throat. “Might wanna leave now,” he suggested, triggering the surviving boggarts’ hasty exit and preserving Sam’s badassery.
****
“We’re going to have to keep running cleanup like that,” Sam mused as they drove through the night towards the Bunker.
“And someday we’ll be out of the game, and those assholes will be back Meryl Streeping someone else’s baby,” Dean agreed.
That was a depressing but accurate thought. Not that Sam wasn’t grateful that they were back to the ordinary ghostbusting that had been so bizarre and odious to him as a kid, but this was like being Sisyphus, only with more vampires.
Maybe it didn’t have to be. They’d been coasting, taking a breather after surviving the latest round of atrocities. But they didn’t have to stay stuck.
“Soldiers and firefighters and cops have dangerous jobs, and they still have families and lives,” he said, testing out the thought. “They can do that because there’s an organization behind them, because they help each other out.”
“And because people know what they do,” Dean protested, sensing where he was going. “Some djinn starts stalking you, you can’t call the FBI for help.”
“The Men of Letters were equipped to handle that,” Sam said, talking faster as the idea grew. “Yeah, they weren’t equipped to handle Abbadon, but she’s gone, Dean. The demons are gone. What’s left—a secret society, working together, could absolutely take out a bunch of djinns. Even the Campbells managed that. The archives prove it—the Men of Letters were powerful. We’ve got their records and their bank accounts. We should use them.”
Dean didn’t say more, which was because he knew Sam could out-argue him, but his face remained set with disapproval until they arrived back at the Bunker.
Sam followed his brother into the kitchen as Dean methodically began setting out pancetta, tomatoes, onions, and peppers and setting water to boil for a very late dinner. “Look,” Sam continued as if there hadn’t been three hours between their last words, “you love this place.” Dean’s shoulders hitched, and then he picked up a knife. “People built this together, Dean. It’s not meant for just the two of us.”
Dean chopped in silence for a few more minutes. Not turning away from the vegetables or pausing in his preparations, he asked, “So, what? You call up Garth and tell him we’re recruiting? That’ll go well.”
“Yes,” Sam agreed, “Garth will want evidence of good faith. But we’ve got it, and there are other hunters. We can create something here.” You’re a natural leader and teacher, he didn’t say, because Dean would fight him on that. But from prisons to movie sets to Purgatory, Dean was a social animal. And Sam wanted all their sacrifices to make the world a better place, not just save it from annihilation.
Dean wouldn’t meet his eyes through dinner. Half a dozen times Sam saw him formulate some objection, open his mouth, and stop, already working out the answer for himself. Hope fluttered in Sam’s chest; they couldn’t leave the life, but they could make the life more than an unending stream of suffering and isolation. Once Dean was on board, even dubiously, Dean would make it happen.
They ate, cleaned up, and retreated to their rooms. Dean hadn’t said no, not outright. Sam could wait him out.
He’d ninety percent expected the knock, which came just after three a.m. Scratching at his belly over his sleep pants, he opened the door and waved Dean in.
“What happens when I have to choose, Sam? Them or you, what happens to them?” Dean sounded wrecked, like it had already happened. And of course it already had.
Sam took Dean by the arm and guided him so that they were sitting side by side on Sam’s bed. “That’s where our deal comes in. There are risks I’m willing to take, and you have to let me take them.” There was even some chance that, worst came to worst, Dean would decide to stick around to protect his students if there were any when Sam died. Sam couldn’t deny that the thought of giving Dean an incentive to outlive him was part of the attraction of his plan.
“This is what you want,” he told Dean. “A home, and a purpose, and the two of us working together.”
“Yeah, there’s just this one little catch,” Dean said, jagged.
“Letting me make my own decisions isn’t a catch, Dean.”
Dean’s fingers clenched on the bedcovers. His chin dipped towards his chest as he rocked back and forth. Sam put his hand on Dean’s back, feeling the warmth and the strength of him through his black T-shirt. Dean breathed in deeply, only the faintest hint of a hitch. “No stupid sacrifices,” he said, and the anger in his tone didn’t disguise that he was giving in.
“No stupid sacrifices,” Sam agreed; he wasn’t going to get into a debate over the meaning of stupidity just now. Dean leaned into his arm, raw animal comfort, and the world was unfolding in front of them in all its darkness and wonder. A new start, but honoring and building on the past instead of running from it.
Sam wasn’t going to run again.
“Dean,” he said, and moved his hand to Dean’s jaw, turning Dean’s face towards him.
“Sammy, what—” Dean stammered, his pupils dilating in a way that showed he knew very well what.
“I want to try something,” Sam told him, library-quiet, and Dean shuddered all over and closed his eyes.
What they were before was broken. Hell was all sealed up, and he already knew who was in his Heaven. Dean’s mouth underneath his was dry and soft, a little cool. Sam licked across his lips, and Dean opened up, leaning backwards and taking Sam with him until they crashed down on the mattress.
Dean was incapable of shutting up; he moaned into Sam’s mouth even as his hips pulsed up against Sam’s. His hands slipped over Sam’s back with skill learned on a thousand strangers, pressing his palms against Sam’s shoulders as if he wasn’t quite sure whether this was only a mirage. Sam felt too large for his own skin. Dean’s T-shirt was abrasive against his bare skin and he pushed it up, tangling around Dean’s armpits. Dean’s skin was fever-hot. His dick was hardening against Sam’s, a thick pressure through layers of cotton.
Sam was already sweating, desperate to lose his sweatpants, and as if Dean read his mind Dean’s strong hands were tugging at the waistband, helping Sam wriggle out of them without losing his place on top of Dean. Sam braced his hands on Dean’s pecs and levered himself up, breaking their kiss so he could look at Dean. Predictably, Dean colored and turned his head, even though Sam was the one who was naked. Sam leaned down and licked the exposed stretch of Dean’s neck, sweat-bitter, and Dean yelped, turning his head so fast that their noses nearly collided.
Sam chuckled into his ear and brought his hands to Dean’s biceps, squeezing the solid flesh. Dean moaned, quiet and hungry. Sam had to kiss him again.
Dean wriggled his hand between them, and then there was the hot shock of flesh as he pulled their cocks together, captured in his hand. His knuckles dragged against Sam’s stomach as he began to jerk them; he couldn’t get his hand all the way around them both. It was thrilling and frustrating—Dean in a nutshell—and Dean couldn’t do it on his own. Sam shifted his weight and freed his own hand to help out, pressing their sensitive heads together with his fingers and enjoying how they both gasped in unison, like the clunk of the car doors closing as they both got in.
If they were going out together, Sam thought, it might as well be in a real fireball.
END
(or there's this)
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