Archive of Our Own ^beta

He’s going to hell.

Dean can’t even focus on that, on the fact he just sold his soul and he’s got a year left to live, because he honestly doesn’t care.

He barely sees the road as he drives back to the cabin, hands not trembling only because of how tightly he’s got them clenched around the steering wheel. It’s been two – two and a half, now, he confirms with a glance at the clock – days since Sammy died in his arms. Since he pressed his hands to the hole in his little brother’s spine and felt the warm gush of blood and something more vital spilling over his hands, since he held his baby brother and lied to him, something he’d promised to stop doing, but some habits are too old to break. He’d told him it wasn’t that bad, that he was going to be fine, and kept repeating it until Sam was gone, until the lies couldn’t do any harm or any good or anything at all.

He'd rocked Sammy in his arms and sobbed into his hair and begged him to say something, to come back, to not leave him. Bobby had returned at some point, had tried to take Sam from him, but Dean had only clung all the tighter.

They’d both been cold by the time Dean could be convinced to return to the Impala, but Dean had been the only one shivering.

The last time he’d been in this car had been in the backseat, Sam’s head in his lap while he ran shaking, bloody hands through his hair like he’d sometimes do when Sam was too fucked out to make fun of him for it or when he’d been a kid and couldn’t sleep because of nightmares.

Dean’s living in a nightmare right now. But he’s sold his soul for the chance to wake up.

He’d do anything to wake up.

~

Sam wakes up with a gasp, body seizing, and he turns on his side as he coughs and sputters, trying to get air in lungs as quickly as possible and struggling for some reason. It’s like he has nothing to exhale and he’s choking on it. He eventually manages to breathe in and out without feeling like he’s dying –

Holy shit.

He pushes himself to his feet too quickly, his entire body sore and cramping, and he falls to his knees. He grits his teeth and shoves himself upright, legs trembling, and thank fuck there’s a mirror right there.

No sallow skin, tongue intact, eyes the right size. He reaches for the small of his back, hissing when he makes contact and his whole body throbs in pain. There’s no wound. Nothing but smooth skin. He pulls the bottom of his shirt up and twists around. There’s a scar there, vertical and dark but flat, and he remembers the flash of pain that matches it, how he’d known it was over as soon as Jake had yanked the knife up, splitting his spine in two.

Not hoodoo, not reanimation, not anything he’s ever heard of except, of course, for the obvious.

“DEAN!” Anger gives him more strength than he feels as he stumbles out of the room, but he’s unsurprised to find it empty. If Dean were here, he’d be here. He died with Dean’s hands on him, with his older brother’s voice comforting him as he tried to hold on for him just a little a longer and couldn’t.

He better still be alive so Sam can kill him.

Dean’s duffle and the weapons bag are in the corner, along with a couple bottles of whiskey and a bucket of untouched fried chicken. He’s almost tempted, because he’s actually starving, but the last thing he needs right now is food poisoning. What the hell kind of ramshackle dump is this place anyway? There’s not even a fridge, although they barely need one, considering how freezing it is in here.

At least the duffles mean he’s got what he needs, although he wishes his own were here, even if he gets why it isn’t. He’d really like a change of clothes. He doesn’t know how long he’s been dead, but it was long enough that he’s catching whiffs of decomposition on his clothes, and actually he can take a guess on that alone. A couple days, maybe, because anything more than that and he’d be rank. At least he knows why Dean’s had them camped out in an icebox.

The thought that he’s smelling his own corpse rot is disquieting, to say the least, but it’s faint enough that it’s fairly easy to ignore. He’s smelled worse after grave digging.

There’s no Impala outside. He tells himself that it’s a good thing, that the Impala gone and no note or anything of his left behind means that Dean intends to come back for him, that Dean’s stupid but not quite that stupid.

Or it just means that he trusts anything that needs to be said between them, Sam will already know.

He remembers trying to speak, trying to make his mouth form words, although he’s not sure what they were. His brother’s name, probably, not exactly revelatory. What would he have said if he had the chance?

That he loved him. That it wasn’t his fault. That he was sorry.

Nothing Dean wouldn’t already know.

He doesn’t know where the hell he is, so he just picks a direction and starts walking, ignoring the way pain arcs through him with every movement. At least all the streets around here are dirt.

It won’t take him that long to find a crossroads.

~

Dean’s fumbles at the door, his hands not working right, and it takes too many tries to shove it open, to tumble inside. He runs across to the bedroom, hands gripping the doorframe, and feels his stomach drop.

Sammy’s body is gone.

He looks around wildly. “SAM! SAMMY!”

Nothing.

It’s not a big cabin. It’s not like there’s anyplace he could be hiding.

That bitch – that fucking – he’s going to –

His legs give out from under him and he lands hard on the edge of the bed, the one Sam’s body had been on when he’d left and is now empty. He can see the blood stain from where gravity had leaked blood from the wound on his back.

They took him. His body. They took his little brother’s body.

Why? What reason? Just to fuck with him? To teach him some sort of lesson?

He has to get him back, he has to – he should have just buried him like Bobby wanted him to, should have given him the hunter’s funeral he earned, even though the one mention of burning his brother’s body had led to Dean vomiting on Bobby’s boots, which, whatever, it's not like they haven’t seen worse.

Instead he tried to get him back, tried to fix his fuck up, to bring back Sam, his brother and his best friend and his – whatever they hell they are to each other, none of the words individually enough to encompass everything, because that’s what Sam is. Everything.

And now he’s gone in every way.

~

Sam is thinking he’d do some pretty indecent things for a few painkillers and that the wind is cutting right through him when there’s a shift in the air and a pretty brunette in a black dress and glowing red eyes appears in front of him. “Sammy! My, my, I’m just so popular with you boys tonight. You’re looking well. Considering.”

“What were the terms?” he asks, looking her over, trying to get a feel for the oily smoke inhabiting this pretty woman’s body.

Something he never told Dean, that he couldn’t, that he’s decided doesn’t count as lying because Dean’s never asked, is how much effort he puts into not using powers.

Ava had been right. It’s not hard. It’s easy. Pushing them away is hard. Trying not to use them and pressing them down and away feels like trying to swim to the surface with weights tied to his feet. He’s done that before and he’d shoved aside the visions and that one moment of desperate telekinesis the same way.

It’s probably why they always hurt so much when one manages to make its way through. The others’ powers didn’t hurt them, but they weren’t suppressing them like he is, although he’s sure that Lily had tried.

Ava could control demons.

“No thank you?” she simpers, giving him a wide smile that would get his attention if it was coming from the woman the body belongs to and not the demon possessing her. “I could get in a lot of trouble for interfering, you know. But you are the favorite.”

“Oh,” he says softly, “you are in trouble.”

She rolls her eyes, not taking him seriously, but that’s alright. He’s used to that. “I don’t know what you’re so mad about, Sammy. I brought you back and gave you a nice long year with your precious big brother. That’s extra time for you both. Really, I thought the two of you would be busy… celebrating.”

A year? Dean sold his soul for a year? On one hand, Sam’s just grateful that he’s still alive. It makes this a lot easier. On the other, he’s fucking pissed that Dean would do this at all, and especially for so little time. “You shouldn’t have done it.”

“Well, you weren’t exactly around to have your say, were you?” she returns. “This has been fun, really, but I’ve got better things to do than stand here and listen to you whine.”

Her head snaps back and her mouth opens and nothing happens.

Sweat breaks out along his back, his neck, he can feel it on his upper lip. The dull pain in his body flares to life again, but he makes himself smile.

She tries to step away from him and realizes she can’t move, that her legs aren’t so much as twitching. Her eyes flash with fear and he wishes it was satisfying. He doesn’t want to be doing this, but it appears that what he wants hasn’t exactly been a priority for the past couple days. “Well, Sammy, aren’t you a quick little student?”

“I guess I’m the favorite for a reason,” he says. It’s just like Ava said it would be. Easy. This is what he’d been afraid of, what he’d been avoiding even after finding out the yellow eyed demon had bled in his mouth. But this is for Dean. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his big brother. He steps closer, until they’re almost close enough to share the same kiss that damned his brother. “You’re not leaving here until you give me what I want.”

~

Dean goes back to the crossroads, buries another tin, and she doesn’t show.

He screams, shouts, begs, threatens. It doesn’t matter. He tries the next crossroads up, and it’s the same result, nothing.

Nothing.

There’s some time lost, one moment digging his hands into his palms hard enough to draw blood, and the next he’s back in the cabin with only a vague recollection of returning because he has no place left to go, not really.

He pours whiskey down his throat until he chokes on it, swallowing and coughing and then back to drinking as soon as he can get enough air.

Part of him hadn’t even wanted to try. He’d pushed Bobby away because he couldn’t stand the sight of him anymore, couldn’t handle his red eyes and the tears he tried not to let Dean see, couldn’t handle the few times Bobby had touched Sam’s hand or shoulder brushed the back of his fingers against Sam’s cheek. He’d wanted to bite his head off for it, which hadn’t been fair, and not what Sam would have wanted, but what Sam would have wanted doesn’t matter anymore. He’s dead. He’d pushed Bobby away because he’d known he was going to do something stupid and he hadn’t wanted the man there to stop him, to witness it. He’s been through enough.

Dean had known he was going to do something he shouldn’t, but trying to sell his soul for Sam hadn’t been what he’d had in mind.

He’d been planning to crawl into bed with his brother, a mockery of the countless times throughout their lives he’d curled his body around Sam’s. The last time had been the night before he was taken, Dean still clingy after the djinn and trying not to show it, and Sam putting up with it like he always did. They hadn’t even fucked. Sam had stayed up reading, and Dean had fallen asleep with an arm around his waist and his face pressed into his side, grumbling about the light from the lamp.

He hadn’t wanted to get blood on Sam, hadn’t wanted to leave a mess. Sam hated mess. Plus, Bobby was probably going to come looking for him eventually. It took out guns and knives, but they had more than enough pills to do the job. Part of him had wanted to down the pills and then torch the place before going to sleep next to Sam, one that he wouldn’t be waking up from either way. If the pills weren’t enough to do him in, then the fire would. The thought of a pyre hadn’t been too terrible as long as they were burning together.

But Sam wouldn’t want to burn, not like Jessica, like Mom. And he figured Bobby finding their burned bodies like they’d had to find Ash’s at the Roadhouse wouldn’t be any better.

Why had he thought he could use his stupid good for nothing soul to fix any of the things he’d broken? Obviously Sam’s worth more than that, than the rotting excuse for a soul he’s carting around. Now Sam’s gone and he can’t even die with him, can’t even hold him one more time before following him to wherever the hell he’s gone off to.

Alcohol dulls the pain, or maybe losing Sammy twice over hurts so much that he can’t feel anything else, but looking down and seeing his bloody knuckles is a surprise. There’s a smear of his blood on the wall. He doesn’t even remember punching it.

Dean does it again, and again, and when that’s not enough he smashes the nearest chair to pieces and uses a leg to destroy everything else. He stops only to drink more, the burn down his throat the only sign that he’s still alive, that he’s still trapped in this nightmare of his own making. It’s not fair.

He was supposed to wake up.

~

It’s morning and Sam’s exhausted by the time he makes it back to the cabin. The Impala’s outside and the relief is enough that Sam sways with it, having to lock his knees to keep from falling over, which really won’t help anything right now. He wants his brother and food and a shower and –

What the hell?

The place is trashed. Broken furniture and smashed glass and blood on the walls and a familiar form slumped on the ground. “Dean!”

Did he do this? Is it because he – but no, he can see the rise can fall of his brother’s chest, he’s fine, this is fine. Sam really can’t take anymore and stumbles to the floor next to Dean. He’s curled in on himself, clutching an empty bottle of whiskey to his chest. His hands are bloody and raw and there’s glass on his clothes but at least he doesn’t seem to be bleeding anywhere else. Sam thinks he should be mad, but mostly he’s exhausted and heartsore and more than anything he wants to lie down next to Dean and pull him to his chest, wants to wrap an arm around his waist and press his face into his neck and just breathe, wants to give into the exhaustion that he can feel pulling at him.

But they don’t have the time.

The yellow eyed demon is planning something big and terrible, he’s going to get some sort of demon army and bring hell on earth unless they can find a way to stop it. Bobby, he thinks vaguely, he remembers Bobby being there with Dean, although the only evidence of him here is probably the fried chicken now scattered on the floor. They’ll go to Bobby’s and figure this out.

“Dean,” he says, reaching out and gripping his shoulder. It’s the first time they’ve touched since he died, but he’s too tired to find it remarkable, especially while Dean’s unconscious. “Hey. Wake up.”

He shakes him and Dean doesn’t do more than moan softly. Sam huffs, slapping his face gently, but his next words die on his tongue. He touches Dean’s cheek again, softer this time, and it’s tacky to the touch. There are dried tears on his face and drying blood on his hands and whiskey bottle drained dry still in his grasp.

“Sorry, big brother,” he says quietly. He’s still pissed, and worried, and seriously, his kingdom for some damn ibuprofen, but this dulls it all a little. He died in Dean’s arms. He’s been dead for days.

He’s been all Dean has for a long time and been the only thing he’s wanted for even longer. He’d guess that this is probably the first time he’s slept since Sam died, even if it’s more alcohol induced unconsciousness than anything else. He sighs and goes to get the kit to clean and wrap Dean’s hands, and if he spends a few minutes just sitting there with Dean’s hands in his, nobody has to know. He brushes the glass and splinters and who knows what else off of him and then goes to move the Impala as close to the door as he can get it.

He's pretty sure he pulls something lifting Dean up, the small of his back flaring with pain once again. Dean hadn’t been fully healed after the deal Dad made and he hadn’t even been dead, so he shouldn’t complain, and probably shouldn’t be doing things like going after demons and hauling around unconscious brothers, but needs must. He puts Dean in the back with his leather jacket wedged in between the seat and the door as a pillow and runs his hand over his hair, his shoulder, and down his arm. Part of him wants to put Dean up front just so he’s that much closer, but he needs the rest. Sam settles for angling the mirror so he sees more of Dean than he does the road.

He'd wanted to give Bobby a heads up, but both of their phones are dead. His he gets, obviously, but the fact that Dean didn’t bother to keep his own charged tells Sam more about where his head’s been at than he wants to know.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

They’re both alive. They’ll figure out the rest.

~

Bobby’s relieved that Ellen’s alive, that Jo’s safe somewhere in North Carolina, and that he’s not stuck figuring this out alone. He is, honestly and truly.

But that relief is being crushed under the river of grief that he’s just barely managing to keep dammed up. First they save the world from whatever bullshit the demon is cooking up and then – then –

He bows his head over the map, sight blurring. Then what?

He’s known Sam practically the kid’s whole life. Sam was the one that called him uncle when they were kids, the one that bridged the gap between Dean’s wariness and Bobby’s helplessness those first few times John had left them with him. He hadn’t known what to do with kids, but he couldn’t say no, didn’t want to. If he didn’t take them, John would bring them with him, and John hadn’t been interested in any parenting advice, but they were just kids, especially back then. It had been Sam who had trusted him first, who had slid his little hand in his and given him a gap toothed grin and asked Bobby to read to him and make him pancakes. Presumptuous little thing, but he’d been that way with Dean too, asking with the expectation of getting, and it would have probably been a really annoying quality if the damn kid hadn’t been so cute.

It hadn’t ever really gotten annoying though, as the years passed and Sam went from that little kid to a bratty teenager and a young man that Bobby was damn proud to say he’d had a hand in bringing up. He’d never asked Bobby for anything that he hadn’t want to give.

It’s not fair. So much in his life isn’t fair, it’s the nature of it, nature of the job too, but this just feels like too much.

They’re his boys. Sam’s dead and Dean’s – Dean barely survived losing his father, and that had been with Sam there to shore him up, to poke and prod and demand and comfort and cajole in a thousand different ways that only he could. He’s going to stop the demon and try to pull Dean out of whatever pit he’s dug himself into and then after that he can start to properly mourn the man that Bobby has always thought of as a son.

There’s a hand on his back and he jerks himself upright, running a hand over his eyes. Ellen gives him a knowing look but doesn’t call him on it. She’s mourning him too, Bobby knows, but it’s different. She’s mourning lots of people right now and she’s only known him a year. It’s not the same.

Just like it’s not the same for him as it is for Dean. He knows that. It’s what made talking to him so damn difficult, not that Bobby had ever been much good at it to begin with. Sam was always the talker between them.

A banging comes from his front door and he frowns. “You call anyone?”

“Who?” Ellen returns, which, fair enough.

It’s not like a demon would knock, but they still move forward cautiously. Maybe too cautiously, because a moment later a familiar voice shouts, “Bobby, you’ve got thirty seconds to open this door before I pick the lock!”

He freezes. Ellen gasps. “Is that–”

“No,” he says, because it’s not, it can’t be, it’s impossible.

He grabs the holy water, unlocks the door, and yanks it open. “Finally,” the thing that looks like Sam says right before Bobby hits him square in the face with holy water. He blinks, wiping it off. No burning, no smoke. He’s wearing the clothes he died in, but the holy water hitting him instead of going through him means he’s not a ghost.

No sallow skin. Tongue intact. Eyes the right size.

“It’s fine, I get it,” he says, holding his hand open. “Silver knife next?”

Ellen steps forward, blade already out, and draws a shallow cut along his palm before he can pull back. He flinches, but the skin doesn’t sizzle or tear, the blood is red and not too thick or too thin. The holy water falls from his numb fingers, spilling onto the floor, but it’s not important right now. “Sam?”

“I’ve decided I’m blaming you for this,” Sam tells him. “Just a little. What were you thinking leaving Dean alone?”

That’s probably significant in some way, but how is eluding him just then. Instead he repeats, “Sam,” and he’s reaching out, grabbing the kid’s shoulders and yanking him down into a hug.

He shifts, slumping into his embrace to fit even though he’s got on inches on Bobby, just like he has ever since his growth spurt, and it chases away any lingering doubts. It’s Sam. He holds on tighter, because he watched Dean carry his corpse from Cold Oak to the car and then into the cabin, giving Bobby a dark, dead look whenever he tried to help. He watched Dean hold vigil over his body, watched him lose himself a little more every hour that Sam wasn’t in the world with him, and Bobby hadn’t allowed himself anything more than the barest of touches, knowing how much Dean would hate it.

But Sam’s alive and here and Bobby’s not going to have to figure out how to mourn him. He’s right here.

Sam hugs him back, but he’s also squirming in his grip a little. “Ow, Bobby, I’m glad to see you too, but, uh.”

He lets go, looking him over and willing the burning in his eyes away. “You hurt?”

He shrugs. “Not really? I mean,” he gestures to his back, where that bastard got him, and Bobby’s throat goes tight. “No gaping mortal wound, but also everything sort of hurts, and I feel like shit. I’ve felt worse, though.”

“As if that’s a high bar to clear,” Ellen says dryly, stepping forward for her own hug, although she’s a lot more careful than Bobby had been.

“Where’s Dean?” he asks and then how, exactly, Sam can be standing in front of him right now catches up with him. “Oh, shit, he didn’t, he’s not,” he can’t even say it.

Sam rolls his eyes and he can’t be, Sam wouldn’t be this calm if he was. “He did and he isn’t. It’s okay. He’s passed out in the back of the Impala. He’s fine, but he’s been out of it since I got back to the cabin.”

Got back? Had he left? Had the demon that Dean was fool enough to bargain with bought him back where he died? But if it had, he wouldn’t have known to go to the cabin. And what does he mean it’s okay? Sam’s being awfully calm for Dean selling his soul, but then again they’ve wiggled around a demon deal before. Maybe he’s just planning to do it again. Or something worse.

Sam alive in front of him again is the best news of his life and he can’t even enjoy it, the worry about what it cost already gnawing at him. Damn kids.

“The demon’s working on something big,” Sam continues, eyebrows pushing together. “Please tell me you know something about it.”

Ellen reaches out and squeezes Sam’s arm, expression lighter than it’s been since she accosted him in his junkyard. “Yeah, sweetheart, we’ve got an idea. It’s nothing good.”

Sam’s relief is palpable. “Better than going in blind. Fill me in? And can we order a pizza? I’m starving.” He grins. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.”

Bobby sends him a withering look.

His lips twitch. “Too soon?”

What a brat.

Things don’t feel quite as hopeless as they had before.

They fill him in on the Roadhouse and his expression crumples, full of grief and guilt, as if any of this is his fault, as if he could have done anything while he was busy fighting for his life against a bunch of psychic kids and the demon’s mental manipulations. Sam’s light on the specifics, but it sounds like hell.

They’re just going over the map of Wyoming that Ash left for them when Sam grimaces and stands so straight that Bobby’s surprised he doesn’t pull something. “Dean’s awake.”

He shares a confused look with Ellen. He doesn’t hear anything, not the car or someone at his door. “How do you know?”

“You don’t want to know,” he answers, which is among the least comforting things Sam’s ever said to him. He claps him on the shoulder. “I’ll be back. Order pizza.”

He frowns then glances at Ellen, who just shrugs. “I could eat.”

Not what he’d been wondering about. Bobby grumble and tries to act like being bossed around by Sam isn’t a relief.

~

Dean knows he’s in the backseat of the Impala before he opens his eyes. The smell and feel of it should be comforting, but too quickly the memories of the last couple days come rushing back and it’s all he can do not to be sick. He doesn’t remember how he got here, his last hazy memory is of tripping and banging his body so hard against the wall he’d been trying to beat into submission that it had left him breathless.

He has to find that crossroads demon, has to find his brother, has to –

The door by his head swings open. “We really have to work on your coping skills.”

He shoves himself upright so quickly he’s dizzy with it. His vision’s all blurry, hungover and not fully awake, and it means the person in front of him isn’t much more than a smudge. But he’d know Sam on less.

He grabs the edge of the door, clawing himself forward until he’s sitting on the edge of the seat, feet on the ground, and then there’s a huge hand on his arm. “Woah, hey, relax.”

Dumbest fucking thing he’s ever said. Dean follows the hand up to an arm, to a shoulder, and then tangles his hand in the collar of his shirt and tries to pull himself up. It’s mostly a failure, because his legs buckle before he makes it halfway, but a success in that Sam grabs his elbows and lowers him back on the edge of the seat, dropping to a knee in front of him to keep him from repeating the attempt.

It’s good, it’s perfect. Dean’s vision is starting to clear and it’s Sam, of course, it’s Sam giving him that bitchy concerned look and Sam’s hands on him and Sam alive and breathing and right in front of him and not missing, not dead, not fucking gone.

It worked. The deal worked, Sam’s back, Sam’s alive, and that means he’s got a year before his soul’s burning in hell. He’s so grateful for it that he can’t speak.

His hand is still fisted in his collar and he yanks him closer, crushing Sam to his chest and working his other arm around his back.

Sam’s arms come around his waist and he rests his head against his shoulder. Dean’s breathing too fast, he knows, harsh and panicked and he closes his eyes against it, trying to get himself under control and not doing a very good job of it. He feels like he’s been crying more or less constantly the past few days, but he can feel something bigger and more embarrassing building in his chest.

Sam shifts enough to press a kiss against his throat and that’s it, that’s the final straw.

He hasn’t full on sobbed since he was cradling Sam’s body in Cold Oak, but there’s no other word for what he’s doing now. It’s all desperate gasping breaths and tears down his face, his whole body shaking with it. The position is even close, Sam on his knees while Dean crushes him against him, but that’s where the similarities end. Sammy had been motionless, lifeless, literal dead weight in his arms. Now Sam is holding him back, making shushing noises that don’t do shit but are comforting just because it means Sam’s alive to make them. He’s warm and solid and Dean needs to stop, needs to get himself under control, but he can’t. He’s been trying and failing to have some semblance of control for days and had lost it when he thought he lost Sam’s body and now Sam’s right here, alive, and Dean can’t bring himself to stop.

Sam’s pushing at him, not going far enough to try to break Dean’s grip, but just enough to manhandle him further inside the car, sliding in with him and pulling the door closed. Then he’s back to holding Dean, rubbing his hand up and down his back as Dean presses his face into Sam’s neck and tries to breathe. He’s twisted so far he’s practically in Sam’s lap and part of him wants to pull away and the rest of him wants to abandon the pretense, wants to crawl into his little brother’s lap and never let him go again.

It's all he can do to keep holding onto him and not shake apart completely. It’s all the grief he’s been trying to choke down and the blinding, incandescent happiness that he’s got Sam back all hitting him at once. He doesn’t care about the cost. He’d have given more. He’d have given anything.

He sobs quiet eventually, down to little hitching breaths and the occasional tear he can’t help. He’s exhausted and heavy against Sam, his hand still tangled in the neck of his shirt.

“Better?” Sam asks, trying for wry, but his voice is too rough and shaky to pull it off.

Dean looks up to see Sam’s been crying too. He reaches up with his free hand, intending to wipe his face, but Sam grabs it before he can. He holds it against his cheek, turning enough to press a kiss to the inside of his wrist. Dean takes a shuddering breath to keep from dissolving into another mortifying pile of tears.

Sam had said it was dangerous to be everything to each other, not even the pretense of space between them. Dean hadn’t thought it would make a difference since Sam was already everything to him, but he’d been willing to follow Sam’s lead in this, the only way doing it had felt right. Sam had managed a solid two weeks without kissing him and then had let Dean fuck him in a bar bathroom, the sort of thing he usually turned his nose up at.

Having lost him, Dean can confidently say that the idea that anyone else was supposed to come even a little close to how important Sam is to him is ludicrous.

“You’re an idiot,” Sam says, moving up his hand to grip the back of Dean's neck. “I’m really mad at you.”

“Okay,” he says.

Sam rolls his eyes and drops his forehead down against Dean’s, just breathing with him for a moment. Then he shifts forward to kiss him, barely a press of lips, and it’s not enough and too much all at the same time. “Are you good to go inside? Bobby and Ellen are waiting for us.”

“They’re what?” He finally takes a look out the window and holy shit, they’re at Bobby’s. How did they get here? He really hopes he wasn’t watching them out the window. That’s a conversation they’d decided they never, ever wanted to have. “Did you drive us here?”

“After this is over, we’re going to have a talk about your self destructive tendencies,” Sam says, which is about the time that Dean notices his hands are bandaged.

It’s obviously Sam’s handiwork, and he’s so grateful and full of love and in love that he just says, “Okay.”

The novelty of Sam being alive to give him shit is going to wear off pretty soon, he hopes, but until then there’s no reason to fight about it.

~

It takes several minutes for Dean to uncurl his hand from Sam’s shirt, but he doesn’t push. He wishes he could take Dean’s hand, could thread their fingers together and give him something to hold onto, but there’s Bobby and Ellen to consider. They slide out of the car and wipe their faces, but it doesn’t hide much, not that this is something it’s worth trying to fool them over.

Dean’s already shifting uneasily, tapping his fingers against his thigh. Sam shifts to press their shoulders together and Dean stills, throwing him a grateful smile before taking a deep breath and visibly steeling himself.

Sam hates this. He’s pissed at Dean for about pretty much everything about how he’s handled Sam dying, but holding him as he fell apart had taken the sting out of the rest of his self righteousness that finding him drunk and unconscious hadn’t. If it had been Dean instead of him he’d like to think he would have handled it better, but also when it had been Dean instead of him, he’d driven them to a faith healer and had vowed not to ask too many questions as long as Dean was healed.

It had been obvious something stank about the whole thing from the beginning, but Sam had been desperate and willing to leave them to it. It had been Dean that pushed, Dean that did everything to uncover the truth and stop the pastor’s wife from killing innocent people to save those she deemed worth saving. Sam wouldn’t have bothered, too relieved about his brother’s heart being healed to care about the particulars.

So there’s a decent possibility that he’s full of shit. Unfortunately for Dean, that’s never stopped Sam from lecturing him before and it certainly won’t now. But it can wait.

He wishes they didn’t have to go in there, didn’t have to deal with the demon, any of it. He wishes they could just find a motel and hole up together until Dean loses some of that terrible grief from his eyes, but that’s something else that will have to wait.

Bobby and Ellen are bowed back over the map when they step inside. Dean hugs Ellen without prompting, not having known she’d made it out. A look passes between Dean and Bobby that has Dean hunching his shoulders and Sam wearily adds it to the list of things to dig into later.

Bobby tells them what he’s figured out about the churches, the massive devil’s trap made by Samuel Colt connecting them, but it’s Dean who figures out that it’s not made to keep a demon in, but out. Which is when at least some of the demon’s plan starts to make sense to him. “That’s what he wants Jake to do. Whatever he wants inside the devil’s trap, Jake is going to get it for him.”

Although he doesn’t understand why it has to be Jake, or him, or any of the psychic kids that the demon made fight to death for the privilege. It doesn’t make sense. The demon could threaten any human into crossing the devil’s trap, could probably even find a devil worshiper or witch to do it with no threats needed. Why does it need to be one of them?

Dean looks at him sharply. “Jake the kid who…”

Sam nods.

“I’m going to kill him,” Dean says. It’s almost conversational, which just makes it that much more frightening. He doesn’t doubt that Dean means it. Sam would mean it, if it were the reverse.

“Only if I don’t get to him first,” he answers, keeping his tone mild, but he’s serious too. Killing him is less upsetting than what his death drove Dean to do, but both are Jake’s fault as far as he’s concerned. Plus, he’s working with the demon, had killed Sam for no other reason than that. He knows how the demon plays games, gets into people’s heads, and he’s sympathetic to that, but his sympathy ran out when he spared Jake and he responded by literally stabbing him in the back.

What the demon showed him is something else they’re going to have to talk about when this is over. He’d rather have his teeth pulled one by one, but he’s tired of secrets between him and Dean. He doesn’t think Dean will hate him for it, or at least he hopes he won’t, but he doubts he’ll be pleased. Then again, Sam wasn’t all that pleased coming to and realizing his brother sold his soul, so he can deal.

“Alright,” Bobby sighs. “Let’s get there before whatever happens, happens.”

Dean clears his throat. “How about we shelve that for twenty minutes?”

Bobby raises an eyebrow. “Any particular reason?”

“Some people here could use a shower,” Dean says, “and a change of clothes.”

Sam makes a face. The corpse smell is gone, thanks to a nice couple hours of walking, but he’d been wearing these clothes for days before he died and he really would not mind a shower, but this feels too important to delay. He can change in the car.

Except he gets a look at Dean’s face, at the way his eyes are focused low, and he really doesn’t think Dean would be checking out his ass that blatantly right now. Both Bobby and Ellen’s faces go white and Sam doesn’t have any clue what the problem is until he tugs his jacket to the side.

Ah.

They’d all been so caught up in figuring out the demon’s plans that they hadn’t realized, except for Dean, of course. There’s the cut, and blood, less than he’d thought, but then again the wound had killed him quickly and once his heart stopped beating, the bleeding would have stopped too. His shirt’s probably in even worse shape.

“I’ll be quick,” he promises. He sees the second of panic in Dean’s eyes before he clamps down on it and this is going to quickly become a problem. They’re attached enough at the hip as it is. But it’s something else that it’s not the right time to press about. “Grab some clothes for me? And for yourself. You could also use a change.”

Dean flips him off and Sam grins and they try to pretend that everything’s okay.

He steps into the shower while the water is still cold, hissing and almost jumping back out, but it’ll be warm in a minute. At least he knows why he feels like such shit, his entire body covered in bruises from his fight with Jake. Fighting a soldier with super strength isn’t exactly his idea of a good time. He wants to regret leaving Jake alive then, considering what it led to, but he can’t. He does regret not taking the knife with him. Maybe he would have just ran up behind Sam and snapped his neck like he did Ava's and it wouldn’t have mattered, but maybe not.

It doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done.

~

Dean sits one edge of the bed in the room across from the shower because it gives him a direct line of sight into the bathroom. Sam’s change of clothes are next to him. The bathroom door’s open and he can hear Sam moving around, which is the only thing that makes the fact that he can’t see him bearable. He wants to duck in the shower with him, would, if they weren’t at Bobby’s. Not for sex, he doesn’t even think he could get it up right now. Or, well, okay, he could, but he doesn’t want to. He’s still getting flashes of Sam lying dead in that cabin every time he closes his eyes and the last thing he needs is for that going through his mind when they’re trying to get it on. Throwing up on Sam in the middle of the life affirming sex tends to ruin the ambiance, he’s learned from experience. Mostly his own fault for insisting on fucking Sam while he had a head injury, but his dick had been fully on board, and the nausea really hadn’t been that bad when they’d started.

Sam had still had blood in his hair, a couple matted streaks in the back that Dean hadn’t been able to make sense of until he realized it was him, his fault, from when he’d touched Sam’s hair with bloody hands in Cold Oak.

It’s only a minute later when Sam steps out of the bathroom, towel slung low on his hips. The clothes he’d been wearing are thankfully nowhere to be seen. They need to be tossed. Or burned. Even if they’d been salvageable, he never wants to see Sam wearing them ever again.

Sam closes the door and then comes to stand in front of Dean, concern that would be grating in other circumstances clear on his face.

Dean shifts forward enough to rest his head on Sam’s stomach. His skin’s still damp and he breathes him in, clean skin and Irish Spring, and Dean doesn’t ever want to move from this spot.

Sam’s hand brushes through his hair, blunt fingernails against his scalp, and he shudders. “You okay?”

It’s more reflexive than anything, because Sam knows the answer, but Dean’s not sure he does. Sam’s alive. He’s more than okay, he’s amazing. Nothing, not even this demon bullshit, can beat back the joy pulsing inside of him. But he also knows how it feels to carry Sam’s corpse, how it feels for Sam’s life to drain away while Dean promises things he can’t deliver. He’s never going to be okay again.

At least for the next year, anyway. Does Sam know? He thinks he knows. The lack of questions about Dean’s little breakdown in the car make it seem like he knows, but he hasn’t said anything outright, and Dean doesn’t think selling his soul is the sort of thing he can get away with doing without commentary. Sam had said he was mad at him, but that could be about anything, really.

He tries to feel even the stirrings of regret but comes up empty. Sam was dead and now he’s not. He failed Sam, but he fixed it.

Sam’s skin had been so cold, feeling more like a block of ice more than his little brother. The skin against Dean’s forehead is warm and soft, the heat of his body one more thing pulling Dean back from the edge.

“I’ll get back to you on that,” he says, wincing when he hears the tightness in his voice.

“Fair enough,” Sam says softly.

They have to go, Bobby and Ellen are waiting for them, and they would have heard the shower turn off. Demon plans to thwart and all that.

Dean shifts enough to press his mouth against the edge of the bruise blossoming along Sam’s left side and then pulls back. Sam’s hand squeezes his shoulder before falling away and he steps to the side to get dressed. Dean tells himself that it’s enough.

~

When Jake sees him, his eyes go wide and terrified. Sam smiles. “You can’t – you’re dead. I killed you!”

He sees Dean tense out of the corner of his eye. They haven’t outright talked about the deal yet, but either Dean figures Sam knows, or he thinks his little brother’s an idiot. Then again, it’s possible he’s just pissed because he’s standing in front of the guy that killed Sam. “Yeah. I was. Now put the gun down and step away from the crypt.”

What the hell does the demon want with a crypt and what does the Colt have to do with it? Stopping what’s happening is more important than understanding it, but he wishes he knew what the end game is here.

“Or what?” Jake sneers. “You had the chance to kill me and you didn’t. You don’t have what it takes.”

Sam’s not bloodthirsty. He doesn’t enjoy killing. It’s just a necessary part of the job.

He beat Jake fair and square, without powers, and spared his life. In return, Jake stabbed him in the back. Which led to his brother selling his soul.

Max’s murders had been revenge. Ansem had been pushed to the brink of insanity by the demon, and Ava had been in its clutches for months. Jake had found out that he couldn’t win against Sam, even with the advantage of super strength, and so ran up on him and severed his spinal cord with the very knife Sam had thrown aside.

Jake’s a person. They don’t kill people. He doesn’t want to kill Jake, not in the same way Dean probably does, but he won’t exactly feel bad about it either. Giving in to the demon, killing Ava when Sam was still trying to talk to her, killing him, pushing Dean to new heights of stupidity, whatever the hell he’s doing now on the demon’s orders. All of it’s a reason that Jake’s not walking out of here.

“Confusing mercy for weakness is a fatal mistake,” he says calmly. “Is it one you’re about to make? I believe in second chances, Jake, but you did literally stab me in the back.”

Jake meets Sam’s gaze and his bravado falters. Then it’s back with that same sneer. Jake makes Ellen put a gun to her head to prove a point and orders everyone else to put their guns down. They obey, silent glances passing between him and Dean and Bobby. They know each other so well that it’s all they need. As soon as Jake turns his back, they’re moving.

Dean and Bobby lunge for Ellen, yanking the gun from her head and restraining her. Sam grabs his gun off the ground shoots Jake in the back until he stumbles and falls. He’s stuck the Colt in a hole carved into the vault, for some reason, and Sam goes to stand over him. He wants to be sorry. He wishes he was. He’s not proud of shooting a man when his back is turned.

But they gave him far more warning than he’d given Sam.

Jake begs for his life and Sam presses his lips together. The wounds he has are already fatal. Even if they called for an ambulance now, he’d be dead by the time it got here. The rest of his life is going to be long minutes bleeding out in the dirt, alone and helpless. None of them are going to hold his hand through it after what he’s done.

The three bullet holes in his chest are another form of mercy, although he doubts Jake is grateful for it. A single shot to the head would have been more efficient, but Jake’s family is going have to collect his body. They don’t deserve that.

Dean’s hand is on his back, steady and sure, and Sam leans into it.

Then there’s a clicking sound coming form the crypt and Bobby shouts that hell is coming for them and to take cover. Sam doesn’t know what that means, but it sounds bad. Dean grabs the Colt and then the both of them are ducking behind tombstones, bracing with their shoulders shoved together.

It turns out that Bobby was being literal.

There’s a burst of energy like nothing Sam’s ever felt before and demons pour out of the gate to hell. Bobby and Ellen are running towards it, trying to force the gate closed, but Sam’s looking up at the cloud of black demonic smoke and sees the way they go spiraling out. Whatever was keeping the devil’s trap intact is gone, probably with the opening of the gate, and the demons aren’t anything like the army the yellow eyed demon talked about. This isn’t an army, it’s crabs crawling out of a bucket, and Sam understands why this gate had to be opened by one of them, why it couldn’t just be any human.

The yellow eyed demon had wanted an army, not a scrabbling hoard, and the psychic kids could give him one.

It also means that Sam has a chance to stop this.

“Sammy?” Dean asks harshly, a poor cover for his nerves, hands steady on the Colt as his eyes dart around them.

He’d wondered what his last words would be if he’d had the chance to say them. Now given the chance, his mind is blank, nothing inside of him but fear and regret and a low burning anger at the injustice of it all. There’s nothing he can say to Dean that he doesn’t already know, after all.

Still. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m really sorry, Dean.”

His brother’s eyes widen in panic and he’s already stepping towards him when Sam takes a deep breath, feels all those oily demons rushing to escape on a level that he didn’t know how to feel before he’d walked himself to a crossroads, and yanks.

Both Bobby and Ellen shout as the demons start marching themselves back through the gate. Holding one crossroads demon steady hadn’t been anything, had been so easy that it almost frightened him, but this isn’t anything like that. Controlling one demon, two, even ten, he could do that without breaking a sweat. But this is hundreds.

The yellow eyed demon wanted an army. He wanted them to a command an army, which must mean it’s something they’re capable of doing. Sam’s head pounds and his stomach rolls and pain sparks through every one of his nerve endings. He was dead less than twenty four hours ago and this is all too much. He feels himself fall to his knees, then desperate hands keeping him upright. He wants to tell Dean he’s sorry again, but he can barely think it, never mind anything else.

The demons don’t want to go back to hell, but Sam’s not asking, he’s not even really ordering. He’s pulling at the essence of them and shoving them back inside whether they like it or not. He thinks his head is going to explode or he’s going to pass out, every sensation rolling through him at once and twisting him inside out.

Then it’s over.

He’s panting and shaking and he feels the cold ground under his knees and the warmth of his brother in front of him, his fingers digging into Sam’s shoulders and shaking him. “Don’t, don’t you dare, don’t you do this to me again, Sammy! You’re okay, you’re – oh, god, please, I can’t, I can’t–”

“I’m okay,” he says and the effort to force the words past his lips is about equal to taking control of a couple hundred demons, but Dean sounds like he’s on the edge of breaking and he can’t do that to him. Not again. “I’m not, not again, I’m okay.”

He doesn’t know if that’s true. There’s something dripping from his nose that he thinks is blood and his whole body is throbbing. He has no idea what the consequences are of what he’s just done and he had sort of expected it to kill him.

But he needs Dean to be okay, so says, “I’m fine, it’s fine, it’s okay.”

“Sammy, open your eyes,” Dean commands, part big brother and the rest pure terror.

He’s not sure which of those has him obeying, but he does. He hadn’t even realized he’d closed them.

Dean’s got one hand clenched in the collar of his shirt like it was this morning and the other cupping the side of his face. He’s so pale that his freckles are standing out more than normal and his eyes are huge and blown out.

The gate is closed, both Ellen and Bobby slumped against the doors. They’re both looking at him shell shocked, and maybe something else, but Sam can’t deal with that right now. His eyes drop and he has to blink several times to make sure he’s not seeing things.

It’s the yellow eyed demon with a bullet between his sightless eyes.

He shifts his attention back to Dean, who seems slightly less likely to fly off the rails than he’d been before. “I miss anything?”

The poor attempt at humor has Dean’s shoulders lowering another inch. “Dad says hi.”

Sam stares. “What?”

Dean tugs down the sleeve of his shirt to wipe at Sam’s nose, which transports him back to when he was about four years old. He supposes he should just be grateful that Dean doesn’t make a joke about blowing with Bobby and Ellen watching. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Sounds good,” he says, eyelids feeling too heavy. Dean has to practically leverage him upright and he’s still swaying. Dean tucks himself against his side and pulls his arm over his shoulders to keep him from falling flat on his face. “M’tired.”

“Can’t imagine why.” Sam thinks he should probably be annoyed, but sarcasm is good, sarcasm means that Dean’s not thinking of things that lead to him selling his soul. Not that he’d be able to make the trade a second time, but Sam would rather that he didn’t want to. That’s probably asking too much.

There’s some sort of conversation happened between Dean, Bobby, and Ellen that he can’t follow and then Dean’s tugging him along. He feels Dean’s indecision when they get to the Impala and Sam nudges them towards the front seat. Dean relaxes that much more against him and then he’s shoving Sam into the passenger side, a hand cupped over the top of his head until he clears the door.

Dean gets into driver’s side and turns on the car, but they don’t go anywhere. There’s only the familiar rumble of the engine and his brother’s too deep, measured breaths. He pries his eyes open to see Dean white knuckling the steering wheel and staring at nothing.

They need to talk, about a lot of things, but Sam doesn’t have the energy for it right now. Instead he tips himself over, knocking Dean’s arm aside so he can twist with legs in the well and his head on his brother’s thigh. His next words come out more as a mumble than anything else, but Dean’s spent his life making sense of his muttering. “Going somewhere?”

“Back to Bobby’s,” he says, a hand brushing across Sam’s head before resting on his neck. Dean’s fingers press into his pulse point almost hard enough to hurt, but it just feels grounding. “You’re going to give me a heart attack, Sammy.”

He frowns, turning his face in the denim of Dean’s thigh but being careful not to dislodge his hand. “No more heart attacks. Don’t wanna find another reaper.”

Because he would. If that’s what it took to save his brother.

Dean’s silent and Sam’s not sure how much time has passed when he feels the Impala rolling forward. He falls asleep to that familiar gentle rocking, Dean’s hand still on his neck.

~

Sam’s pulse stays steady and strong under his fingers the whole drive back to Bobby’s. There are too many things swirling around inside of him and it’s pretty much the only thing keeping him from flying completely off the handle.

They’d just dealt with a freaking gate to hell.

He saw Dad’s soul crawl out of it.

He killed the demon that killed Mom and Jess, that was responsible for Dad’s death, for Sam’s. The bastard responsible for killing Dean’s family one by one.

Sam’s wonderkid powers apparently include being able to stuff demons back into hell and they leave him exhausted and bleeding and –

He’d thought that Sam was going to die on him again. That he was going to kneel in some other cold earth and hold his baby brother while his heartbeat slowed and stopped against him for the second time while he didn’t have another soul to trade for him.

Sam stirs as soon as he turns the car off. He groans, shifting himself up just enough so that he can lean against Dean’s shoulder instead, subtly shifting his back to work out the soreness sleeping half twisted must have caused. He would have been more comfortable in the back, but the thought of Sam lying behind him, still and silent, while Dean couldn’t make sure that he was still breathing had been too much. Sam had seemed to know it too and the relief had been too great to leave room for any embarrassment. “We beat them here?”

“Nah,” Dean says. He’d taken the long way, giving himself extra time with just him and Sam before he has to put on something approaching his game face. “They’re inside.”

He sighs then pushes himself upright with a grimace. His color looks good and he doesn’t seem confused or out of it, focusing easily, not like in Cold Oak when –

Dean lets out a harsh breath through his nose.

Sam claps his hand on his thigh, right where his head had been. He squeezes once before pushing himself outside and stretching his arms above his head. Dean takes a deep breath before joining him, looking over the long, strong lines of him before they go into Bobby’s, walking closely enough that their arms knock together.

Bobby’s ordered pizza, which Sam’s falls upon eagerly. He’d eaten two protein bars out of their stash on the way down even though they sort of taste like ass and it’s a comfort to see him eating real food. Sam doesn’t like to eat when he’s sick, or hurt, or after nightmares. It’s a wonder to Dean how he manages to stay so huge while barely eating enough to feed a twelve year old girl.  

Ellen tells them they dumped Jake’s body by the road a couple miles from the cemetery, so someone should find him soon if they haven’t already. Dean doesn’t know how they’re going to explain him being there when he should be in Afghanistan, but he also doesn’t care. He and Bobby were standing next to Ellen. It made sense for them to keep her safe and for Sam to go for Jake, but he wishes so badly that he could have been the one to kill that asshole. “We’re going to have to go back and repair the devil’s trap,” Bobby says. “As long as we’ve got the Colt, it should stay closed, but I don’t want to risk giving the demons access to it.”

“How many got away?” Sam asks, eyebrows pushed together.

Ellen shrugs. “Couple dozen? Kind of hard to tell.”

“You’d sent most of them back by the time we managed to close the gates,” Bobby says, leaning back in his chair. “Something you want to tell us, Sam?”

He lowers his eyes, an uncomfortable flush crawling up his neck. Dean drops a hand on Sam’s knee and gives it encouraging squeeze, trying not to overthink it with Ellen and Bobby watching them. This falls into normal brother behavior, doesn’t it? Sometimes he’s not sure where the line is. Probably because he and Sam crossed it long before they first got their mouths on each other. Sam says, “It’s why the demon needed one of us to open the gate. Because we can make the demons listen.”

“That’s not any sort of psychic ability I’ve ever heard of,” Bobby says, not accusing, but still expectant.

Sam’s mouth twists into something more sour than a smile, gaze quickly darting to Dean and away before he says, “The demon showed me something. The night of the fire. In my nursery.” Dean’s grip goes probably too tight, but Sam doesn’t say anything or shift away from him. “It bled in our mouths. All of us. That’s where this power comes from. It’s why we’re like this.”

That yellow eyed bastard bled in his little brother’s mouth? He snuck into his room and dripped demon blood past Sammy’s mouth when he was only six months old? Defenseless and helpless and so small – he wishes he could shoot him all over again and make it hurt this time –

“Dean?” He wrenches his eyes up to Sammy and reads the fear and uncertainty in him easily. It’s exactly what he’s been seeing in Sam ever since he told him about Dad’s last words. But, god, hasn’t this proved once and for all that Dad was full of shit? The demon took Mom, took Jess, took Dad. It pulled Sam away from him and put him in a to the death cage match and tried its best to hit on every sore spot Sam has to try and get him to do what it wanted.

Sam had refused.

He wouldn’t play the demon’s game even after Jake tried to kill him. Instead he walked away. Part of Dean hates that, that Sam’s mercy and faith and stubbornness got him killed just like Dean always feared it would, but the rest of him is so proud he can’t stand it. Whatever Dad was worrying about is never going to happen, just like Dean knew it wouldn’t. Dad never saw Sammy properly and this is just one more example of that.

Sam died rather than give in to the demon. He used his powers to undo the damage Jake had done, to keep all those demons from walking the earth. Dean can’t deny that it’d been terrifying to watch, that the depth of Sam’s abilities is overwhelming, or that the origin of them infuriates him. But he knows Sam.

“It’s okay,” he says and it doesn’t even feel like a lie. “It doesn’t change anything, Sammy. You’re still my pain in the ass little brother. Now any demon that thinks it has one up on you will have a rude surprise waiting for it.”

His relief is obvious and if Dean knew him a little less well, he might take offense at it. But Sam’s always doubted himself more than Dean ever has. Hell, Sam’s usually the one keeping his moral compass pointed in the right direction. If the demon blood has tainted him, which Dean doesn’t believe, than Sam must have been destined to be some sort of saint or something. Since a saint probably wouldn’t let Dean stick his hand down his pants, this is better.

“That how you planning to deal with the crossroads demon?” Bobby asks.

Dean stiffens, denials already at his lips. Sam can’t deal with the demon, can’t mess with the deal, nothing. If he does, it’s void, and Sam will go back to being cold and motionless and Dean will once more be alone again in the only way that matters. No one is going to so much as touch his deal –

“I already did,” Sam answers.

Dean stares.

Bobby and Ellen at least seem similarly surprised. He what? What the hell’s he talking about?

Sam rolls his eyes. “I woke up after having my spine cut. It wasn’t exactly hard to figure out what Dean had done. First thing I did was walk to the nearest crossroads.”

That’s where Sam had been when Dean got back to the cabin? Just the thought of it causes his blood pressure to spike. He probably should have asked about that before now, but the high of having Sam back and the imminent demon disaster had distracted him. “Sam! Are you out of your mind? Part of my deal was that if we tried to mess with it, you’re dead! What the hell!”

“Well, that was stupid,” Sam says. “Also, I didn’t agree to shit, and obviously I’m fine.”

God. If he’d drove down the street and found Sammy dead again in a crossroads, or if someone else had found him and Dean had gotten a call from a hospital or a morgue – Jesus, he doesn’t think he’s going to have nightmares about anything outside of Sammy dying for the rest of his life.

“Did you get him out of it?” Ellen asks intently.

Oh. Right, that’s a good question.

Sam grimaces, but there’s a sheepishness about him that’s too light for a denial. “Ah, well, not exactly. But we’re still good, no hellhounds are going to show up in a year, and no me dropping dead. It’s fine.”

Dean doesn’t have a chance to do more than scoff before Bobby says, “We’re going to need a little more than that, son.”

There’s a moment when he actually thinks Sam’s going to refuse to explain, then he sighs. He pushes up the sleeve of his right arm and holds it out palm up. He presses his thumb to the inside of his forearm and in the center of it a small circle glows a deep orange, like a cigarette tip burning from inside of him. “That’s Dean’s soul. Or, well, the contract for it.”

Dean grabs Sam’s wrist and yanks it closer. He presses like Sam had and it burns even brighter, like it senses the presence of the soul it’s connected to.

“Why’d she give you the contract instead of just dissolving it?” Ellen asks.

Another good question. Dean cups his hands over the mark. It doesn’t actually let off any light, it just looks like it does.

The sheepishness is back. “Uh, that was me, actually. If I died again, I didn’t want Dean running off to try and sell his soul a second time. And soul contracts don’t expire with death.”

“Wait a minute,” Dean says, deciding he’s tired of them all talking about him like he isn’t there. “Are you saying you own my soul?”

His lips twitch. “Don’t worry, Dean. Promise I won’t trade you for smokes.”

Bitch. Dean kicks him on the table. Sammy kicks him back, which is just asking for it, but Bobby interrupts, “Boys.” They settle, but Dean’s getting him back for that later. “Alright. So Dean’s good? He’s not getting his soul dragged to hell? And you’re good? No residual effects from reversing the gate? No consequences from breaking Dean’s deal?”

“Dean’s soul isn’t going to hell unless I throw it in there myself. And I didn’t break it,” Sam says. “I just amended it.”

“Sam,” Dean says warningly.

His relief at not going to hell is a pinprick against Sam being alive. That probably says something not very healthy about him. He wonders if he should be more upset about Sam owning his soul, but it just doesn’t feel like it’s much of a change. Sam’s owned him since the first time Dad put him in his arms at the hospital, and even that’s being generous. It’s possible Sam’s owned him from the day Mom told him he was going to be a big brother. Sam carrying the legal rights to his soul under his skin seems an unimportant distinction.

“I’m good,” he promises, meeting Dean’s gaze evenly. “We’re good, Dean. No one’s dying. No one’s going to hell. The demon is dead. It’s okay.”

Dean feels a tension melt away that he’s been carrying around for so long he can’t even remember when it started. The smile that creeps across his face is probably too telling, too big and too soft, but he can’t stop it. “Alright, Sam. Good.”

They’re okay.

~

Bobby offers to let them stay, but Dean makes noise about a hunt they were heading towards when Sam disappeared. It’s bullshit, but neither Bobby nor Ellen call them on it. They leave after trading promises to call if any of them need something and Bobby says he’ll keep them updated on the repair of the devil’s trap, but unless they’ve got some welding experience he doesn’t know about it, not to worry about it.

They’ll swing back around sometime soon, he promises, and Bobby hugs them both before gruffly shoving them towards the car. They don’t say anything as Dean drives, just the radio between them, and he’s completely unsurprised when Dean pulls into the first motel they come across once they pass state lines.

Sam gets the room and Dean doesn’t bother to act like he expected anything different when he sees the single king bed. They don’t always share a bed, two big guys who like a little elbow room, and so they rarely bother getting a single, but Sam’s under no illusions over how much space Dean is willing to tolerate between them right now.

Dean drops their bags inside the door and then just stops. He’s breathing carefully again and he rubs his face with a shaking hand.

“Hey,” Sam says, closing the distance between them to take Dean’s wrist and tug it down. “Shower?”

He literally doesn’t know the last time Dean showered and the events of the graveyard and dealing with the gate are more than enough for him to feel like he could use another one. Dean doesn’t even nod, just starts shedding clothes on his way to the bathroom. Sam sighs before following him, this time waiting for the water to warm up properly before kicking off the rest of his clothes and stepping into it. He turns his face into the warm spray, feeling Dean step in behind him. These showers aren’t really built for one guy their size, never mind two, but they have practice in making do. Dean’s sharp gasp has him turning around so fast he’s surprised he doesn’t slip. “What?”

Dean shakes his head, gripping his hip and gently tugging him around. He doesn’t get it until he feels his brother’s unsteady fingers on the small of his back, right on the scar from the knife wound. He turns slowly, not breaking Dean’s touch so that his arm curls around his waist. Steam is filling the bathroom and chasing the chill from the air. He ducks down, sliding his nose against Dean’s, and then slots their mouths together.

Dean makes a wounded noise into his mouth, fingers digging into his scar while his other hand presses against Sam’s chest. It startles him until he realizes it’s the first time they’ve really kissed since Cold Oak. He keeps it gentle, licking into Dean’s mouth, and when he pulls back long minutes later, he lets Dean pretend that the moisture on his face is from the shower. Dean slides his hand up Sam’s chest to cradle his jaw, eyes blown with more emotions than Sam can pick out just then.

He kisses him again, quick and light, and then shoves a washcloth into his hand. Dean cleans himself perfunctorily and then he’s back in Sam’s space, moving the washcloth over his shoulder and down his arm, pausing briefly to watch how the mark of the contract flares to the surface under his hands.

It’s soothing to let Dean wash him, his brother’s sure hands moving him how he wants him, and Dean seems steadier for it. Neither of them are soft anymore, but they're not fully hard either, and they ignore it for now, staying under the spray together until the steam’s so thick it hangs around them. They dry off, but don’t bother putting on clothes. It’s approaching dawn, but it’s still dark, no early morning light seeping through the curtains.

Sam climbs into bed, leaving the blankets flipped back. Dean crawls in next to him and Sam turns off the lamp, flooding them into darkness, and  Dean pulls him onto his side so they’re facing each other and kisses him again. Sam slides a hand down his side, gripping Dean’s hip as the kisses go from soft to sloppy, Dean touching him more urgently. Sam tries to tug Dean on top of him, but he resists, breaking away from him.

“Dean?” he mutters. He’s tense again, staying that way even as Sam rubs along his chest, cupping his ribs protectively. “We don’t have to do anything. We can just go to sleep.”

It’s usually Dean tumbling him into bed after a close call, but Sam more than anything wants Dean safe and close and then to get some deep, uninterrupted sleep. If that means not getting laid tonight, it’s not even a concern, except that it has him wondering what’s going through his brother’s mind.

Dean shakes his head, close enough that Sam feels it more than sees it. He rolls Sam on top of him, widening his legs so Sam settles between them. Their cocks grind together, making them both hiss, but Dean drags his hands up Sam’s arms and says, “Like this.”

He’s honestly taken aback. It’s usually Dean fucking him, probably some deeply encoded big brother, macho bullshit, but he’s good at it and gives enough head that Sam only sometimes bitches about it. It feels significant that he’s asking for it now, of all times, but he just says, “Alright,” and can feel Dean’s relief when he doesn’t question him.

Sam leans over to snag the closest bag – Dean’s – and digs the lube out. Dean takes it from him, lubing him up with a few quick, strong strokes that have Sam biting back a groan. He puts it on the side table when Sam reaches for it, opening his legs and nudging Sam forward with the heel he has pressed into his back. Sam frowns and swipes his hand over his dick to get some on his fingers, but he’s barely pressed against Dean’s hole when Dean grabs his wrist and pulls him away. “Don’t.”

He's got to be kidding. It’s been months since the last time Sam was inside him and he’s not exactly small. “Dude.”

It’s dark, only the light of the clock to see by, but he’s pretty sure Dean’s blushing and he’s definitely frustrated, which isn’t what he wants. He’s still trying to figure out how to navigate this without pissing him off when Dean says, “Please.”

Fuck. What the hell is he supposed to say to that? Sam kisses him again, still not getting it, but Dean wants it enough to ask for it, so fine. He works himself inside Dean slowly, moaning in his mouth over the tight heat of him. He’s trying to be careful, but Dean gets impatient, bucking into Sam to get him another inch deeper and then breaks away from the kiss to smirk. Sam scowls down at him, snapping his hips into him, and Dean arches his back, mouth open. Sam drives the rest of the way inside just to get close enough to kiss him again.

Dean grunts as Sam moves, looping his hands around the back of his neck. It’s good, it’s great, pleasure unfurling up his spine and Dean gasping beneath him, up until he moves to kiss Dean’s jaw and his lips find a combination of salt and moisture that isn’t sweat. He freezes. “Dean?”

He leans back, lifting a hand to Dean’s face and feeling him flinch away from his touch. His eyes are too bright in the weak light and those are definitely tears on his face. Shit, shit, he’d tried to be careful. Why the hell hadn’t Dean said anything? He’s started to slowly pull out when Dean’s knees lock around him. “Don’t.”

“Dean,” he says, frustrated. “We’ll do something else, okay?”

“It’s not that,” he insists. “It’s fine, it feels good, it’s not that.”

He can feel Dean hard between them still, so he huffs and pushes in again. He kisses across Dean’s face, catching his tears with his lips, but that only makes them come faster. He wants to call him something soft, baby or sweetheart or honey, but Dean will only tolerate that if he can act like Sam is joking. There’s not much room for plausible deniability right now, so he just repeats, “Dean.”

He shakes his head. “Sammy, come on, will you just – do you want me to beg–”

Sam rocks into him, cutting him off, because he doesn’t. Not now, not when he doesn’t understand what’s going on and wouldn’t know how much of it was play. He gets a hand on Dean’s dick and jerks him in time with his thrusts, leaving Dean panting and cursing and still crying. He makes it good for him in all the ways he knows how, grinding into him like Dean likes and rubbing his thumb under the head of his cock. He alternates between sloppy kisses and biting at his jaw and neck until Dean goes unbearably tight around him and moans in his ear, coming between them as Sam fists him through it.

His whole body goes slack after and he mumbles, “Give it to me, I know you want to,” tired and teasing and nothing that matches the tears he can still see on his face. Sam buries his face in Dean’s neck and fucks him fast and unrelenting until his balls tighten. Then he’s coming, the waves of pleasure almost overwhelming as he grinds into him.

He collapses on top of him, panting as Dean’s hand pushes into his hair and he turns his head enough to drag his lips across Sam’s cheek. He pulls out carefully, rolling over so he’s not lying completely on top of Dean, although he leaves one leg over him. He’d put his head on his chest if he didn’t want to keep an eye on his face. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?”

“Nothing, you’re such a bitch,” Dean says, but it comes out fond. He swallows. “You died, Sammy.”

He softens. Yeah, okay, that’s going to linger. He hadn’t exactly been able to walk off Dean’s almost heart failure even after the reaper healed him. “I know.”

“Don’t do it again,” Dean orders. Pleads.

It’s not exactly something he has control over, he hadn’t done it on purpose, but he says, “Okay, Dean, I won’t,” because he really can’t stand the idea of saying anything else.

Dean nods then grabs Sam’s arm, yanking him closer. He huffs a laugh and shuffles down, head on Dean’s shoulder and his arm around his waist. It means he can’t see Dean’s face, which he suspects is the point, but he lets it lie. He can feel Dean relaxing under him as he drifts off to sleep and for once there’s nothing hanging over them.

Mom and Jess’s deaths are avenged. They know the origin of his powers and Dean doesn’t hate him for it, isn’t afraid of him. The terrible plans of the yellow eyed demon are just as dead as it is.

Their lives are their own again.