Chapter Text
- 32 -
They wake up because someone is screaming.
Dean sits bolt upright in the bed and is instantly alert. He shoves recent activities to the back of his mind along with the discomfort caused by the current state of his underwear.
“What’s going on?” Sam says, wiping a hand over his face.
“I don’t—“
The screams are getting louder. And multiplying.
They both exchange a quick look and leap out of the bed, Dean grabbing the fallen gun from the floor and taking point.
“Croats?” Sam suggests. “They could have broken in; it’s not like we got a good look at the perimeter, it might have—“
A nearby yell shuts him up and suddenly there’s a thump at the door and it starts to fall inward yet again.
SLAM.
“Sam! Dean!”
It’s Jo and Risa, and behind them are Chuck, Annie, Nate... and future-Dean.
Castiel is standing guard a couple of steps outside, and he’s ditched his poncho in favor of jeans, a dark grey shirt, and a machine-gun slung over his shoulder.
“You have to stay in there,” future-Dean calls over the noise, shoving his way inside first and obviously speaking only to Sam.
Dean tries but it’s hard to see anything past Castiel’s silouette because moonlight would be too much to ask for in the future, clearly. Pitch blackness and lots of noise are no help to gage the current situation.
“You can’t leave, okay? Promise me, Sammy.”
“What’s going—“
“It’s him,” Jo says. “Lucifer.”
Dean’s blood runs cold.
“Lucifer is here?”
“It’s because of Sam,” Risa says flatly. Every head turns to stare at her and she stares defiantly back, arms at either side of her like a visual ‘duh’. “You said he was especially vulnerable to Lucifer for some reason,” she motions at future-Dean. “And Cas said he was ‘still untouched by Lucifer’. It doesn’t take a genius to make the connection.”
“What are you saying, Risa?” Nate asks, but the look of horror in his eyes says it’s practically a rethorical question. Everybody here knows what Risa is saying.
She fixes Sam with an accusing stare. “None of us have ever seen what he looks like, but I’d imagine the devil could use a spare suit. You know, in case he has to take one of them to the drycleaners?”
“Sam stays here,” future-Dean says.
“I—“
“Not a question, Sammy,” Dean mutters, resting a placating hand on Sam’s shoulder.
Sam shrugs it off, looking from one hunter to another--from one soldier to another.
“Why are you all here, then?” he asks the room at large. “What’s going on out there?”
“Croats, demons... you name it, that’s what’s going on,” Jo says, stance strangely restless. She glances at future-Dean and suddenly Dean knows why these people are here, and clearly so does Sam.
“If they got past the demon-wards you have to go,” Sam says. “Go out there, help the others.”
“And you’ll stay here?” future-Dean grunts.
Sam would never voluntarily sequester himself from a fight for his own sake, and future-Dean can’t have forgotten that.
“I... yes. But you all need to go back out there; I can take care of myself.”
Annie looks at future-Dean like she’s hoping he’ll issue a different order at Sam’s words, but for all her talk of ‘looks’ and interpreting future-Dean’s feelings for Sam, she must not understand how deep things go. Sam isn’t just a VIP, he’s the only important person as far as Dean is concerned. As far as any iteration of Dean is concerned.
“I’m going, they are staying,” future-Dean tells Sam. “S’not up for discussion.”
“No, you can’t just—“
But future-Dean ignores Sam’s protests and turns to leave. Dean follows him out, jostling Nate on his way and nearly tripping over the fallen door in the process.
“Hey!”
Even standing at the doorway makes the yelling and gunshots sound horribly louder... and closer.
“Hey, me!”
Future-Dean is already a few paces away, and Castiel is going with him, but they both turn around at Dean’s shout. The reason Dean can see them now is a flickering, far-away light source that means one of the bungalows is on fire.
“What’re you gonna do?” Dean calls.
Future-Dean takes something out of his thigh-holster and raises it so Dean can see. Of course. He’d recognise that gun anywhere.
“I’m gonna kill the devil.”
Dean stares into his own eyes across the stretch of dead grass, and for a moment time slows down. The burning embers haven’t saturated the air yet and the cold wind that’s blowing has cleared the smog; he and future-Dean have an unimpeded view of each other.
Grimy, hard and resolute, future-Dean’s face is set with determination. He understands what he’s about to do, he knows the risks.
He’s half-dead. Sometimes... sometimes I can’t see his soul.
Dean believes Castiel’s words from before, and has had ample evidence of the truth in them throughout the day. But right here, right now, they don’t apply. The light in his counterpart’s eyes is new, and it’s coming from within.
Neither of them says another word, but it doesn’t need to be said.
In that moment, they both finally agree on something.
- 33 -
When Dean walks back into the now-crowded cabin Sam rounds on him immediately.
“I get why I’m here,” he lies, anxious. “I do, but we have to let these people get back out there, Dean.”
“This place is keeping them safe too, Sam.”
“It’s not up to either of you,” Jo says, walking over to the boarded-up window. “Sorry, boys.”
“People are dying!” Sam bursts out. “Your people!”
“You think we don’t know that?” Risa snaps. “You think we want to be here? You think any of us volunteered for this post? I don’t know you from Adam, man. I don’t get what’s so special about you.”
She stares up at Sam without a trace of fear, even knowing what she knows now about his relationship to Lucifer.
“I’m not—there’s nothing,” Sam says automatically. He flashes back to Azazel calling him one of his ‘special children’, to Ruby and her poisonous words, to the taste of demon blood slicking his lips. All the reasons why he’s the perfect vessel for the Devil.
And the truth is that the person who sees him as a force for good, the real reason Sam is special at all, is standing by the doorway so no one can get in or out.
CRACK. A loud splintering sound draws everyone’s attention back to Jo for a moment; she’s working on ripping the wooden planks away from the window.
“A little help, here?” she mutters over her shoulder.
Nate and Annie quickly move to do just that. Chuck makes a motion like he was going to assist them but ends up staying put. “They’ve got it,” he mutters.
“Why are you poking holes in our hiding place?” Dean grumbles.
“Because we could use the extra visibility and more than one vantage point?” Jo fires back. There’s an implied ‘duh’ at the end of that sentence.
Sam still hasn’t given up in his quest to get these people out of here. He knows he can get Risa to leave if she’s angry enough, and the others might follow her if she does—
“Incoming!” Dean yells abruptly, and fires his gun into the night. Sam squints to see past him and suddenly hears a blood-curdling scream, just a few feet away.
“Croats?” Jo shouts, leaping away from the half-cleared window to load her shotgun.
“Demons?” Chuck asks nervously.
Dean fires again and simply calls: “Both.”
Nate and Risa crowd the doorway at either side of him and start firing too. Sam grabs Chuck’s gun before the prophet even knows what happened and rushes over to Jo and Annie at the window.
It’s much brighter than it should be; dawn is easily a couple of hours away.
“Is that—“
“The main hall,” Jo sighs. “And cabins C and H.”
“The latrines are on fire, too,” Annie ads tonelessly.
The destruction happened in mere moments and Sam can only stare. Dark figures are rushing towards their little enclosure at different speeds but one thing is clear; this isn’t an easily defendable location. Cramming seven people inside doesn’t do much beyond slow the enemy down, one body at a—
“Dean!” Sam gasps, suddenly understanding. “Dean, where did he go?”
Across the room, Dean is taking turns at firing and reloading with Risa, Chuck and Nate, and it isn’t until he has to shift away from the door that he looks back at his brother.
“He has the Colt, Sam.”
“No...”
Sam glances out of the window just in time to shoot a croatoan victim who was getting too close. Jo shoots the one behind it a second later.
“He’s gonna get himself killed!”
“Comes with the job, kid,” Annie says, handing Jo a newly-loaded gun.
“You don’t understand—“ But she’s right, and he should have suspected it from the start, shouldn’t he? Future-Dean is still a version of Dean, how could he forget that? He’s still a self-sacrificing jerk with a hero complex who’s going to try and save everyone at his own cost.
At the thought of future-Dean dying, Sam feels his chest try to cave in.
“He didn’t...”
But he leaves the sentence unfinished, and nobody heard him speak this time anyway; a whisper doesn’t carry in the heat of battle.
He didn’t say goodbye.
- 34 -
“Jo! How many rounds do you guys have left?”
“I’m out!”
“I’m at five,” Annie calls back.
“Four,” Sam says, with the accompanying number of fingers.
They've been at it for a while now and the flow of croats doesn't seem to stop. Risa slapped a string of beef jerky in Dean's hand on their third rotation and that helped clear some of his dizziness, but he's a big guy and he hasn't eaten in nearly twenty-four hours; he's not at his best right now.
“We need more ammo.” Nate voices what they are all thinking.
“Where do you keep supplies?” Dean asks Chuck.
Risa is the one who answers. “There’s a storage unit not far from where we are now—are you suggesting an ammo run?”
“Better than sitting here with our fingers up our butts waiting to be killed off.”
“Okay then,” she says with a nod. Dean is surprised she agrees, but maybe he shouldn’t be. “It should be two of us, guys, no more and no less.”
“I can—“ Annie starts to say.
“Risa. It should be you and me.” Dean can tell from the look on Sam’s face that he wasn’t expecting his brother to volunteer.
Risa obviously didn’t either. “You want to go and leave your precious Sam here alone?”
Dean does not have time for this shit. “He’s not gonna be alone. And no offense but I don’t trust any of you to come back.”
Nobody can object to that argument convincingly enough.
Chuck’s spare handheld had the most bullets left (seven) and Annie’s is second, so they trade guns with Dean and Risa. Before Dean can leave, Sam grabs his sleeve and tugs hard enough that Dean falls into him for a brief, crushing embrace.
“What, no kiss goodbye?” Dean mutters into Sam’s shoulder.
“Come back,” is all Sam says once they draw apart. His tone is a command.
“Yes, sir,” Dean says, mock-saluting. And then he turns around quickly so Sam won’t see the pain bleed into his expression, but Risa does and, for once, chooses not to comment on it.
*
Dean hates counting bullets because it feels like a countdown of his last few moments on Earth no matter what he's hunting, but Risa is an amazing shot and they somehow make it through the croats crowding towards the bunker. They aren’t followed; maybe the logic of numbers told the croats to ignore two meals versus five.
“This way,” Risa hisses, sprinting in between the cabins and counting out loud. “... L... M... N... O...”
“Are we there y—“
“P! Here.” She skids to a halt and so does Dean; they moved away from the fires and visibility is worse now, but there are also no hostiles around that he can see. Risa rounds the corner between cabins P and Q and plasters herself to the wall. Dean follows her every step of the way.
They make it all the way to the door until a noise makes Dean grab Risa’s wrist and stop her from opening it.
It started out as a squeak, but then it happens again; a grind of metal against metal.
“Do you hear that?” Dean whispers.
Risa tugs her wrist away.
“That’s Bobby’s chair, moron. This is one of the only ground-level cabins.” She knocks on the door three times in an obviously predetermined interval and flings it open.
Nobody shoots her, so that’s something.
Dean rushes in after her and shuts the door behind him.
“Dean!”
“Past-Dean,” Risa clarifies.
Even if he didn't already know, Dean would be able to tell this bunker is only used for storage; there's barely any room to walk around given the amount of stuff piled around. Some of it is obviously camp supplies (plastic-wrapped blankets are heaped up in a corner and there are three boxes full of water filters) but a lot of the rest is personal. A stuffed animal of nondescript species is perched on top of an impractical three-legged stool; a whole section of the back area seems to be old discarded laptops and their useless chargers.
Bobby is sitting amidst stacks upon stacks of boxes (all labeled, all bullets). He’s holding a lantern in one hand and the biggest, baddest looking semi-automatic Dean ever saw braced against his opposite arm.
“Bobby. Man, am I glad to see you.”
“Dean.” Bobby smiles tiredly at him, and he looks genuinely happy to see Dean. “I thought I wouldn’t see you before they—where’s Sam?”
“Angel-proof bunker,” Risa interjects, already grabbing as many shells as her pockets will carry.
Bobby nods. “Okay. That’s... yeah, that might just work.”
Dean turns to start stuffing bullets into his pants as well, but just as his hand closes around a box of shotgun shells he hears it. A gunshot.
He couldn’t say why it’s distinctive other than that it’s an isolated, single shot. But it definitely happened right outside.
“Dean. Hurry the fuck up.”
But Dean can’t move, because suddenly he knows what’s happening just a few feet away from them even if he couldn’t justify that knowledge with an explanation. He knows who’s out there, and he has to know if they won.
“Dean... Dean, don’t—“
“You two go back without me.”
“Dean—“
He opens the door careful not to make a sound and slips out.
It was the Colt, he just knows it. Lucifer must be right here, he could be just... just around the corner...
- 35 –
Cold. Harsh. Gelid.
It’s winter every day in Sam’s world.
Frost crackles even though there are no windowpanes and the ice is so cold it burns—Sam always envisioned flames in Hell, he’d seen those fiery pits everywhere in the lore.
But Hell is white, and it is freezing.
Sam knows because he lives there now.
Sometimes Sam is barely Sam anymore, because being disembodied and frozen and alone and trapped by the Devil is one way to lose your mind. Watching your own hands murder countless innocent people is another.
Since Detroit, Sam has existed as a pale light flickering in the tundra of his own personal Hell. He thinks, constantly; this is it, this is the end, the cold has seeped into my very existence and now I will finally cease to be.
But the Devil won’t let him.
And now there is Dean.
“Goodbye, you son-of-a-bitch.”
A gunshot.
A sigh.
Lucifer is pretending to be dissapointed, but really he’s feeling as close to a positive emotion as he is capable.
“Dean. Really. What did you expect?”
Sam’s mouth is being used to speak, but Sam can’t feel his jaw move, can’t sense his tongue articulate the words. Lucifer lets him experience his own body when he’s feeling particularly powerful or particularly in control of a situation he knows Sam will not enjoy. Maybe this time—just to see Dean through his own eyes again, just once—
“I...” Dean doesn’t seem to have an answer.
“I have to admit... I am impressed. You got this far, Dean. You shot your own brother, even if your aim is somewhat... sub-par.”
Dean missed his shot? No way. He can’t have been so desperate as to shoot Lucifer somewhere that wouldn’t kill his vessel—Dean knows killing the vessel is the most sure-fire way of killing it’s host. Dean knows that, and Dean was never naive.
Dean wouldn’t risk it just on the off-chance he could still save what’s left of Sam, would he?
Sam wishes he could see.
“Let me talk to him.”
“I don’t think so, no.”
Of course. Sam remembers now. He sacrificed himself and the world to stop Lucifer from killing Dean.
“Why are you here? You have your fucked-up utopia. You won. What do you want from—“
“Don’t tell me you’re trying to play dumb, now.” Lucifer uses Sam’s muscles to tilt his head sideways curiously, and Sam wrestles for another inch of control, just to set the scene, just to take a peek—
“I’m not—“
“I think you know what I want, Dean. And if you don’t give him to me right now I’m just going to have to kill a lot more people to take him.”
The white prison tries to keep him in. Sam punches walls he can’t feel and screams without making a sound.
“Why?”
There’s a light breeze in the air. The air—Sam can feel it.
For an instant, Sam’s skin is as close to his own as it’s been for years, and something is burning and Dean is here and there’s a light breeze. He can see; they are in the central avenue between the bungalows. A memory flickers; he went to summercamp once. Lucifer is making the croats and the demons kill the survivors and search for the other vessel. The other Sam.
There is no moonlight; instead there are fires and gore and death. Castiel’s body is lying broken on the cracked earth. Standing next to it is...
Dean.
“You expect me to explain myself to you?” Lucifer says, gently disbelieving. He’s thinking about making Sam experience killing Dean with his own hands.
Oh no. Oh no, no, no you have to run, Dean.
Sam tries to lurch forward, to push for more control—and is shoved back with ease, swatted like a fly. Lucifer lets him keep watching, though; he probably thinks it’s a fitting punishment for Sam’s moment of daring.
Sam lets him keep thinking that even though Dean’s soot-stained face is the best thing that has happened to him in what feels like centuries. His brother stands strong and powerful, foolishly unafraid of his certain death in the midst of the raging battle that Lucifer is undoubtedly going to win. Dean is like a beacon in the night—the parts of his soul that remain gleam patchy gold in the firelight. He’s so beautiful the force of it dispels some of the arctic chill from Sam’s core, or whatever qualifies as Sam’s core now.
“I don’t really have time to chat, Dean. I have already told you that I am going to kill every person here if you don’t tell me where he is... is that what you want? More death on your hands, more... guilt?”
Sam thinks, but quietly so Lucifer won’t hear; Dean. Dean, I never stopped loving you, not in all this time I’ve been trapped here.
“Is that a trick question?” Dean grunts, his voice shot, his eyes dark. “’Cause I don’t test very well—“
“You humans claim to value other lives as much as you do your own,” Lucifer states. He never uses Sam’s throat to shout or even raise his voice; and it’s especially notable now as his voice softens instead of sharpening.
Soft doesn’t mean safe, Dean.
“I never understood how that works, evolutionarily speaking.” The Devil gazes out into the night sky with Sam’s eyes, briefly pondering his own words. His thoughts cycle through his consciousness like images being fast-forwarded at the speed of light; it starts with the usual reel of war, famine, natural disasters... and then suddenly the images are full of Sam—memories Lucifer extracted from Sam’s own mind, memories of Sam and Dean. “But then I suppose that only applies to you in regards to a specific life, Dean. Proving selfishness wins out in the end, as you trade millions of souls for one... hairless ape.”
Lucifer was hoping Dean might just reveal the other-Sam’s location because he hasn’t been able to trace Sam’s presence since it winked out of existence, but he’s going to have to seek out the wards that are concealing his prize from him.
Dean. I love you. Run, Dean.
Sam’s legs are utilised to walk towards Dean. Dean, who doesn’t walk away—who barely flinches at the sight of the Devil advancing on him even if the Devil is wearing his little brother’s face.
Sam fights harder than he ever has, terrified, warmed by his fear, desperate to save Dean again, to save Dean, he has to save—
“I’m afraid this is the thing that is finally going to break Sam’s soul for good,” Lucifer says, and he makes Sam’s voice sound regretful and his eyebrows slant with pity, like it’s an event he can’t help. “What’s left of it, anyway.”
Dean. What’s left of me still loves you.
Dean stands tall and waits until Lucifer is right in front of him. Sam gives his furious, lonely battle every single thing he’s got. He doesn’t have much anymore, but he uses it against the frost, trying to break free.
Dean, I love you. I can’t save you.
Dean. Run.
- 37 -
Lucifer is wearing a terribly white suit.
Even without a moon, with a sky that is only begining to consider greying into dawn, Lucifer’s suit glows on its own. The color is... unsettling to look at; it’s a white that evokes snow, bone, cocaine. Sickness. Anemia. Death.
Dean watches events unfold from behind a bungalow, his grip on the gun purely out of comfort because it’s about as useless as a slingshot right now. Castiel was already dead when he arrived, but future-Dean is still talking to the Devil.
A few stray demons seem to be hovering around the open area, but there are no croats in sight this side of the campsite. Dean’s hoping that the lack of people is due to the perfectly executed escape plan drilled into the survivors’ brains, and not any other reason.
“I’m afraid this is the thing that is finally going to break Sam’s soul for good,” Lucifer is saying, and it’s obviously not Sammy (the posture, the gestures, the eyes) but at the same time... it hurts so bad to think Sam could still be somewhere in there. “What’s left of it, anyway.”
Future-Dean just stands there, staring the Devil in the face with the Colt held limply in his hand. He’s not going to go for the kill shot; if he was, Lucifer would have snapped his neck already.
Dean should be running back to defend the angel-proof cabin, but he can’t look away.
“Sammy,” future-Dean says. It comes out ragged, like the word is wrenched out of him.
Lucifer pauses, doesn’t move.
“Sammy, if you’re in there... I’m here, okay?”
“Your brother can’t hear you, Dean—“
“I’m here.” He raises his voice, and it sends a chill over Dean. He never, ever wants to feel whatever is making his counterpart sound like that. “And I’m not gonna leave you.”
“Well, I’m afraid this is proving to be a pointless—“
Lucifer stops talking abruptly.
Then he crumples to the ground, and it’s not Lucifer anymore; it’s not Lucifer.
Future-Dean drops after him like a stone, scrabbling to hold Sam up, to get him sitting and raise his head. Dean stumbles forward on autopilot, his body catching up faster than his mind and abandoning his questionable hiding place.
“Sam!” he calls, skidding to a halt when he reaches them.
“Sam, you’re okay, you’re okay...” Future-Dean is crying, cradling a shivering Sammy in his arms.
“I can’t...” Sam whispers, hand clutching future-Dean’s sleeve. “Can’t hold him for long...”
“You’re doing so well,” future-Dean chokes, hands trembling violently. “You’re doin’ perfect, Sammy... you’re perfect.”
Suddenly Dean feels like an unwanted intruder in the reunion, but he can’t help the momentous draw towards his hurt and injured brother. He hovers over them, uncertain, completely shattered by the way this Sammy skewers his internal compass; adds an extra pole. It’s Sam.
There’s a distant shout and then a pillar of black smoke erupts from one of the closest figures standing guard. The demons are beggining to notice something is off.
“Guys, this is—“
“Get back to the cabin. To him,” future-Dean says wetly, not looking away from Sam for one second. “Go. Time it right.”
“Time what—“
“Time it with dawn and go back. Fix it, Dean.”
“I...”
“I’ll try to give you some time,” Sam says. He looks gaunt; tortured despite a lack of obvious scars, but he’s clinging to future-Dean’s green jacket with surprising force. “I... it won’t be much.” He winces apologetically and future-Dean chuckles breathily into his hair, kissing the top of Sam’s head desperately, grabbing him so hard he’s crumpling the terrifying white suit.
“S’okay. I’m here; I’ll stay here,” future-him murmurs, gentle to a painful degree. His voice is thick with tears. “Go now, Dean.”
Dean starts to back away, something in him ripping apart with every step he takes further from his brother.
“Dean, he’s going to kill you—“
“I know, I know Sammy, it’s okay. They’ll fix it. It’ll be like this never happened.”
“Detroit... I’m sorry I failed. I had to choose you. I couldn’t—I couldn’t let him—“
“It’s okay, you were perfect, you’re perfect... you’re gonna be okay, I’m here...”
The demons let him pass; they don’t seem very interested in him given their leader’s sudden clocking out of the game. A black-eyed pregnant woman is the only one who half-heartedly tries to grab him but Dean dodges out of the way and forces himself to start running.
He only looks back once, before ducking between two bunkers that will the block the scene from view.
All he can make out are two figures huddled together at the center of a growing crowd of demons, and the unsettling glow of white. The sky is slowly lightening, just not fast enough.
Dean knows future-him is going to die and he knows future-him is perfectly aware of it, too, but the relief in his counterpart’s eyes had been pure. As if dying with Sam in his arms was more than he’d ever dared hope for.
- 38 -
The demons leave first—some unspoken signal seems to draw them elsewhere. The croats are mindless; they don’t seem to follow the same rules, but their numbers are dwindling after renewed efforts from the group, thanks to Bobby and Risa’s thunderous passage through the fighting lines. The faraway sounds of battle have definitely faded, and there are no more chaotic screams in the distance.
That’s how Sam convinces the others to leave.
The lack of enemy combatants gives his companions a false sense of confidence in Sam’s ability to hold the cabin on his own; and he has help from their obvious desire to go take care of their fellow survivors. He shamelessly uses their emotional bonds with people whose status is unknown and it works on every single person except for Bobby, who refuses to leave him alone point blank.
Sam gives up on convincing the man when it becomes apparent that Bobby is just getting angrier instead of closer to changing his mind, and they each take one post within the cabin.
Specifically, Bobby took the door and Sam the window, so it’s Bobby who yells: “Dean!” first.
Sam is at his shoulder in seconds, never mind what’s happening beyond the distant tree-line.
The gray suggestion of dawn is enough for Sam to distinguish his brother’s form sprinting their way. Dean only runs past one croatoan victim and barely slows down to shoot him in the face before jumping over two nondescript bodies and careening towards the front of the cabin.
He finally stumbles to a stop while Bobby adeptly manouvers his chair out of the way and lets him in.
“Dean,” Sam gasps, and grabs the front of Dean’s shirt to—put his other arm around Dean’s shoulders and hug him.
A sudden rattle of machine-gun fire draws them apart.
Bobby puts down his weapon just as Sam catches three distant croats dropping to the ground in a bloody spatter.
“What happened?” Sam asks, desperate to know why Dean didn’t come back with Risa, the reason he’s been sick to his stomach not knowing whether his brother was alive.
Dean hesitates like he doesn’t know where to start, then turns to face Bobby.
“You have to go,” he says.
“I ain’t leaving you two alone,” Bobby replies flatly.
“Yeah you are. We need a favor, and we need you to go tell the others. Sam can’t leave the cabin, and I can’t...” he trails off but, for the first time in a long time, Sam is certain he knows the end of that sentence. It sends a lick of warmth up his spine.
“What favor?”
“We need a diversion. Lucifer is going to try and come for Sam—we need you guys to keep him occupied for as long as you can. Until the sun rises.”
Bobby looks from Dean to Sam, then shifts so his machine-gun is across his lap instead of braced against the back of his chair.
“You boys got yourselves a deal.” He sighs. “It was... real great to see you both. These past few years...” but they all know there’s no way to sum up what the past few years must have been like, and anyway they are running out of time.
“Thanks, Bobby,” Sam croaks. “For everything.”
Dean nods in agreement and hands the man a full belt loader.
Bobby doesn’t waste any more time before spinning around in a practiced move and rolling off into the grass. Sam spares a thought for the upper body strength he’s had to develop to manouver the caked, dry earth, but midway towards the rest of the bungalows Bobby spins in place and opens fire on another pair of croats without letting the kickback throw him off the chair—and Sam remembers the man is a certified badass.
As soon as Bobby is out of sight, however, Dean picks up the cabin door and pushes it crookedly back in its frame. Sam knows they basically have to sit and wait out the next few minutes but the feverish edge to Dean’s sudden mood makes him uneasy.
“Dean, what happened out there?”
But Dean silently marches up to him and grabs his face in both hands, tugging him down for a forceful kiss.
“Mh, D-Dean, wh—“
Dean just muffles a hurt noise into Sam’s mouth and kisses harder, eyes tightly closed like he’s trying to superimpose this feeling over a nightmare image Sam can’t see. His shoulders are shivering and the hands cradling Sam’s head are digging fingernails into his scalp.
Sam wraps both arms around Dean’s waist and crushes him to his chest, letting him have the moment even as a voice in the back of his head screams that their time is about to run out.
- 39 -
Dean finally calms down when he registers the broad palm Sam is rubbing up and down his back, like he’s soothing a spooked horse.
“Sorry,” he grunts, pushing Sam away and wiping the back of his wrist over his mouth. He takes a dizzy step back. “Shit. Sorry, Sam.”
“It’s okay,” Sam murmurs. “Dean, tell me—“
“Future-me is dead.”
He chances a look at Sam’s face and quickly looks away again.
“I’m sorry, Sammy. I didn’t see it happen but he’s as good as. I saw Lucifer.”
Sam blinks several times and simply nods, but doesn’t seem ready to speak yet.
“You should’a seen though... you overpowered him. The Devil, Sammy. You were amazing, and you bought me enough time to get back to... well, you.”
And suddenly it feels like he needs to get it out; the rest of it, all the things he kept to himself during that fateful phonecall.
“When I said—Sammy that thing about us being weaker together—truth is I’m scared. Scared that I am, and scared that you aren’t.”
He has to make Sam understand.
“’Cause there’s days when I think you’re the same and days when I—I don’t know. And you... you keep leavin’ me all the time, man.” Sam winces. “But I know me, and I know what I’d do. Hell, you’ve seen what I become without you. If someone made me choose between you and the world... I already know the answer. And that’s really fucked up.”
He pauses, trying to find a better way of phrasing what he wants to convey. This was never what he was good at, and for all of Sam’s skill at weaving language to his advantage he was never great at baring hurtful truths either.
“Okay, maybe ‘weaker’ is a shit way of saying it, but... it’s the truth.”
Weak. You make me weak.
It is the truth, but the hurt look on Sam’s face means Sam is taking it the wrong way—why do they always screw this part up? It’s not just him; the vehicle always fails them and the collateral damage gets amped up instead of toned down.
“I mean... I...”
They always end up... here.
Dean flounders, tyring to come up with the next step. What’s his next move, how does he express...?
Sam is the one who solves it first. The AP-graded, full-ride to Standford little shit Dean loves more than life itself figures out a way to solve their lifelong dilemma.
Between one moment and the next Sam is striding over to him and gripping the collar of Dean’s shirt like his life depends on it. For a second Dean even expects a punch or a shove that lands him on his ass.
“Dean,” Sam snarls. “Listen to me.”
Only he doesn’t speak; he tugs Dean forward and kisses him.
Dean can barely keep up at first. Sam bites at his lips and sucks on his tongue and handles him however he wants, wrapping his arms around Dean’s waist again and refusing to lean down so he’s forcing Dean to push up. Dean finds himself on his tip-toes to maintain the contact, balance completely lost. When Sam spreads a posessive hand over Dean’s ass and squeezes approvingly Dean braces his weight against Sam’s chest.
Dizzy and off-kilter, Dean anchors himself by sinking his hands into Sam’s hair. He winds it between his fingers and gentles the rhythm of their kiss; slowing Sam down. Sam responds after a few moments, deepening the kiss instead and matching Dean’s slower pace. The arm he’s got around Dean’s waist squeezes tighter, anchoring them together.
In their own way, the touches are a dialogue, and like tumblers falling into place... it clicks. Dean can’t believe this is really it; the missing piece. All this time, the anger and the fighting and the hurt... what they needed was another way, another means of communication that worked better than words.
This is better than words.
This is—
Suddenly Sam stops moving.
“Sam...?”
Sam pulls away and sets Dean back down on his heels, looking over Dean’s shoulder at the door. Dean didn’t hear anything, didn’t feel any—
Someone knocks three times, gently enough not to dislodge it.
- 40 -
Sam can feel him.
There’s a draw and a repulsion Lucifer instills in him simultaneously—a dangerous allure that pulls him in and makes him nauseous at once.
He knows who is standing right outside and while he’s perfectly aware of the fact that the rickety door is purely there for show, he doesn’t want to open it. He doesn’t want to see his body being used as a puppet.
“The window,” Dean whispers.
“Dean, we can’t fit through—“
“No, no, look.”
Sam follows Dean’s pointed finger to the tentative light of dawn creeping into the cabin.
It’s been twenty-four hours since they got here. Zachariah might already be trying to pull them back into the past, and finding it strangely difficult for some reason.
“We need to get out so Zach can get to us,” Dean mutters.
“Right, and we need to stay inside so Lucifer can’t get to us,” Sam whispers back, casting his eyes around for a stall, an impossible alternate way out.
“Talk about a catch-22.”
“He still needs my consent to use my body.” It’s their best shot and they both know it. “We can go outside together and I can stall him.”
A second, equally patient knock taps against the door.
They exchange a pointed look and Sam grabs his gun from the back of his jeans.
“No solicitors, thank you,” Dean calls out.
There’s silence for a long moment.
Then the door blasts open.
“Dean. Good to see you again.”
Sam has to fight hard to keep his cool, but Lucifer’s focus is on Dean first. It’s surprisingly easy not to see himself in the Devil; it’s certainly his body, his general shape, but... nothing else. Nothing that is his, and especially not the bone-white suit Lucifer is wearing.
“I thought my little reunion before had an... echo.”
He stands tall and calm right at the edge of the invisible barrier created by the wards, just inches from being framed by the doorway. Sam’s blood sings when he’s near, he just can’t tell if his repulsion wins out.
“Yeah. I got there just in time to see Sammy kick your ass,” Dean says with relish.
Of course. Of course he antagonizes their most powerful enemy.
“Well, he’s gone now and so is his brother. You can join them soon, if you want. Or you can go back to your time. Sam is the only one I care about.”
“I will never say ‘yes’,” Sam grits out.
Of course, the irony of that statement isn’t lost on any of them.
Lucifer raises his eyebrows like he’s almost embarrassed for Sam. “Since I’m wearing the evidence to the contrary, we could just... skip this first part. It’s a little trite, you playing... hard-to-get.”
Dean looks disgusted. “Man, you’re something else.”
“Correct.” Lucifer raises a hand. He’s still confined to the outside by the wards, but the half-twist of his fingers as he beckons Sam to him is executed with grace. “Come out, come out...” he quotes, quiet.
Sam pretends to really, truly struggle with the notion before taking a step forward.
“Sammy, no.” Dean makes a show of trying to pull him back by his sleeve but lets him keep moving, step by shaky step.
“I’m still not saying yes,” Sam warns.
Lucifer nods, allowing it.
“You will,” he says. “You already have.”
Sam finally steps out into the sunlight—although using ‘sunlight’ to describe the pale glow of dawn struggling against the clouds might be a reach.
His own face smiles at him.
It’s not his smile, though.
“I think I finally understand the concept of déjà vu.”
There’s a grunt behind him and Sam whirls around just in time to see Dean get tossed up in the air.
“No—“ he breathes, because they need a bit more time. Why did he step out so soon, dammit Dean—
“Come on, Sam,” Lucifer prompts, hand raised in Dean’s direction. He’s keeping Sam’s brother afloat at least ten feet above the ground, and a bad fall could very well snap his neck. “Your next line is easy: you just agree. Anything other than that and I drop him.”
A shot goes off in the distance, and Sam gives it no more creedence because it could be a remnant of the battle he never saw. He’s trying to think his way out of this; to outsmart the Devil. Lucifer is seconds from killing Dean, how does he not say yes, how does he—
But then a second shot is fired, and a third, and then the incredibly loud rattle of a machine-gun sounds much closer than makes sense.
Next, an engine roars.
The giant truck that rescued them yesterday thunders into view, barely fitting between two bungalows to charge their way. Metal screeches against metal and sparks fly on its sides but it’s going to make it.
It’s them. Jo, Risa, Nate, Chuck... they came back. Bobby must have gotten them to come back.
Somehow knowing what’s about to happen, Sam rushes over to stand under Dean and sure enough, is there to cushion his fall when Lucifer unceremoniously lets him go to attend to the commotion.
“Fuck, ow,” Dean groans, but is very much alive and probably only broke a couple of Sam’s ribs on his way down. “Sammy—“
A figure appears over his shoulder.
Sam could cry with relief; it’s Zachariah. It literally took a village, but they are saved. They are saved.
It’s finally over.
“Good timing,” he gasps, looking up at the archangel gratefully. It may have felt like they are on opposing sides since he met these creatures, but he can’t deny what this rescue means. Still half on top of him, Dean twists around and claps his hands, punches the air in triumph.
“All right,” he crows, and braces a hand on Sam’s chest to get up—
“Let’s go, Dean,” Zachariah says, and before Sam has even had time to register what those words mean the archangel touches Dean’s forehead with two fingers and disappears right along with him.
The sudden absence of Dean’s weight on top of him leaves him disoriented at first, so he doesn’t quite process what just happened.
What...?
No.
No... “Dean.”
No, this can’t be happening. This can’t be it.
“Dean.”
Sam sits up, looking around like he’s going to see his brother again, or maybe like he’s hoping Zachariah is going to reappear and bring him back. This isn’t the end, this can’t be it...
In the background, gunfire explodes around Lucifer but a simple flick of his fingers slows the individual pellets down to a patter, like gentle rain falling around him. Sam’s pretty sure the Matrix did it first.
“Dean!”
Was this Zachariah's plan all along? Trap Lucifer's vessel in the equivalent of another dimension? Why were they so sure he'd bring Sam back too--
An earth-shattering crash makes him jump, and he turns to watch the massive truck lurching to the air. It keeps falling forward in a timeless suspended moment... And then pinwheels to the side at a slight tilt of Lucifer’s head. The ground under Sam’s hands reverberates with the shock, and plumes of thick black smoke billow out from the engine, mixing with the white mist of morning. The windows burst and scattered glass like confetti into the air--
Sam can't see the bodies but he knows that in a single, brutal move Lucifer killed every last one of his allies.
“Dean...”
"Dean's far away, Sam. It's just us, now."
The suit sucks in the light of morning instead of reflecting it.
He can’t believe this is how it ends.
- 41 -
Dean lands in his motel bed with a thud, and only barely manages not to throw up.
“Sammy,” he mutters instantly, disoriented as shit. “Sam.”
No answer.
“Sammy, hey.”
He blinks rapidly, trying to adjust his vision and stop things from looking blurry. Still no response.
“Sam?”
Finally, his gaze settles and... and Sam’s not there.
A spike of panic causes his heartbeat to double in speed, but Dean tries to calm down. Maybe Sammy’s time-travel was delayed a little. Maybe Zach just took them one at a time.
He waits as long as he can possibly bear.
So, another seven seconds.
“Sam?” he calls, rushing up off the bed and starting to feel frantic. “Sam!”
“Man, shut up!” someone calls from the next room over.
Okay, okay, Sam was driving—they spoke on the phone; Sam was elsewhere. Zachariah must have simply brought him back where he was before. Of course, that makes perfect sense.
It takes his shaking fingers several attempts to scroll past Cas’s phone to Sam’s last incoming call, and he only had to hit three keys in the correct order. Fuck.
Finally, he’s calling Sam and the dial tone is ringing, and it keeps on ringing and Sam isn’t picking up.
He waits it out until Sam’s phone jumps to voicemail and, completely out of it at this point, calls again and prays, prays in that vague nonspecific way to no entity in particular for Sam to be all right, please, Sam has to be back, he has to be safe. He drops his ass down on the bed again and calls a third time, stomach sinking.
Nobody answers Sam’s phone.
“Fuck,” he pants, and does the next thing he can think of.
He calls someone else.
“Where is he?” he yells as greeting.
“Sam is untraceable,” Castiel answers. “Your ribcages, if you’ll recall—I’m sorry. I don’t know where to find him.”
“Well you better think of something in the next minute or I’m putting a bullet in my skull,” Dean snarls, and means it.
There’s a pause at the other end of the line, and then Castiel’s scratchy voice returns with added caution. “Dean... do not kill yourself.”
“Find Sam,” Dean counters, and hangs up the phone.
How does he contact Zachariah? The man found him somehow, there must be a way to—
The phone rings again and Dean snatches it up instantly.
“Dean,” it’s Castiel again. “I will not be able to locate Sam within the next minute, please, do not place a bullet inside your cranium, I think that might increase your chances of dying exponentially.”
Dean tosses the phone across the room in a violent move and stands up again, near-hyperventilating. Where is Sam, how could he lose him like this, just after finding him again and somehow finding him for the first time, how could this happen—
He has to find him. He has to go look for him and he’ll kill Zachariah in the process if he must. He’s wanted to stab that douchebag in the face ever since he first met him.
He flings the door open and his heart stops.
Sam is standing right outside, hand raised to knock.
“Hey.”
Dean can’t even speak; he lets out a strangled groan and launches himself at Sam, kissing him to say ‘I can’t believe you’re here’, the arms around his neck a cry of ‘I’m never letting you go’.
Sam huffs laughter into his mouth and manages to get them inside the room, at least, and swing the door shut behind himself.
“D-Dean, hey, hey...” after getting a better look on Dean’s face Sam’s expression loses all levity, concern drawing his brows together and scrunching his nose. “Hey, Dean, it’s okay, I’m okay...”
He rubs his hands up and down Dean’s sides while Dean scans Sam’s eyes for any lingering hurt, any traces of pain or possession or anything at all.
“I thought he left you behind.” He pauses. “In front—in the future.”
Sam smiles nervously. “Yeah. I did too.”
Dean gulps in a huge breath.
“I thought you were gone, Sammy.”
- 42 -
Sam’s still reeling with the relief from Zachariah’s last-minute appearance, but Dean’s reaction shoved his own emotions to the background. The look on his brother’s face had been furious, resolute and, for a second... the closest to future-Dean Sam had ever seen.
“I thought you were gone.”
Sam wants to say the words, but he can’t quite get them out.
So he kisses Dean instead. He bends down just a bit and gently, lovingly teases Dean’s mouth open, licking his lips and then his tongue. It’s deliberately soft, softer than comes naturally to him, because he wants to convey a very important message.
Love, family... It doesn’t matter what they call this thing they have between them.
Whatever it is, Sam tells Dean with his kisses, I’m not leaving you ever again.
Dean’s hands fly back up to sink into their preferred resting place in Sam’s hair, and he tugs at it to hold on. His whole body thrums with relief, with gratitude, with the hungry love Sam remembers basking in his whole life. It's perfect. It's beyond perfect. It's the kind of ending he'd never dreamed of even as a desperately lovestruck little kid.
They eventually fall into the bed, and forget about the world for the rest of the night.
Castiel’s phone runs out of minutes.
The End