Archive of Our Own ^beta

Eventually the screaming stops, and Dean is grateful. Later that’ll be the worst part, the way he can pinpoint the exact moment it happened and know that he was relieved, but for now Dean just stares up at the stars and wonders if someone really did answer his prayer.

Bobby’s whiskey is bad, genuinely unpleasant to drink, but the punishment is part of the appeal and Dean takes long burning gulps. He’ll go uncuff Sam in a minute, he just needs one more minute in the quiet. One last moment in a night as empty as he is before seeing his junkie little brother slams shards of glass in amongst his nothingness.

It should hurt to think of Sam like that, but it doesn’t. Dean’s been finding himself thinking the absolute worst, cruelest things about Sam —stuff he doesn’t even really believe— all in the hope he’ll shock himself out of it. If Sam can’t make him feel something then nothing in the whole damn universe can. He’d be scaring himself if he weren’t hollow. He knows he’s scaring Sam.

That thought is enough to make him turn his heavy feet back towards the house. Dean finds his way effortlessly through the salvage yard. He ran this maze as a child, he can walk it blindfolded as a man. Blindfolded, or slightly drunk and in the dark.

It’s not the drink that makes his footsteps drag, it’s not even reluctance to face his brother. Exhaustion is not an emotion, so he can feel that just fine. He thinks the emptiness and the weariness might just be the same thing.

He turns left at the gutted shell of an ‘83 Buick Riviera and Bobby’s house comes into view. Their almost-home. Dean loves the place, he does. He just can’t connect to that at the moment.

How the hell is he more fucked up than the guy who downs hellfire as a hobby?

Sam can feel things, Famine affected Sam . Yeah he definitely feels like shit right now but at least that’s something . Dean would take the guilt and the detox over the nothing. 

He stops just short of thinking that Sam has it easy. Some lies he can’t even tell himself.

The porch creaks as Dean climbs its stairs, the noise familiar and should-be-comforting. He doesn’t bother taking off his jacket when he stomps through the front door, but he does abandon his half-empty bottle of whiskey on the kitchen table as he makes his way to the basement. Sam isn’t screaming anymore, isn’t making any sort of sound, the worst should be over.

Bobby looks like he wants to say something when he passes him, but instead just turns an oddly thick page of the old book he’s taking notes from and gives Dean a tight nod. Dean nods back, takes a deep breath, and starts down the stairs.

When he peers through the doorhole the first thing he sees is Sam. He’s splayed out on the cot, feet sticking off the end, one arm as outstretched as the cuffs will let him in the direction of the door. His face is turned towards Dean and his eyes are open and fixed staring at somewhere halfway up the wall. It’s such a ridiculously dramatic little brother pose that amusement bubbles up in Dean and he smirks.

Relief echoes immediately after that, tangled up with the overwhelming fondness that’s lived inside him ever since he first visited a tiny blue bundle in the hospital. The emotions are still muted and a little painful, but Sam’s done it, Sammy’s saved him again. Famine was talking out his wrinkly old ass. 

It strikes Dean suddenly that he never thanked Sam. Just manhandled him into Baby and floored it toward South Dakota. Standing in that diner his little brother had been strange and terrifying, but he’d also single handedly taken out one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. That’s kinda awesome.

When Sam is completely through the withdrawal, Dean’s gonna tell him that. First thing though is getting him out of those cuffs.

Sam doesn’t move when Dean opens the door.

He doesn’t move when Dean steps into the panic room.

He doesn’t move when Dean walks towards him.

He remains completely still as Dean comes to stand over him. There’s a little trickle of blood coming from his nose, and from his ear too, and he’s not— he’s not...

His chest isn’t moving.

Dean’s knees crunch when they hit the harsh concrete of the panic room floor, and his hands fumble and shake as they push Sam’s stupid hair out of his face, away from his neck, so Dean can find the pulse there, the pulse that has to be there, where is it?

“SammySammySammySammySammySammySammy,” he’s chanting under his breath, didn’t even realise he was, a frantic prayer to his baby brother. “ Please , Sammy.”

But there’s nothing, no flutter of life against his fingertips, just Sam still warm and totally motionless and getting colder every second. Just Sam, gone.

Dean wants to turn on his heel and dive right back into the emptiness. How could he have thought this was better? How was he so wrong about so many things?

He’d pour a gallon of demon blood down Sam’s throat if it brought him back, and when he opened coal-black eyes Dean would wrap his arms around him and cling to him and squeeze him far too tightly and he’d thank their deadbeat God.

His eyes are burning, and there’s a golf ball of grief aching in his throat. He let Sam die alone. He’d know Sam hadn’t wanted to go back to the panic room, he’d seen that the very concept terrified him, he’d watched the way his brother sucked it up and marched into the room with his head held high, held out his arms willingly for the restraints even as his whole body wracked with tremors. He’d known Sam was punishing himself, of course he’d known he knows Sam, he just hadn’t cared.

Look where that’s got them.

Gently, more gently than he’s touched Sam in months, Dean unbuckles the cuffs. Despite the rags he’d wrapped round Sam’s wrists, the skin underneath is rubbed raw and bloody. It’s not gonna do any good, but Dean finds himself glancing around for the first-aid kit.

That’s when he notices that Sam’s eyes are still open, and there are tear tracks on his face. And that’s when Dean throws up.

***

Castiel is building the pyre. Not because he’s been ordered or even asked to, but because he wants to. Well, “want” isn’t the right word. He wants the pyre to not be necessary, but because it is he feels this is the way to honour Sam Winchester.

Part of him believes he should be relieved. This is a very neat solution to the problem of the Apocalypse. Lucifer’s vessel is gone and with it his chance of winning.

But Lucifer’s vessel had been a man. A flawed and faithful man, a man who was strong and brave and kind and scared. A man he’d already chosen to save. Never has Castiel wanted to be a hammer again more. He could throw himself on Heaven’s mercy, sublimate himself back into a tool that doesn’t have to think or feel or regret. He would, if that wouldn’t be such an insult to Sam’s memory.

He doesn’t need to use an axe. Castiel breaks branches bare handed, snapping them cleanly off the trees and stripping their twigs and leaves until he’s left with tidy, even logs. It’s purposeful in a way that would be soothing, if he could only forget why he’s doing it.

It’s important to build the pyre manually, to stack the wood himself instead of willing it into shape with a simple flex of grace. So Castiel carefully calculates the most effective structure, and takes his time laying out and constructing. One last thing he can do for Sam. Somehow it seems like the only thing he’s ever done for Sam.

All too soon he’s finished, it’s finished. He’s going to have to go and see Dean now.

Bobby Singer is drinking when Castiel lands in his living room. He’s spent the past two days, eleven hours, and thirteen minutes drinking. Ever since Dean had shrieked for them from the panic room and Castiel had known instantly what was wrong. Only one thing would ever make Dean sound like that.

The heady haze of alcohol surrounding the man muffles the sorrow and self-recrimination radiating from his soul. It makes him a little easier to be around, Castiel is having a hard enough time parsing out his own emotions, adding others to the mix is wearisome at best.

Bobby Singer glares at him, but not malevolently, and gestures with his bottle at a pile of coarse cotton sheets. They’re a bright freshly-bleached white.

“Take ‘em down with you,” he says, voice rough. “Try an’... Sam needs a shroud.” Then he makes a horrible choked half-sob and buries his face in his hands. Castiel takes that as his cue to leave.

He lands right outside the panic room door and takes a moment to gather his grace before he steps inside. He’s written into the wards as an exception, but they still needle and sap at his energy. Every moment he spends between those salted iron walls is highly uncomfortable, even before they housed the corpse of his friend.

The only power he’s been able to muster is just enough to preserve Sam’s body, and he’s starting to think that was a mistake. Maybe if his brother started to smell Dean would be more inclined to burn his remains.

Dean doesn’t look up when Castiel enters, he just persists in studying his brother’s pale, lax face. The emotions pouring off of him fill the whole room and spill out the doorway. They suck and churn and ache and ache and ache. He’s been sitting by Sam’s bedside for days, and the only person he’s spoken to is a cadaver.

“Hello, Dean,” says Castiel. 

Dean surprises him by responding, even if it is with a non-sequitur. “Can you bring him back?” he says, too quietly for a human to hear.

“No,” says Castiel. He’d have done that already if he could.

“Then why are you here ?” Dean growls, his words louder this time, eyes still fixed on Sam’s face.

“I brought shrouding material.” Castiel places the pile on the bed by Sam’s bare feet, and Dean’s shoulders grow tenser.

“I thought they needed us. Sam said— Sam said he’d tried and Lucifer just brought him back. Why— why wouldn’t he… Why did they go ahead and fuck with every other part of our lives but not this?” Dean’s voice ranges from soft and broken to white hot oil-spitting rage and back again.

“I suspect it is the warding. The only non-human entity able to enter here is Death.”

Finally Dean looks up at him. “And you,” he says, in a tone that implies he’d be amused if he had room inside him for anything but grief.

“And me,” Castiel agrees.

As always, Dean’s attention returns to Sam. He’s been clutching one of his hands in both of his own for the entire time he and Castiel have been talking, but now he lays it ever so tenderly on the cot. Standing, gaze still locked on Sam, his shoulders relax as he seems to come to a decision.

“See ya, Sammy,” he murmurs. “Real soon.”

Castiel knows that can’t possibly be true, but Sam was the one who taught him about being kind, and he thinks Sam would say that it’s kinder to leave Dean to his denial.

There’s a sound like wing beats as Dean unfurls the sheets. He’s no longer dominated by misery, instead he’s slipped into a calm methodical state as he swaddles Sam in the cloth. His motions are practiced, confident, Dean is taking reassurance from his own competence in the task. Castiel believes that might be incredibly tragic.

He thinks he ought to offer his help. He’s seen funerary rituals from across the centuries and around the world. He could provide capable assistance.

But he can’t bring himself to touch Sam. He doesn’t deserve to. The taste of failure is knotted throughout his entire being. Castiel is unaccustomed to it, and disgusted. When you’re a hammer and a blow is unsuccessful, your wielder’s grip is adjusted and you strike again and again until the goal is achieved.

An object has no accountability, free will means he failed his friend.

“Cas,” says Dean. He’s stopped wrapping Sam up and is just resting a hand on his brother’s hair, making the tiniest stroking motions as if he could provide comfort. “Are you just gonna stand there and stare, ‘cause I’d really prefer to do this just us.”

Castiel nods, of course Dean wants to shroud Sam alone, but he doesn’t have anything to do , he’s desperate for a task. There’s a whole world of infinite possibilities out there for him to choose and all he wants is someone to tell him what to pick.

Dean takes pity on him. “Go check on Bobby, make sure he’s okay,” he says, and it’s a suggestion not a command but it will do, it will more than do.

***

White. Sam opens his eyes and there’s white. White surrounding and smothering, covering his mouth and tasting of bleach and getting soaked with his saliva which makes it even harder to breathe and what the— What the hell kind of hallucination is this?

His arms are bound to his sides and his legs are tied together, which makes it difficult to struggle but that’s not gonna stop him. Whatever the demon blood is throwing at him now, he’s determined to fight it as long as he can.

Suddenly his squirming yields a result and he’s dropped several feet onto gravel. There’s a sound like someone shouting his name.

Then ripping and tearing and the slashes of a knife, cutting the cotton he’s wrapped in ‘cause that’s what the white is, and some of them go a little too deep and slice into his chest but it’s okay, it’s alright ‘cause the material is being pushed off his face and over his head and he can breathe.

Dean is here, helping him sit up, expression slack jawed and dumbfounded. They’re out back at Bobby’s, both of them on the ground, Cas and Bobby staring down at them with expressions of shock-edging-into-wary-delight (Bobby) and stoic confusion (Cas). A few feet away there’s a weirdly elaborate pyre.

Well shit.

This doesn’t feel like the other times Lucifer’s brought him back. Every time before there’d been a moment where he could feel his soul in the Devil’s hands, feel lips pressed to his in a freezing kiss, forcing air back into his lungs. 

Sam shudders. The day is warm and bright but he’s been dead. He was minutes away from being burnt. 

“Sammy,” says Dean reverently. “ Sammy .”

Fuck, his brother looks awful. Red eyed and unshaven, but giving Sam that smile he doesn’t normally let him see. The adoring one Sam thought he’d never receive again after that voicemail.

“You look like shit,” Sam says, and Dean’s grin gets even wider.

That’s the point where Sam realises he’s no longer detoxing. There’s still the thrum of evil in his veins, but it’s been like that for as long as he can remember. There’s no extra pollution in him anymore.

Then Dean’s grasping his shoulders and pulling him into his chest and holding him there. Sam’s face is pressed up against his heart and he can feel its rapid rhythm. He wraps his arms around Dean and clings back just as fiercely, soaking up the comfort he’s craved all his life.

As his mind clears and quietens, the memory of his death gets a little clearer. He hadn’t seen Lucifer, instead there’d been a skeletal man in a dark coat, saying something about jewellery…

No, not jewellery.

Rings.