Archive of Our Own

He forgets it’s there, at first, and Sam has to point it out in order for him to remember.

“What’s on your arm?”

Dean gives it an uninterested glance, shrugging, then shaking his head. “The Mark of friggin’ Cain,” he says.

Sam gives him a confused look. Dean wants to smack it off his stupid face. He rolls his sleeve up and turns his arm out, shifts on Garth’s hospital bed to give him a better view. The sunlight from the window shines on it, risen skin and all. Sam sucks in a breath from his seat.

He regrets it already. Making them go their separate ways. One week without Sam and he’s already gotten himself branded with some otherworldly biblical curse. Worked alongside Crowley to get it, no less. The goddamn King of Hell. What was he thinking? Wasn’t, probably. Doesn’t do much of that when Sam’s not around. His own personal harness, he is. Keeping him reeled in, controlled. Sane, for lack of a better word.

Sam keeps him sane.

He takes a quick once-over while Sam is inspecting the Mark, makes sure there are no wounds or injuries that need immediate attention. His fed suit is pretty full coverage but there are certain signs he knows to look for when Sam is hiding an injury. Has known since they were kids. This time, he’s pretty sure he isn’t. He doesn’t move slowly, doesn’t keep his head craned high—doesn’t have that little quirk of his lips cinched to the side in discomfort.

Sam pulls back. “What do you mean ‘Cain’? Like—”

“Like the biblical figure, Cain. The bible story—Cain and Abel. The whole shebang.”

“Wh—How in the…” Sam mutters in disbelief.

Dean yanks his sleeve down, suddenly feeling very exposed. He looks away from Sam and turns his neck toward the bathroom door. “Garth, you good in there?”

*

It itches at night. Dean tries to ignore it by shoving his arm under his pillow and lying his head on top of it—but it itches at night. He shuffles between wearing a long sleeve and nothing. Sticks his arm between his legs and his face into his sheets. Pinches at it mercilessly, then flicks it, which eventually turns into moderately paced hitting. Even tries to lick it because one time he told Sam that licking your mosquito bites makes them stop itching so much.

It doesn’t even feel like normal itchiness which is what gets him. Feels like ants under his skin. Fire in an impossibly dry forest. He starts biting the bullet and just itching it somewhere around the six or seventh night it refuses to leave him alone, digs his nails right into his skin and drags back and forth, a barbarously ruthless motion. It hurts—holy fuck, does it hurt—but he keeps at it until he starts to bleed. And then it hurts even more.

Sam suggests cold water, an ice pack, all with a concerned edge to his tone. Dean takes his ideas as scripture and turns a heel before Sam has the chance to form the dreaded words. He is okay. He is.

Water doesn’t help, and neither does the pack. In the end he buries himself in so much case work that he swears he’s seeing newspaper columns on the walls when he stands up. He grumbles a hearty ‘goodnight’ to Sam and trudges back to his room. Settles a firm position on his bed with his fists clenched and teeth grinding. Sews his eyes so tightly shut that he gets a headache.

And it still hurts like a motherfucker.

*

Cooking is always a good way to get his mind off things. Since they have a real kitchen now (a kitchen! A real one!) he spends most of his time fluttering around with containers and shelves and cutlery and, his favorite thing by far—grease.

Sam’s allowed in on occasion, if Dean deems him useful. A helping hand here and there but also sometimes he just wants to help cook, feels bad that Dean is always the one making food for them both. But Dean doesn’t feel bad at all. He feels great, actually. Nevertheless, usually sticks his little brother in with the dishes—enough so that Sam is occupied for a couple hours, at least—and calls it square. That’ll teach him to be grateful. Dean’s cuisine is a privilege.

He hums along to some Black Sabbath remaster, sleeves up, chopping an onion into fine strips and bobbing his head. Freshly sharpened knife because Sam had gotten one of those blade sharpeners for him. Doesn’t know what they’re called, if they even have a proper name. Just loves what they’re doing to his knives. Sam does circles around him, trying to clean up as they go. Drives Dean fucking crazy, just do it afterwards, stop ruining the flow, he says to him, even if there’s no logic behind it. He watches as he forces the lids back on things, hastily tossing them into the fridge or the pantry, lays out two plates beside Dean’s chopping station for when the burgers they’re making are ready to be plated. Two steps ahead. At this rate, their kitchen's going to be eligible for Spotless Spaces before the patties even hit the pan.

Dean feels a rumbly chuckle leave him. “Hey. Inspectors won’t be here ‘til quarter past.”

“Leave me alone.”

“You know, you’ve got a real problem, man. Can’t just let a mess exist for more than three seconds, can you?”

“Biohazard,” all Sam says.

Dean rolls his eyes. “Okay, onewords. This isn’t a biohazard.” He gestures to the onion. “This is culinary art. Flavor in progress.”

“If the progress involves bacterial transmission,” Sam retorts.

Dean smirks at the ease of it. This is flow. “You’d never make it as a chef, y’know,” he says. “You’d have the whole kitchen on lockdown, force your employees to bleach and holy water everything—”

His hand slips. Mid-slice and blood starts to trickle down the side of the onion. Dean winces and lets the knife clatter as he drops it, cradling his hand. Sam perks up at the sound, and Dean hears footsteps drawing closer.

“Son of a…”

“What did you do?”

Sam’s there in an instant, hands coming around his side to gently guide Dean’s towards him. He uncurls Dean’s fingers and swipes a thumb over the small stream of blood, revealing a reasonable slash on his index finger that travels all the way down to the top of his palm. Deeper than Dean thought.

A sharp inhale. “Seriously?” Sam questions. “You can gank vampires blindfolded but you can’t handle a kitchen knife?”

Dean only grins. “Hey, maybe the knife was possessed. Ever think of that, Mr. Rational?”

“Pretty sure this was just you being distracted.”

“By your OCD? Yeah, who wouldn’t be?”

Sam steps away to snag a towel off the rack, is right by his side again as he presses the fabric firm on the cut. Dean winces more, tries to pull his hand back on instinct but Sam just holds him there. He looks up just in time to catch his concentrated face before he meets Dean’s eyes and it all fades away. Dean likes when Sam worries about him. It’s cute.

He doesn’t let Dean take the towel himself, and the harder he presses in the less it seems to hurt. Dean can’t fathom the logic in that. Sam must be hurting him so bad that he’s going numb. A shrill of heat bubbles in his stomach, a tight, hot coil tugging at the insides of his veins. He feels his arm—his right arm—buzz with a sudden, boiling need. The Mark itches.

Doesn’t realize he’s wriggling until Sam says, irritated, “Hold still.”

He tries to conceal that he’s nervous. “Will you kiss it better, doc?” Now that’s a biohazard.

“Idiot.” Oneword Winchester…

“Takes one to—ow! Careful!”

Sam wraps the towel around again, tightens it for the second time. “Maybe don’t flirt with sharp objects next time.”

“What, and miss a chance to get your hands on me?” he teases.

Sam gives him one last glare before walking off.

Dean lets his face fall when he’s sure he’s out of sight. He looks at the towel. Like it burns underneath. He carefully unravels it and admires the red pooling through the layers and staining the rest of his hand. The cool air hitting the open wound makes him shiver. He presses a nail against it with his thumb—then quickly has to use his other hand to scratch at the Mark below his elbow. It hurts for a second—and then it doesn’t.

Does it a few more times. Has the assaulting and uncharacteristic thought that the knife should’ve gone deeper, hit a nerve or something, and then he grabs a bandage and wraps it up for good.

*

The Blade is so much more compelling than he’d imagined.

He sees Cuthbert holding Sam up against the beam and that’s all it takes for all rationale goes out the window. He picks up the toothed bone and, immediately, he feels it. A sauna in his veins. Steam in his blood. A frenzy of thousands of untold stories and injustice and compromise squeezed into one overwhelming rush. His fingers clench around the handle but he doesn’t notice his wrist shaking, his grip on its brutality solidifying. He only sees a rim of darkness overtake his vision and then he’s feeling blood. Hot, thick—should be sickening like it always is, even if he’s used to it—pouring out of the man in front of him. The one standing between him and his brother.

When Cuthbert drops he knows the job is done. And when he gets down on his knees and keeps plunging the Blade into his chest, he still knows the job is done. A guiltless (Shouldn’t be guiltless, a distant part of him notes) idea occurs to him. That this is the only chance he’ll get to practice with the Blade, to get used to its usage. Its power—as unfamiliar as it is—feels just like breathing.

He’s already dead. What does it matter? So he plunges and plunges and plunges, until Sam’s hand is on his shoulder. Till Crowley is standing in the doorway.

“Dean!” Sam shouts. “Drop it, Dean. Drop it.”

He doesn’t drop it.

Same hand travels up to his face. “Dean.”

*

He stays in bed all afternoon. Sam tries to check on him but he doesn’t give him any response. No sign of mellowing.

A glass of water is left on his bedside, along with a bowl of plain cereal—not the honey caramel shit he likes. What are you good for, Sam?

He dips in and out of sleep and every time he wakes up there’s something new about his room. A blanket draped over his shoulders, a lamp flicked on in the corner, the door creaked slightly more open than the last. He hears Sam’s footsteps pass his door at least four times in one hour, and he holds his pillow over his ears and wills him to leave him the fuck alone.

*

Back in the kitchen again as a way to muffle the itchiness. Burgers again because it’s the only thing they have ingredients for, and the only thing Dean has the desire to make. Sam tries harder to take on the brunt of the task this time, offers himself as the designated meal-prepper, honorary stove-manner. Dean scoffs and bumps his shoulder. 

And another knife and another cut and it doesn’t take him as off guard as the last one but it ruins the bandage he’s already got on so he makes a mental note to replace it before Sam notices. And this time, he doesn’t make the move to drop the knife—instead shoves it further into his skin, the cut it’s made, and drags down, down, down, all the way down until his eyes get hazy and everything sounds far away.

“Woah—dude, you’re bleeding! Here—”

He lets Sam do this thing. His frantic and unnecessarily rehearsed thing. Hands, towel, squeeze, wrap. No protest from Dean, and Dean can feel the way it’s weighing on Sam. He lingers his eyes on him a little longer than normal. He bites his bottom lip and has that stupid kicked puppy expression. Dean can’t remember how to fix it, again. Can’t remember how it feels to have it bore into the back of his head.

“What’s with you lately? You’re all… I don’t know. Spacey. Is it the Mark?” Sam asks. Most of his weight is leaning against Sam. He doesn’t answer. “Man, you’re scaring me.”

Dean doesn’t answer.

*

Grocery store isn’t too crowded. Lights were slightly dimmed, for some reason, and Sam pushes the cart and follows him around each aisle he stops at, sometimes trails off to his own piqued interest and circles back at the other end. There are tall panels of wood pressed against every third or fourth corner, big red buttons right smack in the center of them, a tapestry of cows or chickens or goats or some shit. Goes moo and cluck and bah when he gives it a nudge. Dean’s winces when he reaches for a bag of coffee beans on the top shelf. 

Sam’s eyebrows furrow. “You good?”

Dean readjusts his jacket, his sleeve. “Yeah. Why?”

“Just looked like somethin’ hurt.”

Bacon. Bread. Milk. Cage free eggs if they’re there because Sam likes to support the animals. Canned soup. Canned beans. Nuts, tortillas, yogurt. Isn’t quite a pasta fan but Sam likes it from time to time, so in the cart it goes. Dean strolls through two more aisles before Sam pipes up again. And Dean should’ve expected it—shouldn't've mistaken his quietness for contentment because nothing can go unnoticed when you have a goddamn meddler for a brother. Always meddling in things. He’s already shaking his head when Sam opens his mouth.

“You don’t have to—” Sam starts. “You can talk to me about stuff, you know?”

“Sam, just drop it.”

“You’ve been wearing long sleeves.” He points out. “It’s eighty degrees out.”

It took a while for him to get used to what looked like an infected branding on his forearm, but lately there’s been an increase in bloodthirsty trains of thought, so it felt only right to cover it up. Even if the sun blared down, because at least then it was hidden physically and he could pretend the itching didn’t bother him as much. Sam, ever his little brother, clearly believes it is his birthright to nag Dean about every personal thing going on in his life, because he thinks that until he receives even a somewhat comprehensible answer—Dean is lying.

And Sam, ever the worrywart, is right.

“You wanna talk about the Mark again, that it?”

“I just—I wanna talk about you. How you’re feeling. This isn’t…” He goes quiet again as he looks down at the dirty wheels of the cart, childlike pout when he starts to idly kick at them, awaiting Dean’s objection.

Dean’s hesitant but he always wants to satisfy him. Never wants to let him worry. “It’s not—It’s not what you think, okay?” he says. “The Mark… it itches. Burns, sometimes. Scratching doesn’t help—nothing does. So I just…”

Lash out? Cover it. up? Pretend it doesn’t exist?

“…I deal with it, alright?”

Sam gives him a curt nod, but hunches over the handles and drags his feet and doesn’t say anything for the rest of the trip. Dean loses count of the number of times he pinches himself through his sleeve.

*

666. “Damnit, Crowley, pick up the damn phone. What’s happening to me?”

*

Dean’s eyes follow the rain trickling down the window. He brings a finger up to drag through the condensation sticking to the glass and doodles a small flower in a patch of squiggly lines.

Sam sits across from him, laptop open. Focus trained on whatever dead-end lead is filling his screen. He clicks and scrolls and then sighs and closes the lid, attention turning to Dean and his solemn brooding. “Seems Crowley’s gone off grid,” he says. “No demonic activity anywhere.”

Dean mumbles into his own shoulder where it’s pressed into the corner of the booth. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

“Sure. Except Hell is a ghost town and Abbadon is still out there, running wild,” he says, like Dean is clueless.

“He might just be lying low.” Weird thing to say. Especially so defensively. “You check the usual? Crossroads? Shady hotel registries?” he quickly moves on.

“Yeah, not summoning anyone, not trading souls.” Sam doesn’t seem to notice. “I don’t know what happened.”

Dean pulls himself away from the window and rubs his finger to his thumb. “He’s not exactly a demon’s go-to at the moment.” Still cold. Nice contrast to the heat of the Mark. “Probably trying to rally a loyal group of douches before we find Abbadon.”

Sam leans forward. “You know we don’t have the Blade, right?”

“I know that,” Dean spits, as if the mere reminder sends him into a frenzy.

“So… finding Abbadon is a smart plan, how, exactly? Make it easy for her? Offer ourselves up on a silver platter?”

“When we find her, Crowley's gonna give me the Blade.”

“And you trust him?”

Dean sneers at him, gesturing to his covered arm. “Well I kinda have to. This ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

Sam starts looking guilty. He chews on his bottom lip. Dean now has time to study his appearance like he’s been forgetting to do for the past few weeks. Sam’s hair is messy, messier. Usually likes to keep it brushed back at the bare minimum. Dark bags tug on his eyes and when he makes eye contact with Dean they look even more pleading and desperate than they normally do. Even when he’s not trying. Collar of his jacket hiked up on one side. Irking Dean. Shaky hands that fiddle with a sugar packet. Looks marginally worse than he’d expected him to up close; it’s been wistful images and passing glances in the bunker. Dean’s been liking his alone time lately—why does Sam look marginally worse than he’d expected him to?

The waitress approaches their table, balancing three plates of pie on one arm. Impressive. But then she starts to place them down, saying, “Here you boys are.”

Dean sits straight. “Hold up, we didn’t—”

“I did! Thanks so much.”

She shoots a warm smile to Sam before laying the last plate on the table.

Dean watches as Sam lines them up into a single file, and then stares at Dean, innocent.

“Since when were you the pie guy?” Dean questions, trying not to sound as confused as he feels. About the pie. About Crowley.

“Remember the year Dad left us in Montana for two months? And when we came into the diner one weekend you ordered every pie there was? Made me blind taste them all and guess the flavors?”

Dean blinks. Yeah. Yeah, he does.

Sam plucks a fork from the cutlery stash on the left, dropping it onto the first place and scooting it toward Dean. “Take your best shot,” he says.

Dean can’t help the smirk creeping onto his face. He picks up the fork. “Sammy. You feeling nostalgic?” he teases.

“I’m feeling like there’s something more to the Mark you’re not telling me and it’s making you pull away whenever I try to find out what.”

He pauses mid-stab, looking back up at Sam.

A sad smile on Sam’s face. Dean can see the stress lines. Breaks his heart a little. “I worry. You know I do.” He tilts his head, lets his neck bare every untold secret to the urge under Dean’s skin. Like Dean already knows everything about him but can definitely afford to know more. Dean shifts in his seat, and he digs his nails into the leather beneath. Bite. “J’st tell me everything’s okay,”

Classic apple pie, the first one. Couldn’t mistake that taste for anything.

*

Sam races around the corner and Dean follows slowly behind. He drags his feet with heavy intent, shoulders sagged and head off-kilter. All the lights are off and it’s dark. The walls seem to close in skinnier. He can see down the hall for miles.

He goes to scratch his face, and it’s there, in his hand, the First Blade. Glows in his grasp, like it wants something more than it’s ever wanted anything before. And down the hall, a matching luminance shines from behind a particularly wide pillar. Dean smiles.

The lights are off and it’s dark—but Dean can see the way Sam’s face contorts to terror as he watches him round the same corner. He’s backed into the wall, sat with his knees up to his chest and hands planted on the ground either side of him. His hair askew, poking out in every direction, and lip already sporting a mean bust. His knuckles red, too. Dean takes two tentative steps forward, and Sam tries—pathetically—to push himself further into the solidness behind him.

He shakes his head. “No, no, no—please. It’s me, Dean, it’s me. It’s your brother. Dean, please—it’s Sam. Sammy. Dean—Dee—please don’t—”

He raises the Blade.

“Oh, God. Stop. You're never gonna forgive yourself. Dean, listen to me, big brother, this isn’t—”

And buries it right in Sam’s sternum.

*

Does he have a beard?

Sam gargles in the sink beside him. Not something he usually does but he’s been getting more annoying lately. Dean leans in closer to the mirror, pinching at his cheek, chin, neck. Brushing light fingertips over the skin and search for stubble any more apparent than his usual chic.

“Wha’dya doin’?” Sam manages around a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Do I look like I have a beard?” Dean asks.

Sam dips his head down and spits. Then comes back up with a confused look on his face.

“Um. No?”

Dean hums, turning to the other side. “Are you sure?”

Sam rubs the back of his hand against Dean’s bare face, laughing when Dean swats him away. “No, no beard, Dean. Furthest thing from it, you baldie.”

Sam exits the bathroom, leaving Dean with his hallucinogenic wallowing. He pinches at himself some more until pink spots start to appear on his skin. Then, with a grumble, he slots his blue toothbrush back into its hole. Right next to Sam’s red one.

*

There’s an old fable Dad used to tell him as a kid about a snake and a farmer; A farmer finds a snake frozen over in his pond during the winter and takes pity on it. He carves it out as one big chunk of ice and brings it all the way back to his ranch so it can warm up by the fire. The ice melts, and the snake revives. Then the damn thing turns to the farmer and bites, killing him within minutes. Doesn’t know why Dad used to tell him that. To teach him something, maybe. Deceit must be dealt with decisively, not mercifully, son, he would say. Kindness to the wicked will always be repaid with evil. But it didn’t do anything but give him a mild fear of snakes.

It might be a stupid idea. In all retrospect—it might turn out how Dean completely doesn’t want it to, and it’ll cost him unreplenishable amounts of his sanity and even more entirely his dignity. But if Aquariuses aren’t anything but stubborn.

He holds the knife just above the Mark—the demon-killing knife. Not sure why he’d chosen that one but it’s got firm handling and has never had a dull (ha) moment since they’d nabbed it from Ruby. Seemed a good fit. His arm has been itching like crazy ever since killing Cuthbert—a lot crazier than it had already been, if that were even feasible—and he’s finally reached a point where he’s willing to do just about anything to make it stop.

If you only strike the body of evil, it will survive. To truly overcome danger or deceit, you must strike at the head. The source.

Well, here he goes. Striking the source.

He makes a clean incision from elbow to lower forearm, and there’s a moment of clarity and bean-like sustenance visible to him before blood begins to trickle, pool, then pour onto his clothes. Dean lets out an almost guttural scream—is able to cover it up (albeit messily) as an annoyed groan as he scrambles to his feet and fumbles for something to stop the bleeding. He succumbs to one of his favorite shirts, lying on the ground. The now blood covered ground—and his now blood covered shirt.

Fuck. He shakes his head like it’s just a few droplets of pain. FuckFuckFuck. Stings like an entire hornets’ nest, though. Fucking courses through like it’s being chased by something inside him. Can practically feel his arteries clenching and twisting around each pump of blood that spills. Each ounce that threatens to spill, each ounce that he holds back and presses strong into a flannel.

He sits back down on the edge of his bed and throws his head back, biting his lip to stop the noises that fight to come out. Strangled gasps of air escape, anyway, because he’s a pathetic sod, according to Crowley—and he secretly hopes that Sam will hear it because he wants him to walk in and tell him what a stupid idea this all was. Wants him to eradicate any future consideration of self-inflicted injury, to tell him he doesn’t need to hurt himself to feel even the slightest bit of relief.

Dean sighs.

Guess the Mark doesn’t take kindly to being inflicted upon. Doesn’t like blood. At least—not its own.

*

“Damnit, Dean.”

When Cas rolls his sleeve up, everything comes crashing down.

The Mark is angered that Cas has even touched him in the first, that he even thinks he has the authority to exude such disapproval of it. His hold on him is unwavering and it’s telling him something. The look on his face in utter disbelief, utterly torn. The look on his face and it kills Dean. It just kills him. (It’s hold on him is unforgiving and it’s telling him something. Demanding something and it shoots right through him.) Sam is the exact same if not worse. Tsunami of emotions washing over him; he’s a victim of petrification. Horror a curtain over his face and he can’t decide which foot to stand on. He steps back, then forward, then back again and pulls a hand out of his pocket to drag over his face, aghast.

Dean yanks his arm out of Cas’ grip somehow and it feels like being reeled back into a dark ocean where he’s only taken about half a gulp of air. He takes a tentative step back, like a scared stray dog. HotHotHot on his skin and shitshitshit in his head. Sam looks like he wants to form words. Looks like he wants to get closer with the way he’s shaking but Dean doesn’t want that, wants anything but that so he takes the next step, and then the next and rounds the car and gets into the driver’s seat. Thinks to start the car but he’s not that mean—Sam’s still coming with him.

(“Sam,” Cas says. “Keep an eye on him.”)

Grips the steering wheel tight. Gets that glimpse of his mutilated forearm as the heaving, panicked breaths ease his neck down to his chest. He finds Sam’s eyes still on him through the car window. Then realizes they’re not on him, but his arm. And not even the Mark—just his arm. His fucked up, gutted, not-bothered-to-be-cleaned-or-bandaged arm. That giant slash right across the bane of his fucking existence.

He can’t take the look on his little brother’s face. Like, How could you do that? What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you think—did you think?

And Dean doesn’t know how to answer any of them.

*

“Where is it?”

“Dean.”

“No. Don’t. Where is it?”

“You need to listen to me first.”

“No, what I need is for you to stop treating me like I’m some kind of fucking addict.”

“You don’t see it, but every time you touch that thing—”

“You hid it.” Dean realizes. “You hid it from me.”

Sam slowly shakes his head. “I had to. You don’t understand, you’re not thinking straight—”

“The Mark’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You’re not! How can you say you’re fine when—”

“You don’t know jack, Sam! Just leave us alone and tell me where it is!”

“Us—? God, do you hear yourself? You’re fucking drowning.”

“Where is it!?”

“Fucking drowning in it.”

“I’ll kill you, Sam.”

“Yeah.”

“I will actually kill you.”

“Yeah, know you will. ‘Cause that’s what the Mark’s doing to you. What the Blade does to you every time you pick it up. You don’t see it, because—”

“Oh, fuck me.”

“Dean! Do you think I’m blind? Think I can’t see? Think I can’t recognize my own brother losing himself to this fucking brand of war he has on his skin?”

“So what, you get to play babysitter? Hide the toys from broken big brother?”

“This isn’t a joke, Dean.”

“I’m not gonna ask again.”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m trying to stop you from killing yourself!”

“You don’t stop me from anything!”

“Fucking—Let me help you! Please.”

“Fuck you, you don’t understand. You don’t understand.”

“Still my brother, Dean. I understand everything.”

“No. Try’na fuckin’ control me, Sammy. Think you’re saving me but all you’re doing is making me weak.”

“Jesus—I get it, okay! I fuckin’ know how you’re feeling right now! I was the same! Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember trying so hard to pry me away from Ruby? Don’t you—”

Dean punches him.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Sam cradles his face.

“Where the fuck is it?” he asks. “Tell me where it is, Sammy.”

Sam slowly shakes his head again.

*

Dean tries it again, this time on the other arm. Takes their never dull demon knife and drags it across his skin with a surprising amount of diligence. The pulsing subdues almost instantly, watching the blood run down, and Dean wonders if this is what Daisy Randone felt the first time she ever did it.

(He does it another three times, just to make sure this relief lasts.)

*

He’s sitting alone at one of the tables with a lamp flicked on when Sam approaches him about a solo hunt. He hunches protectively over the newspaper he’s got in his hand and tries not to meet Sam’s eyes. Sam stands around for about five minutes, enjoys hearing himself talk, all while Dean fights the animalistic urge to claw at his wrists. No one said anything about the cuts themselves being itchy. He’d thought he’d turned a new leaf with all that shit.

He tries to tune in, but Sam lets his arm hit his side and sighs when Dean jolts, eyes swirling into a more immediate focus. “Dude. Are you even listening to me?” Dean grumbles, turning back to his newspaper and scanning the columns. Ironically, he’d been looking for a solo hunt as well. But good luck getting Mama Bear’s permission.

Anything else Sam says is under a deep body of water with no air and no bubbles. Dean thinks he hears, no, no way, you’re not going on that alone, and, what do you mean ‘why’? and he probably responded in between them but he can’t remember and everything burns and he just wants Sam to shut up, walk away and go on that stupid solo hunt he’s been hammering on about and leave them alone. Don’t care, Sam. Just go.

So he does. And when he returns, they cook together. Again.

Kitchen helps with his mood thankfully—it usually does. Sam’s requested an all-American bean salad for dinner, and Dean wants to fucking vomit. With his newfound knack for running circles around Dean, Sam gets to the task of dicing the cucumber and celery and onion first, which leaves Dean alone with the star of the meal—the beans. He takes a deep breath as he peels back the can’s metal lid; they swim in juice. Has to cover his mouth, swallow back bile. Keeps his eyes shut for a moment before looking back and forcing the image of his own flesh jarred open and looking just like that out of his mind.

Then he opens another two cans because Sam wants to mix three different types of beans. Dean doesn’t know how he’s going to eat this—rabbit food with a side of his own tasteless misery. He reaches up high for a bowl.

His sleeve rolls back, because of course it does, and Sam lets out a gasp from across the kitchen. “Dean, what—”

And then Dean’s grabbing him by his collar and pinning him against the wall before he even thinks to pull it down. He breathes heavy in Sam’s face, Sam’s expression only a myriad of confusion and fear. He looks Dean up and down, hands coming up slowly to hold onto the fingers that graze—almost are squeezing his throat. He pries them off, a miracle the Mark allows him to, and Dean steps back, ashamed.

Now he pulls it down.

Sam nods reassuringly. His hands don’t let go of Dean. The pungent smell of sulfur fills the room.

*

It’s great having his own room.

Doesn’t have to fight for the bigger bed. Doesn’t have to be woken up in the middle of the night by someone going to the bathroom. Doesn’t have to keep them in mind when he’s adjusting the cooling or heating. Just his own space, empty as it may be, but wholly and unapologetically his.

Great to sit on the floor of his room against his bed frame, knife in hand. Great to choose how deep he goes each time, to know how far the Mark wants him to go. How much the Mark wants. What’s going to grant him dismissal as opposed to what’s going to cost him another hour on the cold, hard concrete. Great to cut, and cut, and cut—without having Sam or Cas in his ear telling him it’s not healthy. That it’s so, so wrong, and you can’t be doing this Dean. You just can’t.

He knows that. Fuck if he doesn’t. But the Mark wants what it wants and Dean does what he does, will be damned if one of these days ends with him pressing a gun to Sam’s head, or a blade to Cas’ throat.

Will be god fucking damned.

*

Sam calls to him from where he’s rummaging through the cabinets. “Hey, are we out of bandages?”

Dean’s blood runs cold, fingers freezing on the keyboard.. “Uh, I don’t know.”

He hears more rummaging, pain relief packets and pocket-sized saline bottles hitting the counter as he flicks them aside. Dean knows it’s pain relief packets and pocket-sized saline bottles because that’s what he uses to cover up the gaping hole in the medicine cabinet where the bandages should be.

“Swear we had more… we just bought some, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, ages ago.”

“Hm.”

Shit. That was definitely an ‘I don’t believe that’s true, and I think you’re lying to me’ hum.

Dean packs up his laptop and exits the room as quietly and swiftly as possible.

*

A feather lands in his lap.

Dean whips his head behind. “Jesus Christ, Cas.”

“Hello, Dean,” Cas greets methodically. He takes a small scan of Dean’s room. “How are you?”

“What are you doing here, man?” Dean asks.

“I’m simply asking how you are feeling. I believe it is called ‘checking in’.”

Dean drags a hand down his face, slow, frustrated. He had been sleeves up, scratching his wrists when Cas appeared, and now he’s being forced into talking about his feelings because the angel wants to ‘check in’. Pithy. He has better things to do. “Did Sam put you up to this?”

He must’ve. Not something Cas would do on a whim unless prompted to, unless he had further reason to investigate. Cas is funny like that. He doesn’t operate using his heart—or whatever the angelic substitution for that is—but rather waits for the facts, the logic, and takes action from there. Something Dean admires. Being in such control like that.

Cas tilts his head. “To finding out how you’re feeling? No, I believe that would be counterproductive. He is just down the hall.”

Dean makes an ambiguous noise. Don’t remind me.

Cas moves through the space and finds a spot at the end of Dean’s bed. He moves awfully calmly, awfully collected. Human-like, if Dean understood how that worked. Cas is weirdly human now, despite having his grace back. It’s like he never quite let go of the simple mortality of life.

“Is that precious information, though?” Cas wonders. “Your emotions?”

“Not that I know of.”

Cas smiles at him softly, “You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

Dean sits up straight. Hates the way the angel’s fondness for him always seems to do the trick. “For what, exactly?”

Cas seems to ignore him. “Metatron is expanding his purview. I have a small group of angels behind me if need be, but I’m determined not to let matters reach that level of intensity,” he explains. “And I have firm reason to believe the First Blade may be our only chance at succeeding.”

“You and me both, pal,” Dean scoffs.

“I heard you two have the Blade. Is it…” Dean cocks an eyebrow at him. Cas swallows, for some reason, like he’s anxious. “...safe?”

Dean feels tingling in his right arm. No, it’s not safe. Not safe until it’s in my hands. He pushes his lips into a firm line, swings his legs over the opposite side of the bed Cas is perched on so he isn’t facing him.

The floor suddenly looks very interesting. “Wouldn’t know; Sam’s hidden it.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Fucking ask him yourself—it’s such bullshit.”

Cas is quiet. The concrete has subtle cracks and a thin layer of dust sprawling over it. Faint maroon residue from where Dean had scrubbed for hours, hands and knees, desperate to destroy all evidence of having done such a stupid thing. Then Cas speaks again.

“Is there something… going on between you two?” he inquires. Dean can feel him lean further toward him by the way the memory foam mattress creaks. Great, now it’s going to remember Cas and this conversation, too. Can’t have anything to himself. Not even his stupid fucking brother, apparently. “It took me a while to latch onto one of your souls in order to teleport here. It’s like you’re both… shut out. Does that make sense?”

Dean nods. Can’t do anything but nod.

“Are you? Is that making going after Metatron difficult?”

“Difficult is an understatement,” Dean remarks, and pointedly doesn’t answer the question.

Cas sighs behind him. One of those helpless Cas sighs. “How can I help? I’m sure Sam would understand if you—”

“Give it a rest, Cas. There’s no convincin’ him.”

“But if I—”

“No. Said drop it.” Dean raises his voice. “And quit teleporting without warning, man. It’s intruding, and it scares the shit outta me.”

He thinks Cas blinks. “But if I need to reach you…”

“You ring the doorbell like a normal fuckin’ guy. Christ.” Or pick up the phone. You have one now.

Doesn’t like being rude to Cas. Doesn’t ever like showing him that side of himself that he loathes so much. The most. Even if he’s already seen it in Hell, had saved him from his own moral decay—still doesn’t like showing him he isn’t the ‘righteous man’ Cas had once thought he was.

There’s a beat of silence where Dean almost turns around because he’s sure Cas has teleported away and left him with his own childish outburst, but then Cas’ voice comes out wary, contrite and sheepish, “You never seemed to mind before.”

Guilt farms in his chest. “Yeah, well. That’s me lately, I suppose,” Dean mutters. “Changing.” And hates the way the words feel on his tongue.

*

“Movie night?” Sam suggests one night.

Dean slows in his motion of plate washing, face drifting over to Sam’s, hesitant. Sam gives him a small, sweet smile and nudges his head in the direction of the hallway. His bedroom. His laptop is old and of bad quality but it has been more successful than trying to find a place to put a television. Even if the volume buzzes. Even if the screen’s grainy on one side. Dean finds that he actually would like that very much. A movie night. It’s been a while.

“I’m pickin’,” Dean says and goes back to scrubbing.

Sam breathes a laugh, fond shake of his head as he leaves the kitchen, and Dean can hear his low, “Of course.”

He scrubs faster.

Dean chooses Tombstone—because of course. Something he’s seen a hundred times and knows the script off by heart. Something he can lip sync to beside Sammy when the iconic scenes are on, and can blink away tears at the sentimental ones. And they choose Sam’s room to watch it in. Even if Dean hates how bare it is, it’s Sam. And at the end of the day it’s a space he wants to feel familiar with like the back of his hand, just like anything of Sam’s, he does.

Plus—his room is pretty much closed for business right now. Can’t risk Sammy seeing all that blood on his floor.

A gun goes off on screen. “Yeah, that’s how you do it, Wyatt.” Dean smiles to himself tiredly. “See that, Sammy? Real men with real mustaches.”

“Real tuberculosis, too. You know Val Kilmer almost died playing Doc Holliday?”

Dean hums. “Worth it.”

Sam looks down at him slumped against his shoulder, bumping playfully and turning back to the movie.

“This where your thing for cowboys came from?” Sam asks.

Don’t really want Sam to never be able to go into my room… “Do you think I should get a rug for my room?” Dean replies out of the blue.

Sam sits up and looks at him. Dean makes an annoyed sound and weakly pulls at his shirt to get him to lean back again. A cheeky grin creeps onto Sam’s face. “A rug?” he echoes. “Interior design a hidden passion? What do you want a rug for?”

Dean shrugs. “Dunno. Feet get cold. Floor’s all concrete, ‘s not very soft.”

“I mean, if you want. Didn’t think you cared…”

“I don’t. It’s my feet.”

“Then sure.” Sam rolls his eyes. “Get a rug for your room.” He leans back into the headboard.

Dean maneuvers his shoulder comfy to his side. Another gun goes off, then another. The screen an array of flashing lights and action and intense music and corny sound effects. Dean turns to the side, into Sam slightly, hikes his legs up higher. Sam lets him—but soon starts to wriggle agaisnt him. His toes, specifically.

Dean groans and kicks him lightly. “Would you stop moving so much?” He misses Wyatt starting his walk through the gunfire. Damnit.

“Sorry. You’re on my feet,” Sam says, meek.

“That’s your own feet, dumbass.”

“No, it’s not, it’s your leg.” Sam wriggles his toes again. “Both your legs actually.”

Dean indeed feels it. “Oh.”

He shifts off him.

“I didn’t say you had to move. My feet were just falling asleep.”

Dean grumbles. “Whatever.”

He sneaks his legs back over Sam’s ankles after a minute of his approval. He thinks Sam doesn’t notice, but when he sneaks a glance upwards, there’s a tiny smirk tilting the corners of the lips. Dean scratches at his knee through the denim. Sam’s arms swap positions from how they’re crossed every few minutes. His fingers sit over the edge of his elbow closest to Dean and Dean studies the skin, nails, cuticles—their shapes and imprints and color—for no real reason at all. Simply just because they’re close enough to do so.

Sam’s calming breathing pattern sends him into something sleepy. The laptop screen gets blurry and then dark, and the treasured voices of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp seem to escape him. Still the western music in the background, in his ears. Still the distant sensation of his brother’s shoulders going up and down, up and down. It envelopes him in a second. That wistful, dreamy plane. Dean closes his eyes.

There’s not an aggressive shaking like usual, but a soft voice searching for him through the haze. “You awake down there?”

Down there, Dean thinks. Sam. Oh, right. Because he’s taller than Dean. Asshat.

“F’ck off,” he slurs. “M’watching…”

Sam’s deep, low chuckle, passing through him. Heaven. “You missed Earp’s big speech.” Everything he needs.

“Have it memorized…” He yawns, going to lean his head further down Sam’s body, only to realize he’s already three-quarters of the way. “‘Hell’s comin’ with me’... awesome.”

He loses to the haze again, or the gentle feel of fingers beginning to card through his hair, scratching at his scalp. Even short, it feels amazing. He’s almost content to fall asleep right there. Right there tucked in Sam’s side, if not for the concern creeping in above him.

“What’s wrong with you, Dean?” his baby brother whispers, all broken and lost and probably only meant for himself—but still continuing to card.

A pip of guilt in his chest again. Must be a crop-ton of them in there by now. Wonder when they’re going to bloom—grow into something worse.

I don’t know, Dean answers in his head.

*

One cut. Two cuts. Three cuts. Four.

Hasn’t been anything to kill. Sam’s been keeping the fucking paper from him and there hasn’t been anything to kill. No hunts. He’s going mad—mad—and his brother thinks it’s all some addict’s psychology, that the withdrawal is worse than the relapse. If he stays absent from it long enough it’s sure to go dormant. Fucking wrong, Sam. Goddamn meddler. He’s seriously going mad.

Five cuts. Six cuts. Seven cuts. Eight.

Now he has to resort to doing this at a much more frequent rate. This—this—this pathetic attempt at control over a problem he’d selfishly created, selfishly thought could bend to their benefit. This warped perception of violence and bleeding that he has never been more predisposed to. So much so that he doesn’t know if it’s the Mark anymore. Doesn’t know if it’s about making it happy, feeding it, or if there’s something inside of him that’s always fought to punish himself.

Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve cuts.

Something deep and secretive—and it’s never really been about the Mark, has it? Has always been about giving himself what he deserves. What he yearns for.

A boatload of torture painfully drawn out over the course of an indefinite timeline.

Fucking deserves it. Each cut is atonement—squalor disguised as compensation for all the misconduct he’s orchestrated—and he deserves it fucking all unbearable and harrowing. Doesn’t matter what he wants. Doesn’t matter what he needs. Just matters that he’s getting punished (Even Alastair had better methods than this!) and coming around to the truth that Sammy isn’t enough for him to stay pure anymore.

Not even enough for Sammy, anymore, period.

*

Finally. A warehouse with only two known exits, exposed electrical damage hanging from the ceiling, rusty support beams and a group of shapeshifters on a cold, rainy night. Finally.

Dean runs so fast he can’t feel his legs. Between the weather and being chased, it sure gets his cardio in for the week. Or the month. Sam trails behind the shifters, gun in hand, but not steady enough yet to take a good shot. Could hit Dean, so he has to be careful. There’s definitely mud somewhere on the cuffs of his jeans, and his silver knife had been discarded earlier during a heated fight in the middle of the warehouse, so there’s his last-ditch effort—nothing to help in the eleventh hour, now.

A shot rings out. A body falls. That’s one shifter—good on you, Sam.

Dean rounds a tree and changes his course, now heading for the river stream behind the old building. Slippery down there—moss on rocks and even muddier than before. Already feels like he made the wrong choice. One of them got a good hit in during the fight; Dean can feel a bruise beginning to form on his temple. Sam follows as best as he can. But Dean hears him yelp and can only assume the mud got him. 

But then another shot rings out. Another body. That’s two. Nice, Sammy.

He jumps over the water—makes it across the other side by some miracle—and starts back on the route to the warehouse, the car. Maybe if he can make it to the trunk, he can nab another gun and some silver bullets. Even in the shiver-worthy temperature, Dean feels nothing short of overheated. Like fire. A little jealous that Sammy’s the one gettin’ all the kills, but pick your battles, right? The warehouse comes into sight.

Baby’s parked a good distance away from the nearest exit, and her trunk’s most likely locked shut, Dean realizes—so there goes that final huzzah, too. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. A puff of cold air comes out.

He ends up just pushing through the broken door back door and hoping his knife is relatively visible somewhere on the muddied, grassy ground. Hears Sam shout an urgent, “Dean!” from behind but doesn’t spare him the time. He needs to find this knife.

A slimy body against his rainy wet one. It flips him around faster than he can comprehend and suddenly he’s on the ground.

Dean holds his hands up, scans side to side for anything to use as weaponry, then shoots back to the shifter above him when it proves futile. It takes a step forward, and Dean scrambles to his feet. Swipe to the cheek—whoops—then one to the chest, evidently heavier than the badump, badump underneath. Drowns out the beat. Dean drops to the ground again on his stomach—but the familiar glint of silver passes over his vision. Bingo. He crawls, snagging it by a hair as the shifter grabs his ankles and yanks him across the space.

The shifter strikes one more gash over his arm when he lifts it to shield his face, but then Dean sticks the silver point right into its abdomen and it falls to the ground with him, subjugated as every monster has ever been before.

Then one more shot and the last body falls at his feet, Sam behind it, gun drawn. Four out of four. Dean grins.

“Good to see ya, Sammy.”

Sam tucks the gun into his belt and walks over, hand outstretched. “I was right behind you the whole time, jerk.”

Dean takes it, wincing while being pulled up. “Bitch.”

Dean holds a hand to his arm, watches as the blood pools through the torn fabric of his flannel and onto his skin. Does the same with his chest. Down a shirt, it seems.

Sam does his own fussing up at his face. “Jesus!” He brushes Dean’s cheek, the three-fingered swipe. Almost werewolf-like. “Got’ya good. It hurt?”

Lot of blood. Dean looks up from his bleeding chest. “Uh.” He blinks.

“Oh my God!”

Sam’s noticed his chest, then.

“Are we done here?”

“Dean, why didn’t you say anything?!”

Dean waves him off and heads for the door. “‘S fine.”

Sam jogs further up, blocks his path by standing in front. “It’s definitely not. Here, let me take a look—”

“Sam, knock it off.” He waves him off again.

They make it to the car with minimal hindrance. Dump all their stuff back in the trunk and lock it down for next time. Not thoroughly cleaned, but a dirty rag he always keeps in there to wipe the guns, and a small corner in their moulds to return the bullets. Especially the silver ones, or the ones they’ve etched shit into. Hard to obtain on the road so they recycle where they can.

Sam presses him against the car by his shoulder. Dean sighs, shutting his eyes half out of pain and half out of exhaustion. “We gotta take care of this,” Sam reinforces.

Dean watches him pull a wad of bandages out of his pockets, distantly wonders where he’d gotten those from and why he’d decided to put them in his pockets of all places.

Then he’s reaching for Dean’s jacket, shrugging it off—and it’s still cold, still rainy, but he’s just so, so warm—going for his shirt next in order to reach the bleeding. Shit. He remembers what lies under his clothing. A searing jolt shoots through Dean. He shoves Sam off as fast as he can. Sam gives him a look, then reaches forward again to pull his collar down and unbutton—

Dean shoves him harder this time.

Sam’s hands hover in the air. “What the hell?”

Dean looks between him and the bandages nervously. Can’t let him see. Can’t let him see. There’s vile, hot buzzing below his elbow—he fights the urge to leap on Sam. To take him down and force his skull into the ground over and over and over. Until he hears a crack. A crunch.

Sam tries one more time. His fingers curl in the material. Dean all but whines as he struggles out of the grasp.

“For fuck’s sake, Dean.” Sam shakes his head. “What are you doing?”

Dean feels a blush creep onto his face. “What?” he replies innocently.

Sam presses his mouth into a line, sighing through his nose. He looks away, to the sky, and then back with his eyebrows sewn in. Face dowsed in melancholy, like he now suddenly knows something. Like the stars had just given him clarity for a suspicion long standing.

“You can’t keep hiding it from me. From us,” he finally says after staring at Dean for a moment. “What’s happening?”

Us, as in… Cas? Dean gives him the same perplexity back. “Nothing’s happening?”

“You’re a liar.”

“Nothing’s happening,” Dean repeats. Hard.

Sam crosses his arms and gives him that stupid look, the one that says everything he’s thinking but doesn’t have the energy to say. Either because he doesn’t think it’s worth it, or because he thinks the person he’s talking to isn’t intellectual enough to understand—and fuck if Dean’s not intellectual. Hates that look of Sam’s. Hates how he thinks of Dean as below him. I raised you, asshole.

The buzzing wins this one. Dean readies his fist.

Sam dodges the punch, somehow sees it coming before Dean does. “Show me the Mark,” he demands.

Dean winces at the strain on his shoulder, his chest. He doesn’t move to obey. Will never move to obey.

“Show me!”

“No! It’s mine!”

“It’s—! Jesus Christ. It’s not apart of you, Dean.”

Dean covers the Mark through his sleeve protectively. Covers a fuck ton of cuts alongside it. “Yes, it is.”

“Yeah, but it’s not yours.”

It is me. “Shut up, it is!” Dean shouts, now standing a meter away. “You know nothing!”

Sam’s face darkens and he moves closer. Gets a hand on Dean's sleeves and this time Dean’s slightly less privy to fight him off. “I know what you’re doing,” Sam says lowly. It sends a dreadful shiver down his spine.

He can’t know. Logically, he can’t. Dean’s been good at it. Been cleaning up after himself and making sure nothing gets left behind. There shouldn’t be any evidence to pick apart, no telltale signs to analyse—Sam should not know. Realistically. And more importantly—he can’t.

Unless he’s set up a hidden camera in Dean’s room, which is barbaric, right? Sam wouldn’t do that. Not ever. He trusts Dean, completely and wholeheartedly. And if he had something he wanted to find out, he would just ask. Right?

“No you don’t,” Dean rejects desperately. He starts tugging himself away from Sam’s prying touch.

Sam keeps trying to roll them up. “I know what’s happening.”

No. Please. Dean tugs, and tugs, and kicks at his knees and shakes side to side and even tries to tear his entire body off the Impala but he’s stuck and he’s there and Sam is stronger than him—and how is Sam stronger than him? Sam twists his nails in and it goes right to his wrists. Dean makes strangled little noises at the pain, and even worse, bites back a gasp at how it’s feeding the Mark. How each scratch and dig and pull at his skin beneath the sleeves of his shirt is magic to him. How fucked up. The blood from his shoulder already probably running down his arm, and it’s going to make the whole sight seem so much worse than it really is—it’s fine, Sam! I’m fine! I have it under control! Magic, magic, magic. Feels like magic.

Grunting and groaning coming from Sam where his mouth is pressed to his forehead and breathing heavy on him. Hot huffs of breath wafting down and somehow Dean can feel how clenched his jaw is, how firm his teeth are pressed together. One of his legs are hooked around Dean’s so he can’t escape. Planted mercilessly as a point of defeat. (It’s over, Dean.)

So Dean starts to cry. “Fuck off me, Sam, I swear to god.” Ridiculously, and unnecessarily. Starts with the tears bubbling in his eyes and clouding his vision, and then they fall and don’t stop falling, and then he can’t control the way his voice wavers and the way his throat bobs.

“You’re always rubbing at yourself. You’re wearing only your long-sleeved flannels, and you don’t even bother pulling them up when you wash your hands when you cook,” Sam lists, and oh god, there’s a list. There’s multiple things worth noting that Dean’s been doing wrong. Fucking honorable mentions all the way he’s messed it up. “You hate wet sleeves.”

Sam’s voice cracks at that last part. Like this actually hurts him at any level that this hurts Dean. Bullshit, Sam. Dean shakes his head, nonetheless.

Sam continues. “The bean salad—your room, the…” The blood. Dean’s runs cold. Why did you have to go into my room, Sammy? “All the bandages have gone missing—there’s fucking toilet paper clogging the upstairs toilet! Looks like someone fuckin’ died in there!” He shifts to the side, where Dean doesn’t anticipate, and executes one final yank. “And that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? You’re killing yourself.”

Cold air hits it all. All of Dean’s corruption. His self-made atrocity. He lets out a repulsing, defeated sob, burying his face into his own bloody shoulder if it means getting away, ignoring its existence. Pretending it never happened.

He hears Sam's pained gasp above him. His hold on his sleeves loosens almost instantly and it travels down to his wrists. The gravel crunches as Sam takes a step back. “You—” he chokes. “Oh my God…”

Dean can’t help his crying. Ugly, snot-filled crying—he tries, weakly, to wriggle away from Sam—from it all, the embarrassment, the exposure; he stays ducked as low as his neck allows him to. He can feel Sam’s fingers graze over them. Starting from his wrist, he goes across then back, then higher and across and back. Repeats that process all the way up his arm until he reaches the Mark of Cain. Then he goes all the way back down, again. Feels all the risen skin and scabbing and rigidness and even spots of smoothness where goosebumps don’t appear anymore. Because Dean’s carved so much and gone so deep, there are just spots of neutrality. He pauses at particularly bad ones, where it’s healed a sort of purple shade and where it stretches the skin further than others. And he brushes over ones that go vertical, too, because there are only a few. Because Dean had read ‘vertical for results’ and wanted to prove authenticity before, of course, quickly redirecting himself to the fact that he wasn’t suicidal.

“Oh my God, Dean.”

The more he stares at them, the tighter Sam’s grip gets. He moves to Dean’s elbows to keep him in place, and pulls him closer into his space. He keeps shaking his head, keeps blinking hard as if it’ll make them disappear. Dean feels small droplets of water hit his arms. He looks up to see Sam’s—silently—tear-stained face.

“You’ve been—” Sam splutters. “You’ve been—”

Sam meets his eyes and he shakes again. Has a face on that is too damn solemn for Dean’s liking—but also too determined. He darts from Dean’s arms to his eyes a few times and squeezes, tight. Too determined, Dean thinks again.

Dean quickly realizes that there is no getting out of this. Not even when this moment is over and they get back in the car, when they drive all the way home in silence and go to their respective rooms, and reconvene in the kitchen tomorrow morning with awkward greetings and a shared plate of eggs. There is no getting out of this. Sam’s face—there is no getting out of this.

But Dean doesn’t want it. Whatever Sam’s already planning in his mind—Dean wants none of it. Wants no part.

No. He gives Sam a warning look. No, Sam.

“But, Dean—” Sam’s already pleading. He pulls him closer and squeezes again emphatically. “—please, I can’t—I can’t let this go.”

“No,” Dean says, looking away. “I–It’s nothing.”

“It’s not—” Sam hiccups. (Breaks Dean’s heart) “—nothing!”

Dean sniffles at the gravel, whispers, “Why are you crying?”

“Dean…” Sam bends his knees and interjects himself in Dean’s sight, forcing him to look back up at him with nothing but a mangled stare. Dean doesn’t know how to explain that he was talking to himself.

So he just stares back. “I… I didn’t want to…” Not entirely true, that. Just stares. “…I didn’t mean for it to get like this. The Mark—”

“Stop. Stop—just stop,” Sam suddenly exclaims. “Just… stop. Oh God.”

Oh. He doesn’t believe you. I mean, he shouldn’t, should he? This is exactly what it looks like, and you are exactly what you are.

He’s distracted, so Dean pulls away entirely, this time arms and all. Sam lets him go. Like the teenage girl he is, he turns away and opens the car door. Sam lets him go.

But then, “Let me drive.”

Dean doesn’t spare him a glance.

“Please, Dee, let me drive.”

Fuck—sane, didn’t he say? Fucking sane.

*

One month. In Sam’s bed, Wayne’s World on the laptop. One month. He scratches at the scars, hating how Sam makes him wear short-sleeves now—but—one month.

Sam walks in with a small bowl of popcorn. “You comfy?”

Dean hikes the covers higher over his chin.

Sam smiles as he gets in beside him. He balances the bowl between both of their knees and presses play. Dean shimmies out an arm to grab a handful and shove it into his mouth.

Sam lifts an arm and rests it behind Dean, dangerously close to lying over his shoulder. “Good?” he asks.

Crunchy. Dean doesn’t look up to answer. “Great.” Then spies Sam’s not so subtle invitation behind him and leans back, tucking himself neatly in the crook of Sam’s armpit. Sam hums contentedly and tightens his arm around his waist, pulling him closer. Who said little brothers had to stay little? Dean sometimes likes Sam better like this.

“Alright, onewords,” Sam says. He idly traces figure-eights over the scars on Dean’s forearm wedged between them. “I’m glad.”

Blood still stains his floor. Mark of Cain still on his skin. Popcorn a bit too buttery for his liking—but he’s glad, too.

He’s glad.