Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dean’s minding his own business, sipping on a beer and leering at the bartender, when a guy that admittedly has about four inches and a good twenty pounds of muscle on him storms over and shoves him in the arm.

He tenses, getting to his feet and preparing for a fight even as he’s wondering what he did to piss him off. Maybe the bartender’s his girl? Jesus, Dean was just looking, he can’t get mad at just looking when his girl looks likes that.

“Dude, what the hell?” the guy demands. “I know you’re pissed at me right now, but just leaving me back there – do you know how many bars it took to find you? You’re a jackass.”

He’s not taking a swing, instead standing with crossed arms – fuck, this guy is huge, he’d really like to avoid a fight here – and scowling at him, his long hair falling into his eyes as he looks down at him. Dean wishes he had any idea what was going on right now. “Look, man, relax.” The guy’s eyes narrow, his shoulders lifting and expanding as he takes in a deep breath, as if he needs any help to look bigger. Before he can say anything, Dean adds, “I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay. Fuck off.” He presses his lips together, somehow appearing smaller in the next moment without actually moving. “Look, I know you’re mad about heaven, you’ve made that pretty fucking clear, but you can’t just walk off and turn off your phone. I figured you were just being an ass, but something could have happened to you. If you’re ignoring me, at least let me know you’re ignoring me.”

The guy doesn’t look like he’s tweaking or suffering some sort of head injury. His eyes are clear and his voice is steady. But Dean has no idea what he’s talking about. “Dude, you’ve really got me confused with someone else.”

“Dean!” he snaps, which woah, okay, he wasn’t expecting that. “This isn’t funny.”

“I’m not laughing,” he says. “How do you know my name?”

He stares at him, uncertainty entering his eyes for the first time. “Are you feeling okay? You didn’t come across Zachariah or a witch or something in the past couple hours?”

He doesn’t know who Zachariah is, but the casual mention of witches makes him frown. Is this guy a hunter or something? He figures he’d remember meeting him, but maybe not.

“Everything okay over here?” Dad’s hand lands heavily on his shoulder. Dean shifts enough to see him giving the guy a hard stare that has sent more than one man running in the other direction.

Dean almost rolls his eyes – he’s thirty one years old, he doesn’t need his dad coming over to save him – but he makes the effort so rarely that Dean can’t help but be warmed by it.

The guy pales, mouth dropping open as he stares at Dad like he’s seen a ghost. “You – Christo.”

Okay, definitely a hunter. Dad raises an eyebrow. “I’m not a demon.”

The guy grabs for Dean, yanking on his hand. Dean jerks back, but he’s already gotten his long fingers around his ring. He pulls it off and Dean is about to break his jaw to get it back, but he tosses it to Dad, who catches it on instinct. Dean doesn’t get it until he does. His ring is silver. He’s checking if Dad’s a shifter, which okay, that’s one thing. Dean’s more concerned about how he knows his ring is silver. The guy’s voice cracks when he says, “Dad?”

Dad raises an eyebrow. “I think you’re a little confused.”

“Dean, what’s going on?” he asks, grabbing onto the sleeve of his jacket. Dean should push him off. “What,” his gaze drops down, and if possible he goes even paler. “Oh. Oh, fuck.”

Dean looks down and the guy’s eyes are stuck on his amulet. “What?”

“I don’t understand,” he says, biting on his lower lip. “Is this some sort of – but you’re still hunters. Is Mom alive?”

Dean flinches.

“Okay,” Dad says. “That’s enough. You walk this off or whatever, but you do it somewhere else–”

“Dad, it’s me,” he says plaintively. “It’s Sam. Your son.”

Dean doesn’t remember moving, only that the next moment his hands are fisted in the front of this asshole’s shirt, his blood thrumming under his skin. “Shut up. Shut the fuck up.”

He puts his hands on Dean’s wrists, stupid earnest and soft and Dean’s going to kick his ass. “Dean. It’s me. I have to exist in this world, right? The demon was after me, if I wasn’t here then there wouldn’t have been a fire, Mom wouldn’t have died, you guys wouldn’t be hunters. I have to be around somewhere.”

Dean tries to shove him away, but he won’t let go of him, his hands like steel bands around his wrists. “Shut up! You don’t – don’t talk about my family.”

The worst thing he ever did, his biggest failure. Sometimes the weight of it gets to be so heavy it feels like it should be cracking his ribs, pressing his heart until it bursts. Sometimes he wishes it would.

The guy swallows before letting go of one of his hands and reaching into his pocket to pull something out. It takes Dean a moment to see it’s his amulet, the one he’s worn since he was twelve years old, back when Bobby still talked to them. The one that’s still around his neck. “My name is Samuel Winchester. I was named after my mother’s father. When I was eight years old, Bobby gave me this amulet. He said it was a protection charm. I was originally planning to give it to Dad for Christmas, but he didn’t show up. Another in a long line of disappointments, right? So I gave it to you instead. Because even when you’re being a jerk, you’ve never let me down.”

Dean’s eyes are burning. He tries to shake off his grip, but he won’t let go. Why is Dad just standing there? “Stop! Stop. I don’t know what game you’re playing–”

“No game,” he says, gentle voice a counterpoint to the grip that’s absolutely going to bruise. “I need you to believe me, Dean, please–”

“My brother died when he was six months old,” he cuts him off. “Samuel Winchester is dead. He’s been dead for twenty six years.”

His fault, his fault, all his fault. If he’d just listened to Dad –

“Not where I’m from,” he says, and it’s crazy, it’s all crazy. “Please. Ask me anything. I’ll prove it. Hell, let’s go to a clinic, we can take a DNA test. I’m Sam. I’m your brother. And I need your help.”

“You mentioned a demon,” Dad says quietly.

The guy, who’s not Sam, who can’t be Sam, tears his eyes away from Dean to look at Dad. “Yeah. Azazel. The yellow eyed demon.”

Dad rubs a hand over his mouth. “I never told anyone about that.”

Dean snaps his head towards him. “What? You said you didn’t know what killed Mom! That we were searching for it!”

“We are,” Dad says. “It never resurfaced again. I’ve been looking for the signs.”

The guy frowns. “He started up again when I was twenty two.”

“Not here,” Dad says, looking him up and down, something hungry in his eyes.

Dad believes him. Dad thinks that this is Sammy.

“Let’s discuss this back at the room,” Dad says. “Come on.”

He heads towards the door, not bothering to look back, sure that he’s going to be followed. The – Sam, maybe Sam, he rolls his eyes, but goes after him. He only stops when his grip on Dean’s wrist jerks him back, because Dean’s not moving, can’t make himself move. He flushes, letting go of Dean finally, but he takes a step closer. His eyebrows pull together in concern, and now that Dean’s looking, he sort of sees it, sees the planes of Dad’s face and his eyes in this stranger with his brother’s name. “Hey. Are you okay?”

No.

“Let’s go,” he says, striding forward, shoulders hunched.

Sam falls into step beside him easily, matching his strides like it’s second nature. Dean swallows around the lump in his throat and tries to pretend it means nothing.

He doesn’t say anything on the walk back, and neither does anyone else, but Dean has to resist the urge to lean away, to put some distance between them, but it smacks a little bit too much of weakness. Why the hell is he walking so closely? An inch more and their shoulders would be brushing.

The motel room is just a couple blocks away from the bar and Dad waves them both in. The big guy that’s going by his brother’s name gives it all a once over and immediately goes over to Dad’s duffle.

“Hey!” he says, but Dad just shakes his head, eyes dark and intense as he watches him, this man claiming to be his son.

Sam ruffles inside it for barely a second before grabbing Dad’s journal and flipping through it. “I’m assuming this was caused by my universe rather than yours, but have you gotten into anything recently? Angels, rips into the space time continuum, witches? Demon deals?” The last one is accompanied by a sardonic glance at both him and Dad that he doesn’t understand at all.

Dad shakes his head.

“Angels?” Dean repeats.

“Yeah,” Sam says absently, frowning at something in the journal. “Not here then? Good. They’re douchebags. When Mom said they were watching over us, she was right, but it actually sucks.”

He can’t breathe. “How do you know that?”

“Know what?” He looks up and frowns, taking a step closer to him. “Dean?”

“About what Mom said.” He’s never told anyone that. “How do you know?”

“You told me,” he says. “Dean, come on, it’s me.”

Like that’s supposed to mean something to him.

“What’s your universe like?” Dad asks.

Sam shrugs. “Probably about the same as this one, minus some, uh, key current differences. Lots of the same cases in your journal.”

John nods. “And when did I die?”

What? Why would – but it had been Dad, not Dean, that had tipped Sam off that something was wrong. He’d checked for demon or shifter, like Dad walking around on his own just wasn’t an option. Damn.

His stomach goes cold and heavy just at the thought of it, like it always does. He doesn’t want to be alone and with Dad gone – he doesn’t have anyone else.

Sam’s expression tightens before he sighs, voice soft when he says, “Little over three years. It’s good to see you, Dad. Really.”

“So just you and Dean,” Dad says, turning his head like that’ll hide the shine in his eyes. Dean hasn’t seen that from Dad while he’s sober in – he doesn’t even know how long.

Sam shrugs. “We miss you. Dean really – yeah. But it’s kind of always just been me and Dean.” What does he mean by that? “Where are we exactly? I need Bobby’s library.”

“Singer?” Dad asks.

“Yeah?” After a beat, Sam rolls his eyes. “Don’t tell me, you’re not on speaking terms. Did he run you off with a shotgun here too?”

Um, Bobby did what?

“Haven’t spoken to Bobby in about fifteen years,” Dad says.

Sam stares. “What? Fifteen years? What did you do?”

“What makes you think I did something?” he asks.

“Because it’s always you?” Sam returns. Dean’s throat burns with the urge to defend him, but Sam’s not wrong. Of course he’s not wrong. Sam knows, because Dad is his dad and he’s been there for all the bullshit up and down, push and pull crap that Dean has. “Alright, well my phone’s still working, thanks to someone who’s phone plan I’m hijacking. Give me the room for a minute and I’ll call Bobby.”

Sam is giving Dad orders. He can’t really be their Sam. Can he? Dad would never put up with that.

“Why should I?” Dad asks, some of that hardness entering his tone that most people know better than to go against.

Sam clearly isn’t most people. “Because if I’m going to convince him to help me, I’m going to need to say some pretty personal stuff, and he hates you. He wouldn’t want you to hear it. So get out for five minutes. Dean can stay.”

“Why can I stay?” Dean asks.

“Well, you’re not the one that pissed Bobby off so badly he hasn’t spoken to you in fifteen years.” He hesitates, looking uncertain. “Um, are you?”

He swallows. “No.”

Sam nods like that’s what he’d been expecting and turns to Dad, waiting. Dean’s waiting for him to blow up, for this to turn into an argument or something physical, but instead Dad gives Sam another once over and echoes his nod, turning and walking out the door. “Five minutes.”

What the hell.

Once the door closes, Sam’s shoulders drop and he lets out a breath, running a shaking hand through his hair. “Damn. Okay, okay. I’m going to figure this out.”

Dean shouldn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to say anything, not to this maybe grown up version of his little brother that died because of him, and Sam’s clearly not talking to him anyway. But there’s something frantic about his eyes that he hadn’t let out before, when Dad was here. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, breathing deeply. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just have to get home. You’re probably freaking out right now.” His lips twist into something bitter. “Or not.”

He raises an eyebrow.

 “We’re sort of fighting,” he says. “It’s – there’s a lot – I don’t want to get into it. But the longer I take to find a way back, the more pissed you’re going to be. And there’s, um, some other stuff that you’re not – I’m sort of the only,” he huffs and ends on, “I just really need to get back.”

Well, that’s nice and clear.

“We hunt together?” he asks, even though he shouldn’t. This isn’t his Sam. That Dean isn’t him. That’s not his life.

He’s spent his entire life wondering about what would have happened if he’d just listened to his father and now he has a chance to know.

“Yeah,” Sam says, and his mouth pulls up in the corner. “We make a pretty good team.”

Even if Dean wanted to reply to that, he couldn’t.

Sam doesn’t want for an answer, instead pulling out his phone and dialing. “Hopefully Bobby’s personal is still the same here.”

Dean could check. Bobby gave him his personal number when he as a kid and it doesn’t change. Only people Bobby trusts are given that number, which is why he’s never felt comfortable using it. Maybe it would have been okay, when he was younger, but after he and Dad got in that fight – well, it just hadn’t seemed right.

He doesn’t realize that Sam’s put them on speaker until Bobby’s gruff voice says, “Singer.”

“Hi Bobby,” Sam says. “Don’t hang up.”

“How’d you get this number?” he asks.

“You gave it to me,” he says. “Or, well, a different you in a different universe. My name is Sam Winchester and I need your help.”

“Winchester-” Bobby cuts himself off and curses. “Who the hell do you think–”

“Karen wasn’t your fault,” he interrupts. Dean frowns. Who’s Karen? “You couldn’t have known, Bobby. You’re not responsible for what happened. It was the demon, not you.”

There’s a choking sound on the other end of the line, but Bobby doesn’t hang up.

Sam’s voice goes soft. “You were wrong in your fight, though. You would have been a good father. You are a good father. You watched me and Dean grow up, you know. You helped us grow up. Even when we couldn’t depend on Dad, we could always depend on you. No matter how much mess we bring to your door, you always help us clean it up. Well, I’m in a pretty big mess, Bobby. And I need your help.”

It's silent for so long that Dean thinks he’s hung up on them.

Except, finally, voice thick, “Get your ass over here then.”

Sam meets his eyes and grins. Dean doesn’t want to return it, doesn’t want to give this stranger an inch, but he feels his lips pull back before he can help it. Sam and Bobby hash out some more specifics, and he hears Sam mention Dad and then a sharp laugh, but he doesn’t bother to try and keep track of it. Dad believes him so Dean’s going with it, but it’s not really possible that this is his brother, is it? Things like this don’t actually happen.

If they’d been hunting a djinn, Dean would be on much more solid footing right now, but they hadn’t been. Whatever this is, he thinks it’s real.

The door opens and Dad’s back and then he and Sam are talking, phone in his pocket and conversation with Bobby apparently over. Dean shoves his hands in his pockets and tunes back in, figuring he should know what the hell they’re doing.

Which is leaving for Bobby’s. Right now, apparently. They’re paid through two more nights, but Sam just rolls his eyes, grabs the room key, and heads out. Dad jerks his head after him, so Dean follows, and it turns out he can’t even be that mad about Sam making them ditch early because he somehow gets this run down, sleazy motel to refund them both nights. In cash. Even though they’d paid with a fake credit card.

A grown man shouldn’t be able to make his eyes look so pleading and vulnerable like that. It’s not right.

“Can we make a stop at Walmart or something?” Sam asks him while Dad packs with his usual efficiency. “I only have what I’m wearing. I can make your shirts work but me in your pants is embarrassing for everyone.”

Dean sails right past Sam acting like his wardrobe is up for grabs to look him up and down. “You sure about that, gigantor?”

He’s not a small man. By any definition. But Sam’s freaking huge.

Sam smiles at him, a flash of dimple, and plucks at the neck of the t-shirt he’s wearing. “I think this is yours, actually.”

That explains why it doesn’t fit. He’s got to be stretching out the arms if nothing else. Grey, v-neck, fairly nondescript, but he’s pretty sure…

He goes over to his bag, ruffling around before pulling out a grey t-shirt, v-neck, and throws it over to him. Sam catches it with one hand and he grabs the back of the neck of his shirt – or other Dean’s shirt – and pulls it over his head. He checks the label at the neck to the one Dean tossed at him and laughs. “It’s literally the same shirt. I can’t believe a universal constant is your wardrobe. I’m pretty sure you got this second hand too.”

He did, but he’s not too focused on that right now. “Dude. What the hell?”

Sam looks up. “What?”

Dad’s eyebrows are raised, and okay, come on, this guy can’t be Sammy. No one in their family looks like that. Dad didn’t look like that when he was literally in the marines. Dean’s pretty sure that they could actually do laundry on Sam’s abs. How do his arms look bigger out of the shirt? This is ridiculous. “Part timing as a swimsuit model?”

His face scrunches up. “What?” Then he looks down, seems to realize what they’re stating at, and his ears turn red. He coughs and slips his shirt back on. “I work out when I’m stressed.”

“Dude, how bad is your life?” he asks thoughtlessly. Sam flinches and he hurries to tack on, “Have you considered Zoloft? Jesus.”

His lips twitch. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

When they head out, Sam goes straight for the Impala and Dean gets itchy all over at the thought of being alone with this guy that’s maybe his brother for the next several hours. If they floor it, they’ll get there by morning. “Uh don’t you want to – I mean, considering, back home, that he’s–”

There’s not even anything close to a full sentence in there, but Sam knows exactly what he’s saying. He doesn’t know how to feel about that. “Me and Dad? In a car alone together for more than twenty minutes? Do you want us both to make it there alive?”

Dad’s throwing his bags in the back of his truck, but he pauses to snort and look over at them. “We fight a lot?”

“Yes, sir,” Sam says, and Dean digs his keys into the palm of his hand. Sam’s smiling, sucking on the inside of his cheek to try and hide it but failing. Mom used to do that. “But, y’know. Only on days ending with y.”

Sam fights with Dad. Often.

“You and Dean fight?” Dad asks.

His smile dims. “Yeah. Sometimes. Less than us, though.”

“Sounds like it’d be hard for it to be more,” Dad says.

Sam laughs, shaking off the momentary melancholy. “You’re getting it.” He looks over at Dean, and he’s sure that nothing is showing on his face, that he looks normal and fine. But Sam keeps – he’s not sure how to hide from him. “You okay? Want me to drive?”

Dean scoffs, the incredulity pulling him out. “If you think I’m letting you drive my baby, you’re crazy.”

“I’ve done it before,” he says, but not like he’s arguing. It’s mild. Teasing. “You taught me.”

He taught him. He taught his little brother how to drive in their father’s car.

“Doesn’t count,” he says, turning away and slapping the roof. “Alright, get in then.”

“See you boys there,” Dad says.

Dean hates it, hates how easily he says it. You boys. Something he hasn’t had reason to say in twenty six years.

They’ve only been driving twenty minutes when he notices Sam frowning. He can’t help but snap, “What?”

“Huh?” Sam blinks then shrugs, settling more firmly into the seat. He makes his long limbs fit easily, like he’s done it a thousand times before. Because he has. Supposedly. “Oh, nothing. It’s just – it, uh, doesn’t rattle.”

“Rattle?” he repeats dangerously. “Now I know you’re fucking with me.”

He shakes his head. “No, not like that. I mean, no army man in the ashtray, that I get,” what the hell, “but there’s no rattle. That one’s your fault.”

“Feel free to start making sense anytime here,” he says, even though he shouldn’t. What’s he doing? The best case scenario is them passing the time in silence. Complete silence. So Sam can’t say anything else unsettling.

“The legos,” he says. Dean takes his eyes off the road to glare at him and he rolls his eyes. “You put legos in the vent when we were kids. You can still hear them. I got an army man stuck in the ashtray in the back. I get why there’s no army man, no me, clear enough. But why no legos? You even have the same shirt here.”

“I stuck legos in the vent?” he demands. “And Dad didn’t kill me?”

“You are really underestimating how much Dad was willing to ignore after ten hours of driving as long as it got us to shut up,” Sam says, then goes, “Oh.”

Right.

No little brother for him to argue and talk with or whatever it was that kids did with little brothers – he talked to Sammy all the time, he remembers, pressing his face against his crib and telling him about his day – so nothing to wear Dad down enough that he’d let something egregious like legos in the vent go. He thinks he might have played with legos, when he was really little, but no specific memory comes to mind.

“I don’t think Dad knew how much of a pain it was going to be to get them out when you did it,” Sam says, then clears his throat. “We got in a really bad accident a few years ago. The Impala was wrecked, but you built her back up, practically from scratch. You got the legos out, but after one drive without them, you put them back. You made me get the army man stuck in the ashtray again too.”

His throat closes up. It’s stupid and sentimental and sounds exactly like something he’d want to do and nothing that he’d even attempt. Dad loves him. He knows that. But he’s not a sentimental guy, not unless he’s drunk, and then he’s not exactly the best to be around. He has no idea how Dad would react if he asked him for something like that, that unnecessary and childish and stupid.

Sam is smiling, eyes distant. He doesn’t look mocking or derisive or like he thinks Dean’s pathetic and lame. He looks fond. Like a grown man telling him get a toy stuck in the door for nostalgia’s sake is something good. He hates that it makes sense to him, that he didn’t even do it himself, he had Sam do it, because he did it the first time and it wouldn’t be the same otherwise.

Sam notices him looking and Dean jerks his eyes back on the road, the back of his neck hot and mouth dry. Most people wouldn’t have noticed anything, he’s not transparent like that, but Sam just keeps –

“It’s a good memory,” he says and Dean swallows. “It was right after Dad died, which sucked. You were a mess. I was too, but you – it was really hard for you. You were all I had left and I felt like I was watching you slip away from me a day at a time and I hated it but I didn’t know what to do. Nothing was working. But when you stomped in and dragged me out and shoved that toy at me, it was good. Really good. It felt like I could breathe again because I knew you were going to be okay.”

His grip on the steering wheel is so tight his knuckles are white. He has to take several deep breaths before he can force out, “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a giant girl?”

Sam laughs, big and easy, so different from the little baby giggle from his memory. But not that different. “Yeah, you. All the time.”

He rolls his eyes and swallows, but Sam takes pity on him. He reaches beneath his seat for the cassette tapes, like he knew they’d be there, because he did, and pops in The Black Album. Halfway through Dean glances over to see Sam fast asleep and curled towards him. Apparently universe hopping takes it out of a guy.

He looks younger like this. Face slack, mouth open, lines that he hadn’t even noticed having eased. He almost looks familiar.

Dean tears his eyes away and focuses back on the road. He’s fallen asleep to Metallica more times than he can count. He guesses Sam has too.

Maybe he really is his brother.  

It’s been maybe two hours when he hears Sam shift next to him, then whimper, and he looks over to see his face is back to being tight. He lets out a low moan that doesn’t sound fun at all, his eyes darting around beneath his eyelids.

“Hey,” Dean says, keeping one eye on the road as he reaches out to slap his chest. “Wake up.”

Except he doesn’t, flinching from Dean’s hand, head rolling to the side as he lets out a gasp like he’s drowning. By the time he lets out what sounds like would be a scream if he could get enough air, Dean’s already jerking the car onto the shoulder.

He throws it in park and then slides over to grab Sam’s shoulders, shaking him. “Sam! Wake up! SAM!”

His eyes shoot open and he’s panting, but at least he’s not breathing like he’s choking. The fear carved into his face has Dean tensing and he has to resist the urge to look behind him. Whatever’s freaking Sam out is just in his head. But then he focuses on Dean and the fear falls away, his eyelids already drooping as he cracks his jaw on a yawn. “S’okay,” he mutters, reaching out with one of his huge hands and patting the side of Dean’s face. Then he lets it drop and turns back into the seat, already falling back into sleep, breaths deep and even.

Which is nice for him, but Dean feels like his lungs are frozen. He’s clawing at the door, pushing himself out into the cold night air and then bracing himself against the hood, feeling the engine rumble beneath his hands.

Sam having a nightmare is whatever. The guy’s a hunter, and he’s been supposedly thrown into a new universe, that’s enough to rattle anyone.

But he’d taken one look at Dean and calmed down. He’d seen him and touched him like it was nothing, when no one really touches him, not unless he’s getting lucky or Dad’s in a good mood. Sam had obviously been too out of it to remember where he was, it had been instinctual and easy and he’d clearly thought Dean was someone else, was his Dean, from where he’s from. Because it’s getting harder to keep denying it. He doesn’t think this is something Sam could fake.

This is his little brother. This is the baby he killed by not listening, except all grown up. Whatever fight Sam and the other him are having, all it takes to calm Sam from a nightmare is waking up to see Dean is with him.

His eyes burn and he breathes in the cold air until it goes away, until his hands stop shaking.

When he climbs back into the car, Sam’s still asleep. Dean watches him for longer than he’d ever admit before getting back onto the highway.

~

By the time they’re pulling into Singer’s Salvage, it’s morning, Dean’s eyes are itchy with tiredness, and he’s starting to regret rejecting Sam’s offer to take a turn driving. Dad drives in behind them and they haven’t had time to exchange more than hello before there’s a vicious barking that’s getting louder and therefore closer.

A huge black rottweiler turns the corner, big teeth in its snarling mouth. Dean’s ready to dive back into the car when Sam’s face lights up. “Rumsfield!”

The dog does not seem happy to see him and Dean’s already reaching out to stuff him back into the Impala when Sam lets out three short, loud whistles. The dog’s barking cuts off abruptly and he comes to a stop, head tilted to the side.

Sam drops to his knees and holds out his arms. “Come here, boy! Who’s a good puppy? Is it you?”

That thing isn’t anything close to being a puppy, but he’s suddenly making a good imitation of one, tail wagging happily and his tongue lolling out. He bounds towards Sam, who lets out a soft oof when he barrels into him. He rubs up and down his back as the dog does his best to crawl on top of him, licking over his face and making happy little yips when Sam scratches beneath his collar.

It's hard to believe that thirty seconds ago Dean thought this dog was going to rip their throats out.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

His eyes jerk up to see Bobby leaning in the doorway, where Dean realizes he’d probably been watching the whole time. It’s a test given and passed, he thinks, how Sam had recognized the dog and had known exactly how to get him to stand down. Which seems a little risky – Sam’s from a different universe! What if Bobby didn’t have a dog there? He hopes Bobby would have stepped in before Rumsfield had made chew toys out of them.

Sam snaps his fingers and Rumsfield heels, still panting happily. Sam pats the top of his head, “Good boy, Rummy." For some reason his eyes settle around Bobby’s knees before he blinks and looks up to his face and then he’s grinning again as he gets to his feet. “Hey, Bobby.”

The first thing Dean notices about Bobby is how little he’s changed even though it’s been a decade and a half since he saw him last. A little grey around the edges, less hair, some more lines around his eyes, but still so very Bobby that he has to squash down on the impulse to go running up the porch like nothing’s happened, like he’s a kid again and it’s just another visit.

“Sam,” Bobby says, not as guarded as Dean had been expecting, considering. Then his eyes land on him and he braces himself for he doesn’t even know what, but that hint of warmth is still there when he says, “Dean,” and only disappears when his eyes settle over his shoulder. “John.”

“Singer,” Dad returns, perfectly bland.

“Well, now that we all know each other,” Sam says dryly, not hesitating to stride up to Bobby and grip his shoulder. Dean forces his legs to follow him. “You look good.”

Bobby blinks, tilting his head back to look at Sam. “Damn, son. What did they feed you?”

“Spaghettios, mostly,” he answers, looking back at Dean with a grin that only falters briefly before he’s turning back to Bobby. “Can we talk and eat at the same time? I’m starving. Dean wouldn’t let us stop for breakfast.”

They’d already stopped to get Sam clothes and a toothbrush, and he didn’t want to deal with Dad’s reaction if they’d made him wait for them at Bobby’s just because they’d wanted a snack. He’d had to take a couple illegal shortcuts to get them here on time as is.

Sam doesn’t wait for an answer, opening the door and stepping inside. Dean had been that sure of his welcome here once, but right then he stays exactly where he is until Bobby holds the door open and gives him a pointed look. Bobby doesn’t hold the door open for Dad, letting it slam shut behind them, but he doesn’t twitch when Dad follows them inside a moment later. Considering Sam had said that Bobby shooting Dad was on the table, he figures they’re doing pretty good.

The inside hasn’t changed much, or at least not in ways that stand out to Dean. The only surprise is the bald guy sitting on Bobby’s couch. Dean opens his mouth, but Dad grabs onto his shoulder, and he closes it. He’s watching Sam.

For his part Sam is staring with a fragile look that makes Dean’s spine itch, but the next moment it’s gone, a grin once more coming over his face. “Caleb, man, I know this isn’t going to mean anything to you, but it’s really good to see you.”

He offers Caleb his hand who only hesitates a moment before taking it. Caleb’s easygoing like that, always has been. It’s been a few years since they’ve run into each other, the last time they crossed paths was in a bar in Texas, but Caleb always greets him like they saw each other yesterday. It’s nice.

Sam hauls him to his feet and then into a quick hug, slapping him on the back before stepping away, still smiling. Caleb returns it, rocking back on his heels. “Sam Winchester, is it? Hope you don’t mind me crashing. When Bobby told me who was coming, I couldn’t resist. It’s not every day that I get to meet a dead man.”

No one’s looking at him, which is good, because it means they don’t see him flinch.

“Nah,” Sam says, moving into the kitchen. After a beat of staring at each other awkwardly, they all move to follow him. Sam goes to the coffee maker first, filling it up and dumping in new grounds, then grabs a pan and sets it on the stove before heading over to the fridge. “I’ve known you since I was ten, man, I know you’re good people.”

Dean can’t help but frown at that. Caleb’s been hunting since he was eighteen and he and Dad met him the same year he started. Sam should have been nine. But as far as differences go, a year off seems pretty minor.

“What if I’m not?” Caleb asks, watching Sam take out eggs and bread and milk. Dean glances at Bobby, but he seems more intrigued than mad. “What if I’m some sort of evil mirror version of myself?”

“This isn’t Star Trek,” Sam says, cracking eggs into the pan and then popping bread into the toaster. “This isn’t some topsy turvy version of reality, it’s just a universe where I’m dead. I’ve only come across one being strong enough to do this, really do this, not as some sort of hallucination or vision. Unfortunately, I can’t use what sent me here to get back.”

Caleb frowns. “Why not?”

“Because angels are dicks,” Dean answers. “Right, Sam?”

“Right,” he confirms, opening Bobby’s cabinet for a mug. It’s just like when Sam had gone for Dad’s duffle and known exactly where he kept the journal or how easily he’d made himself fit into the Impala. He knows where everything in Bobby’s kitchen is, moving around it with a familiarity that could be faked, but Dean doesn’t think it is. “Well, there’s one who’s okay, but he was a dick in the beginning, so this universe’s version of him probably still is. Besides, getting their attention would be a pretty bad idea, considering they’re not supposed to come down to earth except in some specific circumstances.” He pauses, eyebrows pushed together. “Well, actually, there’s one who – never mind.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “This one a dick too?”

Sam looks at him then and there’s a flash of grief so deep that Dean feels frozen with it before he’s turning away, mouth twisted bitterly. “I’d say he’s a decent contender for the second biggest asshole from up high, yeah, and he’s got some pretty stiff competition. But he’s a little easier to get ahold of.” Sam’s expression eases when he turns around, a plate in one hand and a mug in the other. “There’s also this woman who used to be angel who’s living as a human right now, but even if we could find her, and her grace, she might not have the juice to do anything. Plus, that didn’t turn out so well for her, unfortunately.”

Dean intends to prod Sam for some more details, or any, but then Sam’s pushing the plate and mug into his hands. He takes it automatically, looking down to see buttered toast and scrambled eggs with ketchup drizzled on top and the mug full of black coffee. He lifts the mug to his lips and its strong and bitter, exactly how he takes it, just like scrambled with ketchup is how he prefers his eggs.

Sam pours milk into a second mug and takes a sip before setting it aside. He picks up his plate and leans against the counter. He also has eggs and toast, except his eggs are over easy instead of scrambled, and no ketchup.

Sam blinks, finally clocking the looks on all their faces, and then his face flushes and he straightens, ducking his head awkwardly. “Oh shit, Bobby, sorry. I wasn’t – I should have asked. Sorry.”

Bobby’s face softens. “You ask back home?”

He hesitates, then shakes his head. “Not since I was eight.”

“Good enough for me,” he says easily. “Make me a cup too, though, would you?”

He relaxes, putting his plate down and pouring another mug of coffee, this time adding both cream and sugar before handing it over. Bobby’s lips quirk, another test passed, but Sam doesn’t seem to even notice.

Dean’s stomach clenches, and well, he is hungry. He needs at least one hand free to eat, so he sets his coffee on the counter and digs in. It’s not the best he’s ever had, but he honestly can’t remember the last time he’s eaten food he didn’t have to either pay for or make himself.

Sam swallows and mops up some of the yolk with his bread. “Anyway, angels are out, but there’s got to be some other way to get me back home without them.”

“What if there isn’t?” Bobby asks gravely. “This is some pretty powerful magic, Sam, I’m not sure it can be undone. Hell, if you weren’t in front of me, I’d say it wasn’t possible to begin with.”

Dean tightens his grip on the plate. He’s surprised it doesn’t crack.

“Whoever sent me here will bring me back eventually,” Sam says, eyes downcast. “I’m just worried it’ll be too late then. I can’t wait for that.”

Right. Of course. Of course he’s going back. What’s it to Dean? He barely knows the guy.

Dad has been silent so far, standing there with his arms crossed. Now he says, “Why are you fighting with angels, Sam?”

They share a look that Dean can’t quite parse, then Sam says, “Philosophical differences.”

“They’re like actually angels?” Caleb asks. “Like, actual, real, wing having angels from heaven?”

There’s that bitter tug to his mouth again before he forces it away. “Yeah, although the wings are more symbolic and heaven is – not what you’d think. Uh, so I’ve heard, anyway. But yes, actual angels are real.”

“Damn,” Caleb says. “I can’t wait to tell Jim.”

Sam brightens. “Pastor Jim is alive?”

Wow, Dean hasn’t heard of Jim Murphy since he and Dad got into that fight when he was, he doesn’t know, twenty three. Dad used to drop him off there sometimes when he was kid and he’d, uh, make a nuisance of himself usually. But Jim had always been pretty cool about it.

“Is he not for you?” Caleb asks. “Damn, that sucks, Jim’s great. What happened?”

Sam’s mouth opens, then closes, and he looks away. “Doesn’t matter. It didn’t happen here, right? Obviously.” He shakes his head and says more to himself than them, “I should have known.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

“Hey, what about Daniel Elkins?” Sam asks. “He alive?”

Dean doesn’t recognize the name, but Bobby says, “No, his career finally caught up with him about three years ago. It’s a shame. He was retired.”

“Why do you ask, Sam?” There’s a note in Dad’s voice, one that sounds casual and isn’t. “Did you know him?”

He doesn’t have any idea what Dad’s getting at, but Sam clearly does by the flat look he sends him. “Vampires in his house? They trash the place?”

Dean winces. Vampires are nasty bastards. They can pass for human, up until all those needle sharp teeth come out. He hates bloodsuckers. They pretend to be one of them, make nice and smile pretty, and then drain their prey dry. Their victims don’t stand chance. At least werewolves are just hungry and wendigos don’t pass as anything but what they are. Monsters that pretend to be people are the worst.

“Did you get it?” Dad asks eagerly, not even pretending at nonchalance anymore.

He looks at Bobby and Caleb to see if they have any idea what Dad and Sam are talking about, but they seem as confused as he is.

 Sam shakes his head. “The vampires took it.”

Dad’s mouth presses together and he snaps, “Sam.”

Dean feels his spine straightening automatically. Sam just rolls his eyes, putting his plate in the sink and draining the last of his coffee before placing it next to the coffeemaker. “Let’s hit the books. Maybe there’ll be an easy solution for once.”

Dad steps in front of him, arms crossed. “I asked you a question, Sam.”

“And I gave you an answer, Dad,” he says. “If you don’t like it, tough.”

Jesus Christ.

His father’s voice goes hard and cold, the way it gets when he’s not in the mood to be anything but obeyed. “I’m starting to see why we fought so much. Tell me the truth.”

The few times Dad has talked to him like that, Dean couldn’t do what he said fast enough. He hates it, hates feeling like a disappointment again. How many times does he have to disobey Dad to learn his lesson? It’s better to just do what he says.

“That drill sergeant shit hasn’t worked on me since I was fourteen,” Sam says. “Don’t pick a fight you don’t intend to finish. You taught me that. And I’m a bit bigger than I was then, so you might want to reconsider your approach, old man.” He claps Dad’s shoulder and then steps around him, heading towards Bobby’s library.

Dad lets him, anger temporarily replaced by an expression that Dean feels in his gut. Dad rubs a hand over his mouth, like that’ll hide the smile he can’t seem to help, and he has to clear his throat before he calls out, “We’re not done talking about this, Sam.”

“Sure thing, Dad,” Sam shouts back, dismissive and mocking.

It should piss Dad off. It should infuriate him. He should be dragging Sam back here and demanding he explain himself.

There’s irritation clear enough, but Dad just shakes his head before following Sam out of the kitchen.

“Wow,” Caleb says, wide eyed. “Someone pinch me, damn.”

“I think I like that kid,” Bobby grins. “Maybe having John Winchester in my house won’t be so bad.”

Dean doesn’t feel his legs again until Bobby’s hand is on his back and nudging him out of the kitchen. He stumbles on the first step, but if they notice, they don’t say anything. He’s trying not to read anything into Dad and Sam’s exchange. Dad can hold his temper when he wants to. It’s not that. It’s really not.

Sam did it so casually. Has he been talking back to Dad like that since he was fourteen? Has Dad been letting him talk back to him like that since he was fourteen?

His thoughts are derailed by Bobby’s snort of laughter and he focuses to see Sam’s looking into the library in despair. Dean gives it a glance, but it’s just as he remembers. Books stacked up to high, covering the floor, a path from the door to the desk that’s also covered in books. There are a couple bookshelves, but they’re just as bad, a book stuffed into every available crevice.

Dean swallows so his voice comes out normal before saying, “You knew what you were getting yourself into.”

No one else so much as twitches, but Sam’s glance is all concern as his eyes dart over Dean’s face. How does he keep doing that? What tell does he have? He shouldn’t have any. He’s won enough money at poker to know that’s true. Sam presses his lips together, but thankfully doesn’t do anything terrible like ask if he’s okay. Instead he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “No, I – well, yes, but I just forgot. No me, no summer project of ’96. Damn.”

“You organized my library?” Bobby asks.

Sam nods, taking a tentative step inside and picking up the nearest book. “Yeah, Dean messed up his right leg and I asked Dad if I could stay with Dean instead of going with him on a hunt, so.”

He injured his leg and he stayed with Bobby? He would have been seventeen then. He would have been fine on his own.

“And I said yes?” Dad asks skeptically.

“Nope,” Sam says, already sorting through the nearest pile, although hell if Dean knows what the categories are. “It’s okay, this’ll be faster the second time around.”

Bobby watches Sam for a moment, then shrugs. “I’ve been meaning to get around to it.” Yeah, for a couple decades. He steps next to Sam and starts sorting. “We’re going to have to move this to the living room to organize them properly.”

“And the kitchen,” Sam agrees.

Dad chews his bottom lip. “I thought you said we didn’t start fighting until you were fourteen.”

“Who said we fought?” Sam asks. “I asked, you said no, and then the first night I snuck out and hitchhiked back to Bobby’s. No fighting required. You either had to double back for me and lose time on the hunt or go forward without me.”

“You hitchhiked?” Dean demands and then wishes he’d kept his mouth shut. He’s obviously fine, it’s whatever.

Sam’s lips tug up at the corners. “You were pissed then too. After you healed up, we met up with Dad and spent the rest of the summer camping and hunting a werewolf pack. I still have scars from that. Priorities.”

Dad did the same hunt that summer, but with some older hunters that Dean hadn’t known. Instead, he’d gone with Caleb to upstate New York and cleaned out like a dozen poltergeists.

He glances to the side to see Caleb already looking at him. He must be thinking the same thing, but Caleb just flashes him a smile before saying, “How long did this take you before Sam? You were talking like getting home is kind of urgent.”

“It is,” he says, good humor draining away. “A couple weeks, but we can do this in a few days, there’s more of us, and besides I already sort of know what books I’m looking for. Once I’ve got a couple, I can start researching. It only took that long before because Bobby was teaching me some ancient Greek while we did it and Dean made all the bookshelves.”

“I made them?” Dean repeats.

Sam nods. “Gotta put that A in woodshop to good use, right?” He’d never told anyone about that. It’s not like it helps with hunting or anything. “But also we don’t have time for that this time, so someone should make a trip to the furniture store.”

“I’ll go,” Caleb volunteers. “I’m not really good at this stuff anyway.”

“Still can’t tell the difference between old and classical Latin, huh?” Sam asks. Caleb flips him off, but doesn’t deny it.

They’re sorting by language, Dean realizes. He’d feel dumber about not realizing that sooner, except most of these books don’t have anything written on the covers. Sam and Bobby aren’t opening them up to check either. He watches for another moment and sees the quick glances at the spine, but sometime not even that. They’re just that familiar with the books to know what they are by whatever weird design they have on the front. Another point in favor of Sam’s story being the truth, as if he still needs it.

There’s a hand on his arm and Sam is dragging him further into the room. “Come on, get to work. I know you know the difference.”

He and Sam are close enough that their arms brush whenever they move. Dean considers moving, putting some space between them, but instead he swallows and stays right where he is.

Sam remembers that he got an A in woodshop.

~

When Dean wakes up and sees that other bed is empty, he’s relieved.

He rolls over onto his back and throws an arm over his eyes. His head is pounding, his stomach is threatening to turn over, and he’s not actually totally sure how he got back here last night.

It hadn’t even worked.

He’d gotten so drunk he could barely stumble home and he still hadn’t been able to forget everything that happened in heaven. Famine had said he was dead inside and he longed for it, to feel nothing, for the comforting emptiness of numbness. He’d give anything to feel nothing.

It all hurts.

When Sam’s not around, he doesn’t have to pretend it’s anything else. He doesn’t have to get mad to hide it. Not that he isn’t mad. He’s is. He’s furious.

He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his forearm against them.

Zachariah had made his mother say those things to him, but he knew they weren’t true. She hadn’t felt that way. He believes that.

He has to believe that.

But what she’d said…

I never loved you.

You were my burden.

I was shackled to you.

Look what it got me.

Then her eyes turning yellow.

That’s not Mom.

That’s Sam.

Sam would never say it. Even when he’d been cursed by Dr. Ellicott or angry enough to strangle him, he hadn’t said it. But just because he wouldn’t say it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

He’d wanted out of this life. He’d never made a secret of it and if he had, his heaven had made that more than clear. A Thanksgiving dinner with some other family. Running away to Flagstaff. The night he left for Stanford.

That last one stings the most. The dinner, fine, whatever, Dean and Dad had been on a hunt anyway. Even Flagstaff he can sort of – how can Sam not remember it like that? Dean had been going out of his mind. It had been worse than the shtriga. But okay, whatever, for two weeks Sam had gotten to hang out in a cool cabin and pretend at having a dog and eaten pizza nonstop, which he doesn’t even really get, because by that age Sam had already gotten sick of eating it more than two days in a row, it’s one of the things he used to whine to dad about. But whatever, he sees the appeal, although how he can just forget Dad’s reaction when they caught up to him – no, whatever, it’s fine.

But the night Sam left for Stanford was the worst day of his life since the fire up until Dad had died. Fuck, Dad hadn’t even spoken to him the two days after Sam left, as if losing him wasn’t bad enough. Why did it have to be that? Not arriving at Stanford? Not meeting Jessica? Not some fun college party or acing a test or doing something with one of his friends?

It was leaving them. Him.

Does Sam love him? Or is Dean just an obligation? Is it that his normal life went up in smoke the day Dean dragged him out of it and now he’s just what Sam has left? Not wanted. Not loved. Just tolerated.

He wouldn’t have thought it. Sure, maybe Sam had some resentment towards him, always has, whatever, but he didn’t think it was that bad. Sam cares about him. Sam had chose him. Sam needs him.

And look what he has to show for it.

His stomach rolls and he takes several quick, shallow breaths to keep whatever he ate last night from making a reappearance.

It’s been pressing down on him since Famine, the truth of it, the thing that made him finally pray and the thing God couldn’t help him with, the reason why he probably shouldn’t be surprised that his heaven is Sam and Mom and Sam’s has nothing to do with him at all.

He’s useless.

He couldn’t stop Famine from sending demons after his brother, couldn’t get the ring off his finger, couldn’t do anything but watch as Sam took care of everything. Again. Then Sam had walked into the panic room to detox, but once the withdrawal hit, once the hallucinations started up again, he’d begged. He’d asked for Dean, again and again, and Dean had just stood there and listened to his brother sob.

It was stupid. He should have just gone in. So what if Sam’s powers knocked him around a little bit? What was the point of having a literal angel on their side if he had to worry about things like broken bones?

Sam hadn’t seemed to blame him. When he’d woken up, he’d just been relieved that Dean was there. He hadn’t said a word about why he’d been such an easy target for the demons, hadn’t blamed Dean for not being able defeat Famine, hadn’t asked why he’d had to suffer through detox alone, again.

Maybe he’s just gotten used to disappointment. It doesn’t matter that Dean had failed him because it's just something he’s come to expect. On earth he has no choice but to put up with his useless, failure of a brother. But in heaven he’s free of that, of him.

Dad hadn’t wanted him either, not really. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Always nothing more than an obligation, than a disappointment.

He lays there until his face is dry and then he forces himself up with a groan and wobbles to the bathroom. He splashes water on his face and brushes his teeth to get rid of the sour taste in his mouth and it’s not until he steps back into the room that he realizes it’s almost noon.

He frowns.

The keys are still on the side table and there’s not much nearby. The motel is sort of in the middle of nowhere. He pushes the curtain aside and the Impala is parked right out front and there’s no Sam in sight. There’s a spike of anxiety that instantly quiets when he realizes Sam’s stuff is still here, his duffle and backpack both by his bed. Which looks suspiciously unslept in – no, he’s being paranoid, Sam’s been making his bed with hospital corners ever since Dean got back from hell.

He grabs his phone, but he doesn’t have any missed calls, from Sam or anyone else. His thumb is hovering over Sam’s contact, reassurance just a touch away, but instead he growls and makes himself throw the phone onto his bed.

Maybe he just went for a walk. He likes walking.

The twenty mile walk he’d taken in the middle of the night from their shit rental to the nearest bust station was his heaven, after all. Sam’s fine.

He’s fine.

Chapter Text

Dean is sitting on Bobby’s kitchen floor and skimming an index to decide if it’s more shifter or vampiric based. Bobby is at the table doing the same, although he’s a lot faster at it, obviously. Sam had sketched out the layout of the library along with a list of subcategories and like a page of notes about the nuances between them.

His brother’s a nerd.

He’d wondered what his brother would have been like over the years, what kind of person he would have grown up into. The answer is apparently someone who developed the hunter’s version of the dewey decimal system when he was thirteen, although he insists that Bobby had done most of the work. It had apparently been most of what their back and forth in Greek had been about the first time around.

His little brother is a nerd and a giant girl and holds his ground against Dad like it’s nothing.

Sam’s seated on the floor across from him, a stack of books at his side that he’s going through trying to find a way home. Caleb is in the currently empty library, putting together bookshelves, and Dad’s doing his own sorting in the living room. Bobby isn’t letting him touch anything that’s not in English, even though personally he thinks Dad’s Latin isn’t half bad.

He risks a glance at Sam and finds him already looking at him, one of Bobby’s older texts open in his lap. “What?”

Sam shakes his head. “You’re better at this here. Faster.”

“Oh,” he says then shrugs. “Someone’s got to do the research.” Besides, he’s been hunting alone since he was a teenager, and he hates having to call Dad when he can’t figure something out.

“Yeah, that’s usually me,” Sam says dryly, but his eyes are warm.

“You like it,” he says, even though he’s guessing. “Nerd.”

Sam laughs and doesn’t deny it.

His chest hurts again. He nods towards the book he’s reading. “Any luck?”

“What, is there an ET phone home spell?” he asks. “Not yet.”

Some of the books Sam had grabbed had made sense, ancient biblical crap, but there’d been a lot of folklore in there too, and some advanced texts of witchcraft that he’s surprised Dad hadn’t blow a gasket over Bobby even having. “What exactly are you looking for? You said only an angel could do it but that there weren’t any you could ask.”

“Only an angel could bring me here,” Sam says. “But – uh, what’s your familiarity with string theory? Or astral projection? Physical and temporal.”

Okay, nerd theory one hundred percent confirmed. “Dude.”

That gets him a ducked head and a flash of a grin. “Uh, right. Okay, so everything has its own vibration, right? And things that are in their own place and time have matching vibrations. But it’s like inertia, an object in motion wants to stay in motion, and object at rest wants to stay at rest. Things with the same vibrations don’t like things with different ones. They don’t want to leave where they are and they don’t want to let anything else in. Me, I don’t belong here, so I’ve got a different vibration. Taking me out of my world and sticking me in this one requires some serious power, because nothing here wants me here.”

“Like drawing a bow,” he says, because he’s sort of following this whole vibration thing, but that seems like a complicated way to say something simple. More nerd behavior. “That’s hard. But letting go is easy.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Sam says. “Only an angel could bring me here because of how much power it takes, but sending me home should be a lot easier than that. I think, anyway. I’ve never traveled to a different universe before, so I’m kind of making this up as I go.”

Fair enough. “But why go to this much effort in the first place? If an angel wants you dead, can’t they just kill you? Or do they not do that?”

Sam’s face goes blank before snorts. “No, they definitely do that. But they don’t want me dead.”

That should be a good thing, but he’s getting from his reaction that it isn’t. “What do they want?”

“For me to do something that I’m not going to,” he answers, eyes dropping back to his book. Right, philosophical differences.

He raises an eyebrow. “What, some mission from God? Not the religious type?”

“I used to be, actually,” he says softly. “I know better now. I probably should have paid more attention to the story of Noah and the ark.”

Dean frowns. “What? Is God asking you to drown the world?” That doesn’t make any sense. “Or are you supposed to build an ark?”

Sam’s head raises and he’s looking at him again, an expression on his face that Dean wishes he could decipher. “What?”

“That’s the mission from God in that story, right?” It’s been a while since he’s taken a look a bible, but he’s pretty sure. “To build an ark and grab two of each animal to survive the flood?”

“While every other creature died,” Sam points out.

Okay, whatever, he’s pretty sure the story isn’t literal. Or maybe it is, if there are angels really flying about, but his point stands. “So build a bigger ark, man, I don’t know.”

He feels like he’s lost the thread of this conversation, but then Sam’s smiling at him again, so he can’t bring himself to be too upset about it.

~

Their lunch of pizza is a few hours behind them when driving through the night starts to catch up with him. He’s had more cups of coffee than he can count, but the words are all starting to swim together in front of him and there’s a dull pounding behind his eyes. He should really run out to the car for some asprin or something. Or a line, which at this rate is going to be the only thing keeping him awake.

“Go to bed.”

His whole body jerks in surprise and he looks up at Sam who’s suddenly crouched right next to him when a second ago he would have sworn he was buried deep in another book. Dean swallows and forces his eyes to focus on whatever it is he's supposed to be reading. “I’m fine.”

“You didn’t get any sleep last night,” Sam says. “You’re fading. Go nap.”

Nap, like he’s a toddler. He presses his lips together, making sure he’s got his face completely under control before he looks back up, but it ends up being a wasted effort because he feels it slacken as soon as he meets Sam’s eyes.

There’s no judgement in Sam’s face, no irritation. Not even cold practicality or the resignation of having to deal with the needs of a mortal body. The guy’s got angels on his ass and a brother to get back to and the least Dean can do is help him organize some old books, but he doesn’t even look frustrated. There’s just warmth and some amusement along with his own tiredness, because, okay, sure, Sam had slept a little in the car, but not much, and he’d been shoved into a whole new universe less than a day ago. Dean swallows and repeats. “I’m fine.”

Sam squeezes his shoulder. “Just a couple hours. And take some advil first, I know your head’s killing you.”

How does he keep doing that? “Seriously, I’m fine, I can keep going.”

He takes the book from his lap before Dean can stop him, closing it and setting it aside. “I’ll wake you up for dinner.”

“I said I’m fine,” he says, reaching for the book.

Sam grabs his wrist, but he’s gentle, and Dean freezes, not sure whether he wants to pull away or not. “Dean, you drove through the night to get me to here as soon as possible. You did good, okay? Now conk out for a few hours.”

“Dad drove through the night too,” he points out. “You’re not trying to put him to bed.”

“Dad can take care of himself,” Sam says.

That rankles. “And I can’t?”

He huffs, rolling his eyes, but even his exasperation is soft. Dean doesn’t know what to do with it. “You know, you’re kind of bitchy when you’re tired.”

“Thanks,” he snaps. “I’m fine, Sam, I’ve been taking care of myself a long time.”

That hits when nothing else did, but Sam doesn’t get mad. Instead his lips twitch into a frown and the wrinkle between his eyebrow appears, sadness replacing even the weariness that had been so obvious a moment ago.

Maybe Sam has a point about being a bitch when he’s tired. He clears his throat. “I mean. It’s not like – I’m a big boy, Sam. I can take care of myself, that’s all.”

“We take care of each other,” Sam says, pushing himself to his feet. Dean only has a second of unease before Sam’s holding out his hand. “Will it really kill you to catch up on some shut eye?”

His throat’s too tight, so he just takes Sam’s hand. His giant brother hauls him to his feet easily, radiating a smug satisfaction that Dean kind of wants to hit him for, but he settles for running a hand over his face and saying, “Alright, I’ll be in the Impala.”

“What?” Seriously, he gets his way and he’s still arguing? “Why would you – oh.” He looks towards the living room. “Right, I guess there wouldn’t be-”

“I’ve got a spare bed upstairs, if you want it,” Bobby says. Dean startles, having forgotten he was there, and he feels the back of his neck heat. Great. He just hopes Dad hadn’t overheard.

Sam’s grin is blinding. Dean can’t look away. “Upstairs, first door on the right?”

Bobby coughs and goes back to writing something down. Sam had roped him into the research part of this once he’d started referencing something written in Old Sumerian, which, Dean’s pretty sure there isn’t any other kind. “Yep.”

“You big softie,” Sam says. Bobby looks up with a scowl, but it melts away when he sees Sam’s face, leaving him blinking and obviously off center. Dean can relate. Sam heads over to one of the junk drawers and pulls out a white bottle that he tosses to Dean. “There.”

Alright, fine. He shakes out a few pills, swallows them down with the last dregs of the beer he’d had at lunch, and heads upstairs. Whatever. Sam’s right, he is tired. He purposely doesn’t look at Dad when he passes through the living room, not wanting to know how much of that he heard or what he thinks of it, what he thinks of Dean taking a nap even though they’re equally sleep deprived.

The first room on the right is mostly storage, but there’s a twin bed by the window, one Dean vaguely remembers sleeping in a couple times back when Dad and Bobby were still talking. He kicks off his boots and curls up on his side, punching the pillow into an appropriate shape. It’s too soon for the drugs to be kicking in, but the cool darkness has already lessened some of the pounding behind his eyes.

He falls asleep trying to decide if it’s worth getting beneath the covers.

~

His alarm blares two hours later. Dean groans as he shuts it off. Tiredness is threatening to pull him back under, but he shoves himself upright before it gets a chance. The grainy feeling in his eyes is gone along with the headache, although he’s still yawning when he goes back downstairs. The living room is significantly emptier and he can hear Dad and Caleb talking in the library. Bobby’s still at the kitchen table, although the piles of books have shifted, and he looks up as Dean steps in. “We were going to let you sleep until dinner.”

He shrugs. The sun’s just starting to set, so that’s probably not too far off, and besides, two hours is plenty. “Where’s Sam?”

Bobby jerks his thumb at the back door. “Said he needed to take a break to clear his head.”

“Oh, right,” he says before deliberately walking away from the door and towards the closest stack of books. “Uh, where are you guys at?”

Bobby doesn’t say anything and he looks up to see him staring at him with a raised eyebrow. His shoulders tense, already defensive. Before he can say anything he’ll regret, Bobby snorts and goes back to his reading. “Not really sure, I sort of lost track. Maybe go ask Sam? He’s been out there a while.”

Yeah, right. It’s transparent as hell, but the truth of it is that he’s itching for an excuse. He nods and steps out back, shading his eyes from the sun. The junkyard is a bit of a maze from what he remembers, but not a big one. It only takes him about two minutes to track down Sam, who’s standing there with his shoulders hunched, looking at something in his hand. Dean hesitates. He’s already taken one uncertain step back when Sam turns and sees him.

“Hey,” he says, voice rough, and he’s close enough that Dean can tell his eyes are red. “Dad didn’t wake you up, did he? I told him to leave you alone. Forty minutes isn’t shit and he knows it.”

Dean can’t even begin to process that. He sees the thing Sam is holding in his phone, grip tight enough that he’s sort of worried he’s going to break it. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” he says, forcing a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine, I just. I just, uh, had to make a call.”

“To who?” he asks before he can think not to. It’s a fair question, he thinks. Sam doesn’t exist here and his family is all inside. Maybe the logical assumption would be that he called someone for information on how to get home, but if that were the case then Dean doesn’t think he’d look like this, or that he’d have gone outside to do it.

Sam shakes his head and alright, fine, it’s not like Dean’s in a position to push. But he surprises him and says, “I – the demon, the one that killed Mom,” right, that’s something else he hasn’t really been able to process, that Dad knew what happened that night and never told him, “it came back.”

“When you were twenty two,” he says, trying to think back to that first conversation they’d had in the bar. He’d been so concerned with the crazy guy he’d thought was going to kick his ass claiming to be his brother that he hadn’t been paying too much attention to specifics.

“Yeah,” he says. “I wasn’t really, you know, we weren’t. I mean. I was in school, not hunting, but it came after me anyway.” Dean feels his spine straighten, but Sam’s fine, he’s obviously fine, he’s right in front of him. “I had a girlfriend. Jess. She was – she was great, Dean. Smart. Funny. Beautiful. God, so beautiful, you have no idea. And she loved me, like really loved me.” Sam’s jaw trembles before he grits his teeth together, breathing through them before he continues, “He killed her the same way he killed Mom. I came home and laid down and she – her blood fell on my forehead, and I looked up and she was on the ceiling and I couldn’t even try to – the fire was so hot,” he breaks off desperately, throat working. Dean feels frozen. He wants to do something, wants to make this better somehow, but a lifetime of experience with Dad tells him that there’s nothing he can do. “But I thought that maybe, you know, and I was right.”

Dean has to swallow twice before he can ask, “Right about what?”

“She’s alive,” he says and he’s crying again, but he’s smiling too. “I called her and she answered. I didn’t say anything, I mean, what could I say? But it was her. Really her, not – I heard her voice again.”

His face crumples and Dean can’t take it anymore, he seriously can’t, and if he gets punched for it, well, he can take a hit. He closes the distance between them, reaching up to grip the back of his neck, and says, “Sammy, hey, breathe,” not even realizing until it’s too late what’s come out of his mouth.

Sammy is the little brother that Dean begged for and failed and lost.

Sammy’s right in front of him, crying, and Dean always hated when he cried.

He’s expecting to be shoved back, for Sam to tell him to keep his hands to himself and that Sammy’s a nickname for babies, not adult men who tower over their older brothers.

Instead Sam folds into him, pressing his face into his shoulder. At first it’s awkward, Dean not knowing what to do or how to fit this giant in his arms. Then Sam shifts, looping his arms around Dean’s waist and hunching down another inch, and it’s easy. His arms go around Sam’s shoulders, tucking him beneath his chin, and it doesn’t matter that Sam’s bigger and taller. He fits in Dean’s arms like he grew up there.

His eyes burn and he tightens his grip to the point that it’s probably painful, but Sam doesn’t complain, just holds him back. “It’s okay,” he says, hearing the gruffness in his voice. “I’m sorry, Sammy, that’s terrible, I can’t even – but you’re okay, alright? You’re okay.”

Nothing he’s saying changes anything, it shouldn’t help, but Sam takes a shuddering breath and relaxes. He nods against him before giving him a squeeze and pulling back. Dean lets him, more off balance than he wants to admit, but when Sam looks at him and smiles, he can’t help but return it.

Sam rubs his sleeve over his eyes, says, “Thanks,” and sounds like he means it.

He didn’t even do anything. Not really. “No problem.” He clears his throat, barely hesitating before nudging him in the side. “You good? Cause you’ve got secrets to the universe to go uncover.”

He laughs, short but real, and some of the terrible grief has lifted from his face. “Yeah, I’m good, you’re right. I’ve got to get home before you do something stupid.”

“Hey!” Although if he and this other version of him are anything alike, he can see how Sammy disappearing on him would make him do something stupid. “I’m sure I’m keeping it together just fine. I’m level headed like that.”

Sam’s lips twitch. “Right. There’s some, uh, we’re sort of in the middle of something right now, which isn’t going to help. But it’s not like you do so well when you’re alone anyway.”

He blinks. “I don’t?”

Sam’s expression mirrors his own. “What?”

“Why wouldn’t I do okay alone?” he asks, mystified. “I mean, I’m a fully functional adult. Aren’t I?”

“Debatable,” he answers, but Dean’s pretty sure he’s joking. “It’s just not something you ever had to get used to, I guess. You don’t do so hot.”

What the hell is Sam talking about? He’s alone all the time.

That weird ability his brother has to read him is coming in handy right now, because Sam continues, “When we were kids, you were stuck taking care of me, and when you were older and I could be left on my own, you’d go off with Dad. You were always with at least one of us. I mean, sometimes you’d meet up with Caleb or someone for a hunt, but that’s still not alone. After I went off to college, Dad started letting you hunt on your own, I guess, but, well, I never got the impression you liked it much. And then after Jess, I went on the road with you again, so, I don’t know, it’s just not something you got a lot of practice with. You might make less dumb choices if you had.”

That can’t be right. It can’t be. “Dad was still making me hunt with him when I was twenty two?”

Sam frowns. “Uh, twenty three, I started college at nineteen. No, not exactly, we hunted without him all the time, but you weren’t alone.”

“Yeah, because you were there,” Dean says, which he feels is sort of obvious.

The despair in Sam’s eyes isn’t as uncomfortable as the grief, but it still makes Dean squirm. “Are you saying that here Dad – what was he thinking? Hunting’s dangerous enough with someone watching your back! Letting you just go off and,” he turns towards the house, like he’s thinking of going over there and telling Dad exactly what he thinks.

Dean grabs his arm and Sam stills. “Woah, easy there. No harm, no foul, okay? It’s fine. He made sure I knew what I was doing.”

“Right,” Sam snorts.

He’s still tense, a muscle in his jaw ticking. Dean figures some more questions will distract him, and hell, he wants to know. “So I took care of you growing up?”

Sam relaxes under his hands, but for some reason there’s still something sad about the curve of his mouth. “Yeah. You were still a kid but you had to deal with me bothering you all the time, making me dinner and distracting me and making sure I didn’t get eaten by anything.”

Dean lets himself really imagine it even though if he was smart, he wouldn’t. All those years being left alone in motel rooms or shitty rentals, hoping that Dad was okay, that he’d remember to call to check in. Totally and completely free to do whatever he wanted, just as long as he didn’t get caught living on his own and had to hide from CPS until Dad showed up. Nothing to do but worry and feel like the useless burden he so obviously was back then. Dad was trying to save people, trying to find the thing that killed Mom. That was important. Dean just got in the way.

Instead of that, he’d have had Sam. His little brother to look after and keep safe. Never alone, not one night huddled in a too big bed listening to the wind outside with a pistol gripped in his fist and nothing to distract from the nightmares he wished he wouldn’t have. No, he’d have had to tuck Sam in and make sure that he was okay. He wouldn’t have had to eat alone, no sitting at a table with no one across from him, trying to imagine that his dad was just about to walk through the door. He would always have had someone to talk to, not reading aloud or talking to himself just to make sure his voice still worked. Sam there for every meal, to hear any thought in Dean’s head he felt like sharing. Sam his to protect, which was important, which mattered. Every day of his life, even if he was bored or frustrated or irritated, he’d be doing something important. Taking care of Sam. Just like he promised Mom. The crushing loneliness and uselessness of his childhood just – gone.

“Hey.” Dean’s eyes focus on Sam’s. “You okay?”

“If I ever seriously complained about it,” he says, “then it’s because I didn’t consider the alternative.”

Sam shakes his head. “That wasn’t your responsibility. Or, well, it shouldn’t have been. I could be a real pain in the ass little kid. There were times I drove you crazy. Hell, there are still times I drive you crazy.”

“You’re my brother,” he says, because he is, he really is. “That’s your job.” Sam scowls and opens his mouth, but Dean doesn’t want to give him a chance to disagree. “Did we play?”

“Play what?” he asks.

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Anything.”

The look on Sam’s face sort of makes Dean want to start running, or claw his skin off, or something, but his voice is gentle when he says, “Yeah, of course we did. Cards, obviously, I’ve known the rules for poker so long I don’t even remember learning them. You’d read comics out loud to me and we’d play superhero when we were little, or cops and robbers, or knights. Hide and seek. Tag. The alphabet game and the license plate game and punch buggy in the car, which all drove Dad nuts. Baseball and soccer and basketball whenever we could find the equipment. When we got older it was more getting in trouble without getting caught than playing, but I don’t know, I still think it counts. We had fun. You were always good at making things fun.”

Dean wants Sam to understand, wants to give something back, but he doesn’t know how to just start talking and baring his soul like Sam. Eventually he manages to say, “I’m good at being alone.”

He’s had a lot of practice.

He doesn’t know how to say it any other way, doesn’t know if he could even if he did, but it doesn’t matter. Sam gets it. He places his hand on top of Dean’s, which he realizes is still holding onto Sam’s arm, and says, “I’m sorry.”

God. Being a girl is contagious.

~

Sam can’t be dead because the angels won’t let them die, but it’s not much of a comfort. There are so many worse things to be than dead.

Dean’s right on the edge of fucking losing it.

He’d gone out for lunch then taken a drive that he told himself wasn’t with an eye peeled for his jolly green sized brother. When that hadn’t gotten him anywhere, he’d convinced himself that Sam was going to be waiting for him just behind the motel room door.

The first real stirrings of panic had started when was standing in their empty room and his calls to Sam had gone straight to voicemail. The GPS isn’t working, which, if the phone’s off then it wouldn’t, so it doesn’t mean anything. This time when he goes out, it’s methodical. Library, diners, bars. None of them have Sam, no one there can remember seeing him. He calls Cas, leaves him a message telling him to get his ass here and it’s an emergency, but it’s a toss up if he’ll show or not. He hasn’t exactly been all that reachable since they relayed God’s message from Joshua. It had been one more thing that Dean couldn’t bring himself to care about, but that was when Sam was right in front of him.

Seeing Sam hurt. Looking at him and not thinking about heaven, about how little Dean so obviously means to him, is impossible. But that hurt is distant now, buried beneath the desperation clawing at his ribs. Whatever Sam does or doesn’t feel about him, he’s still Dean’s brother. Dean’s responsibility.

Where the hell is he?

This is fucking Flagstaff all over again.

He checks his brother’s bags, just in case, but there’s nothing missing. Wherever Sam is, he doesn’t have anything on him besides his wallet and his phone, which is either dead or not working. The kid didn’t even take a jacket. It’s obvious that Sam didn’t leave him of his own free will, and in some ways that’s a comfort, but mostly he’s terrified.

He doesn’t even know how long Sam’s been missing. He’s starting to think the bed really wasn’t slept in, that Sam’s been gone since last night, and Dean was too busy getting wasted and feeling sorry for himself to notice. Fuck. It’s no wonder Sam’s heaven is getting away from him.

The trail for his brother isn’t just cold, it’s non-existent. He turns his phone over in his hands, really not wanting to do this, but he’s out of options.

At least it only rings twice before being picked up. Dean really wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t answer at all.

“Yeah?” Bobby’s gruff voice comes down the line, more guarded than distracted, and Dean’s hand flexes against the phone.

Bobby had to kill his wife a second time because of them. Death raised the dead of Sioux Falls to give them a message, to let them know that even if they’re off limits as important chess pieces in the apocalypse, their friends aren’t.

As if they haven’t taken enough from Bobby already.

He almost hangs up, almost lies and says it’s nothing. It’s only been a couple weeks since they burned Karen. Again. If it were anything else, he’d mutter out an apology and leave Bobby to his mourning. “I lost Sam.”

“Lost Sam how?” Bobby asks, voice sharp, nothing guarded about the concern that’s there clear as day.

Family doesn’t end with blood, but maybe it should. Bobby’s always been good to them and they’ve brought him nothing but trouble. If he and Sam had any sense, they wouldn’t have brought Bobby into all this apocalypse nonsense. It’s not like any of the things they faced would have killed them for long.

Hindsight’s a bitch like that.

“I don’t know,” he says, hearing the catch in his voice and hating it, but there’s nothing he can do about it. “He’s just gone. No trail, his phone’s off, we’re not even hunting anything right now. It’s like he just disappeared into thin air.” Which is possible, actually.

“Do you think it’s Lucifer?” Bobby asks, voicing what Dean hadn’t been able to, even to himself. “If he managed to find Sam…”

“He said that he wouldn’t,” Dean says. “He said that Sam was going to come to him.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Bobby goes, “You don’t think-”

“No,” he says, and means it. Famine had offered Sam the blood of every demon surrounding them while he’d been pulling on Sam’s cravings, on everyone’s. Hell, Cas had been so caught up in Famine’s thrall that he’d been too busy eating hamburger off the floor to do anything useful.

Sam had said no.

He’d refused Famine. Their freaking angel of the lord hadn’t even been able to do that. His stubborn, independent little brother had out-willed a horseman of the apocalypse. In a town full of people that had gluttoned themselves to death, who’d literally eaten each other alive or drank until it killed them or ate until they’d choked, Sam had looked Famine in the eye and said no.

He wouldn’t go and say yes to Lucifer. The message from God hadn’t seemed to hit him like it had Dean, even though Sam’s the one that’s been praying and believing in the guy for years, but even if it had, he wouldn’t do it like this. He wouldn’t just walk away from Dean without a word.

Maybe he hadn’t. Dean doesn’t remember much of last night, it’s hardly the first time he’s gotten blackout drunk. The night Sam left for Stanford, Dean had drank until he’d passed out. What if Sam had said something to him, what if he’d tried to – and Dean had said who knows what and Sam had just –

No.

In the last month alone, Sam has outwilled Famine and walked back into the panic room in spite of how the sight of it still made him flinch and convinced a widowed, grieving mother to help him organize their traumatized town against a zombie invasion and come to his and Bobby’s rescue – again, which wasn’t starting to rankle, or anything – and had insisted that there was still a way out of this without God even while Dean felt the walls closing in on them.

Sam wouldn’t say yes to Lucifer.

“Alright,” Bobby says, pulling Dean’s attention back to him. He doesn’t try and argue with him, which is something. “Well, that doesn’t mean Lucifer doesn’t have him. I’m not exactly trusting the devil to stick to his word.”

“How do we,” he starts and then can’t continue the thought.

If Lucifer’s gotten tired of playing nice, of waiting, he could be doing anything to Sam. Any damage he inflicts on his vessel’s body he can heal, after all.

Dean spent thirty years on the rack and ten years putting others on it. He’s had plenty of nightmares of Sammy being tortured, of his little brother coming apart under his knife. It’s all too easy to imagine Lucifer putting his brother through hell, through the very same hell that Dean had gone through.

The only reason the thought doesn’t have him putting his fist through the wall is because it doesn’t make sense.

Dean lasted thirty years in hell before he broke and he’s not the stubborn one between them. Torturing a yes out of Sam would take too long. Lucifer wants to be wearing Sam by summer. Maybe he just wanted a nice, polite, friendly in person chat with him about all the benefits of handing over his body to the devil and letting the angels and demons fight the war that God intended and he’s going to pop Sam back, unharmed, as soon as he’s done.

Right.

“If Lucifer and his vessel are in the same place, someone’s heard about it,” Bobby says. “But there are plenty of other things it could be, it’s not like this would be the first time something’s gotten the drop on you boys.” Gee, thanks, Bobby. “There are a couple scrying spells we can try. That Enochian on your ribs protects against more than angels seeing you, but not everything.”

“Okay,” he says, pulse finally starting to slow now that they have a plan, now that it’s just not him, alone, having to deal with failing his brother again. “Thanks, Bobby. Really.”

“We’ll find him,” Bobby promises. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

He thinks he should be embarrassed at Bobby knowing how close to the edge he gets whenever something happens to his brother, but it’s not like he hasn’t seen it up close and personal more than once. Besides, Dean doesn’t have the space to worry about that right now.

First they get his brother back. Then he can deal with the rest of it.

~

It’s dark by the time they walk into the kitchen, which is a lot emptier than it was before, at least half of the books that had been stacked on the floor gone. Bobby glances up at them and Dean doesn’t know what he sees, but whatever it is makes the lines soften around his eyes.

Sam crosses his arms. “No way in hell is Caleb putting them in the right order.”

“He’s putting them in the right sections,” Bobby says. “You literally drew him a map.”

“That just means we’ll have to do it twice,” Sam argues. “He’s going to put a spellbook next to an almanac.”

Dean doesn’t see why that’s such a big deal, but Bobby’s lips twitch. His eyes dart away before he asks, “Were you here a lot, Sam? You seem pretty familiar with my library.”

More than a couple weeks of organizing it ten years ago can explain, but Sam’s also familiar with Bobby’s everything, really, which is what he means even if he doesn’t say it. Sam had said that Bobby had helped raise them, but that could mean a lot of different things.

It’s fishing, clearly and obviously, but Sam doesn’t brush him off. A slow smile tugs across his face, something genuine and earnest that makes him look young. “Yeah. Dad dragged us all over, but if Dean and I grew up anywhere, it was here.”

There’s a hunger in Bobby’s face that Dean can’t judge him for because he’s pretty sure it’s on his too. It’s not his life. It’s not Bobby’s life. But it could have been.

“When we were really little, it was usually Pastor Jim’s,” Sam says, apparently incapable of keeping still as he starts in on one of the unsorted piles. “Jim didn’t mind, but little kids there for a couple days or weeks and then not tends to get noticed if it happens too often. Lots of the same people in and out all the time, you know? But not here. When I was about seven, your place just sort of became the default.” He grins. “You had no idea what to do with us in the beginning, especially since I didn’t technically know about hunting until I was eight. It was pretty funny.”

“Eight?” he and Bobby say at the same time, although probably for very different reasons.

“Dad tried to keep it a secret.” Sam rolls his eyes. “Like that’s the sort of thing that can be hidden. I was a kid, not deaf and blind.” His looks to him and Dean swallows. “You were being really stubborn about it. I already knew and I kept asking, but you wouldn’t just admit it. You’d insist that everything was fine and normal when it obviously wasn’t. I had to tell you I’d read Dad’s journal to get you to say anything.”

Sam snuck around Dad’s back and read his journal without his permission when he was eight?

He ignores that for now to ask, “Why?” Surely it was obvious. It doesn’t make sense that he’d keep up the pretense when Sam obviously knew the truth.

“You were trying to protect me,” Sam says. “Honestly, I should have just gone with it. Once Dad found out that I knew, he decided I could be left on my own, which sucked.”

That had always been the worst part, being left behind in a motel room alone while Dad went off, never sure if he was going to come back. Sam hadn’t grown up like he did, he’d had his Dean to watch out for him and spend time with him, but Dean hadn’t always been there. If he’d always been with either Sam or Dad, that meant there were times when Sam was on his own, left to worry about Dad and Dean both.

Sam had practice with being alone too.  

“You read to me a lot,” Sam says to Bobby. “I could read on my own, obviously, but it kept me from getting into too much trouble and you were good at it. You did the voices and everything.”

Bobby opens his mouth, then closes it. “I did?”

“You do a great Smegal,” he says. “Dean liked it too but he’d pretend not to. He just happened to be sharpening all our knives in the living room whenever it was story time.”

Dean would have been way too old for story time by the time Sam was seven, so he’s not surprised. But it’s still a nice image.

“There you boys are.” His eyes jerk up to see Dad leaning in the doorway and he has to quickly look away. Guilt is sitting heavy in his stomach, although he’s not sure why. Probably a few things. “You took your time.”

They had been out there a while. Long enough for the sun to finish setting  

“I didn’t realize we were being timed,” Sam answers. Jesus.

Dad raises an eyebrow. “Do you always take everything I say as a criticism?”

“Generally,” he says. “Given that you tend to be criticizing me.”

Dad meets Sam’s eyes and he’s the first to look away, which Dean hasn’t seen since – maybe never, actually. “Caleb and I are pretty much finished in the living room.” Sam wrinkles his nose, but doesn’t bring up putting the books in the wrong order again. “I was hoping we could talk.”

It’s a reasonable request. Obviously Dad wants to know about his youngest son. Sam has been free enough with Dean and Bobby about what his life was like.

“I’ve really got to get back to researching,” Sam says. “Maybe later.”

Dean stares. Bobby leans back in his chair.

“Sam,” Dad says, not quite as hard as Dean expects.

It still seems to tick Sam off. He crosses his arms and seriously, if he doesn’t learn to relax then he’s going to stop fitting through doorways. “Okay, Dad, what do you want to know?”

“Why don’t we talk outside?” he suggests.

“I’m good here,” he says flatly. “Do you want to hear about teaching me to shoot? My first hunt? My friends? How I did in school?”

Dad doesn’t say anything. Why isn’t Dad saying anything?

“No,” Sam continues. “Of course you don’t. None of that matters to you, does it?”

“Of course it matters,” Dad snaps. “It’s just–”

“It’s just not as important? Yeah, funnily enough, that was true when I was growing up too.” Sam takes a step closer. He’s tall, obviously he’s tall, but he’s got six inches on Dad rather than the four he has on Dean, and he’d never really seemed to loom before, not like he is now. “What do you really want to know?”

Dad’s gritting his teeth, frustration clear enough. “You said the demon’s name was Azazel.”

Right. The demon that killed Mom. That killed Sam’s girlfriend. God, how could Dean have forgot? He should’ve–

“If he hasn’t bothered you here yet, then he’s probably isn’t going to,” Sam says.

“Did you kill it?” Dad asks.

Dean holds his breath. Did they manage to avenge Mom? Jess?

There’s something dark and amused on Sam’s face, something Dean doesn’t think he likes. “You can’t kill demons.”

Right, of course. But they could have exorcised it and sent it back to hell where it belongs.

“You can,” Dad says. What? “Samuel Colt’s gun-”

Bobby startles at that. The name sounds familiar, but Dean can’t immediately place it.

“You’re staking it all on a gun that’s only rumors? To kill a demon you don’t have a hope in hell of finding? Talk about a shot in dark,” Sam throws out. “It’s not worth it.”

“If it kills that son of a bitch that destroyed our family, then it is,” Dad says firmly. “Anything’s worth it.”

Dean doesn’t know how, but Dad has fucked up. He can tell by the way Sam’s nostrils flare, by the way he rolls his shoulders back. “Really? As long as it ends in a dead demon, then it’s fine? Who cares what it takes? Who cares what it turns you into?”

“That thing killed your mother, Sam!” Dad shouts. “He-” His teeth snap against each other with the force of how quickly he shuts his mouth, with how obviously he’s biting back whatever he wanted to say.

Dean feels sick. What happened to Sammy isn’t the demon’s fault. It’s his.

Sam sneers. “Yeah, Dad. I know exactly what he did. But things like this come with a cost.”

“I’ll pay it,” Dad says immediately. “Whatever it is.”

Sam crosses the room, a loose, easy grace to him that has Dean checking his hands for weapons. “Some debts,” he says quietly, dangerously, “are inheritable.”

Dad goes perfectly still.

“But hey,” he continues, “as long as you get what you pay for, then it’s not really your problem, is it?”

There’s a moment of silence. Dean can see Dad’s throat working before he asks, “How did I die, Sammy?”

“Wrong question,” Sam says.

Dad snarls, “This isn’t a game!”

“Good, because I’m not playing,” he says. “It doesn’t matter. He’s not interested in you here. And until you get your priorities in order, I’m not telling you shit.”

Dad’s expression is thunderous. Dean wants to run, to hide, to make it stop, to somehow get in the middle of this and make them just stop. But he doesn’t even know what they’re talking about and it’s not like he’s ever been able to make Dad do anything. “Sam, you’re going to answer my questions.”

“Yeah?” Sam challenges. “Make me.”

He’s lost his mind.

They’re inches apart and it should be comical with the height difference, and the width difference, but nothing has ever been less funny. Dad’s hands are curled into fists and Sam’s holding himself on his heels, loose and ready. “You don’t get to just walk into our lives and-”

Sam laughs in his face. Dean’s convinced this is the moment when it comes to blows, when Dad loses his temper and hands start flying. Instead Sam turns away, says, “I’m not listening to this shit,” and walks out the door, slamming it behind him.

Dean feels frozen and like he can feel all his blood pumping in his veins, some terrible combination of fight and flight that’s making him nauseous.

Bobby lets out a low whistle. “Well, the results are in, Winchester. You are the father.”

“Shut it, Singer,” Dad spits. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

Bobby’s unphased. “You’re the one standing in my kitchen.”

Whatever Dad would have said to that is interrupted by the back door opening again and Sam’s standing there, looking right at him. There’s none of that fury or belligerence of moments before, nothing tense in his shoulders or his face. If anything, he looks exasperated. “Dean,” he says, a hint of whine underneath. “I know you’re a little out of practice on this big brother thing, but when I get into a fight with Dad and storm off, you’re supposed to follow me.”

He is?

Dad takes a deep breath. His voice is purposefully even when he says, “Sam.”

Sam doesn’t even look at him. “We’re still fighting. Dean.”

He swallows and takes one wooden step towards Sam, then another.

His brother holds the door open for him and follows him out, slamming it shut again. Then he hesitates and opens it just enough to stick his head inside and say, “Sorry, Bobby." He closes it much more gently this time, but not before Dean hears Bobby’s wheezing laughter. Sam twirls a pair of keys on his finger that Dean realizes are his. He hadn’t even felt Sam lift them. “Man, I could use a drink. I’ll drive.”

Dean considers arguing about it, but honestly it’s all he can do to follow Sam to the Impala. He handles her easily, which is enough of a distraction that it’s not until they’re a couple miles down the road that Dean manages to croak, “You’re insane.”

“What’s Dad going to do, ground me?” His lips twitch. “Dude, I’m twenty six.”

That’s so not the point. “What the hell was that about?”

“Dad thinking he can just order me around, so, the usual,” he says.

“But if you know something about the demon that killed Mom,” he starts.

Sam shakes his head. “I know what happened in my universe, which is way different than whatever’s going on here. That’s a good thing. Giving Dad some probably useless information so he can go off half cocked on a trail he won’t even be able to find won’t do him any good.”

He can’t really argue with that. Dad tends to have a one track mind. “Did you kill it?”

Sam swallows and lifts his shoulder. “For all the good it did us.”

What’s that supposed to mean? Dean wants to pry the details out of him, to know what exactly about killing the demon put that look in his eyes, how they killed him, if it was that gun that he’s never heard of. But he’s just gotten a front row seat to all the good pushing Sam does, so instead he asks, “Are you and Dad’s fights always that bad?”

Sam actually looks away from the road to stare at him, although he turns back before Dean can yell at him for it. “That was nothing. That was like a Tuesday.”

No way. “You can’t be serious.”

“At least it wasn’t over something stupid,” he says. “But seriously, me and Dad fight a lot. That barely even counts. It was basically a spirited discussion.”

A spirited discussion. That was a spirited discussion.

Sam’s biting the inside of his cheek again. “No one even threw a punch, Dean, or broke anything. That was nothing, seriously, relax.”

“If that was nothing, what’s a bad fight between you?” he demands.

His smile slips before it’s firmly back in place. “You better hope you don’t find out. You really hate those.”

“I bet,” he mutters. He shifts. “Do I really go after you when you fight with Dad?”

Sam smirks. “Well, sometimes. Usually to yell at me for getting into it with him in the first place, or to make sure I don’t go storming back in to start round two.”

Dean isn’t even mad about it. It’s not like he’d really wanted to sit there listening to Bobby and Dad snipe at each other anyway. He just shakes his head and says, “Brat.”

Sam doesn’t get offended, only giving him a satisfied little grin as they stop in front of a bar that looks just busy enough not to be boring. Dean goes up to order and when he comes back to the table, Sam’s got one of Bobby’s books open in front of him. He hadn’t seen him swipe it, but he’d been pretty distracted. “Dude. Researching in a bar?”

Sam takes his beer with a nod of thanks. He’s also gotten a pen and a couple torn pages of legal paper from somewhere. “Won’t be the first time. You get twitchy if I try and make you stay in the library too long.”

Well, yeah, they’re boring as shit, their dullness only occasionally broken by a hot librarian. They’re a necessary evil of the profession. It’s a funny thought, him drinking and flirting with girls while Sam sits in the corner with his head buried in a book. He clears his throat. “Do you need to concentrate or can you multitask?”

“It’s only in classical Latin, I can multitask,” he smiles. “We can talk. But if you want to play darts or pool, let me get through a couple chapters first. There’s a way to get back to you in one of these books, I just have to find it.”

Back to Sam’s Dean, who’s not him, because he fucked up.  

He takes a long sip of beer. Sam’s eyes are scanning the pages, but he’s got his head tilted towards Dean. He casts around for something innocuous, things he can ask about that won’t be distracting or end in tears. It helps that Sam had given him a list during the start of his fight with Dad. “When did you learn to shoot? Did you like school? Who’re your friends?”

Sam eyes pull from the page up to his. “What?”

Dean just takes another sip of beer and waits.

“Dad let me start practicing at seven, although I’d been watching you for a couple years already, so I sort of had an idea of it. I did well in school.” Yeah, obviously the guy who can read a half dozen dead languages and talks casually about string theory did well in school, that’s not what he asked. Sam licks his lips. “Friends are sort of complicated.”

“Okay,” he says, even though he really doesn’t get how the concept of friends can be complicated. He can narrow it. “Who’s your best friend?”

Sam turns to face him, that line appearing on his forehead. “What?”

“Who’s your best friend?” he repeats. Geez, it’s not that complicated of a question.

He stares at him for a moment longer then says, “You are.”

Dean forgets to breathe then rubs a hand over his mouth to hide his sudden inhale. “What?”

“You’re my best friend,” Sam says.

“I don’t count, pick someone else,” he says. “You went to college, right? You must have had friends there.”

Sam rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling when he says, “Jess.”

“You’re so bad at this,” he complains. “Not your brother, not your girl, it’s against the rules. Someone else.”

“I don’t think that’s listed in the official best friend handbook,” he says, but his eyes go distant as he thinks and then soften. “Luis, then. He was my freshman year roommate. I didn’t do so well in the beginning, you know, everyone was rich and knew how to talk to each other and I felt like I was barely keeping my head above water. Luis got it. He helped. Granted, he felt like an outsider because he was black and gay, and not because he didn’t know how to function in normal society. Who knows what he thought my damage was, considering how many times I woke him up with nightmares, but he was really good about it. We hung out all the time, I even spent a summer with him and his dad. Good people.”

He can’t mean the whole summer, right? Even if he and Dad were on a long hunt or something, they would have taken the time to see Sammy. “He sounds like it. What’s he up to now?”

Sam shrugs. “No idea. I haven’t spoke to him years.”

“Why not?” Dean asks. There’d been real fondness in his voice when talking about him.

“He’s a civilian, Dean. Those don’t tend to do so well around us,” he says. “Better to just keep him out of it.”

He makes a face. “You know, that kind of depressing and anti-social behavior is what leads you to saying your brother is your best friend.”

Sam lets out a bark of laughter and shakes his head. “Oh man, the irony’s killing me.” Dean doesn’t have the context for that, but he feels justified in kicking Sam’s stool anyway. Sam kicks him back, but lightly. He’s looking at Dean again instead of his book when he continues, “It’s not just by default, you know. I mean, the last couple of years have been – but even with that, we get along, most of the time. Before, things between us were actually pretty easy. Other things were hard, but you and me were good.”

“We’re family,” he protests, trying to make himself look away from Sam’s big, earnest eyes and failing.

“So? Me and Dad are family. I love him, but we’ve never really liked each other that much,” he says. “You and me did. Do. Sure, sometimes we get sick of each other, but we also just hang out together because we like each other. I mean, we live in the car and shitty motel rooms, we’re always together. If we were just brothers and not friends, we would have killed each other by now. You really are my best friend.” He frowns. “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that before.”

Dean unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Why not?"

“Thought it was obvious, I guess,” he says as he peels at the label off the beer bottle. “But I didn’t know there were so many rules involved.”

“What about me?” he asks.

Sam blinks.

He nudges Sam’s ankle with the toe of his boot. “Who’s my best friend?”

“Me,” he says shamelessly, then a flicker of something like pain goes across his face. “Or, I mean, I was. Before things got so – well, you know. It’s just, right now, we’re–”

“Fighting,” Dean finishes. “Are you going to tell me what we’re fighting about?”

Sam’s shoulders hunch and he drags his fingers through the ring of condensation the beer left on the table. “It’s complicated. It’s actually, uh, a lot of things. Or one thing that caused a lot of things. Sort of.”

“Right.” Whatever’s going on is a hell of a lot more than just a fight, but he figures right now isn’t the time to pry it out of him. “Well, besides that. It’s you, right?”

He shrugs, chewing on his bottom lip. “Sure.”

“And did I ever tell you that?” he presses.

Sam shakes his head. “You didn’t have to. It was obvious.”

“So why wouldn’t it be obvious to me?” he asks. “You didn’t say it to me, but I didn’t say it to you either.”

If feels a little silly and childish, talking about best friends like this, but there’s nothing childish about Sam’s expression. It’s really bothering him.

“Look, soon you’ll be back and you can tell him then if you’re really worried about it,” he says. “But I’m sure he knows.”

Sam went to every bar he could find looking for Dean and rode with him over Dad and made him breakfast and knows things about him that no one else does and wouldn’t let Dad wake him up from his nap and knows just how to stand so Dean can hug him and is plowing through archaic texts at a speed that’s hovering between impressive and disturbing so he can get back to his brother.

And he’s only known the guy a day.

His Dean has to know. Sam’s so obvious about it.

Chapter Text

Sam drinks less than him, of course. Dean maintains that he’s barely tipsy, but Sam refuses to give up the keys and just shoves Dean into the passenger side. He’d fight it, but it’s kind of nice to not have to worry so much about getting himself back in one piece, to just be able to let go and not think for a little bit. He can’t do that with anyone, not even Dad. Especially Dad. Either he’s not drunk and Dean doesn’t want him judging him for letting his guard down or he is drunk and Dean’s better off leaving his father to his brooding.

It takes him a while to notice that his inattentiveness has consequences. He blinks out the window, the glass cool against his forehead, and realizes they’re driving away from town for some reason. “This isn’t the way to the motel.”

“Motel?” Sam echoes. “We’re not going to a motel.”

Maybe he had more than he thought, because Sam’s not making any sense. “I mean, we can sleep in the car, but the cards have enough for a room.”

“We’re going back to Bobby’s,” Sam says. “I want to get a little bit more reading done, I think I’m on to something, and it’s dumb to waste money on a room anyway. Bobby won’t mind.”

He’s not trying to be harsh, but, “Uh, I think he might. He doesn’t – he’s not your Bobby.”

Just like he’s not Sam’s Dean. He guesses they look alike, but they’re not same.

Dean’s sort of expecting him to take that poorly, but he’s completely unconcerned. “He won’t mind. He said I didn’t need to ask.”

Yeah, about making breakfast, not inviting himself to a sleepover.

“It’s fine, if he gets mad then he can yell at me about it,” Sam says. He glances at Dean and reaches over to flick his amulet. “That thing has some decent protection worked into it, you know. It’s a pretty low level effect for the wearer, but it’s not nothing.”

He knows that. It’s why he wears it. “Okay?”

“I asked Bobby if protection charms were real and if they worked,” he continues. “I’d figured out that Dad hunted monsters, but I hadn’t gotten the courage to talk to him or you about it, or Bobby, so he was sort of stuck. He couldn’t start talking about witches and talismans and what not, because I wasn’t supposed to know those were real, but he didn’t want to lie to me either. Plus, if I was asking about protection charms, he knew that I’d figured something out. So he said they were and took that off his keychain and gave it to me. He probably thought I was asking for me, not because I was worried about Dad, because I don’t think he’d have given it up if he’d known it was for Dad. I was going to give it to him for Christmas and ask about the monsters. But he didn’t show up so I asked you. You told me the truth. You tried to give me Christmas when Dad didn’t. So I gave it to you instead because you were the one who was honest with me and the one who was there for me and,” the casual edge to his voice drops, “I realized that if I lost you, then I’d be alone. You were the one I wanted protected most.”

Sam had said he was eight when he confronted them about the truth. He was eight when he gave Dean the amulet and chose him over Dad.

What the hell could he have possibly done to earn that? “Sam–”

“Bobby gave it to you here, right?” he asks.

He allows it only because he doesn’t know what he was going to say, what he can say to that. “Yeah. It was after he and Dad got into an argument.”

It wasn’t as bad as the one that would leave them not talking for good, or up until Sam had shown up anyway, but it’d still been pretty bad.

“About what?” Sam asks.

He doesn’t want to answer, but by Sam’s tone, he’s thinking that he might already know. “Me.”

Dad and Bobby had never gotten along all that well, but all their worst fights were about him. It was another way he’d failed. If he’d been faster, stronger, a better hunter, then Dad and Bobby wouldn’t have fought so much.

“Bobby’s not going to mind if we spend the night,” Sam says, like that settles it for some reason. “He’s a good guy, Dean.”

“I know that,” he says. That’s not the point. Just because he’s a good guy doesn’t mean he wants them even more in his business than they are already. “Hey, if you gave it to me, why do you have it?”

His hands tighten on the wheel. “What?”

“The amulet,” he says. “You had it in your pocket at the bar.”

Sam briefly lowers his hands to his jacket pocket as if to check it’s still there. “Oh. I don’t, usually. It’s just that, um, right now, we’re, you know.”

“Fighting,” Dean finishes. Why does everything keep coming back to that? “So, what, you stole it?”

“Not exactly,” he says softly. “It’s complicated.”

He means to prod further, because he’d really like to know what they’re fighting about, but then Sam’s pulling in to the scrapyard and it’s too late. Both Dad and Caleb’s cars are gone. Sam gets his backpack from the trunk and hands Dean his duffle. Dean’s trying to come up with a reason why this is a bad idea that Sam will find compelling.

The house is dark and Dean’s hoping that’ll be enough of a deterrent, but Sam doesn’t so much as pause. He picks two sets of locks with a paperclip and Rumsfield doesn’t do more than give them one curious glance before going back to sleep. Some guard dog.

Sam relocks the door and nudges him towards the stairs. “You take the bed. I’m okay on the couch.”

“I’m not comfortable with this,” he says, one more last ditch effort. He matches Sam’s lowered voice because he’d really rather not wake Bobby up.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Okay, go waste money on a motel room then. I’m staying here.”

It’s not that long of a drive back into town. But if Bobby’s going to get pissed about this, he’d rather not leave Sam to deal with it alone, and if he’s not going to get pissed about it, then Sam’s right and going back out to find a motel is stupid. “Whatever.”

That smug, dimpled grin is going to get really annoying just as soon as it stops knocking him on his ass.

~

Dean wakes up early like he always does. Waking up someplace he doesn’t recognize is more familiar than not but it takes him a disorienting minute to remember that he’s in Bobby Singer’s house and then to remember why. For a breathless moment he’s convinced it was all just a dream, some sort of nightmare or torture or djinn, but it’s all so clear and detailed. He grabs his jeans off the ground and pulls them on, knowing that it’s real, but he still forgoes his boots to head downstairs, just to check.

It's more instinct than anything else that has him moving silently down the stairs, but he’s grateful for it when he reaches the bottom. The long, broad form that he’s learning to recognize as his little brother is passed out on the couch, but he’s not alone.

Dad’s here.

He doesn’t look like he’s slept much, the hollows beneath his eyes more pronounced than usual, but he’s there and looking down at Sammy. There’s a softness in his face that just barely dulls the edges of the grief that Dean knows so well. One hand is clutched around a cardboard coffee cup and the other is outstretched, just a few inches off from brushing the hair from Sam’s face.

Dad and Sammy haven’t even touched.

Sam hadn’t hesitated to get in Dean’s space, to lay his big hands on him from the moment he saw him, but he hasn’t done the same with Dad. Even his jibes speak of familiarity, but the closest they’d gotten was when they’d been fighting.

“He doesn’t bite,” Dean says.

He’d assumed that Dad had noticed he was there, usually so aware of his surroundings, but the way the muscles of his face tighten and he lets his hand drop tells Dean otherwise. “He fights like Mary.”

Dean can’t remember the last time Dad mentioned Mom outside of the night she was killed. “I thought you and Mom didn’t fight.”

He has a couple vague memories to the contrary, but they’d stood out enough to him that he always thought they were the exception.

Dad’s lips twitch into something approaching a smile. “Oh, we fought. Not often. I knew better. She had very specific ideas about the life she wanted and god help anything that got in her way. Most easygoing woman I’d ever met until she wasn’t. Sammy’s got her stubbornness.”

He hadn’t known that Mom was stubborn.

“He got so big,” Dad says. “How the hell did that happen? Your grandfather was an inch shorter than me.”

Dean’s taller than Dad too, just not as much as Sammy. He swallows and shrugs. “How tall was the mailman?”

Dad lets out a sharp bark of laughter that makes Dean smile and has Sam’s eyes snapping open, shoving himself partially upright before he catches sight of them. He blinks twice before saying, “Hey, Dad,” around a yawn.

The last time they’d spoke, it had been an argument. Dad’s wary and Dean can feel the tension in his own shoulders, bracing himself for some snide remark that will goad Dad again, but instead Sam swings his legs over and pushes himself to sitting, twisting to crack his back.

There’s a stack of books by the end of the couch that weren’t there last night. He wonders how long Sam stayed up researching before he was forced to give into his body’s need for sleep.

“You going to share?” Sam asks.

The question doesn’t make any sense until Dad’s stance loosens and he holds out his cup of coffee. Sam grabs it and takes a long swallow then makes a face, looking at the cup like it’s betrayed him. He passes it to Dean, rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth.

It’s curiosity more than anything else that has him taking a drink. Sam has to know that Dad takes his coffee black, so it can’t be that.

The burn of whiskey registers to him before the bitter coffee. It’s enough of a surprise that he almost coughs, something he hasn’t done since he was a teenager. He’s not opposed to a shot of Irish, but that’s a little much this early in the day even for Dad. He almost keeps it for himself for that alone, but he knows better than to think that approach does any good and passes it back to Dad.

The amusement in Dad’s eyes doesn’t fade even as he asks, “Are we still fighting?”

“It’s too early,” Sam says and holds out his hand towards Dean. It takes him a moment to figure out what Sam’s asking and to pull him to his feet. “Maybe after coffee. And some translation work. I think I’ve found something.”

He bends over to grab the book off the top of the stack, flipping to a page near the back and turning it around to show them. Dean’s Greek is limited to incantations and Dad’s isn’t much better, but something about the illustration must give it away because Dad says, “That’s some heavy work.”

“Well, the feel good hippy stuff isn’t going to get me further than down the block,” he says. “It’s fine. I’ll use my own blood.”

Dean doesn’t like the sound of that. “For what?”

“Give me like two hours and a couple reference books and I’ll get back to you,” Sam says. “After breakfast. Do you want to go to the diner? I’m starving and Bobby has like half a loaf of bread and four eggs left.”

Dad clears his throat and jerks his head towards the kitchen. “I brought breakfast.”

He wonders if Sam recognizes that for the olive branch it is, if he knows how terrible Dad is at apologizing, how rare it is, and that this counts.

Sam’s smile is sweet. “Thanks, Dad.”

Of course he does.

~

Bobby stumbles down into his kitchen while they’re digging into their styrofoam containers. If he’s at all surprised to see them there, he doesn’t show it, although he does raise an eyebrow when John shoves a container towards him as well. They must have gotten into it after he and Sam left, but he hasn’t noticed any new bullet holes in the wall so it can’t have been that bad.

“Morning, Bobby,” Sam says as soon as he’s seated. “Can you translate something for me?”

“After coffee,” he says. “What is it?”

Sam gets up to go to the living room and then comes back with the book already open. It’s not the Greek one, this time in a language that looks Latin but Dean can’t parse much more than the odd word. Bobby glances at it and raises an eyebrow. “You can’t do it yourself?”

“You’re better at it than I am,” he says, “and preciseness is sort of important here.”

Bobby frowns and takes a closer look at the book and whistles. “I mean, this would pack a decent punch, but–”

“I’ve got a power source,” Sam says.

“From hell?” Bobby counters.

Dean would really kill for some context about now.

“Hell is a loose translation and you know it,” Sam returns. “I’m combining some stuff. Maybe. Get me that translation and I’ll know for sure. Dean and I will do some reorganizing in the library while you work on it.”

Bobby’s lips twitch. “It’s already more organized than it’s ever been. I can do the rest later.”

“You can, but you won’t,” he complains. “You’ll just think about it and put it off and then they’ll never get where they’re supposed to be.”

“And what am I doing?” Dad asks.

Right. He’d had said him and Dean and obviously he’s not going to put Dad on translation duty.

Sam actually looks sheepish, those big eyes once more making an appearance. “Uh, well, I was hoping you’d do some shopping.”

“Shopping,” Dad repeats, eyebrow raised.

He reaches into his back pocket and holds out a folded paper to Dad. “I’m going to need some stuff for this. I can get the basics myself or at that stupid new age shop the next town over, but there are a few things that are a little more complicated than that. And none of my contacts know me here.”

Dad reads over the list and his expression shifts from surprised to skeptical, but he just says, “Alright.” He looks at Sam. “And when I get back, you and me will have a talk.”

Dean’s bracing himself for another one of Sam’s biting retorts or refusals, but he just says, “Okay, Dad. We’ll talk.”

There’s a moment where Dad and Sam just look at each other, something in their faces he can’t read, and then Dad’s nodding and walking out the door.

“You gonna eat?” Bobby yells. Dad gives a vague wave and then they hear the door opening and closing.

“He already has the breakfast of champions,” Sam says and Dean doesn’t wince. Dad probably had a sandwich or something at the diner. He hopes.

He clears his throat. “You said that whatever happened in your world is different enough to what happened here that it won’t do us any good.”

Which doesn’t mean Dean doesn’t want to know. He just doesn’t get the one eighty.

“I said we’d talk, not what we’d talk about,” Sam says. Yeah, Dad’ll react real well to that. “I was looking into what happened here last night, actually. Bobby, you need to get a computer from this millennium.”

“Nah,” he says, already halfway through a shortstack. “It works just fine.”

“You’re lucky it still turns on,” Sam says.

Did Sam get any actual sleep last night? He’d gone through at least two more books in dead languages and then apparently booted up Bobby’s computer and done demon research. “What were you looking for?”

“Signs of demon activity,” he says. “That came up as a big fat zero, which I was sort of expecting. Dad’s the one that figured out Azazel’s pattern before so I assume he’s done the same here. But it also seems things are pretty low on demon activity here in general, even considering that – well, anyway. Then I did some checking in on the other families the demon targeted. How did I die, by the way?”

Dean’s still reeling from the use of the word targeted, at the implication that the demon didn’t kill Mom randomly, and then that there are others like them when Sam’s question hits him like a semitruck. “What?”

“You said I was six months old,” he says. Bobby’s gone completely still, but Sam’s oblivious. “What was it specifically?”

Him. It was him, it’s his fault, because he didn’t listen, and that’s why he grew up alone, a failure of a big brother so early on that it almost feels wrong to claim the title. His Sammy never even had a chance. His lips feel numb and his throat is too tight when he forces himself to say, “Smoke inhalation.”

He’d been so small. His lungs couldn’t take it, all the smoke, all the crap that was in it. They hadn’t been able to save him.

If Dean had just listened to Dad –

“Hey,” Sam says, suddenly standing right next to him. He grips the back of Dean’s neck, hand huge and solid and Dean hadn’t realized he’d been shaking until he feels himself stop. Sam’s shoulders are hunched and there’s sympathy in his eyes that Dean doesn’t want. He doesn’t deserve it. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to, uh, never mind. We don’t have to talk about it.”

“It’s fine,” he says. Sam’s curious, of course he’s curious, if Dean was dumped into a different world where he’d died, then he’d want to know the specifics too.

They’d buried Mom and Sammy together. Mom hadn’t been more than bone fragments, but they’d put the both of them in that big casket and kept it closed. The doctors had let Dad back to see Sammy, but not him. They wouldn’t let Dean see him. No one ever let him say goodbye to his brother.

“You were so pissed at being left here when you fucked up your leg,” Sam says.

Dean jerks his head up to stare at Sam, blinking away the burn from his eyes. “What?”

“The summer we organized Bobby’s library,” he says. “You said that you’d be back up and research, which was normally my position and one you hated, and that you were fine to come on the werewolf hunt. Which was shit, of course, because we had to hike half a day to the middle of the woods and set up camp. No way in hell were you getting there without fucking up your leg permanently. So Dad dropped you at Bobby’s because he was the only one with a fool’s chance in hell of getting you to stay put. He’d already had to drag you back from the bus stop once by the time I showed up.”

That doesn’t make sense. He would have been pissed at being left behind, at being treated like a kid who needed watching, but he shouldn’t have needed Bobby to try and get him to listen. “I disobeyed Dad?”

“You never really considered that kind of stuff disobeying unless I did it. Besides, Dad should have known better than to give you an order he knows won’t be obeyed. He never did quite figure that one out.” There’s something dark and bitter in Sam that Dean hasn’t seen before, but he pushes it aside and smiles. “It was a dangerous hunt and you didn’t like me going without you. Dad can take care of himself.”

Dean’s hit with Sam’s words from last nights and echoes, “But we take care of each other.”

Yeah, great job he did there. Maybe if he’d done a better job taking care of Sammy, Dean wouldn’t have had to take care of himself all the time, but that’s the least of what he deserves.

Sam nudges him in the side, eyebrows pushed together. “Yeah. Bobby didn’t even try to scold me when I showed up, he was just relieved. Because if I was doing things like running away from Dad and hitchhiking, of course I couldn’t be trusted on my own and you needed to stick around to keep me out of trouble. If we hung out at Bobby’s long enough for you to heal, then that was just a coincidence.”

Right, the kid who’d been left on his own starting pretty soon after he was eight and spent the summer nerding out over a bunch of books and learning Ancient Greek needed looking after.

Sam chews his bottom lip before asking, “Did Bobby teach you how to play baseball?”

“What?” He’s pretty sure the closest he got to playing baseball was a few games with neighborhood kids before Dad started letting him go on hunts.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” he says. He looks to Bobby who’s fully staring at them now. Dean can’t bring himself to mind. They are in his kitchen and now they’re talking about him. “When he was ten, you took him to the park and taught him to throw a ball, catch, hit, the rules of the game, all of it.”

Dean vaguely remembers Bobby offering to take him to the park the few times Dad left him there when he was a kid, but he’d never taken him up on it. Dad had given him training to do and if he slacked off, he’d never let him go hunting with him. “Where were you?”

Sam laughs and ducks his head, rubbing his hands on his jeans. “Uh, I was there too. You didn’t want to go, but I threw a big fit about it, saying I wanted to go to the playground. You’d had a bit of a scare with me getting hurt a few months before and it really – you were still caught up in it, a bit, which meant you weren’t letting me out of your sight. Bobby is one of like three people you trusted with me, but if I was going to the park, then you were going too. Then I told you I was big enough to play on my own and ditched you to bother some kids that looked my age. So you played with Bobby and the next day you barely even complained about going back, although you did complain about my pitching ability.”

Bobby chuckles as he leans back in his chair, his eyes bright with something Dean can’t name. “All grown up and tired of bothering big brother at age six, huh?”

What?

Sam flushes. “I sort of only had the one trick back then.”

He doesn’t get it, then he does, and it’s so – not unfair, because this is his fault, but he really hopes that Sam’s Dean knows what he has. “Did you even want to go to the playground?”

“Sure,” he says. “It was fun. Those kids were nice. But mostly I wanted you to relax and have fun and stop being so worried all the time. It was really bumming me out. Besides, the next day you taught me everything Bobby taught you and you played with me on the monkey bars, even though you cheated.”

“How do you cheat at monkey bars?” he asks. Jesus, Sam’s been looking out for him since he was six? All that talk yesterday about how Dean had been forced to take care of him and how annoying of a kid he’d been, and nothing about how he’d tried to take care of Dean right back the best he could.

“Longer arms,” Sam says then grins. “I came out on top on that one in the end.”

“Show off,” he says and Sam laughs and he tries not to think too hard about what he could have had.

~

There’s a knock at the door and Dean’s heart leaps to his throat, but he opens it and it’s Cas.

The disappointment is so great that he digs his hand into the side of the door, using the pain to distract himself from saying something he shouldn’t. This is a good thing. Cas answered his call. He’ll help Dean find Sam.

“What do you need?” Cas asks, swaying in place.

At first Dean thinks he’s injured, but then he’s hit with the smell of alcohol so strong that he looks down, expecting to see a broken bottle or something, but Cas takes a stumbling step inside and he realizes it’s him. “Are you drunk?”

How the hell is he drunk? Cas had gone shot for shot with Ellen and hadn’t gotten so much as a buzz. The memory stings, the night before Ellen and Jo died for nothing, the night before they realized they couldn’t kill Lucifer. This war is killing their friends, hurting them, and God doesn’t care.

Well, at least he doesn’t have to ask why Cas is drunk, even if the logistics of it are beyond him.

“No,” Cas says confidently then frowns. “Perhaps.”

“Well, sober up,” he snaps. “Didn’t you get my voicemail?”

“I had difficulty discerning the words. This is the fourth room I’ve tried,” he says, blue eyes hazy. “What do you need?”

Dean grabs Cas’s shoulder and shakes him. Cas shifts back and forth with it and then trips, barely keeping from landing face first by steadying himself on the wall. What the hell is this? Sam needs them and Dean is useless and now Cas is too, so plastered he can barely stand.

Shit like this is probably why Sam thought he had to take Lilith on without them in the first place. It’s Famine all over again, Dean unable to save his brother, Cas unable to lift a finger, except this time it’s not because of a horseman. It’s just them. Two pathetic peas in a pod. “I need my brother, you jackass!”

Cas laughs. It’s not a nice sound. He meets Dean’s eyes and they’re still fever bright, but they’re more focused than they were before. “What do you know about brothers and need? Your brother chooses you over everything, every time. I am alone. My father has abandoned me. My brothers have shunned me. I have rebelled to save my father’s creation and he does not care and none of my brothers have joined me. If they see me again, they will kill me.” He closes his eyes, some of his anger draining away to leave something smaller in its place. “My brothers believe our father wants me killed, but it is worse than that. He does not care if they kill me or not. He does not care if they kill all of humanity or not.”

There’s so much wrong with what Cas has said, but he focuses on the one that feels like sandpaper against his soul. “Sam doesn’t choose me over everything, what the hell are you talking about? You were there for Lilith! For Ruby!”

To say nothing of Stanford, of Sam running instead of looking into that apple orchard god, or after Dean told him what Dad said. Which is all nothing against Sam choosing a demon over him.

Sam’s happiest memories are leaving him. He supposes he’s just lucky he didn’t see any memories from the summer he was in hell in Sam’s heaven.  

“He begged,” Cas says.

Dean stares. “What?”

“As we worked to retrieve you from hell, we also kept eyes on Sam. At the time I thought that it was because if he could retrieve you from hell, then our interference would be unnecessary. In hindsight, I believe it was to ensure that he did not save you before the first seal could be broken.” Dean flinches. Before he could break it by torturing an innocent soul, Cas doesn’t say. “He begged. He summoned as many crossroads demons as would answer his call and begged to take your place in hell. He tried to open the Devil’s Gate to climb in after you but could not without the Colt. Before he tried to kill Lilith, he tried to bargain with her. Whatever she wanted from him, he would do, no matter what it was. As long as she let you go. Sam only turned to using his powers because he believed they would help retrieve you. If he did manage to kill Lilith, then he believed those crossroad demons would be willing to bargain with him, that he would finally be able to trade his soul for yours. Everything he did, he did for you. It was one of the things that first convinced me of your importance. To be loved so deeply, so strongly. I thought that you must be an extraordinary person to inspire that level of devotion.”

Sam had spoken of that summer before, briefly. Right when Dean was fresh out, he’d told him he’d tried and failed to get him out. He’s told him about Ruby, about how the despair had pulled him so low that he’d nearly gone after Lilith even when it was guaranteed to be a death sentence. But it had been light on details, the first about trying to reassure Dean he hadn’t made a deal, the second trying to get him to understand why he trusted Ruby. None of it had been about him, really. And okay, Dean hadn’t really believed that Sam was having a great time while he was down under, but he hadn’t thought it was that bad.

Sammy was supposed to be okay after he was gone. That was the whole point.

“He asked you to join him to defeat Lilith to the end, did he not?” Cas asks bitterly. “Your brother chooses you always. I have lost everything. I will not be lectured by you. You cannot understand.”

He had, but how was Dean supposed to just work with that bitch Ruby, the one that had gotten Sam into drinking demon blood to begin with?

But Sam had begged then too.

He’d begged Dean to come with him, to trust him, to understand. Dean had refused, had turned his back on him, pushing Sam until that soft, pleading look had left his eyes. He’d called his brother a monster and that first punch had been a relief because Dean hadn’t wanted to talk, he’d wanted to fight. Granted, he hadn’t expected to get his ass handed to him, but Cas is right. Even then, right after the panic room, fresh off from drinking demon blood, after Dean had hunted him down and tried to kill Ruby, Sam had asked him to go with him. It wouldn’t have made a difference if he was there or not. Up until Zachariah brought him to the tacky green room and told him the truth, he’d thought that killing Lilith would stop the apocalypse, he’d thought that what the angels wanted him to do, somehow. If he’d gone with Sam, his brother still would have killed Lilith and broken the final seal and released Lucifer.

But maybe things wouldn’t have felt so terrible between them after.

Dean came to ask Sam for his help at Stanford and he’d gone with him. Sam had come back for him and saved him from that scarecrow god. He’d stayed with him after rescuing him from Gordon.

Sam leaves, but he comes back. The first part is always such a knife to the gut that the second barely even makes an impact.

It just doesn’t make sense.

If he means that much to Sam, how come his heaven is leaving him? How can he mean that much to Sam when all he does is fail him?

He swallows. He can worry about this later. After he gets his brother back. Again. “Sam’s missing.”

Cas’s intensity dulls just enough that it doesn’t hurt to look at him. “I do not understand.”

“He’s just gone, I don’t know where, I don’t why,” he says. “We weren’t hunting anything, there’s no trace of him, and Bobby thinks that if Lucifer had him, someone would know. Can you find out?”

Cas shakes his head. “Lucifer does not have him. That would be difficult for him to keep quiet if he even bothered to do so, which I doubt he would. I will look into this.”

“You can’t even stay upright,” he says, exhaustion settling so heavily into his bones that he doesn’t have the energy for anger.

“I will find him,” Cas says stubbornly. “You will not be alone as I am alone.”

Dean’s still trying to figure out how to respond to that when Cas disappears. He sinks at the edge of the bed, cradling his head in his hands.

Bobby’s working on it. Cas is working on it. They’ll find him.

He just wishes there was something he could do.

~

Caleb wanders in around noon. If he’s offended that they’re reshelving all the books he’d done yesterday, he doesn’t show it. Bobby’s sitting at his desk for probably the first time in a decade, working through the section Sam had asked him double check and looking up occasionally to make sure they’re not doing it wrong again.

Sam had been with them in the beginning and then another book had caught his attention and he’d ended up standing in the middle of the room and reading, which just made him an obstacle for him and Caleb to get around. It hadn’t been that big of a deal, but Bobby finally barked at him stop causing trouble and go read somewhere else. Sam had only laughed, grabbed another book off of Caleb’s stack, and told them he’d be outside if they needed him.

Dean sort of wishes he was still here, even if he was just getting in their way, but they do move a lot faster after he leaves. The quicker he’s done putting these books in the right order, the sooner he can go outside with Sam, maybe even get him to give him a preview on how he’s going to handle Dad when he gets back. If this is going to devolve into another spirited discussion, Dean would rather know ahead of time so he can brace himself.

They’ve been working in silence for a while when Bobby hisses through his teeth. Dean pauses, looking up. “What?”

Bobby doesn’t answer him at first, instead grabbing the other book Sam had been working off and flipping through it. He holds it open, glancing between them quickly. He growls, “Son of a bitch.”

“What?” Dean repeats. “What’s wrong?”

“Is it not going to work?” Caleb asks.

“Oh, it’ll work,” he says grimly. “But it’ll kill him.”

Dean’s whole body goes cold. “What do you mean?”

Bobby gestures at the open page. “Look, maybe I’m off on what the kid is going to try, because I don’t know where the hell he’s going to get the power or source or anchor to make it work, but if he does, it won’t even matter. He’ll get back to his universe, but there’s no way he survives something like this.”

“We’ll figure something else out,” Dean says. Or, well, Bobby and Sam will.

Bobby shakes his head then shrugs. “I mean, maybe, but if I can see how this will end, then Sam can too. What’s that boy thinking?”

Dean doesn’t even realize he’s moving until he hears the screen door slamming shut behind him.

Sam is sitting on the porch, Rumsfield’s big head on his thigh as he leans back, one hand scratching behind his ears and the other holding his book. The sun is lighting the both of them up and Sam looks good, content and young and healthy, and Dean can’t believe that his asshole of a little brother is going to make him live through his death a second time.

He looks up at Dean, squinting. “Hey. Want help with the library?”

For a moment he’s so angry he doesn’t know how to speak, then he doesn’t know what to say, and he lands on, “Bobby said the ritual will kill you.”

“Oh,” Sam says. “Yeah, probably. Kind of depends on how much blood I can lose.”

He’s completely blasé about it, as if it’s unimportant, not even bothering to lie about it. “What the hell, Sam? What good are you going to do if you’re dead? This is a stupid fucking plan!”

“Dean, relax,” Sam says, exasperated, as if he’s the one being unreasonable here.

“No,” he snaps. “If you think that we’re all just going to help you kill yourself then you’re out of goddamn mind. I know you want to go home, but there’s no point in you getting back there dead, we’ll figure something-”

“Two weeks ago, a hunter put a bullet through my heart,” Sam says.

Dean stares, eyes dropping down to his chest. He’d seen Sam shirtless. He’d had scars, sure, but nothing like that. Not that being shot in the heart is the thing that leaves scars, considering it’s not survivable. What Sam’s saying isn’t possible.

“The angels want me to do something, remember?” Sam says gently. “I can’t do it if I’m dead. It doesn’t matter if getting me home kills me as long as I get there. They’ll bring me back.”

It should be comforting, but instead there’s a dull horror throbbing under Dean’s skin. Maybe it’s something about the way Sam says it, or the look on his face, but the thought of not being able to die has never made his skin scrawl like it is right now. “But you said an angel brought you here. How do you know they won’t heal you and send you right on back?”

Sam shrugs. “I don’t. It depends on what angel finds me first, I guess. So either I’ll pop right back, good as new, or you’ll know that it worked.”

“Or you’ll just be dead permanently,” Dean says. Again.

His lips twist. “Trust me, I’m not that lucky.”

Dean grabs Sam’s shoulder and shakes him hard enough that Rumsfield goes off to find a more stable pillow. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Sam reaches up to grip Dean’s wrist, tugging until he sits next to him, which Dean does grudgingly. “Come on, you’re not stupid. You must have figured out that the world I’m from isn’t doing so hot.”

“Because of the angels?” he asks. Nearly all powerful douchebags running around causing problems and resurrecting people indiscriminately would probably cause some issues.

Sam pulls a leg to his chest and rests his chin on his knee. “The angels exist here too. The only difference is I don’t.”

He can’t be saying what Dean thinks he is. “Sammy–”

“It’s the apocalypse, Dean,” he interrupts. “Like the actual, biblical apocalypse is knocking at our door. That’s what the angels want from me. They want me to kick it off for real. And if I do, half the planet will die. And the longer I say no, the more people die anyway. Even before that – Jess is dead, Dad, Pastor Jim. Caleb is dead too. Ellen and Jo. Bobby’s in a wheelchair. And you,” his voice gets thick and he has to swallow before he can continue. “God, Dean, you’re so much better off here, you have no idea.”

“I’m not,” he says roughly. He’s not sure about this apocalypse thing, or what Ellen and Jo from the Roadhouse have to do with anything, but, “I’m not, don’t say that.”

He shakes his head. “You went through so much because of me. Our whole lives really, but these past couple years have been – I can’t even blame you,” he says, hand going to his pocket again, the one that Dean knows has his amulet. “Everything is better here. I wish I could die, Dean, I really do. Then they couldn’t use me to start the apocalypse and this would all be over. But I can’t. God, if I’d just died in the fire, then none of it would have happened to begin with–”

Dean slaps a hand over Sam’s mouth and it’s really all he can do to keep from punching him instead. “Shut up, shut the fuck up. I don’t know what kind of crap we’re dealing with back in your world, what fight we’re having, but I am not better off without you. I’m alone without you.”

How can Sam even question that? They fucking talked about it, Sam knows what it was like for him. Dean would give anything to have grown up with his little brother, to be worthy of the love that Sam shows him so easily, to have earned it.

Sam pries his hand off his mouth and then doesn’t let go. Dean pretends not to notice. “You don’t have to be. Trust me, I get growing up with Dad alone must have sucked, but you’re incredible. You’re funny and loyal and kind and if you just give people a chance, they’ll love you. You don’t need me. I can literally write you a list of people that will love you if you let them.”

But none of them will be Sam. “It doesn’t work like that. I’m not your Dean.”

Sam might be treating them like they’re the same person, but they’re not. His Dean had a little brother to drag him into socializing and having fun once in a while. His Dean had Sam there to talk to and play with and is probably a hell of lot better at talking to people than he is because he didn’t grow up with only himself for company. He can get along with people for the length of a drink, knows how to talk pretty girls into taking him to bed, but none of that is anything that lasts. Sam moves so easily with Bobby, with Caleb, with Dad, with him, and that’s not something he ever learned how to do.

Dad loves him. He knows that.

But it turns out that being loved is a skill and one he’d never developed.

The only difference between him and that Dean, the one with a list of people who will love him, is Sam. And maybe they’re dealing with the actual apocalypse right now, with angels on their ass and a list of dead friends, and alright, that all sounds pretty freaking horrible, he’s not going to pretend it doesn’t. But Sam taught his Dean how to be loved, he gave him the chance to figure out how to be loved by others. That list of people he’s talking about is because of him.

He doesn’t know how to say that. He wonders if the other Dean would.

“You’re not that different,” Sam says, warm and fond nothing that Dean deserves. “You don’t need me, you really don’t. I’m just the tagalong little brother you’re stuck cleaning up after, and now it’s for shit a lot worse than spilled apple juice or a messed up hunt. You’re lucky. You don’t have to – back home, I was always your responsibility, you know? You never got over that, no matter how old I got and it,” he cuts himself off, briefly looking away from Dean to swallow. “You worry about me too much and it gets you into trouble. Bad trouble. I know that some things suck for you here, but it really is better.”

It's not, it’s really not, Dean doesn’t understand how Sam can say that. He wishes he could meet his counterpart so he could kick his ass. “What are we fighting about?”

Sam blinks. “What?”

“What are we fighting about?” he repeats. What the hell could they be fighting about that Sam honestly believes he’s better off dead?

He looks away from him again. “It’s a long story. Lots of things.”

“What kinds of things?” he presses.

Sam lifts one shoulder and then lets it fall. “Same old, same old. Just, y’know, worse.”

“No, Sam, I don’t know,” he says. “Why don’t you tell me?”

He shakes his head and Dean’s about to snap when he says, “It’s been really nice. Being around a you that likes me.”

He couldn’t say anything if he tried.

“Some of it’s my fault,” Sam continues softly. “Some of it’s – I think that some of it, most of it, was outside of our control, we got – they really turned us around, and we were lied to, and I hate that. It pisses me off. I wish you hated it too. But instead you just hate–”

He cuts himself off, but not before Dean hears how that sentence was going to end.

But instead you just hate me.

“How much of it was my fault?” he asks, because he noticed that Sammy had left someone out there.

His jaw clenches, a stubbornness in him that Dean recognizes from when he talks to Dad. The reluctance is clear in his voice when he says, “Parts. But if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have been in those situations in the first place.” He looks to him and some of the stubbornness falls away to be replaced by grief and something more tender. “You’re proof enough of that.”

Dean’s sure he’s wrong, but it’s hard to argue the point when Sam won’t get into specifics. He’s about demand that Sam stop beating around the bush and tell him what’s really going on when the door bangs open and Caleb says, “Dean, your phone keeps going off – oh, uh, am I interrupting something?”

Before he can say that yes, he is, Sam goes, “Nah, it’s fine.” Dean turns his glare onto him and Sam just smiles. It’s infuriating. “It could be Dad.”

Damnit.

“We’re not done talking about this,” he says, but Sam doesn’t look all that worried about it. Brat.

He holds out his hand expectantly to Caleb who looks it blankly then says, “I didn’t bring it with me.”

“Why not?” he gripes, heading back inside. It’s a small consolation that Sam follows him, although he does veer off to library with Caleb. Dean grabs his phone from the kitchen and heads to the library as he checks it. Two missed calls and the same number of text messages, but they’re not from Dad. He chews on his bottom lip, considering, because he doesn’t like to leave a fellow hunter hanging, but his time with Sammy is limited. He’s not giving up any of it.

Sam nudges his side. He hadn’t even noticed him coming over. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he says, then sighs. He hates asking, especially considering how rarely they run into each other these days, but he doesn’t see much of an option. “Caleb, I don’t suppose you’d mind helping out on a hunt? I’d go myself, it’s just,” he looks to Sam and then hurriedly away.

Caleb’s already waving a hand. “Yeah, no problem, man, I get it. What am I doing?”

“Vampire nest about six hours from here,” he says, relieved. “You know Gordon Walker?”

A grimace passes over Caleb’s face, so quickly that Dean can almost convince himself he imagined it. “Yeah, yeah, I–”

“Gordon Walker?”

Dean turns to Sam. His hands are clenched into fists and his nostrils are flaring, his shoulders back and his lips pressed together. It’s like seeing him for the first time in that bar, huge and intimidating and pissed.

Bobby snorts. “You know him then?”

“We’ve met,” Sam says shortly. “You’re hunting with Gordon? Seriously?”

“I’m not hunting with anyone,” he retorts. What’s his problem? Gordon’s a decent guy. A little serious about the job, sure, but it’s not like Dean doesn’t get that. It’s all guys like them have. “We’ve worked together a few times. He does good work.”

“Good work,” Sam sneers, mean and snide in a way Dean hasn’t seen him be about anything. It makes him feel off balance and defensive. Who’s Sam to judge who he hunts with when he’s not here? Wasn’t he just saying that Dean should have more people in his life? “Okay, sure, let’s go help out your good buddy Gordon on his hunt.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Look, I don’t know what your experience with him has been, but just fucking relax.”

“I am relaxed,” Sam snaps, wound so tight that Dean’s surprised he doesn’t pull something. “I’m so relaxed and we’re going to take a nice relaxing drive to this vampire nest.”

Wait. “You’re serious? Don’t you have a universe to get back to?”

“The ritual works best under a half moon, so we have four days until we can perform it anyway,” he says. “Right, Bobby?”

“The ritual that will kill you?” he asks dryly. “Yeah, from what I’m reading, a half moon is best.”

Sam doesn’t bother to address the whole dying part. “See? Might as well kill some time by killing some vampires.”

Dean has no idea how they ended up here. If Sam hates Gordon so much, shouldn’t he want to stay far away from him, not go and help him?

“Well, I’m still in,” Caleb says, looking significantly more cheered at the thought than he had a few moments ago.

He gives up trying to figure out what’s happening. Whatever. Gordon had said that it was a big nest and he needed all the backup he could get.

Sam hasn’t unclenched a single muscle, mouth still pulled into an angry frown.

Awesome. There’s no way for this to go poorly or anything.  

Chapter Text

They’re on the way to the nest and Dean’s still not sure how him asking Caleb to step in for him has turned into him, Sam, Caleb, Bobby, and Dad heading down there. Well, Dad he sort of gets. He thinks Bobby might have insisted on coming just so he wasn’t left out. Gordon had at least been grateful, saying now they could plan a proper ambush instead of being forced to pick them off one by one.

They’re almost halfway there, the music’s blasting, and Sam’s staring out the window moodily, which had gotten old about five minutes in. He sighs, twisting the volume down enough that they won’t have to shout. “What’s your problem with Gordon anyway?”

Sam startles, but he does shift his body to be tilted towards Dean, so that’s something. “It’s–”

“If you say it’s complicated, I’m pulling over and kicking your ass,” he warns.

His lips twitch. “Don’t worry about it. This is a different world. Maybe he’s different too.”

Uh huh. “I know he can rub some people the wrong way, but he’s a friendly guy.”

“Until you get in the way of his hunt,” Sam says.

Dean shrugs, even though he’s pretty sure something like that is why Gordon avoids the Roadhouse. He can get pretty single minded at times. “Who likes having their hunt messed with?” He frowns. “Is that what happened? You interfered with one of his hunts and he got pissed about it?”

“Something like that,” Sam says, not quite able to hide the undercurrent of derision in his tone, or maybe not wanting to. He shoots him a glare and some of the tension in Sam’s face bleeds off. “It doesn’t matter. Maybe things really are different here. I looked into it and there haven’t been any cattle mutilations in the area.”

What the hell? “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing,” he says, but there’s a weird note to his voice that Dean can’t quite place. “With all of us, this shouldn’t take long. We should be back at Bobby’s in plenty of time.”

“To do the ritual that will kill you?” Dean asks.

Sam rolls his eyes. “It won’t last. I’ll be fine.”

“Unless you’re not,” he says. “Why don’t you try and figure something else out that doesn’t end with you dead?”

“This doesn’t end with me dead, there’s just a possibility for some minor death in the middle.” Minor death? There’s no such thing. The apocalypse has scrambled his brother’s head. “This is my best bet and the quickest. I’m going to be gone for too long already.”

“Five days?” he scoffs, although on a second count it’s more like six. “You said you’re the match that lights up the end of times. It’s not like it’s going to start without you.”

Which doesn’t really make any sense to him, but Sam’s been strangely tight lipped about the particulars of the apocalypse. He’s not sure what freaking angels could need from his brother. Unless there’s some sort of ritual or potion involved with the end of times, maybe. Sam’s been here less than two days and he’s already cobbled together something that will transport him back to his own universe, something Bobby went from saying was probably impossible to admitting would work, even if it was fatal. He’d barely slept and gone through more books in more languages than Dean had been able to keep track of and whipped up the impossible in between talking back to Dad and breaking Dean’s heart.

If he were the angels, he’d want Sammy on his side too.

“Five days is a long time for me to be missing,” Sam says, that moody look settling back onto his face.

Yeah, okay, he can see how Sam up and disappearing on him would drive him crazy. “Even when we’re fighting?”

Sam sucks his bottom lip between his teeth. “It’s kind of worse when we’re fighting. You’re mad, but you’re probably worried too. And then I’ll go back and it’ll be good, because I’m with you and not hurt,” minus the minor death, Jesus, “but we’re fighting so you can’t say that. You’ll probably just get pissed at me.”

Dean must have missed something. “I’ll get pissed at you. For getting kidnapped by angels into another universe?”

“You won’t mean it,” he says and then let’s out a little laugh that Dean hates. “That’s what sucks. When things are good, you fuss over me and make fun of me and you’re on edge from it, but you come down quick. When we’re not good, you don’t know what to do with it all, and it comes out – harsher, than you intend, I think. Sometimes. You don’t mean it.”

He would never in a million years say this to anyone but his brother, and even now he’s hesitating, but, “That sounds like Dad.”

They don’t really fight, but sometimes something puts Dad on edge and he’s – well, Dean makes himself scarce. It’s just not worth it.

Sam’s shoulders hunch. Dean’s pretty sure he’s not even aware he’s doing it. “Yeah.”

“Do I act like Dad a lot?” he asks after several minutes spent searching for something to say that doesn’t sound like either disbelief or an accusation. It’s just that Dad and Sam don’t get along and he’d even said outright that he and Dad didn’t really like each other. But Sam had said that Dean was his best friend.

“You didn’t used to,” he says softly. “It’s a kind of – god, I could never say this to you, you’d break my nose,” um, what, “but it’s, I don’t know, something you do now, when you feel backed into a corner.” Then, so quietly that Dean’s not sure Sam means for him to hear it, “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Why do I do it?” he asks, although he can guess.

Sam shrugs. “You always had more faith in Dad than I did. At least before he, uh, said some things, and then you stopped, kind of, but after you – after some things, I think you just, I mean I don’t think you were thinking about what he said, I’m not even sure how aware of it you are. You just had over two decades of Dad being a superhero, you know, so acting like him didn’t mean that you agreed with him or anything. Well, I mean, you did, for a – but I don’t think you meant that either, obviously. I just wish you hadn’t said it.”

He sits there absorbing that ramble and trying to untangle it. Eventually he has to admit defeat. “Nothing you just said made a lick of sense. Are you having a stroke?”

Sam mutters something uncomplimentary and flicks his arm, which, ow, but he’s smiling again and not wound quite as tight. He knows he should push, should force Sam to stop pussyfooting around whatever the hell is going on in his world and just tell him so that Dean can be a full participant in these conversations they keep having. But Sam’s smiling again.

He used to love making Sam smile as a kid. He was really good at it. He’d say Sammy’s name, grab his feet, let him wrap his hands around Dean’s, and he’d be rewarded by Sammy’s gummy little grin. It made him feel good, like he was being a good brother and helping out Mom by making Sam smile.

It turns out some habits run deep.

~

Sam’s on edge the moment they get out of the car, but he’s not sneering or snarling, so Dean supposes he shouldn’t complain. They meet in front of a motel and Gorden exchanges nods of greeting with them, friendly smile in place. He holds his hand out to Sam, the only one of them he hasn’t met before. “Hey, I’m Gordon Walker. You new to all this?”

“Something like that,” he says, smile tight. He shakes Gordon’s hand, which is more than Dean had been expecting considering how weird he’s being. “Sam.”

Gordon waits a beat longer for a last name, but when Sam doesn’t offer one, he just says, “Nice to meet you, Sam, glad to have you join us.”

Sam nods, eyes scanning the area behind Gordon. Dean follows his line of sight, but he doesn’t see anything. He doesn’t think Sam does either, but a moment later he’s shifting, turning just enough to turn his head to continue peering down the street. Dean does the same, but still, nothing.

“How big is this nest?” Bobby asks, a guarded gruffness to him that he hasn’t shown before now. It’s not quite how he acts with Dad. He’s not guarded around him, just generally pissed off.

“Big,” Gordon answers, leading them to his room. Dean wonders if they should check in now, before they’re injured and covered in in blood, but whatever, they have changes of clothes in the car. One thing about killing vampires is that it’s always a mess, no way else for it to be when the only way to kill them is cutting off the head, and the whole thing is made even worse with the fact that any vampire blood in an open wound mean getting infected. He’s not surprised Gordon asked for backup for a large nest. Gordon’s been almost exclusively hunting vampires since his little sister was killed by one when he was teenager, but even he knows when a hunt is too big to handle alone.

He can’t say this to Sam, but that’s another thing that made him feel a sort of connection with Gordon. Two big brothers who’s little siblings had been taken from them by the things that move in the dark. Only Gordon had gotten his revenge, had hunted down the vampire who killed his sister and tore its head from its neck. Dean hadn’t even known it was a demon that night until Sam had shown up.

That demon is responsible for Mom’s death without a doubt, but he burns hot with shame when he thinks of his baby brother. The demon may have started the fire, but it’s Dean’s fault that Sam isn’t alive here. He and Gordon are different. Gordon got his revenge and it’s not like he’s at fault for his sister’s death.

There’s a map of the town laid out with different locations circled in red. Gordon sets a six pack on the table and begins explaining. Dean takes a bottle and pops it open with his ring. Sam takes it from him before he even gets the first sip. He rolls his eyes and grabs another rather than make a big deal of it. He sees Gordon clock the exchange, but thankfully he lets it pass without comment. It does make Dean aware of how close Sam is standing to him, how close he always seems to be. It’s something he’d noticed when Sam first joined them, how Sam easily invaded the bubble of personal space around him, but at some point it had stopped seeming remarkable.

Bobby asks a question and Dean refocuses on the conversation when Gordon says, “The nest numbers over a hundred.”

If Dean had been drinking just then, he would have choked.

“A hundred?” Caleb demands.

“The biggest nest I’ve ever heard of is twenty,” Bobby says. “And they had so much infighting that half of them killed each other before we got a chance to step in.”

“Well, they’ve got a hell of a leader, I’ll give them that much,” Gordon says. He taps one of the circled locations. “This is where the leadership lives. The rest of them are spread out. I’ve been doing recon for the past couple of weeks and I think this is all of them, but the nest is so big that it’s hard to be sure.”

“How many people have they killed?” Sam asks.

Gordon shrugs. “It’s hard to say. They’re smart and experienced. It’s mostly drifters, prostitutes, runaways. People that no one will miss. If they were flashy about it, they wouldn’t have gotten this big.”

It makes sense to Dean, but Sam’s frowning. Dad snorts. “I hate when they learn to exist under the radar. At least when they’re just pulling people off the street, they’re easier to track down. Who knows how many people they’ve killed.”

“Exactly,” Gordon says, tipping his beer in Dad’s direction. Sam and Bobby roll their eyes at the same time, which thankfully no one else seems to notice. “The halfway decent leadership is why they’ve managed for so long. Take them out and the rest will crumble. Even if we don’t manage to kill the rest of them, they’ll be that much easier to track down and handle.”

“One per house or one by one?” Caleb asks, pulling the map over to get a closer look. “How many are there?” `

“Eight,” he says. “Some are houses, some are apartment buildings that they’ve taken over. The apartments will be harder. There are more of them, but more spread apart, and easier for them to get away. I think those are the ones that don’t get along as well. Better to hit the houses first and there are three of those. We can divide after if you’d like, but we should hit the leadership house together. They’re the strongest and most important. Even if they’re all we manage to clear out, it’ll still be a win.”

Sam shifts, glancing at the window, which has the curtains drawn shut. “Anyone else here?”

“Just you guys,” Gordon says. “I put out some requests, but people are either pretty far out or wrapped up in their own hunts. I really appreciate you coming down.”

He smiles and Dean returns it and doesn’t think anything of it until he catches the edge of Sam’s glare. He stubbornly keeps the smile in place. Sam seems to consciously force his face to relax before asking, “You’re sure no one made you?”

“I’d be dead if they had,” Gordon says. He doesn’t usually put up with this much questioning during a hunt, but he seems intrigued enough by Sam and grateful enough for the backup to let it slide.

Dad frowns, eyes flicking to the window like Sam’s had. “Why do you ask, Sam?”

The silence lasts just a beat too long to be natural. “Nothing. When do you want to hit the first house?”

“Midnight,” Gordon answers. “They’re trying to act like members of the town, which means a lot of them are working real jobs, trying to blend in, and they’ve got the sleep schedules to match.”

At least they have times to get hotel rooms first. He hates having to check in looking like roadkill.

Sam doesn’t share his opinion. “Tonight? As in two hours from now?”

“You got somewhere else to be?” Gordon asks, and it’s wry, more of invitation to tease than anything else, but Dean can tell Gordon’s starting to get irritated.

For a moment Dean’s afraid that Sam’s going to pick a fight the same way he does with Dad, but he just lifts a shoulder and says nothing else.

“We’re good,” Dean says. “Lets get our rooms and then we can talk strategy.”

Gordon nods agreeably, hackles lowered. Caleb claps Bobby on the shoulder, saying they can bunk together, and Dad tosses him his wallet without a word. There’s really no reason for Sam to come with them, but he’s not surprised when his brother steps outside with him and Caleb. Dean waits until they’re not right outside the door to elbow him in the side. “Dude.”

“What?” Sam asks, scanning the area around them again.

Caleb frowns, doing the same. “What are you looking for?”

Sam shrugs, absently tapping his fingers against his thigh in what Dean thinks is a nervous gesture, although he wouldn’t know it looking at his face. “Nothing. It’s fine. I don’t know. Do you feel like we’re being watched?”

He and Caleb both still at that, looking more carefully around them. He doesn’t see anything that’s ringing any alarm bells. He and Caleb have both been at this a long time and they’ve felt the prickle on the back of their necks and the shivers down their spines that mean a monster is closing in on them, but he doesn’t feel that now, and when he glances at Caleb’s confused face, it doesn’t look like he is either. “Paranoid much?”

“It’s only paranoid if they’re not out to get you,” Sam replies and Dean smothers a smile. That’s something Dad used to say when he was a kid, back when he was young enough that Dad tried to dull the realities of hunting. When he was little and didn’t understand orders, or why they were doing something, Dad used to try and explain, a little, or he’d at least be funny about it. He gets that way sometimes now too, but the undercurrent of softness that he remembers from his childhood is missing. Which is fine, he’s a fully grown man, he doesn’t need his dad to be soft with him. “Whatever, it’s probably nothing.”

Caleb shrugs. “Sorry, man. But hey, you’re dead here, right? So nothing’s out to get you! Well, before we storm a massive vampire nest, then lots of things will be out to get you.”

“Thanks, Caleb, that’s great,” Sam says, but he’s relaxed and amused and fond, and seeing him talk to Caleb is such a huge difference from him just being in the same room as Gordon that Dean can’t help but wish Sam had gotten a little more specific about what had happened between them back in his world.

Something occurs to Dean and anxiety spikes through him. “Do you think it’s whatever angel put you here?”

Sam blinks. “What?”

“Well, they’d know you were here, obviously,” Dean says, resisting the urge to look up at the sky suspiciously. “Could they be keeping an eye on you?”

He seems to seriously consider it for a moment, but shakes his head. “I think whoever put me here did it as a sort of storage, to keep me out of the way and ready for when they wanted me, more than anything else. There’s no reason to watch me. Besides that, they’d have to physically have eyes on me, which most of them aren’t any good at doing subtly. They can’t look in on me like they can for most people.”

“Why not?” Dean asks, which he feels is the obvious follow up question.

Sam waffles and Dean’s prepared for another rambling or vague answer that tells him nothing, but instead he says, “I have protection sigils carved into my ribs.”

He honestly can’t tell if he’s more confused or horrified. Carved? Into his ribs?

“Do you really?” Caleb pokes Sam in the side, like he can feel the symbols etched into his bones through the layers of skin and muscle. “Did they do it during an open heart surgery or something?”

Sam rolls his eyes but doesn’t push Caleb away. “No, an angel that we’re friends with did it. Hurt like hell, but no surgery needed, and now any angel that wants to keep an eye on me has to do it the old fashioned way. Whichever one of them zapped me here either tracked me down themselves or had some help.”

Dean picks up on the use of we and asks, “Me too?”

Sam nods, “A matching set. Just like our tattoos.”

“Our what?” he says then remembers the stylized pentacle he’d seen on his brother’s chest. “I have one too?”

Caleb raises an eyebrow. “You guys have matching tattoos? How… quaint.”

Dean flips him off, defensive about this other version of himself. “Shut up.”

They’re nearly to the front office, but Sam stops to pull down the collar of his shirt under a streetlight. Caleb leans closer to get a better look. “They’re modified devil’s traps. They keep us from being possessed by demons.”

“We come across demons enough to need anti-possession tattoos?” Dean demand, but then again, Sam had said it was the apocalypse. “Wait, we’ve been possessed?”

Sam lets go of his collar and rubs a hand over his mouth. “I have.” Dean hasn’t even begun to try and get a handle on the tangled mess of pain, anger, and, bizarrely, guilt evident in those two words when he continues, “How many demons have you dealt with?”

“Jim dealt with a couple a while back,” Caleb answers at the same time as Dean says, “None.”

He stares. “None? Ever?”

“Demons are scary,” Caleb says unabashedly. “I’m glad they’re rare. I can cut off heads and burn bodies with the best of them, but demons? That’s above my paygrade, man.”

“Dad’s dealt with a couple,” Dean says. The fervor he’d pursued the rumors of demons makes a lot more sense now that he knows Mom was killed by one. “He kept me out of it, though.”

“Wow,” Sam says. “That’s – huh.”

Dean can’t place the look on his face and nudges him in the side. “What about you?”

He blinks, focusing on Dean, which he thinks is better than whatever had been running through his head. “Oh, uh, a lot. We don’t really keep track.”

Apocalypse, Dean reminds himself again. He doesn’t really know what to say to that, so he herds Sam towards the front office. Caleb gets a double for him and Bobby and Dean realizes too late that the double room he’s been getting his entire life isn’t going to cut it. He doesn’t know if Sam can read his momentary panic or just knows how he thinks, probably a bit of both, but he says, “Just get a single for Dad. Unless you want to put him in a cot.”

A single for Dad, because of course he and Dean are sharing a room. Maybe it’s the default with Dad having been dead for so long, but he wonders if it was the default from before he died too, if he and Sam just always end up together. “We’re not putting Dad on the cot.”

“He’s the shortest,” Sam says.

Caleb lets out an ugly laugh and Dean’s lips twitch. He gets a double for him and Sam and a single for Dad. If he has a problem with it, he can fight with Sam about it.

~

Dean doesn’t want to stick around this little nothing town, but he still doesn’t know what’s taken his brother or what’s happened to him and Sam’s phone is continuing to go straight to voicemail. If he gets away on his own, if whatever has him lets him go, then Dean wants to be exactly where Sam left him. He’s spent the past day researching, trying to see if there’s anything here that can explain Sam’s absence, but he’s coming up increasingly empty. There are no strange deaths, no evidence of pagan gods, of ghosts or ghouls or anything else. All the missing person’s reports have mundane explanations, kids running away from home and dementia patients wandering off and a few more that probably didn’t end too well, but there’s nothing supernatural about it. He thinks back to when Sam went missing just a couple months after Dean picked him up from Stanford, taken by those creepy cannibals who put Sam in a cage, and breaks into the homes of the resident town loners and freaks and finds nothing.

Every dead end ratchets his anxiety a little higher.

He’s exhausted, but he can’t sleep. He’s on his side, looking at the empty bed his brother never even slept in, and the hopelessness of it all threatens to drag him under. Sam’s disappeared on him before, but he’s never been left with so little to go on.

It makes him think of Flagstaff again, something he wishes would stop popping into his mind. He hadn’t thought of it in years before seeing it in Sam’s heaven and he’s decided it doesn’t matter, but it turns out that deciding it doesn’t matter and actually letting it go are two different things.

Sam had been twelve and it was during the summer. Dad had some big hunt he was doing with Martin and was going to be gone most of the summer. Sam had been pissed and hurt and resentful. Hunting had started to lose the shine for him at that point, but he and Dad weren’t really at odds yet, so he hadn’t viewed it as a welcome break like he would have a few years later. Dean hadn’t been happy at being left behind either, he was sixteen and more than capable enough of helping out and they’d been leaving Sammy on his own since he was nine, but Dad had ordered him to stay behind so he had. It hadn’t been until a decade later, flipping through Dad’s journal, that he realized he and Martin had been hunting down a demon and that’s why he’d been so adamant about leaving them behind.

Then halfway through the summer, Pastor Jim had called, looking for Dad. He said he needed some people to deal with a wendigo that was about to come out of hibernation. It was Jim, and also the town Dad left them in had been boring as hell, so of course Dean said yes.

If Sam had been mad when Dad left, it was nothing to what he’d been when Dean had told him the wendigo hunt would probably take about month from start to finish. Sam had wanted to come with him, but no way in hell was he letting his twelve year old brother anywhere near a wendigo. Dean had already hit six feet by then, so Sam had seemed impossibly small to him in a way he hadn’t in years. He didn’t care how good his aim was or how fast he ran or that his Latin was better. Sam wasn’t getting anywhere near this one.

It hadn’t occurred to him to drop Sam off at Jim’s until he was a hundred miles in the other direction, but he wasn’t a little kid, and someone should keep an eye on the apartment. Dad had paid the rent through August and he wouldn’t be pleased if he came back and had to kick out squatters.

Besides, it wasn’t a big deal. It was going to be like three weeks and he didn’t have school to deal with and there were kids around that he could try and get to know and he had a library card. Dean had left Sam with the grocery money, told him not to spend it all on Funyuns, and tried not take it personally when Sam didn’t hug him goodbye. Whatever, they were getting too old for that anyway.

Someone had mistimed the wendigo’s hibernation. What was supposed to be weeks of hiking and then waiting around and trap setting before hiking back out had turned into a three day scramble track it down after a camper went missing and trying to get there in time before she got eaten. They’d managed it, and saved the woman, and it had been an adrenaline filled rush that had put Dean into a downright cheerful mood.

He’d used the phone at a gas station to call the apartment and let Sam know he’d be back early. Dad had a cell phone then, but it had been expensive, and obviously neither of them had one. It had gone to voicemail, but Dean hadn’t thought anything of it. It was the middle of the day and it’s not like he’d expected Sam to stay inside all day. He’d taken it as a good sign, that Sam wasn’t staying home and moping.

It took him a couple days to get back to Sam. He hadn’t rushed it. He’d used the motel phone to call again that night and when he’d felt a tendril of unease at being sent to voicemail again, he’d ignored it. Sam was probably already asleep.

Even when he’d finally gotten home, it had taken him a while to notice that Sam was gone.

There were no dirty dishes in the sink, nothing messy or out of sorts. Sam tended to turn into a neat freak when he was alone, a habit Dean wished he’d keep up the rest of the time so he didn’t have to deal with his brother’s dirty socks all over his stuff and tripping over his books in the middle of the night.

He’d opened the fridge and found it almost bare, which didn’t make sense. Sam might indulge in a day or two of takeout, but he was good with money, there should be food in there. Maybe he was out grocery shopping right then, which meant Sam was probably going to bitch about having to carry everything back when Dean had been there.

Dean had headed to the grocery store right then, halfway convinced he was going to see his brother poking around in the produce section, but he hadn’t been there. Dean had swung by the library, then the park, and told himself that he was being ridiculous. Sam could be anywhere in town. He just needed to chill out until Sam came home and then he could deal with his bitchiness at being left behind. Maybe he’d take him to a movie or something and spring for popcorn for once. The gas to drive up past Jim’s and back had put a decent chunk into his wallet, but he could hit a pool hall and make up the difference, or even get some sort of gainful employment until Dad came back.

Except Sammy hadn’t come home.

His duffle had still been there, there were clothes in the dresser, and books stacked up next to his bed. If Dean had done a more thorough search, he would have realized that only most of Sam’s clothes were there, that his favorite gun was missing, and that his backpack was nowhere to be seen. But he’d been too busy panicking, seized with the surety that something had happened to his brother while he was gone, that he was lying dead in a ditch or had his liver eaten or was strangled to death by some ghost.

Then Dad had shown up the next day and –

“I have located Sam.”

Dean jumps, legs getting tangled in the blankets as he struggles to get himself upright. Cas is standing at the foot of his bed, unperturbed by the display, and Dean resists the urge to flip him off. Then his words catch up with him and he’s instantly nauseous, the combination of hope and relief and fear making his stomach turn. “Where is he? Is he okay? Who’s got him?”

“I don’t know,” Cas says.

Punching an angel won’t get him anything more than a broken hand, but it would make him feel better. “What the hell? You said–”

“Bobby and I have devised a scrying spell powerful enough to find Sam’s approximate location, and even that is only possible with the use of my grace and Sam’s blood.” His what? Why would they have – oh, right. The panic room. He wishes he hadn’t questioned it, because now the protein bar he’d had for dinner is threatening to make a reappearance. It hadn’t tasted that great the first time around and he doesn’t imagine a repeat performance will improve the flavor. “He is nowhere on earth.”

“He’s in hell?” he demands, glad that he’s still sitting. Maybe Lucifer is torturing him, has devised some sort of terrible level of pain that Dean can’t think of to break his brother into saying yes.

Cas shakes his head.

“Heaven?” he asks weakly and then his heart seizes. “Is he dead?”

Sam had been wiling to let Anna kill him if it would put a stop to the apocalypse. What if he’s found some way to stay dead permanently and taken it? No, he wouldn’t, not without talking to Dean first, not without at least a note or something left behind. Unless it wasn’t his idea, some other Anna wannabe finding his brother and taking him apart down to his molecules while Dean did shots in a bar he doesn’t even remember. Or maybe they’ve taken up Sam body and soul and are planning to use him as a bargaining chip, holding his little brother hostage until Dean agrees to let Michael inside him.

Saying no is getting harder and harder. God won’t stop the apocalypse. How are they going to manage it? What’s the point? People are dying, their friends are dying or being hurt, and if Dean gives up his body to Michael then he could take on Lucifer while he’s still in a substandard vessel. Less collateral damage that way, although maybe that means only a third of the world is destroyed instead of half.

That’s if Michael would even go for it and not just wait for Lucifer to possess Sam. If God’s not calling the shots in heaven and hasn’t been for a while, then all those orders have probably been coming from Michael. Which means Michael wants this apocalypse, wants Sam to say yes so he and Lucifer can fight to the death in their perfect vessels just like God planned.

It’s all been hopeless from the beginning and Dean doesn’t know how much longer he can pretend this ends in anything but tragedy.

Cas shakes his head again, frustrated. “No. He’s not on this earth. This plane. Sam is no longer of this world.”

Dean know that Cas is speaking English, but sometimes he says shit and Dean would swear it’s Enochian. “But he’s alive?”

“Yes,” Cas says and the tightness around his ribs eases an inch. “But he is in a different world. I have no yet ascertained which one. Retrieval will be difficult.”

He’s too sleep deprived and hopped up on fear to be making sense of this. “What are you talking about? Are you saying they dumped him on Mars or something?”

Cas’s expression means that he thinks Dean is an idiot. He knows this because Cas copied it from Sam. “No, Dean, Sam is not on Mars. He is in a parallel universe.”

He’s what?

Dean presses his forehead into the heel of his hand and bites back every angry, useless thing he wants to say in response to that.

It’s better than dead, but also not. They know how to bring Sam back from the dead. How are they supposed to bring him back from another universe?

~

The hunt immediately goes to shit.

Dean’s broken into a lot of places and a lot of houses. But this one makes him uncomfortable for some reason. He thinks it’s the pictures on the wall, on the mantle, of these people that aren’t people, that are going to their jobs and smiling at people on the street and acting like they’re people too all while going out at night, finding the most vulnerable along them, and draining them dry. It’s not right. It’s more than monstrous, it’s psychotic.

They don’t get more than two steps up the stairs before they’re made, but they’d expected that. Six heartbeats, six bodies full of pumping blood, in a house that contains nothing but the undead. They’re lucky they didn’t wake them up just by walking through the door. They’re armed and ready and all of them have decades of experience. It’s not supposed to be easy, because they’re fighting a housefull of juiced up vamps, but it’s something they’re all confident they can handle.

Except only a few minutes into it, several hits landed but no heads rolling, Sam shouts, “Lenore? Oh you’ve got to be – stop! Everyone stop!”

Obviously they don’t stop, but Dean pulls his attention away from the bloodsucker currently attempting to make him a midnight snack to see his brother with a machete to a vampire’s neck but for some reason not taking the killing blow. She has all her teeth out, face twisted in a grotesque version of a grimace, and Dean doesn’t understand why he’s hesitating.

Sam makes a sound of disgust and then throws his machete to the ground. “I said stop!”

Dean wonders for the first time if his brother is actually insane.

He lunges for the vampire, sure he’s about to see her rip Sammy’s throat out. But instead Sam blocks him, managing to wrench his machete from his grip mostly because he’s not expecting it. He throws it aside and that’s it, this is the proof, Sam’s lost his mind and they’re both going to die because of it.

Except she’s not killing them. Her face melts back into a human shape and she and Sam lock eyes. They don’t say anything, but in the next moment they’re moving. Except they’re not fighting, they’re heading for Bobby and Caleb. Sam’s grabs Bobby’s arm, pulling him away, and she shoves back the vampire he’d been fighting. Caleb looks between them and drops his machete without prompting, raising his hands in front of him.

“You’re going to need to restrain him,” Sam says, gesturing to Gordon, even as he’s heading for Dad.

Gordon is wild eyed and his movements have gotten sloppy, obviously seeing what’s happening but too busy fighting to do anything about it.

Dad’s gotten the vampire he’s fighting pretty good in the arm and Dean sees the opening, knows she’s about to lose her head. Except Sam sees it too and he reaches out, gripping the back of her shirt and shoving her behind him. She looks up at the back of Sam’s head in confusion, but for some reason doesn’t take the opportunity to leap forward and sink her teeth into his neck.

Except Dean can’t even focus on that because Dad’s machete stops an inch away from Sam’s chest.

Sam doesn’t so much as flinch, but Dad’s eyes are huge and his face is pale. “Stop,” Sam says firmly. “Drop the blade.”

“Don’t listen to him!” Gordon shouts. Dean looks over to see the vampire he’d been fighting had joined the one Gordon was attacking and had managed to overtake him. They’re pinning him to the wall, but they’ve got their fangs put away. “He’s working with them, he’s probably one of them!”

Sam rolls his eyes but only holds out his hand to Dad. “Give that to me.”

Dad’s tense, every instinct he has obviously telling him that giving up his only effective weapon while surrounded by monsters is a death sentence, but he’s the only one still holding a blade and the vampires aren’t attacking him. They’re all packing, but bullets against vampires are a distraction tactic at best. “What are you doing, Sam?”

“I’ll explain,” he says, “but first you’re going to have to give me that.”

He doesn’t move for a long, tense moment. Then he hands the machete to Sam, who breathes a sigh of relief before throwing it next to Caleb’s.

“You know me,” says the vampire Sam had been fighting. Lenore. He’d called her Lenore. “But I don’t know you.”

“It’s complicated,” Sam says. At least he’s not the only one getting that line. “What are you eating? I didn’t find any reports of cattle mutilations.”

She blinks. It’s nice that even vampires are baffled by his insane little brother. “We haven’t done that for years. It attracts too much attention. We work with butchers now.”

“Wait,” Bobby says, “are you saying you drink animal blood?”

Lenore raises her chin, eyes hard. “We all do. It’s disgusting, but it keeps us alive, and we’re not hurting anyone. No more than you are every time you have a burger.”

“Well, being vegetarian is in vogue right now,” Sam says.

One of the vampires holding back Gordon snorts. Lenore softens, her mouth pulling up on one side. “You’re funny.”

“Are you seriously listening to this?” Gordon demands. “They’re lying! They’re monsters!”

Dad licks his lips. “He’s right, Sam. Even if they’re not lying, it won’t last. They are what they are. They’ll give in eventually.” His eyes flick to Lenore. “No offense.”

“Offense taken,” she says, and okay, Dean’s starting to see why Sam might like her.

“I’m Sam,” he says, offering her his hand. She takes it without hesitation. “That’s Dean, Bobby, Caleb, and John. The asshole is Gordon.”

“Dean Winchester,” Lenore says and he startles, finding that oddly heavy gaze landing on him before she moves on. “Bobby Singer. Caleb Haber. John Winchester. Gordon Walker.” She looks at each of them as she identifies them, but then her eyes settle back on his brother. “But I don’t know you, Sam.”

“Impressive,” Sam says and seems to mean it.

She shrugs. “We haven’t survived this long without knowing who to avoid.”

Dean swallows, cautiously taking a step forward, but no one reacts as he goes over to his brother’s side. “Sam. What are you doing?”

“Talking?” he says. “It’s when you open your mouth and words come out.”

Caleb does a terrible job of trying to disguise his laugh as a cough. Bobby kicks him in the shin, which doesn’t seem to do much of anything.

Dean spreads out his hands helplessly. “Dude. What’s the play here? We can’t let them go.”

Discussing this when they’re all weaponless and two vampires are restraining Gordon isn’t the smartest thing he’s ever done, but Sam’s not giving them much of an option.

“Why not?” Sam asks. “They’re not hurting anyone.”

His brother is unbelievably smart, possibly a genius based on what Dean’s seen him accomplish these past couple days. Which is why he doesn’t understand why he’s being so stupid right now. “Let’s say that’s true,” and Dean’s not buying it, honestly, “you and I both know it’s only a matter of time. Maybe they’re holding themselves back now, but they get one whiff of fresh blood on an off day and then that’s a dead civilian on our hands.”

He's hoping that will mean something to Sam, he’s expecting it to. Instead his eyes narrow and reaches into his back pocket, taking out a small silver blade that he’d nicked from Dean’s bag. He has no idea where Sam is going with this, which is why he doesn’t move fast enough to keep Sam from dragging it across his arm, causing blood to well up on his skin.

Dad shouts and Dean gets ready for whatever’s about to happen. Except what happens is Sam sticks his bleeding arm in Lenore’s face and waves it in front of her. A drop of blood lands on her cheek. “Mmm, yum, tasty human blood. Tempted? Going to lose your cool and chomp down?”

Holy shit.

Lenore’s mouth opens wide and Dean’s already preparing to yank Sam back, to put himself in between his deranged brother and the vampire who’s absolutely going to tear his throat out. Except her teeth stay human and she’s laughing. “What’s wrong with you? Were you dropped on your head as a baby?”

Sam’s lips twitch. “Probably.”

She shakes her head, grinning, and casually wipes Sam’s blood from her cheek with the back of her hand. “Get that out of my face. Christina, find some bandages for our friend.”

The vampire Dad had almost beheaded startles, too busy looking at Sam like the rest of them are, as if he’s lost his mind. “Um, yeah, I’ll – okay.”

She heads out of the room, and she could be going to get back up, to go outside and slash all their tires, or who knows what, but no one tries to stop her. They’re already at the vampires’ mercy, because Sam seems to think they’re not monsters, and Dean still doesn’t get why. So they eat animals instead of humans, whatever, that doesn’t change what they are.

“These things are monsters,” Gordon says, unknowingly echoing Dean’s own thoughts. “They may be able to look human, act like it, but they’re not. We need to kill them before people start dying.” Gordon’s eyes find his. “Dean, man, come on. I know you know this. This isn’t you.”

“Shut up,” Sam snaps, all of the casual friendliness draining out of him as he shifts in front of Dean, blocking him from Gordon’s sight. “You lied to us and tried to get us to kill innocent people. I don’t want to hear anything from you.”

“Innocent?” Gordon echoes incredulously. “People? Just how far off the reservation are you?”

“Andrew Jackson would have me shot on sight,” Sam says dryly. One of the vampires holding Gordon and Bobby both give a snort of laughter, but Dean doesn’t get it.

“Sammy,” he says and his brother’s attention settles back on him. “Look, man, Gordon knows vampires, okay? He didn’t lie, they may not be killing people,” at the moment, “but it’s still a huge nest in the middle of a densely populated area. This doesn’t end well. You know that.”

Standing around arguing about this in front of the vampires that could so easily kill them is surreal. He can’t believe they’re letting them argue about killing them and not just having them for an early breakfast.

Sam scoffs. “Knows how to kill them, sure, but he’s so blinded by hatred he can’t see anything else. He knew they hadn’t killed anyone, Dean, and he had us go after them anyway.”

Maybe, but, “Dude, they killed his sister. You expect him to let that go?”

“No one in my nest did that,” Lenore says firmly, but it’s not really the point.

Sam’s gone completely still, a banked anger flaring to life in his eyes. “He tell you that lie here too?”

What? He glances at the others, momentarily pausing at the intense way Dad is looking at Sam, but none of them seem to know what he’s talking about.

“Go on,” Sam says to Gordon. “Tell them the truth. Tell Dean exactly what you did to your sister.”

Gordon snarls, pushing back against the vampires holding him. “I did what was right. What I had to. Any decent hunter would do the same.”

Right. Gordon got revenge for his sister. Sam can’t honestly expect any of them to believe that’s a bad thing?

Sam stalks over to Gordon with that lethal grace that only seems to come out when he’s well and truly pissed. He gets right in his face, almost like he’s going to take a bite himself, then says, “I would let my brother drain me dry before I’d put a knife to his throat and saw his head off.”

Dean’s heart slams against his chest, adrenaline coursing through him. Sam would – that’s – he can’t even imagine it, the horror of it, and Sam says it casually, like it’s nothing. Then what Sam’s implying catches up with him and he thinks he’s going to be sick. “That’s not – Gordon, you didn’t–”

“My sister died the moment that fang bled in her mouth,” Gordon spits. “What I killed wasn’t my sister. It was just wearing her face.”

“Goddamn,” Bobby whispers. Even the vampires look disgusted with Gordon.

“Your first kill,” Sam continues. “She must have recognized you. Was she happy to see you? Relieved? Did you tell her that you’d been looking for her, that you were just trying to help? The vampire that turned her left you alive, Gordon, even with a new vampire to feed. Do you think he did that out of the kindness of his heart? Or was it because your little sister begged for your life?”

Gordon’s lips tremble before he presses them together. God. It’s true.

“You were an untrained kid,” Sam says. “You’d never done anything like this before. How did you get that close to her? Did you manage to sneak up on a vampire, or did she let you walk right up to her? Because you were her big brother and you’d never hurt her. Did you even hesitate?”

He looks away from Sam, refusing to answer, which is an answer all on its own. Dean feels sweat break out all over his body. He’s known Gordon for years, hunted with him, drank with him, laughed with him. He felt connected to him, by the similarities between them, but this whole time he’d – it’s not like he could leave her, Dean gets that, but there are other hunters, other ways to go about it besides this. And even that isn’t ringing as true as it would have before. They’re supposed to be mindless, hungry, things, but she’d known Gordon. But they’re standing around vampires right now who aren’t attacking them.

“These people aren’t monsters, Gordon,” Sam says. “You are.”

Gordon’s lip curls, but he still doesn’t say anything.

“We try not to be,” Lenore says earnestly. Dean’s almost thankful for the interruption. “We didn’t ask to be this way. We don’t want to hurt people. We just want to turn this thing that was done to us into something we can live with.”

“I know,” Sam says, full of so much compassion for a creature that Dean would have killed without a second thought. “It’s okay.”

“Sam,” Dad says low, warning clear. Caleb has his arms crossed, clearly having decided to stay out of this, and Bobby seems like he’s leaning towards agreeing with Sam.

Dean licks his lips, says, “Sammy,” and then can’t seem to force out anything else.

Sam ignores Dad to face him and, with that unerring ability to read his mind, says, “It’s alright, you didn’t know. We’re going to do the right thing here, Dean. You’re better than Gordon could ever be.”

It’s exactly what he wants to hear, a balm to the panicky guilt and shame clawing at him, and he doesn’t deserve a word of it. “You don’t know that. I’m not your Dean. You don’t know me.”

There’s a moment of perfect stillness where Gordon and the vampires are probably trying to figure out what the hell he’s talking about and Sam’s face goes scarily blank. Then it settles into something determined and pissed off that reminds him of Dad. He stalks forward, grabbing Dean by the shoulder and shoving him towards the front door. “Come on, move it, let’s go.”

Dean stumbles forward. “What the–”

“We’ll be back,” Sam says. “Bobby, if Dad tries anything, shoot him.”

“Dude!” he protests.

“Oh, what, like Dad’s never been shot before?” he asks bitchily before jabbing him in the side with his stupid long fingers. “Don’t make me carry you outside.”

“Bite me,” he says, giving in and letting Sam manhandle him out the door. He only realizes what he’s said when Lenore laughs. Sam pushes them down the stairs to the front yard and everything that’s just happened feels even more surreal when he sees the nice suburban neighborhood they’re in the middle of.

Sam lets go of him, his shoulders heaving like he’s done something more than push him around. The silence only lasts long enough for Dean to wonder if Sam’s waiting for him to say something when he snaps, “How many times are we going to have this conversation? You think just because I’m dead, I don’t know you? You’re my big brother. I know you better than anyone else in the world.”

He's not, that’s his whole point, not the one Sam knows, the one he grew up with. Dean’s just wearing that guy’s face.

His brother’s expression hardens, like he knows exactly what Dean’s thinking, and past experience shows that he just might. “You say you don’t believe in anything, that people are crazy and God’s a hack. But you want to believe in something, you want this all to matter, it’s just the thought of believing in something that can disappoint you terrifies you, the thought of believing in yourself terrifies you.”

Jesus. He wants Sammy to stop, he doesn’t want to hear this, but he can’t seem to unglue his tongue from the top of his mouth.

“You’ve spent your life repenting for sins that I can’t even imagine, that no one can imagine, because they only exist in your head,” Sam says. “No one is harder on you than you are, not me, not even Dad. Everything is your fault and everything is your responsibility and you act like you owe the world this debt just for breathing. You use hunting to try to balance the scales in your favor, to justify your existence to the universe. Because if you’re not saving people, then why are you even here? Other people get to just exist and live their lives, but you have to earn it.”

This is shit he’s buried so deep he’d convinced himself it wasn’t even there. He can’t do this, he takes it back, they’ll let the fucking vampires go. “Shut up.”

“The world is scary and unfair and you feel so alone in it,” Sam continues ruthlessly. “Hunting is the one good thing you can do, that you’ve always done, so you want it to be easy. It needs to be easy, because if you’ve fucked up this one good thing, then how are supposed to justify your next breath? Monsters are evil and they deserve to die. Well, it’s not that cut and dry. Monsters hurt people, and if they’re not hurting people, then they’re not monsters. So we’re going to let Lenore and her people go.”

Yes, okay, fine, just let this conversation be over. Please let it be over before he starts hyperventilating or crying or something equally embarrassing. They’ll let the vampires go and Dean will go find some hole to crawl away and die in because Jesus fucking Christ.

“You’re not a good person, Dean,” Sam says and he flinches, trying to look anywhere else, but Sam grabs his face with one of his stupid huge hands and refuses to let Dean turn his face away. Joke’s on Sam, because if this goes on for much longer, he’s going to throw up right on him. “You’re the best person I know.” Wait, what? He reluctantly meets Sam’s eyes and is instantly overwhelmed with that same compassion he’d seen directed at Lenore now focused all on him. “You’re going to do the right thing, even though it’s hard, even though it sucks, because that is who you are. Not whatever lies you tell yourself, about yourself, when you’re three whiskey shots in just so you can fall asleep at night.”

It takes several too short breaths for him to form a coherent thought through the rush of static.

He doesn’t think that’s true, it doesn’t feel true, because everything inside of him is telling him that those vampires are a threat to be eliminated no matter their diet. But Sammy’s looking at him, all this faith and adoration and quiet understanding, and it feels like he’s slicing him open and rooting around in his insides. He’s not who Sam thinks he is.

But he wants to be.

He wants to be the type of person that Sam looks up to, that he believes in, that does the right thing even when it feels wrong. He does want things to be easy, to not have to question if what he’s doing is right, because so much is difficult already and hunting is supposed to be simple. But more than that, he wants his little brother to be proud of him.

Sam has let go of his face but is still standing probably too close. The tips of his are ears turning red the longer that Dean just stares at him, but Sam clenches his jaw stubbornly, refusing to be the one to break the silence.

“Okay,” he says finally, not even bothering to be embarrassed at the way it breaks halfway through. “Okay, Sammy. Alright.”

Sam smiles at him, slow and bright and causing something in his chest shake loose. He thinks back to Sam saying that his Dean worries about him too much and it gets him into trouble and he understands him completely.

He’d also do a lot of stupid shit to keep Sammy smiling at him like that.

Chapter Text

Dean’s mouth is dry and his stomach feels like it’s full of lead when they go back into the house. Bobby hasn’t shot Dad, which is a nice, although Dad looks far from happy. He’s trying to figure out how to convince Dad to let a bunch of bloodsuckers go free when Lenore says, “So you’re not from around here, are you, Sam Winchester?”

What the – oh. Oh, fuck. Vampires have advanced hearing, which means they probably heard every word between him and Sam outside. That’s great, that’s really, just, awesome. Maybe they should kill them just to save himself from the embarrassment.

“You told me your brother was dead,” Gordon says. Dean can’t even look at him.

“Can we gag him?” Sam asks. “Or knock him out. Tie him up. Something. It’s better than having Eli and, it’s Conrad, right?”

The short vampire restraining Gordon says, “Uh, yeah, that’s me,” which he assumes means the other one is Eli.

“Better than having them just hold him up while we talk,” Sam finishes.

Lenore looks to Christina, who nods, then hesitates. She holds out a white kitchen towel. “Sorry, we don’t really have bandages…”

“It’s alright,” Lenore says, taking the towel from her and nodding her away. She tears a strip from it and grabs Sam’s wrist, pulling it close to her. They all tense except for Sam, who’s perfectly relaxed as she wipes the blood from his arm. It’s mostly stopped bleeding, but she wraps it anyway. “We’ve met before, haven’t we, Sam? Or you and another version of me have.”

For a moment he thinks that Sam is going to try and deny it, but then he nods, hair falling into his eyes. “Yeah. Pretty much exactly like this, actually. It was our second vampire hunt ever and it was, you know, we weren’t in a great place. Gordon had killed one of your nest and us another before you kidnapped me to tell me the truth.”

That surprises her more than hearing Sam’s from another universe. “And you believed me?”

He shrugs. “You let me go.”

“We’ve let a lot of hunters go,” she says. “They don’t usually thank us after.”

Dean’s sure that it wouldn’t have been enough for him. So what if some crazy vampires were stupid enough not to kill him? That doesn’t change what he has to do. It would have meant nothing to him before, but now the thought leaves him nauseous.

“Yeah, well, Gordon overheard me talking to Dean and found out where you guys were,” he says, mouth twisting. “You’d starting moving your nest out, but you were still there. He’d already tortured you with dead man’s blood by the time we got there, trying to get you to tell him where you’d sent everyone. Dean had to pull a gun on him before he’d let me take you out of there.”

Lenore raises an eyebrow. “You got near me after I’d been poisoned?”

While she was weak and cornered and desperate. She’d let Sam go and then Gordon had tried to torture her into giving up her nest. Blaming and attacking Sam, drinking him down and gaining the strength to heal herself, take care of Gordon, and protect her nest would have only been logical. There’s mercy and then there’s stupidity.

“Gordon grabbed me when I went for you. He put a knife to my throat.” He what? Dean resists the urge to demand an explanation out of this Gordon. He didn’t do it and if he has any insights on why another him did, Dean doesn’t think he can hear it without punching the guy in the face. “He cut my arm and dropped my blood right on your face. Your fangs came out, it was automatic, and Gordon tried to use that as evidence to kill you. But you said no. Even then, weak and hurt and starving and my fresh blood dripping above you, you still said no.” They’re all silent and focused on him, vampires and humans both. Sam smiles. “I carried you out. You had your face right up against my neck. If you wanted to bite me, you would have barely had to move an inch.”

Jesus Christ. Dad flinches just imagining it. Dean’s not much better. But Sam said he’d been there. He’d let Sam do that? Even after seeing Lenore get her fangs out for his brother’s blood? Sure, she put them back, but still.

She lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “Wow. So you’ve always been crazy then?”

“Pretty much,” he says.

Christina comes back then, ropes in hand. Eli and Conrad tie Gordon to a chair in the kitchen and gag him. The hatred in Gordon’s eyes when looking at or talking about vampires hadn’t bothered him before. It had seemed right. Not so much right now.

“What’d you do about Gordon then?” Bobby asks, because maybe they can convince Dad to let this go, but no way in hell will Gordon let go of a nest of vampires.

Sam rubs the back of his neck. “Well, I got back and Dean had tied him up and gagged him. We headed out and then sent someone out a few days later to untie him.” A few days? Damn. Then again, he’d held a knife to Sammy’s throat. “We met up with him again a few months later, which went, uh, poorly. We ended up calling the cops on him and getting him thrown in jail to get him off our ass.”

“That work?” Dad asks, but it’s clear he already knows the answer. Gordon’s good at the job, at all the skills you need to be good at living this kind of life. A prison would only hold him so long.

“No,” Sam admits. “He got out and came after us again. We were after a vampire at the time and he recognized Gordon. He turned him, thought it was poetic justice, but Gordon was strong as a human and he was even stronger as a vampire. He killed the nest and escaped.”

There’s something here, some reason that Sam’s dragging his feet about getting to the point. “I don’t suppose he decided to turn a new leaf and live as a hippie vegetarian vampire?”

“Uh, no,” Sam looks away. “I’m the one who took him out.”

“You cut Gordon’s head off?” he says, because it still feels like something is missing. Sam obviously hates Gordon, it sounds like he’d come after Sam multiple times, and he was a bloodthirsty vampire at the time. Obviously it’s awkward to talk about killing the human they’ve got tied up in the kitchen, and Dean’s got too many conflicting feelings about Gordon right now to feel much of anything, but that still doesn’t seem quite it.

Sam huffs, crossing his arms, then admits, “Sort of. I had to improvise.”

“With what?” Caleb asks, apparently curious enough to break his vow of silence.

He glances around, one last ditch effort out of getting out of this, but they’re all invested. Finally he says, “Razor wire. It was what I had!”

Holy shit. “You beheaded an out of control vampire Gordon with your bare hands?”

“Razor wire,” he repeats stubbornly. “He was trying to bite me! It really fucked up my hands too. I had to ice them after and you wouldn’t stop making fun of me for it.”

It’s such a ridiculous, petty complaint that Dean can’t help but laugh. Sam had been forced to garote Gordon to keep from being eaten and Sam’s bitching because Dean gave him a hard time about a hand cramp.

Sam punches him in the shoulder. “Shut up! Whatever. The point is, I don’t really know what to do about Gordon, he literally didn’t stop until it killed him. There’s plenty of vampires out there that are killing people, he could focus on those instead, but once he fixates on something, he doesn’t tend to let it go.”

Yeah, that’s true. Saying Gordon has an obsessive personality is probably putting it lightly.

“We’ve been hunted before,” Eli says. “We know how to disappear. We’ll each take section of the nest and go off grid before regrouping. If you can give us a week’s head start, we’ll be free and clear.”

Dean feels a twinge of sympathy. They have jobs, homes, lives here. He’d thought of how fucked up it was for them to pretend to be part of the community while preying on it, but they hadn’t been. They’d really just been living here and drinking animal blood and now a hundred of them have to abandon their lives to keep from getting their heads cut off. A hundred people disappearing into the night is they type thing that will bring other hunters sniffing for an explanation, but Dean doubts they’ll figure out what actually happened here.

“Did Gordon ever find us again?” Christina asks.

Sam shakes his head. “Not as far as I know, so no. If he had, he would have rubbed our faces in it.”

“I’ll do it,” Caleb says. They all turn to look at him and he gives them a smile just a shade off from what Dean’s used to seeing from him. “I’ll babysit Gordon while you guys clear out. One week. He’s good, but I’m good too. I’ll chain him up in the bathroom if I have to.”

That makes Sam twitch for no reason that Dean can think of, but he says, “Thanks, man, that means a lot.”

He nods, hands stuffed into his pockets. Dean thinks that he’s going to leave it there, but then he says, “I’ve come across a vegetarian vampire before. I let him go.”

Dad’s eyes narrow. Dean feels a stirring of unease in his gut. Dad should be arguing with them, shouting, going for the machetes to take care of this himself if they’re not going to. Why isn’t he?

“Besides,” Caleb continues, “it’s not like you guys can stick around for the next week. Sam’s got a return trip to make.”

Right.

Four days from now, Sammy’s going home, back to the apocalypse and angels and his brother.

Christ, he’s going to drink so much when this is over.

“Lenore,” Sam says, abruptly looking away from Dad. Damn, he definitely just missed something. “Can I ask you for a favor?”

She lifts an eyebrow. “I think I probably owe you one, or two, or a hundred.” Because they’re letting a hundred vampires go. Dean can barely contemplate a nest that large, never mind giving them all a free pass.

“No, your nest isn’t hurting anyone, so this isn’t a favor, it’s what’s right,” Sam says stubbornly. Lenore softens. “But, uh, feel free to keep it mind. Do you know of a nest run by a vampire named Luther? His mate’s name is Kate.”

Eli and Christina’s faces both go hard and Conrad looks away from them. Lenore’s face doesn’t change at all. “Yes. Why?”

“Could you find out where they are?” Sam asks. “They have something we need.”

She tilts her head to the side. “What could you possibly need from them?”

“They killed Daniel Elkins,” Sam says and something in Lenore’s face flickers. “They took something from his house when they did. It doesn’t belong to them.”

“They won’t give it up easy,” she warns. “Especially Kate.”

Oh, there’s definitely some sort of history here.

Sam shrugs. “I’m not exactly planning on asking.”

None of the vampires react to that. There’s clearly no love lost there and between that and them killing Elkins, Dean assumes they’re not more of the hippie, vegetarian vampire variety.

Lenore runs a hand through her hair then says, “I can find out. I know some people. But be careful, Sam. Luther and Kate have gone up against some powerful people in the past and they’re still standing.”

“I’m always careful,” he says. Lenore snorts before Dean can call bullshit. Sam is anything but careful. He’s probably making the other version of him turn grey. “Thank you, Lenore, really. This is important and I appreciate it.”

“Don’t mention it,” she says. “Really, really don’t. Avoiding hunters is bad enough. We don’t need other vampires on our ass for turning traitor on top of that.”

“More than they already are,” Eli adds, wry.

Dean doesn’t wince, but he wants to. They really get it from all sides. Civilians would be terrified of them if they knew the truth, hunters are trying to kill them, and it sounds like a decent amount of their own kind are too. Talk about doing the right thing even if it sucks.

Bobby says he’ll see if Rufus is close enough to lend a hand while Lenore sends off the others to start getting everyone ready to leave, decisions apparently made. Dad drifts closer to them, but his hands are still empty and he doesn’t look like he’s going to start going for anyone’s neck.

 Lenore’s lingering too, her dark gaze serious as it settles on Sam. “How’d you know I’d be the same here?”

Sam frowns. “What?”

“You’re from a different world,” she says. “I don’t understand how that’s possible, but that’s not the point. Just because I was one way there doesn’t mean I’d be the same here. You threw down your weapon while I had my fangs out. You didn’t even hesitate.”

Dean would like an answer to this one too, actually. Sure, most things are the same here, not an evil mirror universe like Sam had said to Caleb, but he’d risked his life on it. All their lives, really.

Sam’s smile is large and genuine and warm. Dean tries to memorize it because four days from now he’ll never see it again. “Lenore, the type of will it takes to do what you do, that type of goodness, it isn’t circumstantial. I’d trust you in any universe.”

There’s a moment where Lenore doesn’t so much as twitch, then her smile is echoing Sam’s, as unrestrained as anything he’s seen from her. Something deep and uncomfortable inside of him abruptly settles, the pull and push between what he really believes and what he wants to believe vanishing. Lenore’s just a person. She’s stubborn and brave and funny and has a nice smile and is possibly making eyes at his brother. They’re not letting one hundred vampires go. They’re saving a hundred people.

He’s always known that people can be monsters. Maybe it’s not such a stretch that monsters can be people.

~

It takes a couple hours, but the eventually get everything sorted out. They’re going to stay until tomorrow when Rufus shows up to join Caleb. Dean thinks there’s a decent chance that he agreed just because he wants to see if Bobby’s fucking with him, but Dean doesn’t feel quite so bad leaving Caleb behind now that he’ll have backup. Lenore’s also leaving two of her vampires behind to help. He wants to say that’s overkill for just one hunter, but Gordon’s good at what he does. Before this he would have said that Gordon wouldn’t hurt a hunter that got in his way, but considering how much of what he thought he knew about him was a lie, he’s not so sure about that anymore. Next time he’s by the Roadhouse, he should see if Ellen will fill him in on what she knows. They’re not close by any means, considering what happened with Bill, but he’s at least allowed inside and, as far as he knows, she’s never spit in his food.

Bobby is staying with Caleb at the house tonight. He and Sam had offered to take their place, but both Bobby and Caleb had waved them off with unsubtle glances at Dad. Once they’re outside, sun not quite having risen, he’s not surprised when Dad turns to Sam with a face that could be carved from stone. If anything, he’s surprised Dad waited this long.

Sam sighs, not looking at him. “Do we have to do this? I’m helping you get the Colt. Isn’t that worth some vampires who aren’t even hurting anyone?”

That gun that can kill demons. One that was apparently stolen from Daniel Elkins and that they got their hands on in Sam’s world. Dad’s not letting them go because he thinks they deserve it. He’s letting them go so that they can track down the gun for him. The worst part is that Sam’s not anything but resigned. Dean he convinced. Dad he’d just bought.

It makes his stomach flip uncomfortably. He understands where Dad’s coming from, of course he does, and it’s not like he hadn’t questioned their dad’s complacency throughout all this. He’d known it wouldn’t be that easy for him, it’s barely that easy for Dean, he just – he doesn’t know. Dad’s supposed to be better than him.

“For now,” Dad says levelly. “I’ve kept my mouth shut, haven’t I?”

“Does that include not hunting them down once they give you what you want?” Sam asks. The vampires had said they were good at disappearing, and they hadn’t seemed concerned about Gordon, but Dad isn’t Gordon. If he decides he’s going to hunt down every single one of those vampires, Dean’s pretty sure they’ll have to leave the country to escape him, and even that’s not a guarantee. They might be safe on a different continent.

Dean’s suddenly terrified about what’s about to come out of his mouth. But Dad says, “A pass is a pass. As long as they don’t start feeding off humans, I’ll keep to myself.”

Sam’s shoulders ease. “Okay. Thanks.”

“You owe me a conversation, Sam,” he says, but Dean sees how tension subtly drains out of him the same way. It makes it a little better that Dad doesn’t want to fight with Sam either.

“I don’t suppose you’ll wait until we’ve all gotten some sleep?” Sam tries.

Dad raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah, didn’t think so,” he sighs. “Can we at least get coffee first?”

“There’s a Denny’s in town,” Dad says, sounding outright amused now that he’s gotten his way.

Sam makes a face, but it’s not like there’s an abundance of options at three in the morning. “Okay, fine. We’ll meet you there.”

Dad’s mouth tightens and Sam blinks, then glares. Dean blames the late hour and everything else on why it takes him a second longer to get it.

Dad doesn’t want him there. Whatever he and Sam are going to talk about, he doesn’t want Dean hearing it.

“He has a right to know,” Sam says.

“I’m just trying to protect him,” Dad replies, as if Dean isn’t standing right there.

“Always a high priority of yours,” Sam says dryly. Dad stiffens, but doesn’t have a chance to reply before Sam continues, “Whatever I tell you, I’m telling him. There’s no point in arguing about it. We’ll see you there.”

Sam snags the edge of his jacket, yanking at it impatiently when Dean doesn’t immediately move to follow him. He feels like he should say something, but he doesn’t know what, so after a moment’s hesitation he follows Sam back to the car. Sam’s scanning the horizon again. Dean still doesn’t see anything, but he doesn’t bother bringing it up. He’s not even sure that Sam’s aware he’s doing it. It’s not until Dad’s gone to his truck and pulled out onto the road that Sam groans, sinking back into the seat and rubbing a hand over his face.

Should he thank him? Should he ask why? Should he try and get a preview of whatever it is that Sam’s going to tell their father in the middle of a goddamn Denny’s?

“How did this go down last time?” he asks.

“It didn’t,” Sam says. “Dad didn’t tell us anything and by the time we figured out what was going on, he was dead.”

Good to know, but not what he meant. “I was talking about Lenore and Gordon.”

“Oh,” Sam says. “Like I said, pretty close to this. Why?”

It’s kind of a pain trying to keep an eye on both Sam and the road, but whatever, it’s not like there are lot of people on the road at this time anyway. “Lenore kidnapped you and you decided that they were okay and I, what, just went along with it?”

“Not exactly,” he says, absently rubbing at his jaw. “You really didn’t want to hear it at first. But killing vampires and torturing them are two different things. You were pretty gung ho about killing them until we walked in on Gordon. Seeing what he was doing was enough to make you hesitate. Then he got his hands on me and Lenore refused my blood even when she had to be desperate for it and you didn’t argue with me after that.”

“You seriously put her mouth up to your neck even after seeing her fangs come out?” he asks.

“She put them back,” he says, as if that’s the most important part. “You need to learn to have a little faith, Dean.”

Big words from the guy in the middle of the apocalypse. “Right. And when that faith gets you killed?”

“Then at least I die believing in something,” he says softly.

Something about the way Sam says that makes him his stomach flip uncomfortably. Sam’s looking at him with an easy fondness that doesn’t match his voice at all. “I thought you and God weren’t on speaking terms.”

Sam laughs louder than he thinks the comment deserves. He wants to dig into that, into why exactly this is making his skin crawl, but they’re pulling up to that glowing red and yellow sign. He gets the impression that this conversation is going to be fraught enough without them keeping Dad waiting.

Dad at least lets Sam’s down half a cup of coffee before asking, “Are you going to answer my questions now?”

“Depends on the questions,” he says but without much heat. Apparently backtalking Dad is just his default.

Dad keeps his eyes on Sam, dark and serious like he always gets when the thing that killed Mom comes up. “Did we kill it?”

“Dean did,” he says and Dean nearly chokes. “Shot him right between the eyes. You’d been dead a year.”

“And you?” he asks.

“Hadn’t been dead a year,” he snarks. Unbelievable. “I was a little preoccupied at the time trying to close a gate to hell.”

Dad frowns. “The one in Calvary?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that one, which of course you know about. Except we didn’t, so we had to find out the hard way. Bobby and Ellen helped me close it and when I turned around, the demon was dead. Happy?”

“Why are you so against us killing it here?” John asks. “Once we have the Colt-”

“You’ll spend another twenty five years chasing him down with nothing to show for it?” he interrupts. “He’s not interested in you here. You should leave it. You know what happened when we killed him? Nothing. Mom didn’t come back, we didn’t get to rest, nothing. Maybe you manage to kill him, but it’s more likely you’re the one that ends up dead. Are you really willing to do that to Dean?”

Dean should probably be invested in Dad’s response, but honestly he’s known the answer to that question since the first time Dad left him on his own in a motel room. Instead he’s thinking back to Sam telling him the demon killed his girl, about how it started making noise again when he was twenty two, and his bone deep surety that the demon doesn’t care about them in this world. “It was after you. Wasn’t it?”

Sam flinches, which he’d been expecting, but Dad’s eyes flicker to the side, which he hadn’t.

What the hell?

“You knew,” he says furiously. “You knew the demon was after Sammy.”

Dad raises a hand. “I found some other families that the demon targeted and they all had infants who were exactly six months old. I figured that was the connection.”

Sam had mentioned that the demon had gone after other families, but apparently Dad already knew. Just like he’d know what killed Mom was a demon. “You should have told me.”

“What good would that have done?” he asks.

Dean looks away, hands clenched. It’s his fault Sammy’s dead, he knows that, but that doesn’t mean Dad had to keep him in the dark about all of this.

Sam shifts in his seat, pressing their shoulders together, and Dean feels slightly less like he wants to crawl out of his own skin. “The point is that in my world, I get it. The demon was going to come back for me and you wanted me to be able to fight back when it did. But I’m not here. Azazel isn’t interested in you. You can kill him with the gun, but only if you can find him, and there aren’t any signs. I looked. You should let this go.”

“It killed my wife,” John snaps. “You have no idea what that’s like.”

Dean looks at Dad in horror. Why would he – oh, right. He doesn’t know about Jessica. “Dad, don’t.”

Dad leans back, realizing he’s missed something.

Sam’s voice is ice. “I know exactly what it’s like. For a year, it consumed me. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. All I could think about was her face when the flames took her and every moment of happiness felt like a betrayal no matter how much I know she wouldn’t have wanted me to feel that way. For a year, I was more like you than I’d ever been.” He leans forward. “Then I snapped out of it. Because Azazel nearly killed my brother and getting revenge isn’t worth losing Dean. It never was.”

Dean is looking at Sam and he can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but try not to fall apart at the seams. Sam lost the girl he loved the same way Dad lost Mom. He loves her so much even now, he’d seen that, and Sam still chose Dean over avenging her death.  

“I’m not going to let the demon near Dean,” Dad snaps. “Why do you think I never told him anything? I’ll take care of it myself.”

That’s not fair. It was his family too. His mom, his brother.

“Yeah, great plan, nothing could possibly go wrong,” Sam drawls. “You know, it’s that kind of idiotic, bullheaded thinking that makes you so many friends. That’s not the point. You dragged Dean all over the country and raised him as a hunter. I wasn’t here and Azazel doesn’t care about you, so you don’t have that excuse here. You should have mourned your wife and moved on. You had a son to raise.”

“I did raise him!” he says. “I raised him to be a hunter who saves people, who can protect himself.”

Normally hearing Dad say something like that would make him proud, but there are so many conflicting emotions inside of him right now that it’s just one more.

“Back home, Dean and I raised each other,” Sam says, not giving an inch. “We spent more time alone together as kids than we did with you. Here, he had no choice but to raise himself. That’s on you. You should have put him first.”

“I didn’t just lose my wife,” Dad says quietly. “I lost you too.”

Dean flinches. Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that sucks. Except I’m right here and I’m telling you that you should have prioritized taking care of my brother. And if Mom were here, she’d tell you the same thing. We were gone and Dean wasn’t.” God. He wants to tell Sam to stop, that he doesn’t understand what it was like, but he seriously can’t bring himself to move. It’s like watching a train wreck. “It’s too late to fix any of thaat, but the least you can do is not leave him now. Don’t go looking for the demon. Don’t waste your life that way. Take care of the son you have left. That’ll honor me and Mom more than shooting Azazel ever could.”

He's expecting Dad’s rage, and it’s there, but the grief is heavier. He’s looking at Sam with such a complicated mess of it, anger and pride and longing. Dean gets it. He’d had a lot idle thoughts and fantasies over the years about what type of person his little brother would have grown up to be. Sam blows them all out of the water. “I can’t let it go, Sammy. Especially not now that I know what we lost.”

“You can’t stand me, you know,” Sam says. “We haven’t gotten along since I learned to talk. You’re not missing out on all that much. You’ve probably saved a fortune on painkillers.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Dad says, but the anger’s fading a little more, his lips curled up in an almost smile. “I bet I was proud of you every day, though.”

Sam shakes his head, face filled with more bitterness than Dean’s seen from him so far. “You really weren’t. I could never do anything right.”

“I’m proud of you now,” Dad says. Sam’s expression slips into something that makes him look young, all that bitchy aggressiveness momentarily gone. Sam’s incredible. Dean doesn’t know how Dad could be anything but proud of him, but it’s clear that Sam believes he wasn’t. “I’m sure I was then too even if I didn’t say it. I can be real piece of work, Sammy, but I’d have to be blind not to be proud of the man you grew into.” Sam’s speechless for once and Dad softens even further, looking at him and Sam both, and Dean doesn’t remember the last time he saw such open affection on Dad’s face. “It’s good to see my boys together again. Carrying you both out was the last time I,” he stops, turning away, and Dean closes his eyes, unable to deal with seeing that look in Dad’s eyes again.

“What?”

Sam’s face is scrunched up in confusion. Dean clears his throat. “What’s wrong, Sammy?”

“You carried me and Dean out of the fire?” Sam asks.

Dean’s body goes cold, his heart going double time in his chest. Dad’s confusion is genuine, he doesn’t seem to know where this conversation is heading, but Dean does. He’d known things had happened differently in Sam’s world, of course they had, because there Sam survived and here he didn’t.

He’d really been hoping the difference was anything but this.

“Yeah,” Dad says. “Why?”

Dean sees the moment it clicks, what the difference could possibly be. Dad’s eyes snap to Dean and there’s no more affection there, just horror and shame and disgust, and he knows he deserves all of it. He always has.

“Nothing, it doesn’t matter,” Sam shrugs. He honestly believes that, but it’s only because he doesn’t know. “It’s just. Dean carried me out.”

It’s a good thing they hadn’t ordered any food, because if he had anything in his stomach it would be making a reappearance all over this ugly formica table. He’s on his feet, unable to stand the heat of Sam pressed against him, and he heads for the door because he can’t do this. He knows it’s all his fault, he’s always known, so this doesn’t change anything. It shouldn’t change anything, but he’s going to be sick, and he wants to punch something, to bleed out some of what’s wrong with him as if it’s physical and not just who he is.

The cool morning air stings against his too hot skin and he can’t get enough air in his lungs. He did this. This is on him, it’s all his fault, Sammy shouldn’t be mad at Dad, he should be mad at him. After what he did, he’s lucky Dad kept him at all, who cares if he was lonely. That’s the natural consequence of killing your baby brother.

“Woah, hey, calm down.” Sam’s in front of him, ducking down to look him in the eye, one of his huge hands curled around Dean’s elbow. “What’s wrong? The coffee wasn’t that bad.”

His eyes are big and concerned, his lame attempt at a joke for his benefit, and Dean can’t stand it. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Sammy, I really am.”

“It’s okay,” Sam says, eyebrows pushed together. “Dude, relax, everything’s fine.”

It’s not. “I didn’t listen to Dad.”

“Good,” he says. Dean chokes. “I practically turned not listening to Dad into an Olympic sport, man, it’s fine.” He pauses. “What are we talking about, by the way?”

“I didn’t listen to Dad,” he says thickly, “and you died.”

Sam’s hand tightens, but he doesn’t take it away. He should. Dean doesn’t deserve Sam touching him. “What are you talking about? You said it was smoke inhalation.”

“Because you were in there too long,” he says. Doesn’t Sam get it? Isn’t it obvious? “Dad told me to take you and run. I should have listened. But I looked up and I,” he can’t even say it.

He’d woken up to his dad yelling and the heat of the flames and he’d heard Sam crying and been so scared. He’d gone to Sam’s nursery and Dad had pressed Sammy into his arms and told him to run, but he’d looked up and seen Mom on the ceiling. Bleeding, burning, dead, and he couldn’t move. He’d cried, begging for Mom, telling Dad to get her down, that they couldn’t leave without Mom.

Dad had tried, but it was too late. Eventually he’d scooped Dean and Sam into his arms and made it outside just as the fire blew out the window and effulged the whole corner of the house.

Sammy had trouble crying. He kept gasping and stuttering. Dean remembers exactly how he’d sounded. It still shows up in his nightmares. The paramedics had come, had taken Sammy from them, and Dean had never seen him again.

That other Dean had listened. He’d carried Sammy outside and his brother had lived while Dean’s had died. That’s the difference.

“Are you fucking with me?” Sam snaps. “You were four, Dean, that’s not your fault.”

He shakes his head. “If I’d listened, you’d still be alive. I killed you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“That’s insane,” Sammy says. “You’ve thought some stupid shit over the years, but this is definitely the winner. Tell him,” he says, and Dean sees Sam turn, sees Dad hovering just behind him in this deserted Denny’s parking lot. “Tell him it’s not his fault.”

Dad doesn’t say anything.

Sam’s voice goes hard. “Dad. Tell Dean it wasn’t his fault.”

He won’t look at Dean. That’s okay. Dean doesn’t know how he’s ever going to look at himself again either. “If that’s the only difference, then–”

“Shut the fuck up,” Sam snarls. “What’s wrong with you? He was a kid. He was practically a fucking baby! It’s not his fault, it never could be, are you serious? Shit happens, but if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours.”

Dad’s face goes blank. Dean reaches out and grabs Sam’s jacket with numb fingers. “Sammy, don’t. I did this.”

Sam ignores him, nostrils flaring and lips pulled back almost like he’s baring his teeth. “You were the adult. You’re our father. When Jessica died, Dean had to pull me out then too. I fought him, I tried to save her, and I didn’t care what it would have cost me. But we didn’t have children. Getting us out of the fire should have been your first priority. But instead you were so busy trying to rescue your dead wife that I died for it. Dean didn’t kill me, Dad. You did.”

Dean shakes his head, tugging at Sam. Dad doesn’t deserve this.

Dad glares. “If Dean had just done what I told him to do–”

One moment Sam’s right there, painful grip on his elbow and all up in his space like he always is. The next he’s in front of Dad, fist swinging and landing solidly on the side of their father’s face.

Sam’s built like a tank. Dad ends up on his ass, the punch having knocked him clear off his feet. He’s on his back, halfway to pushing himself upright and looking up in a daze.

Sam’s breathing hard, shoulders expanding with his every inhale, and anger burning off him. “If you ever say some stupid shit like that about my brother again, I’ll start with breaking your jaw.”

Dean can’t do this. He can’t deal with this, he can’t fix it, he just can’t. He turns and starts walking, focusing on nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other. He has to be somewhere else, someone else. Sam and Dad shouldn’t be fighting because of him. They should both hate him.

“Hey! Dean!” He walks faster, but Sam’s got long legs. He catches up and grabs Dean’s wrist and doesn’t let go when Dean tries to tug it away from him. “Will you stop? You’re being ridiculous.”

“I killed you,” he says.

“You were literally four,” Sam says, stepping in front of him so Dean has no choice but to look at him. “You were a kid and you were scared. The difference between you here and there isn’t that you listened. It’s that you looked up.”

What? Dean goes still, no longer trying to shake Sam off.

“In my world, you didn’t look up,” Sam says intently. “Dad saw Mom, but you didn’t. You only knew there was a fire. So when he put me in your arms and told you to run, you didn’t have any reason to stay behind. And even if it was just you disobeying Dad, it still wouldn’t be your fault, because you were a child. You weren’t even in kindergarten, Dean, you weren’t responsible for keeping me safe. That was Dad. But that’s the difference. Here, you looked up. That’s it. It’s not your fault.”

“It doesn’t matter why,” he says, not enough energy to care about how shredded he sounds. “I could have saved you, Sammy, and I didn’t.”

“Dad could have saved me by carrying us out of there instead of staying behind and exposing both our lungs to the smoke,” Sam says. “He was the adult. It was his responsibility, not yours.”

He shakes his head. “Sam.”

“No,” he says firmly. “Saving me isn’t your responsibility. It’s not your fault I died.”

It is. It was his responsibility and it’s his fault because Sam’s his little brother. Dean was supposed to protect him. He was supposed to keep him safe. That was his job. Instead, he’d gotten him killed.

“Say it,” Sam says intently. “Say that it’s not your fault.”

“I could have–”

“No,” he interrupts. “You’re not listening. I’m Sammy, Dean. Me and the brother you lost are the same person. He doesn’t blame you.”

Dean shakes his head, tugging anxiously at the grip Sam has on him. He doesn’t have much hope of getting away without one of them getting hurt, but he can’t help it.

“You’re a good big brother,” Sam continues. Dean wishes he’d punch him. He’s the one Sam should be hitting, not Dad. “You were a good big brother then too, to that six month old version of me. You wouldn’t go to bed until you’d kissed me goodnight. You wanted to keep me safe and for me to know I was loved and that’s what Mom used to do, so you did it too. You talked to me. Him. He’s not mad at you, Dean, he doesn’t blame you or hate you. You’re his big brother and he loves you.”

“I asked for him,” he croaks. “I asked for a little brother and I couldn’t save him.”

He promised Sammy he’d keep him safe and he failed.

“I know,” Sam says gently. “I’m not him, but I am a Sam, and there’s no version of me that would blame you for this. Not everything is your fault.”

It’s not that easy. Maybe Sam’s right and his Sammy wouldn’t blame him, he would probably know better than anyone, but that doesn’t mean it’s not his fault.

“I need to hear you say it,” Sam says. “Saving me isn’t your responsibility. It’s not your fault that I died.”

“I wanted to save you,” he says desperately.

“You always want to save me,” he says. “That doesn’t change anything. Please.”

He doesn’t want to. But Sam’s looking at him, intense and full of this naked need that he doesn’t understand. He’s spent his whole life knowing it’s his fault that his brother is dead. It’s not that easy.

“Dean,” he says, pleading, eyes huge, and fuck.

He licks his lips. It’s just words. “Saving you isn’t my responsibility.”

It should have been. He wants it to have been. But Sam seems pretty convinced that it wasn’t.

This one hurts more, but he forces his lips to form the words. “It’s not my fault that you died.”

Sam grabs him and for one moment Dean thinks he is going to get punched, but then he’s being crushed against Sam, his long arms pinning him in place. It’s not like the hug from before where Sam made himself small for Dean. Instead he’s holding Dean against him, one hand cradling his head and the other fisted in his back. He exhales shakily. “Good. That’s good.”

“Sam?” he asks, squirming in his grip just enough that he can hug him back. He feels like he’s missing something.

“Again,” he says. “Please. Try and mean it this time.”

He takes a deep, steadying breath. Having Sam clinging to him makes him feel more solid. Or it just gives him a reason to be more solid. If his little brother’s leaning on him, he has to be steady enough to lean against. It’s easier this time. “It’s not my fault that you died.”

Sam feels desperate for this for some reason and that makes saying it not hurt as much. If he’s absolving himself of his own guilt, that’s acid on his skin. But if he’s doing it for Sam, that’s okay. He can do it for Sammy.

He shifts and the hug turns into something familiar, something that has no right to feel familiar to him when he’s only had it once. Sam’s head drops onto Dean’s shoulder and he lets out a shuddering breath. “Thanks.”

He is definitely missing something. “Sam?”

Sam pulls back, but he keeps his hand on the back of Dean’s neck. “Don’t let Dad talk to you like that after I’m gone, okay? If he tries, punch him, and tell him it’s from me. He doesn’t get to treat you that way.”

Yeah, right. “Sam, he didn’t – I mean, I begged him to get Mom, he wasn’t trying to, we didn’t know.”

That’s nonsensical at best, but Sam gets it, like always. “I know. When it was Jessica, I knew she was already dead, but I tried to go back for her anyway. Even if I couldn’t save her, I wanted to keep her from burning, I wanted to be able to give her parents a body they’d recognize, I wanted to be able to hold her for a last time. I didn’t care what happened to me, I just had to get to her.”

Sam lets go of him to rub a hand over his face, eyes bright. Dean thinks he already know the answer, but he asks, “Did you?”

He shakes his head. “You pulled me out of the fire. I wanted to go back for her, I would have. I still think about it. But I knew that if I went back into those flames, you’d be one step behind me. I was willing to risk my life, but not yours. If you hadn’t been there, I would have burned with Jess.”

God.

“Sammy,” he says then has to swallow before he can continue. “Okay. But then why did you say that to Dad?”

“To see how he likes it,” he snaps. “Maybe next time he’ll think before he opens his mouth. Dean, what happened to me here wasn’t your fault, and it wasn’t Dad’s either. Sometimes shit just happens, and it sucks. But that doesn’t mean he gets to just say shit like that to you.”

“He doesn’t mean it,” he says. Usually. If Dad really does hold him responsible for Sammy’s death, Dean doesn’t know if he can blame him for it, no matter what Sam’s opinions are on the subject.

Sam is unmoved. “Then he shouldn’t have said it."

Yeah, well. He’d given up on that a long time ago.

“Come on,” Sam says, giving their surroundings another suspicious once over even though they’re definitely alone in this deserted alley. “Let’s head back to the hotel. Thank god we got Dad his own room. If I have to see him again before a solid eight hours, I really will break his jaw.”

Dean snorts, trying to feel nothing about how Sam walks close enough to him that their shoulders brush. When Sam’s gone, he’s going to miss how he always stayed close enough to touch. Hell, Sam’s not even gone yet and there’s a part of him that’s already mourning the loss.

~

They know Sam’s in a different universe, but not how he got there or how to get him back.

Cas is convinced it was an angel, as there are few other beings who would have the power to pull this off, and none who would risk pissing off heaven and hell by stealing Lucifer’s vessel away. Whether it was Lucifer himself or one of the other angels is up for debate, but it doesn’t really matter. Whoever did it isn’t going to be interested in telling him where they stashed his brother.

Neither Bobby or Cas have brought up the matter of why Sam was taken, which Dean considers some sort of mercy. There’s only one answer to that question.

It’s to get them to say yes.

Everything they do is to get him and Sam to say yes.

Maybe it’s Sam and he’s in some hell world like the one Zachariah showed him, one where he continues denying Lucifer and the world is worse off for it, somehow. Maybe it’s someplace where he’s being tortured, or worn down, a place that’s so unbearable for him that he’ll do anything to leave, even agree to be Lucifer’s meatsuit. Maybe it’s a world where he did say yes and somehow that worked out for him, maybe Lucifer left Kansas as a version of Eden where Sam gets to live in peace and pretend the world isn’t burning around him.

Maybe.

Honestly, Dean only thinks of it idly, because he doesn’t think it’s any of that. He hopes Sam’s okay, that he’s just lost and confused and pissed off and that no one is hurting his brother, but he doubts that this particular stunt is about getting Sam to say yes.

This is for him.

He’s tired.

God doesn’t care. Sammy – well, whatever Cas says, his brother’s idea of heaven is getting away from him. That the long, lonely walk from their piece of shit rental to the bus station, in the middle of the night after Dad and Sam had screamed themselves hoarse, had made it into Sam’s idea of heaven hurts more than having his heart carved out. Alistair had done it more than once and Dean remembers the sensation. He’d go through that again a dozen times if it meant that the day he lost his family for a second time wasn’t one of Sam’s happiest moments.

Maybe Cas is right. Maybe Sam does choose him always.

But that doesn’t mean he wants to.

Family, obligation, habit. It could be any of those that has Sam always crawling back to him and the idea of it makes him sick.

Even through all the bullshit of the past couple years, demons and demon blood and lies and freaking angels and Lucifer, Sam’s always been the top of Dean’s priorities, and Sam just wants to leave him. He doesn’t want him in hell, doesn’t want him dead, he wants Dean alone.

That’s worse.

Or not alone, but not with him. He wants Dean to have other people and another life that he’s not in. Normal, healthy, nothing Dean’s ever been able to wrap his head around. Back in that first year after Jessica, Sam had said there had to be something that Dean wanted for himself.

Dean had answered that he didn’t want Sam to leave.

Nothing’s changed for him, and he guesses nothing’s changed for Sam either, since all he wanted back then was to avenge Jessica and go back to school and leave the hunting world behind.

Leave Dean behind.

Taking Sam isn’t about him, it’s about Dean.

Dean’s tired. He wants this to be over. There’s no way out of it and the longer he denies Michael, the more people die. He’s running out of reasons to keep saying no and taking away Sam removes the biggest one. Despite everything, even knowing that Sam wants nothing to do with him, he can’t help it. He loves the kid. He wants to protect him. He needs Sam to be okay.

Sam’s stronger than he is, more stubborn, and he believes in a way that Dean never has. He’s not going to say yes no matter what they do to him.

Sam would never forgive him for saying yes to Michael. Worse than that, who knows what kind of trouble he’d get into on his own after, or what Michael would do to him in Dean’s skin to get him to say yes.

But if Sam’s not here –

He takes a deep, steadying breath. No. That’s not happening. Whoever took Sam miscalculated.

Dean can’t do anything until he knows that his little brother is safe. He won’t.

Sam’s more important to him than the apocalypse. Nothing about how Sam feels about him changes that.

Chapter Text

Dean wakes slowly, eyelids heavy and it takes him long, thick seconds to remember how to move his body, how to roll over and yawn and pry his eyes open.

Sam’s sitting up in bed on top of the covers, dressed with Dean’s laptop balanced on one thigh. He’s also staring, which isn’t creepy at all. He doesn’t even have the decency to act embarrassed about it or look away. Instead when Dean’s eyes meet his, he just pulls his mouth up on one side.

Dean groans. “Dude, what the hell? Please tell me you weren’t watching me sleep.”

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding it. “I haven’t seen you sleep that deeply in a while.”

He doesn’t usually. He’s always someplace unfamiliar with no one to guard his back and a litany of mistakes and fuck ups pressing down on him. He tries not to make a habit of it, but Sam hadn’t been far off about the shots of whiskey he takes just to get any shut eye. “Whatever. What are you doing?”

“Research,” Sam says, mercifully not commenting when Dean bangs his knee while stumbling to the bathroom.

It’s not until he’s pissed and splashed water on his face and gotten halfway through brushing his teeth that he thinks to stick his head out and ask, “Researching what?”

It comes out a little garbled around the toothbrush, but he figures Sam has a lifetime of understanding his mumblings. Sure enough, he doesn’t so much as pause. “Demon stuff.”

He turns to spit and rinse his mouth. “I thought you already did that and didn’t find anything. No sign of the demon, right?”

“Right,” Sam agrees. “No, yeah, I just – there were some things that I wanted to check.”

“Find anything?” he asks, even though he doesn’t know what that means. He spends almost a minute rifling around in his duffle for his green t-shirt before he realizes Sam’s wearing it. He makes a face, but it’s not worth arguing about.

Sam shrugs. “Nothing definitive.”

“No words with more than three syllables before lunch,” he says.

Sam snorts, but he’s smiling, and Dean does his best not to mirror it so they don’t look like a couple of idiots.

It’s later than he thought, nearly ten, and he winces when he checks his phone. Caleb had texted over an hour ago with a breakfast order for him and Bobby and a picture of Lenore’s fridge, which contains several gallons of dark liquid and nothing else. “Can vampires eat anything besides blood?”

“Physically, sure,” Sam says. “Mostly liquids or soft foods, though, and it doesn’t do much for them. Their digestive systems don’t work as well as ours. Plus their tastebuds are different, so it’s a toss up if any of it tastes good. Why?”

How does he know that? He really is a nerd. “You think Lenore’s vampires want breakfast? Or, I don’t know, coffee?”

Sam stares at him for a moment and then gives him such a soft look that Dean’s embarrassed for both of them. “Can’t hurt to ask.”

Dean types up the text at least partially so he has an excuse to look away from Sam and thankfully his face is back to normal when he looks up next. “Ready?”

He nods towards the door. “Dad’s waiting outside.”

“He’s what?” He looks out the window and sure enough, Dad’s leaning against the side of his truck and looking down at something, he thinks his phone. His truck hadn’t been in the parking lot when they got back last night, but now it’s parked next to the Impala. “How long has he been out there? Did he come by the room?”

“At least an hour,” Sam answers. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” Dean echoes, letting the curtain drop. “What’s that mean?”

“It’s a one syllable word that denotes an affirmative.” Dean looks around for something to throw at his brother and Sam laughs. “He knocked, I didn’t answer, he left. You were sleeping and I figured you wouldn’t appreciate being woken up by us shouting.”

No, but now they have to deal with Dad after he’s been kept waiting. He hates wasting time. “I thought you and Dad didn’t fight before coffee.”

“It’s more of a mutually beneficial guideline than a rule,” Sam says. Great. He closes the laptop and gets to his feet. “Ready?”

“What happens if I say no?” he asks. They’ve got to get going, but there’s a pit in his stomach that has nothing to do with hunger.

Sam tilts his head to the side. “I punch Dad out and we make a break for it? We’re both way too big to make it out the bathroom window.”

“Sammy,” he says, going for disapproving and not quite making it. He thinks that if he said it was what he wanted, Sam would really do it. Dad’s disappointment and anger always cuts deep, but the idea of it is a little easier to bear knowing that Sam’s on his side. “Alright, come on.”

His palms are sweating as they walk over to Dad. He looks rough enough that Dean assumes he broke into the emergency rotgut last night and there’s a bruise blooming along the edge of his jaw. Dean braces himself for anything as Dad straightens, watching them approach with a wariness that Dean almost doesn’t recognize on him. “Sammy.”

Sam crosses his arms and doesn’t say anything.

“Dean,” Dad swallows. He shifts his weight, almost restless with it. “Last night, I shouldn’t have – it’s not what I – I didn’t mean–”

“It’s okay, Dad,” Dean interrupts, tension bleeding out of him. “I get it.”

“It’s not okay,” Sam snaps. “You owe Dean a real apology.”

Dean shakes his head. “Sam, hey, it’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Sam and Dad say at the same time. Sam raises an eyebrow and Dad coughs, then continues, “Your brother’s right, Dean. You were so little that night. I remember – anyway. What happened to our Sam wasn’t your fault. You’re my sons. You’ll always be my responsibility.” He licks his lips. “I’m sorry.”

Dean honestly can’t remember the last time he got an apology from his father. And for this, of all things, the guilt and recrimination he’s carried inside of himself ever since his Dad told him that Sammy was gone, that his brother and Mom were together now. His eyes burn and he ignores it, repeating, “It’s okay.”

Dad offers him a tentative smile that he returns. It doesn’t change anything. No matter what Sam or Dad say, the truth is that if he’d carried his brother out of their burning home, then he’d still be alive. Dean will have to live with the knowledge that he could have saved his brother and didn’t for the rest of his life. But it does help that that Sam and Dad don’t blame him for it, even if they should. It’s a small bit of mercy that he can’t bring himself to reject.

“It wasn’t your fault either, Dad,” Sam says, the hard edge to his voice gone. “Sometimes bad things just happen and it’s nobody’s fault. You’ve been doing this long enough to know that.”

Dad lifts his hand towards Sam then lets it drop, looking away like that’ll hide anything on his face. “Losing you and your mother was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

It’s not anything that Dean doesn’t already know, but hearing Dad say it so plainly, especially sober, lands like a body blow. Of course Dean gets it. He was four years old when he had the worst day of his life. The only one likely to top it is when Dad dies and he’s left alone for good.

Sam steps forward and Dean flinches, expecting another fight, but he grabs their Dad into a hug. Dad is frozen and wide eyed only for a moment and then he’s returning it fiercely, crushing Sam against him. Sam hunches to fit under Dad’s arms just like he had for Dean and he says, small and raw, “I’ve missed you, Dad.”

“Me too,” Dad chokes. “I missed you too.”

Dean feels a grip a grip on his elbow and then Dad yanks him forward, getting an arm around his shoulders too as Sam grabs him around the waist. He thinks the last time Dad gave him a hug that was more than a quick squeeze and a clap on the back was when Dean was still shorter than him.

It hurts, knowing he’s going to lose this in three days, but that just makes him hold on all the tighter.

~

Bobby and Caleb are in a surprisingly good mood when they show up. The vampires Lenore left behind, Kim and William, seem genuinely grateful for the soy lattes, even if Dean had felt like a douchebag ordering them. Although Sam’s wasn’t much better. As if ordering a vanilla latte hadn’t been bad enough, he’d made Dean wait for him as he’d sprinkled cinnamon on top.

Sam had gotten tired of his bitching on the way over and shoved his cup in his face until Dean had taken it or risked running off the road. It was, admittedly, pretty good.

Caleb digs into his food without much more than a nod of greeting. Bobby’s looking at Dad, eyebrows raised, and then his gaze drops first to Dean’s coffee, then Sam’s. He doesn’t get it until he realized that he’s looking at their hands, not their coffees. He checks Sam’s hand without thinking about it. His knuckles aren’t swollen from what he can see. Of course, Bobby clocks it.

“How was your night?” Sam asks, only shrugging when Bobby looks at him expectantly. “Or, well, morning, really.”

Bobby’s lips curl. Of course he finds Sam punching Dad funny. “Apparently not as exciting as yours.”

Sam rolls his eyes and asks William, “Are vampires lactose intolerant?”

“What?” William asks, looking up from where he’d been starting at the floor. “Sorry, Gordon’s yelling.”

Dean doesn’t hear anything, but he supposes that’s the advantage of vampire senses. “You moved him to the basement?”

“He broke the bathroom door,” Caleb says, finally looking up now that half his food is gone.

“We’re not lactose intolerant,” Kim answers. She’s shorter and smaller than Lenore, so she wouldn’t be Dean’s first choice to leave behind to babysit a notorious vampire hunter, inhuman strength or no, but he supposes Lenore knows her people better than Dean does. “Animal products just taste wrong now.”

“Honey’s still good,” William adds. “Eggs are terrible. Man, I miss scrambled eggs. Steak. Hamburger.” Kim opens her mouth. “Veggie burgers aren’t even close and you know it. Even cheese tastes wrong. Blue cheese isn’t so bad.”

“I miss milkshakes,” Kim adds longingly.

Damn. Being forced into veganism might actually be worse than the whole having to live off blood thing. “What’s animal blood taste like?”

They wrinkle their noses at the same time. Kim answers, “Like it’s gone bad. Spoiled. A little rotten.”

He’s about to ask about how human blood tastes, because he’s curious and it’s not often he finds himself chatting with things he’d usually be hunting, but there’s a loud rumbling from outside. Bobby says, “He got here quick.”

The vampires share a glance and William says, “We’ll be downstairs while you talk to your friend.”

And probably keeping an ear out if it sounds like they’re going to double cross them. Dean can’t blame them.

Caleb crams half a slice of toast into his mouth. “Wouldn’t you have hurried if the roles were reversed?”

“I wouldn’t have believed him if the roles were reversed,” Bobby says.

The door slams open to reveal Rufus standing there with his arms crossed. “Who says I believe you? I’m just checking that your brain hasn’t gotten addled by some two bit wraith.”

“Thanks,” Bobby says dryly, giving Rufus a quick once over for injuries that’s almost automatic between hunters. “If it’s a hallucination, it’s one we’re all sharing.”

“As if that’s never happened before,” Rufus says, coming further inside. “Well, this must be serious, if you and John Winchester are in the same room without going into hysterics.”

Bobby rolls his eyes. “No one ever got into hysterics.”

“Uh huh,” Rufus says skeptically, jamming an elbow into Bobby’s side as he gives Dad an appraising glance. He taps the side of his own face and looks back to Bobby. “You give him that?”

“Ah, no,” Sam says sheepishly. “Guilty.”

Rufus’s gaze lands on Sam and he raises an eyebrow. “I thought you were the long lost son.”

“Do you really think being his son would make you want to punch him less?” Sam asks.

He grins, reaching out to give Sam a firm handshake. “Fair enough, boy. Bobby says you knew him in your world. You know me too?”

“Yes, sir,” he says. “Got any spare twizzlers?”

Bobby laughs while Caleb snorts into his coffee. Rufus’s grin goes down a notch, less manic and more genuine. He reaches inside his jacket to take out a half eaten packet of twizzlers. Sam takes two and passes one to Dean. “Alright, alright. Bobby, you didn’t feed him that, did you?”

“No need,” Bobby says. “He’s the real deal, Rufus, I’m not an idiot.”

Rufus gives him a look that says that assertion is up for debate and Bobby’s eyes narrow. Sam says, “Back home, Dean picked up the habit of keeping emergency candy around from you.”

“Never know when some sugar and carbs will come in handy,” Rufus says, which is true enough. Dean’s never bothered to keep anything but protein bars and water around, but maybe he should reassess. “So, I’m here to babysit Caleb?”

“Hey!” Caleb leans back in his chair. “We’re babysitting Gordon to make sure he doesn’t go on a murderous rampage.”

“But that’s his favorite kind,” Rufus says, sardonic, and Dean wonders if literally everyone but him had picked up on Gordon being a few cards short of a full deck. Or, well, it’s not like he hadn’t know that, really, but he’d thought he was a good guy in spite of it, just doing what he had to in order to get the job done. “Yeah, alright, whatever. We’ve got a little extra muscle, don’t we?”

“Two of them are downstairs eavesdropping,” Dad says. “You don’t have a problem with this, then? Letting go of a bunch of vampires and working with two of them?”

“I’ve worked with worse,” Rufus says. “I’ve worked with you.”

Dean feels himself tense, wanting to jump in, to defend Dad. It’s somehow worse than when Bobby does it. He barely knows Rufus. Sam knocks their shoulders together, distracting him, and murmurs, “Eat your twizzler.”

Whatever. He is starting to feel sort of stupid just standing there holding it.

“That wasn’t my fault,” Dad says, but it has the air of an old argument.

“Agree to disagree,” Rufus says before hollering, “How long are you planning to wait before introducing yourselves?”

Kim and William appear seconds later, politely shaking Rufus’s hand and thanking him for his help. They all hang out for another hour or so, but there’s not really anything for them to do. Sam claps Rufus on the shoulder and pulls Caleb in for a quick hug. Caleb’s surprised but returns it easily. Dean feels a pang in his chest when he sees the way the Sam is drinking in the sight of him. Right. Caleb’s dead in his world so this is the last time Sam is going see him.

Sam’s quiet when they’re back in the car. Dean tries to ignore it, but eventually he asks, “How did he die?”

“Demon,” Sam says, looking from the window to Dean. He’s doing the scanning thing again, although he doesn’t know who Sam thinks has eyes on them while they’re in a moving car.

“The demon?” he asks. Just how much had this asshole taken from them after Mom? “Azazel?”

He nods then shrugs. “His orders. There’s a demon, Meg, he called her his daughter but I think that may have been metaphorical or something. She killed Caleb. And Pastor Jim.”

“Why?” he presses.

Sam shifts in his seat and fiddles with the edges of shirt, which is actually Dean’s. “Because we had the Colt and he wanted it. He said if we didn’t hand it over, he’d go kill everyone who’d ever helped us one by one until we did.”

Jesus. “Is that why you don’t want Dad getting the gun? Because it will make him a target?”

“No,” Sam says, surprising him. “I mean, sure, it’ll make him a target if others know he has it because it’s a damn useful gun that people are willing to kill for, but no. Vampires aren’t anything to Azazel. The only reason we got it before him last time was that we were faster, but here it’s been years. If he wanted it, he’d have it.”

Dean doesn’t get it. “What, you think Luther and Kate are going to be a dead end because the demon already has it?”

“I hope not,” he says. It sounds like the truth, but Dean gets the impression that Sam’s not telling him something. Then again, considering the guy got dropped down into this universe a couple days ago, he figures there are lots of things he isn’t telling him.

They spend the next couple hours arguing about the merits of his tape collection. He can tell by the tone of Sam’s voice that everything he’s saying is something that he’s said before, but Dean doesn’t mind. It’s the first time for him and Sam seems to be enjoying himself, goading him into several rants that he’s pretty sure Sam could recite right along with him going by the amusement plain on his face. He wonders how many hours they’ve wasted just like this, blasting down some random highway together, shooting the shit over the same things so frequently that the argument just feels careworn. Every little joy of his life just that much better because it’s something he shares with Sam rather than being forced to savor it alone.

They’re a couple hours from Bobby’s when they stop for dinner, the sun just starting to set. Sam had called both Dad and Bobby to let them know what they were doing and they stop off with them rather than continuing on and just letting them catch up. Probably to avoid being left alone together more than anything else.

Sam brings them to some Mom and Pop stand with outside seating that he says Dean loves, although Dean thinks he picked it because of the smoothie he orders that’s the size of his head. He and Sam are sitting too close again, which he only really notices because they’re sitting the opposite of Bobby and Dad, who have a good foot of space between them. Sam prompts Bobby into talking about some of his hunts with Rufus, claiming he wants to know if there are any differences. Bobby tries to brush it off, but Samy says, “Aw, come on, it’s been forever since we’ve had story time.”

Or never, for them, but Bobby’s face softens before he gives a huge, exaggerated sigh and dives in to the last rugaru case they’d worked together and how it had gone pear shaped about two seconds into Rufus opening his mouth. Dean’s certain that if Rufus was here, he’d have some corrections to the version Bobby’s telling, and imagining it is almost as entertaining than the story itself.

Even Dad is smiling by the time they make it back to their cars, the sun having sunk below the horizon but the fading light sticking stubbornly around. They’re in the parking lot, about to all go their separate ways, when Sam pauses and says, “Do you hear that?”

The all still, straining their ears, and it takes a second of tuning out the distant voices and buzzing insects to hear what Sam must have – a faint, terrified whimper. He guesses Sam’s hypervigilance is good for something.

They share concerned glances and creep forward. Dad and Bobby reach for their guns but Dean holds off. Sam is still stalking forward softly, none of his steps making a sound, which is pretty impressive considering the size of him. They trace the sound to a girl crying on the pavement seated between two cars, knees pulled to her chest and head lowered. She doesn’t look like she’s bleeding and there doesn’t appear to be any monsters chasing after her, but then they’re sort of at a loss. Someone should check on her, but frankly they’re all kind of intimidating and there’s a decent chance they’ll just freak her out more. He’s about to nominate Bobby on the basis that the beard makes him less intimidating when Sam nudges him in the side and says, “Go on, you’re the one that’s good with kids.”

“I am?” he says dubiously. He barely knew how to talk to kids when he was one. The only one that comes to mind is a shell shocked teenager he’d talked to at this haunted hotel forever ago. He thought he’d done a pretty good job of talking the kid off the edge of whatever unfortunate thing he’d seen. He’d been proud of it even as it made him feel vaguely guilty. At the time, he’d thought that it was how he’d talk to Sammy if he’d come to him all freaked out, if Sammy had been around, and then felt terrible for trying to replace his little brother even for the length of a conversation.

So, no, he wouldn’t say that he’s especially good with kids. But Sam seems genuinely surprised at that, as if he’d thought it was some sort of innate skill rather than something his Dean had obviously picked up after a lifetime with a little brother. The moment is threatening to turn awkward, so he hits Sam on the back before approaching the girl. He makes sure to walk heavier so she can hear him coming and he squats down in front of her, a good arms length away, which he hopes isn’t too close. He seriously doesn’t know what he’s doing. He should have sent Sam with his big puppy dog eyes here over instead. He clears his throat, “Uh, are you okay?” He thinks she’s a teenager, but possibly not, and he’s not sure if that’s old enough for it to be okay that she’s on her own at night. “Look, are you hurt? Do you need help?”

She’s gone silent, no more whimpering, which he thinks is a good sign. She slowly lifts her head and he pastes on a smile that he hopes is reassuring, but it ends up being a wasted effort.

Her eyes are black.

“Oh, shit,” he says, attempting to scramble back, but she’s too quick for him.

“Stupid,” she hisses, shoving him to his knees. “You’re not getting away this time.”

What the hell does she mean by this time? He’s never seen her before!

She has an unnatural strength that’s keeping him down. He tries to slip from her grasp, but she places a skinny arm around his throat and presses until he can’t get any air. None of the blows he lands seem to do anything and he can’t budge her so much as inch. “I’m going to make this slow and I’m going to make your daddy watch. Maybe he’ll learn his lesson this way.”

Is this about the Colt? They don’t even have the damn thing! He tries to pry her arm off his throat, but it’s like she’s poured out of concrete.

Dad and Bobby are pressing closer, chanting an exorcism in unison, which is pretty cool. If he survives this, he’ll be sure to tell them that.

“You think that’ll work before he dies?” she sneers. “I’ll just snap his neck then. But perhaps you’d consider that a mercy against a sweet, slow suffocation.”

Bobby and Dad are furious and worried and Sam –

Where’s Sam?

“Enough.”

Sam’s voice comes from right behind them and he feels the girl go rigid against him. He must have snuck around the cars while she was distracted by the exorcism. She twists him around, her arm on his throat all that keeps him from toppling over from having to awkwardly attempt to turn on his knees.

“No,” she says. She’s shaking. Dean looks at Sam, still struggling to breathe, and he doesn’t know what about his little brother could be scaring her. Sure, he makes a decent picture, shoulders back and lips sneering, but he’s not even armed, not that it would do much good against a demon.

“Let my brother go,” Sam orders.

Her arm gets impossibly tighter against his windpipe. “How did you–”

Sam lifts his hand and she chokes. His palm and fingers are flat, except for his thumb which is bent at the knuckle and pressed into his palm. Her grip loosens and he scrambles away from her, gasping in fresh air, and lands too hard against the side of some minivan. The alarm starts blaring, repetitive and too loud and Dean just needs fifteen seconds to himself to try and wrap his head around what’s happening.

The girl runs towards Sam, hands out for his neck, but stops a step away from him, swaying. She leans over, hacking like a cat trying to upchuck a hairball, but what comes out of her mouth is thick, greasy smoke. It crackles and lights up like a flame being set to steel wool, writhing around in something that Dean is able to read as pain. Then it’s gone, nothing more than a dark smudge on the ground.

What the hell?

The girl sways, eyes wide, and Sam drops the weird way he’d been holding out his hand to grab her elbow to steady her. Dean’s shocked she’s still alive after being possessed. People usually aren’t.

“Deep breath,” Sam orders, but Dean can hear the shaking underneath. Is Sam hurt? The demon didn’t even touch him.

She didn’t touch him and he didn’t touch her and the demon is still gone somehow, no words of power to send her back to hell, no holy water, just Sam standing there and holding out a hand had crushed the demon to dust. Is it dead? Did Sam just kill a demon? He thought only the Colt could do that.

How can Sam have killed a demon? Nothing can do that. Not witches, not hoodoo, not priests of any religion he knows. His brother is smart enough to figure out how to send himself back to another universe, maybe he could have figured out some ritual or spell that would do it, except this wasn’t either.

The girl moans, “I don’t feel so good,” and Dean guiltily remembers how he’d hit her when trying to break free. She grips Sam’s arm to keep herself upright then tips forward to press her head to his chest.

“It’s okay, you’re okay, let’s go find your parents, alright?” Sam says, and for someone who’s not good with kids, his voice is kind and his touch gentle and she seems to have no problem letting him steer her away.

Dean tries to push himself upright to follow them, but Bobby’s hand under his elbow is all that stops him from falling over again. His throat is sore and he’s still trying to get enough air and his head on straight. Then there’s a man yelling, asking what the hell they’re doing to his car, and he hears Dad making apologies, charming like he always is when he’s trying to smooth things over. He says his son had a few too many and tripped, that’s all. Dean doesn’t think drunk and choked out look all that similar, but the guy seems to buy it. He laughs it off, taking out his keys, and finally the damn alarm stops wailing in his ears.

The sudden silence is almost as oppressive. He manages to stand without help, but Bobby’s face is pale and Dad isn’t looking at either of them. Dean wants to blame what he’d seen on some sort of oxygen deprivation induced hallucination, but that’s a little hard when they clearly saw it too. “What the hell just happened?”

“He didn’t react to the exorcism,” Bobby says.

It takes Dean a moment to figure out what he’s saying and when he does, he wants to hit something. “Of course he didn’t! Sam’s not a demon.”

“Well, then what is he?” Bobby asks, and it should be rhetorical, but he’s looking at Dad, who’s still facing away from both of them.

“He’s not anything,” Dean insists, ignoring the way his heart beat picks up like he’s lying. He’s not. Sam is Dean’s little brother and that’s it.

Dad’s mouth twists and Dean’s stomach drops.

“John,” Bobby says, voice heavy.  

He still doesn’t say anything. Dean pleads, “Dad,” and when his voice breaks in the middle, he blames it on his throat.

“There were other families than ours targeted,” he says finally. “Ones who also had children who were exactly six months old.”

“And?” he says, because Dad told him this before.

Dad rubs a hand over his mouth, something cagey about his eyes. It takes him too long to continue, Dean feeling like he’s standing on the edge of something terrible. “Not all of them ended in flames. Some parents saw what was happening and just… left.”

“What was happening?” Bobby asks. He has to feel as impatient as Dean for Dad to get to the point, but he can’t hear any of it in his voice.

“The demon bled in their mouths,” he says. Dean flinches. “Some developed psychic abilities later. I don’t know if they were born with them, if that’s why they were targeted, or if it was the demon blood. But Sammy had – I thought it was Mary’s,” he says, running his arm angrily over his eyes, like that will hide the tears he’d had to wipe away. “There was blood on his forehead, and that was hers, but there was some on his lips too. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But after,” he stops.

Dean feels like he’s going to be sick. It hadn’t been enough for that bastard to kill Mom, for it sneak into their house and ruin their lives, it had also bled in his baby brother’s mouth.

“Demon blood is corrosive,” Bobby says. “No way a baby survives that. Adults don’t survive it.”

For a fraction of a second, he wonders if that what killed this world’s Sammy, but of course not. It must have happened to Sam too and he’s still alive. His Sammy’s dead because Dean didn’t carry him out and that’s it.

“You think I don’t know that?” Dad snaps. “I don’t know, Singer, it’s what happened. I don’t know what drinking demon blood turns someone into because no one else had goddamn done it.”

“What about the other kids?” Bobby asks. “What happened to them?”

“One killed his father and uncle and disappeared,” Dad says. Jesus. “The rest seem normal enough. I don’t know if their abilities left or they just got better at hiding them, but there haven’t been any mysterious deaths around them at least.”

Bobby crosses his arms. “I’ve never met a psychic who can kill a demon, Winchester.”

“I don’t know,” Dad grinds out. “What the hell do you want from me? I don’t know what he is!”

“Stop,” Dean says. They both turn to him like they’d forgotten he was there. “Stop it. So he killed a demon. It’s not like that’s a bad thing.”

“It’s not what he did, it’s how he did it,” Dad says. “I’d been hoping that – but I guess not. It’s not natural, Dean.”

Bobby sighs. “Samuel Colt had to harness the power of Halley’s Comet along with a good dose of witchcraft and alchemy to make something capable of killing a demon. Sam just did it with nothing.”

“And?” Dean snaps, heart crawling up his throat. “What are you going to do about it?”

That’s the real question, the real reason fear is pulsing up his spine, even though it should probably be because of what he just saw Sam do. They go after witches and the occasional psychic and any other humans who dabbles with things they shouldn’t and get the people around them hurt. If Sam has a power strong enough to kill demons, it’s probably not all that he can do, if a demon slipped blood between his lips, it probably didn’t just get eaten up by stomach acid. If Dean had seen someone else do what Sam just did, he wouldn’t just let it go and move on. He’d look into it. He’d try and figure out what he was and what else he could do and if it was hurting anyone or likely to.

He'd hunt him.

Dad and Bobby don’t say anything.

This is bullshit. They know Sam.

“What, a hundred vampires get a pass, but my brother doesn’t?” he snaps. Maybe he’s not being fair. He should be wary, he should be freaked out, and he is, but Sam’s not a monster. “He didn’t react to the exorcism. Bobby’s place has salt lines and devil’s traps and who knows what else and Sam didn’t have any problem there. We’ve seen him touch silver. Hell, we’ve seen him cut himself with silver, and nothing. But my brother saves my life and he deserves to die for it?”

“No one’s saying that,” Bobby says. Dad looks away and Dean can’t believe this. He’d been horrified when Gordon admitted to killing his sister, to using her love for him to get close enough to cut off her head and what, now they want to do the same thing to Sam? Over his dead body. “Let’s just talk to him and figure out what’s going on.”

Unease prickles over Dean’s skin. Where’s Sam? How long does it take to find someone to drop the girl off with? And if they really think Sam is dangerous, it’s pretty fucked up of them to have just let him walk away with the girl.

He turns without a word, scanning the dark parking lot for Sam and comes up empty. He heads off in the same direction he had, ignoring Dad and Bobby following him. It doesn’t take long to find the girl being hugged and comforted by someone who he thinks is her mother, her eyes frantic and bewildered as she rubs up and down the girl’s back. There’s still no sign of Sam.

“I’m sorry,” he interrupts. The mother takes a step away from him and he doesn’t take offense. He’s rattled and not doing much to hide it. “Where’s the guy who was with you?”

The girl peeks out from her mother’s embrace, eyes and face red and exhausted and a fear there that he doesn’t think is going to disappear anytime soon. She sniffs but points towards the road in the opposite direction of the parking lot. “He went that way.”

“Thanks,” he says, distracted, and jumps when she reaches out to grab his wrist.

She lets go, shamefaced, and he means to reassure her but she says, “Sorry about,” and gestures to her own throat.

“It’s okay,” he says. Damn, she was aware for that? “It wasn’t your fault. Sorry about, uh, you know.” He doesn’t finish because he doesn’t think Mom is going to be too thrilled to hear he hit her daughter. He hopes the bruises don’t last long.

She smiles at him tentatively. “Will you thank him for me? He saved me.”

“Yeah,” he says softly, hoping that this is hitting Dad as hard as it’s hitting him. Exorcisms usually leave behind a corpse, but Sammy had saved her. How can that be bad? Would it really be better for her and Dean to have died than for Sam to be a little different? “I will.”

She nods and curls into her mother again, who’s starting to look seriously freaked out about all of this.

Dean makes himself scarce before she starts asking questions, heading back towards the car because going after Sam on foot is tempting but probably a bad idea. He’s got a head start and those freakishly long legs. He stops abruptly, turning to face Dad and Bobby. “Go to Bobby’s. I’ll find Sam.”

“Maybe that’s not a great idea,” Dad says. “He has to know that running makes him look guilty.”

“Guilty of what?” he demands. “Existing?” For fuck’s sake. “He ran because the first thing you did was accuse him of being a demon and he’s not an idiot. I’ll find Sam and I’ll talk to him and then we’ll meet you back at Bobby’s.”

“What if,” Bobby starts then stops. At least he looks conflicted about it.

He’d slept mere feet away from Sam just last night, completely defenseless. If Sam wanted to hurt him, he would have. This is a pointless conversation. “I’ll call you when we’re on our way.”

This time when he walks away, they don’t follow him.

~

Dean leaves the stupid middle of nowhere town because he’s sick of it and there’s nothing there that’s going to help Sam. He’s not being held by some ghost or psychopath, he’s in a whole different universe, and if Dean sits on his ass any longer he’s going to break something.

Breathing in a world without his brother hasn’t gotten any easier since Cold Oak. At least he’d had eyes on him then.

He heads in the vague direction of Bobby’s without any real intention of ending up there. The new crisis has wiped away the lingering resentment and wariness from Bobby being forced to kill his wife again because of them, compartmentalized and put away like every other cruel, unfair thing they’re forced to endure, but that doesn’t mean Dean wants to press his luck. Besides, Bobby’s working on getting Sam back. He doesn’t need Dean underfoot, looking over his shoulder and demanding updates every ten minutes.

He's been driving for who knows how long and his eyes are gritty and his ass is numb. He pulls off at the next exit and finds a well lit parking lot to spend the night in. He could get a motel, probably should, but it feels like a waste of money when he really doesn’t feel like going out and hustling pool to replenish his wallet. Besides, if he has to fall asleep and wake up to Sam’s empty bed one more time, he seriously can’t be held responsible for his actions. He could get a single, of course, except he dismisses the idea as soon as he has it. That’s even worse. It would be like saying he doesn’t expect Sam to come back.

The only time he’d ever gotten a single had been while Sam was at Stanford. He’d tried to enjoy it and the sight of it had pissed him off every time. It was just another sign that he was alone and he really doesn’t need the reminder just then.

He’s tired enough that he doesn’t bother pulling a pillow or blanket out of the trunk. It’s not like it’s cold. He leaves the window cracked and uses his jacket as a pillow, bending his knees to fit in the front seat. He’s spent a lifetime sleeping in this car, but it’s still a wonder to him how Sam manages to twist himself to fit when he’s got a good four inches on Dean. He tries not to remember how difficult it had been to get Sam’s body into the back seat after Cold Oak when he wouldn’t let Bobby touch him. He’d held Sam the entire time to the cabin, trying to convince himself that it was just like when they were kids, Sam falling asleep on top of him in a messy sprawl of limbs while Dean resigned himself to being drooled on and kicked.

Except it had been nothing like that and the memory has him shivering even though it’s warm enough that the car is almost stuffy. Sleep comes as a relief.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, he’s pulled out of a restless sleep by his phone ringing. He doesn’t bother check who it is before answering, letting out a sleep gruff, “What?”

“Tell me your location,” Cas says.

“Hello to you too,” he grumbles, pushing himself up and outside in search of a street sign and then rattling it off.

Cas appears in front of him almost as soon as he’s finished speaking, phone still held to his ear, although he drops it as soon as he sees Dean. “I am unable to locate Sam.”

“At all?” he demands, heartbeat suddenly going double time. They have to find him so they can bring him home. His brother can’t just be lost forever or until the angels feel like bringing him back, because that’s probably the same thing. They need to find him.

“Searching other universes is difficult,” Cas says. “It must be done though several different dimensional layers. The scrying spell is not strong enough to withstand it. However,” he continues before Dean absolutely loses it, “there is one thing that I believe may be able to sort through the vast array of universes to locate our Sam.”

Jesus, couldn’t Cas have led with that? Giving him a heart attack for no damn reason. “Okay, great, what is it?”

Cas hesitates, which isn’t a great sign. “The energy of every world is distinct as is the energy of every individual within it. To find Sam, I need something that is both of this world and uniquely Sam’s. His blood is not enough.”

Dean frowns, not getting whatever it is Cas is trying to get at. Dad had salted and burned their baby teeth so they couldn’t be used in any spells. He’s probably got some of Sam’s hair on his comb or clothes or something, but that’s not as powerful a link as his blood, so it won’t do any good.

The moment stretches out until Cas sighs. “You and Sam share a heaven, Dean. You’re soulmates.” He stares. Sure, Ash had said that, but there had been so much other shit going on that he hadn’t really thought about it. Besides, after seeing Sam’s heaven, it had seemed like bullshit. How can he be Sam’s soulmate if his brother doesn’t even want to be around him? “You and your brother’s souls exist on the same frequency, so to speak. I can use your soul to find Sam’s.”

It’s probably pretty messed up that he doesn’t even hesitate. This kind of shit is probably why Sam’s so desperate to get away from him, but it’s not like Dean hasn’t given up his soul for Sammy before. “Okay, fine. Are you going to kill me or something?”

Cas is thinking he’s an idiot again. “No, your death would not be productive at this time. I only need to touch your soul in order to use it. I believe I can find Sam this way and follow the link to the world that he’s currently in, but I’ll have to take you with me.”

“Great,” he says, so relieved he’s nearly dizzy with it. Finally, something he can do. “Awesome, no problem.”

“There is a problem,” Cas says, frustrated. “Moving physically into another world requires an immense amount power. Even more if I’m to bring you along with me in one piece. I’ll be depleted after and I’ll need time to recuperate. Whatever world we find ourselves in and its accompanying difficulties, you’ll have to navigate on your own until my grace recovers.”

“That’s fine,” he says, almost jittery with adrenaline. He’ll find Sam on his own, no angel mojo needed. He always finds Sam. “I’ll handle it, Cas, don’t worry about it.”  

He doesn’t seem especially reassured. Whatever. “Souls aren’t meant to be touched, Dean, and I won’t be able to be quick about it. This will be incredibly painful.”

Like that’s supposed to stop him?

“Bring it.” He was tortured in hell for thirty years. Pain doesn’t scare him.

Losing Sam scares him.

Chapter Text

He can’t find Sam.

It’s been hours and he’s at his wit’s end. This town isn’t that big, thank god, but he feels like he’s gone through every store and public building here and he hasn’t found shit. It’s late enough now that most of everything is closed. If Sam boosted a car or caught a bus then he’s screwed, but it’s not like he has anywhere to go. His calls are going straight to voicemail and he leaves one, telling Sam that it’s okay and to call him back, and he hopes that if Sam has left then that’ll at least be enough to get him to call Dean back when he turns his phone back on again.

He does another loop through anything that’s still open out of desperation. At this point he’s not expecting it to do any good, but he’s midway through a description of his brother when the clerk at the liquor store perks up and says, “Oh, yeah, I remember him. The guy’s huge. Long hair. I mean, you know, for a guy.”

“Yeah,” he says, almost dizzy with relief. “When was he here? Did you see where he went?”

“A few hours ago?” he says, which isn’t great, but at least means he didn’t turn tail and run to who knows where from the parking lot. “He crossed over into the park.” Dean looks out the window and sure enough, there’s a park just across the street. The clerk clears his throat and he turns back to him. “Is he okay? He was nice enough, but he seemed upset.”

His chest clenches. “Yeah, he’ll be alright. Thanks.”

The guy nods, uncertain, and Dean gives him a quick smile before crossing the street towards the park. It’s dark enough that a flashlight wouldn’t be a terrible idea, but enough light is spilling in from the streetlamps that he doesn’t bother. He considers calling out for him, but ends up just keeping his eyes peeled. Whatever Sam’s thinking that led to him bolting, he doesn’t want him trying it again before he has a chance to talk to him.

He almost misses him.

Sam’s slumped at the base of huge oak, head back against a trunk that’s broader than his shoulders. He’s got one leg splayed out and the other bent, his arm resting on his knee and a half drunk bottle of Jack dangling from his fingers. Dean feels something in him abruptly settle at the sight of his little brother safe. It’s definitely going to fuck him up when a few days from now anything could be happening to Sam and he’ll never know.

He walks closer, trying to figure out what to say, and Sam must hear the footsteps because he tilts his head down enough to see him. He goes eerily still in a way that reminds him uncomfortably of prey. He opens his mouth to say literally anything that will break this strange tension, but Sam says, “You don’t have to kill me.”

Dean pauses a foot from his brother in bewilderment. “What?”

“I’m leaving in a couple days,” Sam says to his knees. The only sign of how much he’s drank is the slight drag on his words. “I can find the stuff for the ritual on my own, okay, you don’t need to – you can just leave me and I’ll be gone, okay?”

“Sam,” he says quietly.

“If you kill me here, it won’t even be for good,” he continues. “It just means the angels won’t have to worry about me making my way back on my own and I’ll be playing right into their hands. They’ll just revive me when they want me so killing me really won’t do anything but help them.”

He seriously needs Sam to shut up. He drops down in front of him, trying to look him in the eye. He only gets a glance of red, swollen eyes before Sam turns his head away from him. He reaches out and grabs Sam’s knee, trying not to feel anything about the way he flinches. Sam’s been the one reaching out to him, touching him, getting all in his space from the beginning. He guesses it’s his turn. “I’m not going to kill you, Jesus, what the hell? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Sam sniffs. “I’m not hurting anyone. I promise, okay? I know you don’t have any reason to trust me, but–”

“I trust you,” Dean interrupts. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Okay, so maybe Sam should have mentioned the powers, but it only came up because they were attacked by an actual, literal demon. He’s pretty sure Sam intended to slip back to his world without using them. It does cast the argument he’d had with Dad that first day at Bobby’s in a different light, all that stuff he’d said about the cost of killing demons and the price that had to be paid. Dean wishes he could remember specifics, but it had been hard to make any sense of what he and Dad had been talking about without any context.

This close, he can see Sam trembling. He doesn’t answer and takes a long swig of the whiskey.

“Sammy,” he says gently. “Will you look at me? Please?”

He shakes his head, stubbornly closing his eyes.

Dean takes the bottle from Sam and he lets him. He considers taking a sip himself, because he really feels like he needs it, but figures at least one of them should be sober for this conversation. He sets it aside. “Why not?”

“I don’t want to see it again,” he says quietly. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it.”

“No one is killing you,” he says. “What don’t you want to see? It’s just me here, Sammy.”

Sam bends over until his forehead is pressed into his knee, making himself look impossible small for someone so large. “You don’t have to do this. It’s okay. I know I’m a monster and a freak and a,” he can’t continue, letting out a choked gasp. It reminds Dean of how Sammy had sounded after the fire, when there was too much smoke in his lungs and not enough air. “I get it. But I don’t need to see it on your face, okay? Not again.”

Dean stares, heart pounding in his chest. What the hell had his other self said to Sam? Why had he said it? Could it be possible that Sam really is – no. He refuses to believe it. “Look at me.”

“No,” he says weakly. “I don’t want to. If you yell at me or hit me, that’s alright, but don’t make me see it again. Not on you. You’re not supposed to hate me like he does.”

Why the hell would yelling at him or hitting him be alright? For what? Unless he’s gotten up to something nefarious in the past few hours, which Dean doubts, then there’s nothing. Sam’s been by his side pretty much constantly since he arrived in this world.

Dean cups his hand against Sam’s face and feels the wetness there. He doesn’t know how to do this, not really, but Sam’s crying so he guesses it’s time for him to figure it out. He tilts Sam’s face up and he allows it, but his eyes are still closed. It doesn’t do anything to stop the tears from leaking out. He always hated it when Sammy cried. “I don’t hate you. Look at me, Sammy.”

Sam’s lips tremble but he finally, slowly opens his eyes.

Dean makes sure he’s smiling, that there’s nothing there for Sam to interpret as hatred or anything close to it.

It seems to have the opposite effect he was hoping for and fresh tears well up in Sam’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he asks, trying to keep his voice even and not incredulous. “For saving me? For saving the girl? She asked me to thank you.”

He shakes his head and whispers, “For being a freak. You wanted to get to know your brother, you shouldn’t have to deal with,” and he stops, cutting himself off from saying god knows what. Dean’s fucking had it. Either these were powers that his brother was born with or he got them because the demon that killed Mom bled in his mouth as a baby. Neither of those are Sam’s fault and neither of them make his brother a freak.

“Stop that,” he orders. “Sam, don’t, that’s not.” He doesn’t know what to say, and whatever, words aren’t really his thing, they're Sam’s. He shifts his grip to the back of Sam’s neck and pulls him forward, wrapping his other arm around his shoulders. This time Sam falls into him just right from the get go, face pressed into his shoulder and fitting against him. “Don’t say that. You’re my little brother.”

He's shaking against him and Dean can feel the tears soaking into his shirt, but he’s not making any sounds. The silent crying is somehow so much worse. “There are things you don’t know.”

“So tell me,” he says before looking around the deserted park and grimacing. They’re just asking to get arrested. “But not here. Come on, on your feet, let’s find a motel for the night.”

Sam’s not in any shape to face Dad and Bobby right now.

He stands, taking Sam with him, and grabs the bottle on the way up. Something tells him they’re going to need it. He squeezes Sam’s shoulders again, then gently steps back. Sam’s a mess and he’s back to not looking at Dean, but he follows easily enough when Dean tugs onto his arm and leads them to the Impala. Sam looks out the window, twisting away from Dean and keeping as much space between them as possible, which stings, but he doesn’t call him on it. He’s in the car and twenty minutes ago he could have been anywhere, in any condition, and Dean wouldn’t have known it.

They pull into the parking lot of the nearest motel and Dean hesitates to leave Sam here in case he gets cold feet and books it again, but he also doesn’t want anyone else seeing his brother this out of sorts. He claps a hand on Sam’s leg, ignoring the way he jumps at the touch. “I’ll be right back.”

He gets out without waiting for a reply, grabbing a room with a speed that usually means someone is bleeding, and then he’s back outside. Sam hasn’t moved a muscle. He parks in front of their room and walks around to Sam’s side to open the door when he doesn’t move to do it himself. He holds out a hand, just like Sam had to him when he’s wanted to be pulled up off the couch. Sam stares at it for so long that Dean feels heat on the back of his neck and considers dropping it out of embarrassment, but then Sam grabs it and lets Dean pull him out and onto his feet.

He's wobblier than he was before, probably all the alcohol finally hitting, and Dean pulls Sam’s arm over his shoulder and settles an arm around his waist to make sure he doesn’t take a nosedive into the concrete. He’s pretty sure bleeding won’t improve the situation.

There are lots of things about the current situation that should be freaking him out, but the thing that’s really setting him on edge is how docile Sam’s being. He’s spent days collecting words that describe his brother – nerd, giant, genius – but docile or anything like it hasn’t been among them. It could be just the alcohol.  

He doesn’t think it is.

Dean lowers Sam down on the edge of the bed farthest from the door and he immediately stretches out on it, turning on his stomach away from Dean and grabbing onto a pillow. Dean sits at the head of the bed, swinging up his legs so they’re pressed against Sam’s side. He only hesitates a moment before letting his hand drop heavily into Sam’s hair. It feels weird to be the one initiating all the contact, but if it reassures Sam that Dean doesn’t hate him or think he’s a freak and that he’s not about to freaking kill him, then he can’t make himself hold back. “Is this what we’re fighting about?”

Sam’s quiet for so long that Dean starts to wonder if he’s fallen asleep before he says, “Kind of.”

Which doesn’t tell him anything, but at least isn’t another instance of it’s complicated. “I’m going to need you to get a little more specific for me here, Sammy.”

Sam’s whole body shudders and he pulls the pillow tighter against him. His voice is low when he says, “I drank demon blood.”

“As a baby?” he asks and feels Sam jerk against him in surprise. “Yeah, Dad told me. That’s not your fault, Sam.” 

“I did it again,” he says, which woah, okay, he hadn’t been expecting that. “I needed to get strong quickly and that’s what it did.”

“Bobby said it was corrosive and that it would kill you,” he says, even though Sam’s obviously fine.

“Other people,” Sam says, still turned away from him, still with that slight slur to his words. Dean would feel bad about taking advantage except he really needs some answers here. “Not me. Never me. I’m made for it.”

“Okay,” he says slowly. Gross, obviously, but they’re fighting the apocalypse and if there are so many demons running around that Sam can’t even count how many they’ve faced, being able to kill them is probably pretty damn useful. “Were you hurting people?”

He only gets silence in return, but if anything that just makes him more sure of himself. Sam had admitted to being a monster and a freak and drinking demon blood with barely a hesitation.  

“Sammy?” he prompts.

“There was a nurse,” he whispers. “We were all after this demon, Lilith, who was going to kick off the next stage of the apocalypse and we were told that if we killed her, it would stop the apocalypse for good, and I’d been after her before that anyway. I was working with a demon to find Lilith and she’s the one who gave me blood. But I needed more to kill Lilith. The nurse was possessed and she was feeding Lilith so we used her to find Lilith’s location. I drained her.”

There’s an instinctual disgust and horror to hearing that, but he pushes it aside. Sam’s only been telling him select bits of truth since he arrived and hadn’t hid that he was doing it. There’s no reason to think he’s not doing the same thing now. “Feeding Lilith how?”

“Babies,” he says, sounding sadder than he had before, a grief there that’s for all the kids this demon apparently freaking ate. It settles the rolling in his gut. “Something about the potential energy of new life. I don’t know.”

He wonders if that’s why Azazel went after kids that were exactly six months old, but he doesn’t want to get derailed by asking. “Well, I don’t exactly feel that bad for the baby stealing demon dying.”

Sam shakes his head. “Being possessed, you only see what the demon wants you to and you’re only in control of when the demon wants you to be in control. The demon retreated. The nurse begged me for her life, for me to let her go, but I had Ruby kill her instead and I drank her blood.”

He assumes Ruby is the name of the demon Sam was working with. It’s easier to ignore his discomfort than it was before, because he’s sure there’s more to it. Or maybe he’s wrong and there’s not and he’ll have to deal with that, somehow, but worse case he just does as Sam wants and leaves him to get back to universe on his own. He doesn’t think it’s going to come to that, though. “You know, Jim told me once that exorcisms are a hail Mary. That almost no one survives the aftermath for long. But that girl back there seemed to be just fine.”

Sam’s head twitches under his hand, obviously wanting to look at him due to the change of subject, but since that’s the literal thing he’s avoiding by being curled away from him, he doesn’t. His voice eases into something that’s more lecture than recrimination. “Yeah. Demons don’t really bother taking care of their vessels and exorcisms themselves are fairly traumatic on the body. Plus most demons will kill the host while being exorcised out of spite, inducing a heart attack or internal bleeding or whatever. They also don’t do much good when the doors of hell are open.”

Okay, this nurse thing is obviously very important, and Dean’s going to get right back to it, but first. “What?”

“We closed the Devil’s Gate in the cemetery, but once Lilith took charge of hell, she let out whoever she wanted, including demons that had been stuck down there for centuries,” he says. “Exorcising a demon back to hell doesn’t do much good when they’re topside again by the end of the week. Unless you’re putting them back into a really specific part of hell that she doesn’t have control over.”

“What exorcism puts a demon back into a specific part of hell?” he asks. He’s never had to deal with demons, but he’s done his reading. That’s not anything he’s ever come across.

Sam’s shoulders hunch. “Uh, there’s isn’t one. But I, I mean, before I could kill them, I could do that.”

“So all these demons that you and other me and whoever else faced would just pop up again a week later if you didn’t take care of them?” he asks. Sam using his powers is making more and more sense.

Except he shakes his head. “We have this knife, it’s enchanted, and really old. It can kill a demon. Once demons stopped staying in hell, we started using that instead.”

Right, obviously, because demons are of course unkillable except by a certain gun, a certain knife, and a certain little brother. “And the hosts survive that?”

“No,” Sam says, sounding sad again. “It’s like the Colt. It only works with a killing blow.”

Wait, what? “So you kill the hosts all the time then?”

He curls a little more into himself. “We didn’t want to. But the people they were possessing were dying anyway and when they came back, it was to possess someone else, and usually hurt and kill a lot more people, and then that host would die, and it just – we didn’t like it, but there was a war, and we thought this kept the death toll lower than if we didn’t–”

“Sam, relax, I get it,” he interrupts. Awful lot of we in there. So when it’s something his Dean did, it’s all excuses and justifications, but when it’s something he does on his own, it’s all blame. Besides, he really does get it. Killing one to save the many can sometimes be an unfortunate part of the job and it sounds like that’s legitimately what they were doing, even if it sucked. “But then what’s the difference between that and killing the nurse?”

“Cindy,” he says, slurred voice turning miserable and dangerously close to tears. “Her name was Cindy McKellen. And I could have killed the demon like I did with the girl earlier. I’m able to control the, uh, the essence of them, sort of. I can take them out gently and make sure they don’t hurt their vessels on the way out when I’m exorcising or killing them. The girl earlier had only been possessed for an hour at most, the demon hadn’t had time to hurt her.”

So more of using his powers then. Which he apparently needs demon blood to be strong enough to use. “How long had Cindy been possessed?”

He shrugs. “Not sure. A month, I think, based on some news articles, maybe two, but maybe less. I didn’t ask.”

“So even if you did kill the demon, there’s a chance she would have died anyway?” he points out. A month of being a demon’s joyride? Yeah, he doubts she’d live to tell about that one. Some people are only possessed for a week and don’t make it, although to be fair, that could just be the demon killing them on the way out like Sam said he could prevent.

“That’s not fair,” Sam says petulantly. “I didn’t even try. I needed to eat her so I did. I should have tried to save her.”

Sam trying to goad him into anger relaxes him even further. “Yeah, alright, you should have tried.” Except it’s apparently fine that his Dean had been willing to kill demon and host with the knife without trying to save them. “But it was to end the apocalypse. Did it not work then? Did Lilith get away?”

More silence, but Dean just waits it out this time. “No,” Sam breathes. “I killed her. But the angels lied to us and the demons lied to us and we’d been trying to kill her for a long time. They told us killing her would stop it, but it didn’t. It made it worse. It started the next part of the apocalypse by letting out Lucifer.”

If Sam didn’t sound so obviously gutted, Dean would think he was messing with him. “Like. The devil?”

Sam nods.

Okay, he’d said biblical apocalypse and he’d apparently meant it. Damn. Dean reaches out with the hand that isn’t tangled in his brother’s hair and grabs the whiskey bottle, taking a long swallow. Some comments he’d made about him and his Dean being turned around and lied to are starting to make more sense. “Alright, the devil, that sucks. And what happened with Cindy sucks too. Who else?”

Sam uncurls a little. “What?”

“Who else did you hurt by drinking demon blood?” Dean asks. “This Ruby person, who was she possessing? What happened to her?”

“No one,” Sam says, “Or well, someone, obviously, but I wouldn’t work with her until she found a body that was empty. Uh, there was a fight, and demons were hurting someone, so I, you know, a mouthful in the middle of a fight so I could cast them out.” Seriously? It’s not like a mouthful of blood loss is going to make a difference whether someone lives or dies and it sounds like he’d done it to save people and also while being attacked. “We ended up killing Ruby and I stopped with the blood after, obviously. Well except for – but that’s not important. Forget that. Weren’t you listening? I drank demon blood and started the apocalypse!”

Five seconds ago the apocalypse had already been happening and he’d started the next part of it, but now he’s responsible for starting it period? “By killing the baby eating demon you were already after that the angels and demons had both told you was the answer to stopping it? Dude, come on. I mean, I get that it’s a tough pill to swallow, but let up a little.”

“I drank demon blood and killed a person and started the apocalypse,” Sam says, tension in every line of his body.

Based on the whole demon killing knife thing, it sounds like he and his Dean had killed lots of people, but he doesn’t think pointing that out will help anything. “You and your Dean were both trying to kill her, right? So if he’d succeeded, somehow, and he’d been the one to start the next part of the apocalypse, would you be talking about him like this?”

When he’d talked about this before, when Dean hadn’t really known what he was talking about, he’d said some of it was his fault, but most of it was out of their control. He doesn’t get the difference now, how then he’d seemed to have the right of it but now he seems almost mad that Dean isn’t blaming him for something that doesn’t seem to really be his fault.

Then again, he’d also said that his Dean hated him for it. Hearing it now, Dean doesn’t understand why. A fucked up, unfortunate situation, sure, but not something to hate his brother over.

“That’s different,” Sam says. “I hurt you too.”

Um, what? “You drank my blood? Was I a demon?”

Sam is still turned away from him, but he does move to kick his shin, which makes Dean grin. It’s a hint of the brother he’s spent the past few days with and it lets him breathe a little easier. Except when Sam speaks next, his voice is even more subdued than before. “You – you really didn’t like the demon blood. You tried to make me to detox but it, um, it was bad. I got away but you tracked me down when I was with Ruby. You tried to kill her and I wouldn’t let you because she knew where the nurse was and we needed her to find Lilith. I asked you to come with me and you said no and then, um, said some things, and I threw a punch, and then you did, and then you – I should have walked away, but you were mad and I was mad and,” his breath hitches, “I threw you through a wall and choked you just to prove that I could and I left you there.”

Okay, that all sounds pretty bad, but considering how Sam had told him about Cindy, he’s pretty sure he’s leaving out some key details. Besides, he’s not being especially subtle about it. Tried to make him detox and it was bad, he said some things, and it sounds like Sam had been willing to stop at one punch and he hadn’t been. If his Dean does something bad or fucked up, Sam tries to gloss right over it, just like how before Dean had needed to dig to get him to admit that even parts of what had happened were his Dean’s fault, and he’d still tried to twist it around to take some of the blame for his brother’s actions. “What did I say that made you punch me?”

“You called me a monster,” he says quietly.

Dean flinches. In their world, monster is a death sentence. “Is that why you thought I was going to kill you?”

It’s almost rhetorical, so he’s surprised when Sam shakes his head. “You left a voicemail. When I was on the way to kill Lilith.”

“What did it say?” Sam stays stubbornly silent and Dean lets out an impatient breath. “Do you still have it?” He nods. Dean reaches into Sam’s pocket and takes out his phone, turning it on and going to the voicemail. “Password?”

“Dean,” Sam says tiredly. “It doesn’t matter.”

Right, because anything that can make his confident, headstrong brother get drunk and sob alone in the woods is something that doesn’t matter. “Sammy.”

He sighs. “Three three two six.”

Dean raises an eyebrow.

“Shut up,” Sam says like he can see the look on face, which he obviously can’t. “Yours is my birthday.”

Is it really? He ignores that, ignoring the new voicemail he’d left Sam a few hours ago and going through several saved voicemails, skipping to the next as soon as he realizes it’s the wrong one. It’s all him but it’s him staying stupid stuff, asking Sam how much longer at the library and whining about being on laundry duty and one reciting a dirty limerick in Latin. Then he finds it.  

Listen to me, you blood sucking freak. Dad always said I’d either have to save you or kill you. Well, I’m giving you fair warning, I’m done trying to save you. You’re a monster, Sam, a vampire. You’re not you anymore. And there’s no going back.

His voice is angry and harsh, something dark like hatred underneath it. He doesn’t know if he’s ever sounded like that before and he hopes he never does.

This is the guy Sam is so desperate to get back home to? His best friend? The best person he knows?

He thinks he’s going to be sick.

“You didn’t mean it,” Sam says thickly. Except if he really believed that, he wouldn’t have been so convinced that Dean was going to kill him as soon as he found out about his powers.

Sam’s words in the car come back to him. How his Dean didn’t used to act like Dad, how he’d said some things and his Dean had stopped looking up to him so much, but then he’d started acting like him and Sam had said that it didn’t mean he agreed with Dad. Except for that one time that he didn’t mean but Sam wished he hadn’t said.

“What was that part about Dad about?” he asks, proud when his voice comes out mostly even. “About how I had to save you or kill you?”

“It was his last words to you before he died,” Sam says, now just sounding tired again. “But we didn’t know about Azazel bleeding in my mouth or his plans for me or anything, so, you know it kind of. It really messed you up.” If Sam tries to turn Dad putting a hit on him into a struggle his Dean had to deal with, he’s going to break something. “Me too, when you eventually told me. You tried not to, but man, you’ve got a shit poker face.” Only to Sam. “It was kind of a relief, actually.”

“Sam,” he says sharply.

He laughs, just once, even though there’s nothing funny about this. “After Dad died, you were really messed up, and it really was a relief to learn that it wasn’t Dad dying that did it. I mean, that was bad, especially because he died to save you and you hated that,” woah, what, hold on, “but I didn’t know what he’d told you and I couldn’t figure out why it was so much worse for you than it was for me. I thought it made me a bad son, that it meant we didn’t love him the same. I always knew you respected him more, liked him more, definitely got along with him better, but I thought we’d loved him the same up until then. It made me self conscious and I tried to over correct, to throw myself in hunting because I thought it’s what he would have wanted. But that just pissed you the hell off, seeing me try to pay tribute to a man that had told you to kill me, and you got mad at me for it long before you told me why. So it did make it better, knowing it wasn’t because I didn’t love him enough, that it was this other stuff.” He takes a deep breath. “What did Dad say after I left?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says immediately, head still spinning.

“Right,” Sam says bitterly. “I bet you always wondered if you did the right thing, letting me live, or if Dad would be disappointed in you. Guess now we know.”

Jesus. Dean puts Sam’s phone on the side table to keep from throwing it and takes another long pull from the whiskey bottle. “This is bullshit.”

“Dean,” he says, needling.

“No,” he says. “Dad’s always disappointed in me, who gives a shit? Seriously. What does it matter? Dad didn’t want to let Lenore and her people live, but you didn’t care about that, you knew he was full of it. When Dad tried to say you dying was my fault, you put him on his ass. But when it’s you, suddenly what he thinks matters? And if this other version of me thinks it does, then he’s a jackass and you shouldn’t listen to him either. So you could do a lot of terrible shit with your powers, so what? I could do terrible shit with the arsenal I’ve got in the trunk. Lenore and her people are fully capable of hurting a lot people. I thought we didn’t judge people for what they were capable of doing, but for what they’ve done? Nothing you’ve told me makes me think you’re a monster, Sammy. Next time the other me says some shit like that to you, you punch him and tell him it’s from me.”

God, the idea of Sam going hurts in whole new way than it had before. It’s the apocalypse and the actual devil and who’s going to look after his brother? The asshole who left that voicemail? Fuck.

“I’ve done some bad things, Dean,” Sam says quietly. “I lied to you a lot.”

Yeah, yeah, he just heard all about them, Sam being harsher on himself just then that he’d been when he was speaking to Dean in vague half-truths. How much of that is what he feels and how much of it is shit that his Dean has said to him? And hadn’t he literally just talked about how Dean had lied to Sam too? Different circumstances, different motivations, fine, whatever, but still. “I don’t get it, Sam. You’re on my ass about how I let Dad treat me, but then you just – this isn’t right, how can you just,” he lets out an angry breath. “You say he doesn’t mean it but he still does it. If that’s not an excuse for Dad, then it’s not an excuse for him either.”

Sam’s curled up again during his little rant, as if bracing for a blow, which is the opposite of what he’d wanted. He says, “Don’t. Don’t – he wasn’t like that, before. I mean, a little, but not like – it only got bad after. It’s not his fault. Not all his fault. And he still tries.”

“After what?” he demands, frustrated.

His shoulders start shaking and Dean feels his anger drain away. He’s not mad at Sam and acting like he is isn’t going to help anything. “Hell. You were different after hell.”

Of all the things Sam could have said, that wasn’t one he would have guessed. “Hell?” he repeats incredulously. “What was he doing in hell?” Sam’s definitely crying again and he softens his voice. “Sammy, look at me, will you? I’m tired of talking to your back.”

For a moment that doesn’t get him anything and then Sam is turning over in a mess of limbs. He still doesn’t get a good look at him because Sam throws an arm over Dean’s hips and holds on, pressing his forehead into his side and getting tears all over him. Dean places on hand on Sam’s arm and the other on his back, keeping him there as he shakes. He feels too big and awkward, not sure if he’s doing this right or should be doing something different, if he should have been doing something different this entire time. He doesn’t know this, he’s never been this for anyone, Dad was never like this with him even when he little. All he’s got is twenty five year old memories of his mother’s hands on his face and a little brother falling to pieces in front of him, one that’s been seriously fucked up by another version of him who’s not even here to help.

“When I was twenty three,” Sam says into his hip, “I died.”

Dean’s fingers dig into Sam, pulling him an extra inch closer, and it can’t be comfortable but he doesn’t complain.

“It was one of the other kids that Azazel targeted. He tried to pit us against each other, but I didn’t want to kill anyone, I didn’t want to do anything the demon that killed Mom and Dad wanted me to do. So I beat him and I let him go, but he came back for me just as you found me. He shoved a knife through my spine.” Dean’s breath hitches and he slides a hand down Sam’s back, like he can feel the wound that killed his brother through two layers of shirts. “There’s no coming back from that. You caught me as I fell, you told me that it was going to be okay even though you knew it wasn’t, and you held me. I’d spent days away from you with people killing each other and demons everywhere and Azazel in my dreams and I was dying, but I finally felt safe. I died in your arms, Dean.”

He feels tears drip down his cheeks and doesn’t move to brush them away because that would mean taking his hands off Sam.

“You sold your soul to bring me back from the dead. You got one year before they came to collect and Lilith dragged your soul to hell right in front of me while I was helpless to do anything about it.” Lilith was the one that killed his Dean? Yeah, no wonder he’d wanted to kill her. “It was four months for me before the angels brought you back, but it was forty years being tortured in hell for you, and yeah, you were different after. So what? I said I was going to save you and I couldn’t.” His voice breaks. “I couldn’t save you.”

“Sammy,” he says softly, and okay, fine, he’ll cut the guy a little slack. But it doesn’t excuse everything.

Sam’s shoulders are shaking again. He’s unravelling into these big heaving sobs that he couldn’t hide if he tried. “You shouldn’t have done it. If I’d just stayed dead, none of this wouldn’t have happened. It would have been better if I’d died there and stayed that way. You should have just buried me, not sold your soul.” He’s crying harder now, holding onto Dean so tightly that it’s painful, and he has to push out the words through these big stuttering breaths. “Why couldn’t you leave it alone? I wish you would have just let me die.”

Dean rubs a hand up and down Sam’s back like he remembers his mom doing. Part of him wants him and that other Dean to be nothing alike, he doesn’t want to think he could ever say something so terrible to someone he cares about so much. The rest of him hopes they’re as alike as Sam says they are, that he could be loved by anyone as deeply as Sam loves his Dean. And if they are anything alike, he feels qualified to say, “I couldn’t do that, Sammy. It’s my job to take care of you.”

“It’s not,” he cries. “It’s not, Dean, not everything’s about me.”

Yeah, it is.

“We take of each other,” Dean says tenderly.

Sam is shaking his head again, but Dean doesn’t bother arguing the point further. Instead he just keeps his hands on Sam and lets him cling to him until his tears eventually dry up and his grip loosens. Some combination of the liquor, exhaustion, and heavy conversation finally drags Sam into sleep. If Dean spends an extra couple minutes just lying there, trying to memorize the feeling of Sam draped half on top of him, it’s not like anyone’s going to call him on it.

He starts to feel his own eyelids droop and he figures it’s a sign to get to bed. He carefully slides out from under Sam, replacing himself with a pillow so Sam still has something to grab onto. His face is tacky and his face is still red from crying and he looks so young like this that Dean feels a sharp pang of familiarity that has him shaking his head at himself. Ok, sure, he looks younger, but not that much younger.

First he takes off Sam’s boots then throws a blanket on top of him, figuring anything else is likely to wake him up. He goes out to the car to bring both of their bags in and takes a five minute shower, half of which is brushing his teeth, and by the time he collapses into his bed he’s practically sleepwalking.

He looks at the outline of his sleeping brother until his eyes refuse to stay open.

~

Dean wakes up before Sam the next morning, which he finds himself surprised by. From what he’s seen, Sam runs on fumes and desperation and a staggering amount of caffeine, but after a day like yesterday it only seems fair that he crashes. He gets dressed as quietly as he can and then slips outside to check his phone. He’s got two missed calls from Bobby and a text from his father consisting entirely of a singular question mark. Just looking at it exhausts him, especially considering what Sam had said about Dad yesterday.

He decides to go with the lesser of two evils and calls Bobby. It only rings once before a gruff voice says, “Dean.”

“Hey,” he says. “Sam and I ended up just getting a room for the night, but we can head up to yours in a few hours. Unless that’s going to be a problem?”

He doesn’t want it to be. Sam obviously cares about Bobby and views him as a sort of father, as a trusted adult who’d taken care of them when they were kids and who he can still turn to now that he’s all grown up. He really, really doesn’t want to have to tell Sam that they’re going to have to figure this ritual thing out on their own because Bobby’s decided he’s in season.

“You talk to him?” Bobby asks, sounding a lot less wary than he had before.

“Yeah,” he says, debating on how much to say. No way in hell is he getting into specifics, but Bobby’s going to need something. “Look, I pretty much bullied him into telling me the worst things he’s done, and considering the circumstances, I’m not concerned, alright?”

Okay, the drinking demon blood thing is still freaky as all hell, honestly, but since he’d done it to stop the apocalypse and save people’s lives, he’s not really comfortable putting it in the evil column.

“I did some research of my own,” Bobby says and Dean braces himself. “There’s some reports of demon blood being used to strengthen certain psychic abilities, but it’s hard to confirm because anyone who’s done it has died pretty soon after. There are also some reports of especially strong religious leader being able to pull a demon from the body of a victim without words, but nothing about them killing them.”

“And?” he asks, tense.

“And nothing,” Bobby replies. “I’m just telling you what I know. Is that what Sam did? Exorcise the demon without words?”

Should he say yes? That’s safer for Sam, right? But it might be hard to pull off the religious leader schtick when Bobby knows that Sam’s fighting angels. And Bobby had already, rightly, assumed that Sam had killed the demon he’d pulled from the girl.

He hesitates too long and Bobby sighs. “That’s what I thought. Alright then. Well, you boys better head up. I looked at the list Sam gave your father and honestly I’m only about half certain I know what he’s planning. If he wants this done right, you boys are going to have to get here and do it yourselves.”

“Bobby,” he says then licks his lips.

“Sam seems like a good kid.” He can hear the smile in Bobby’s voice and his chest loosens. “Boy, you know damn well I work with psychics and witches and a whole host of other people that hunters turn their noses up at. His abilities might be something I’ve never seen before, but you were right. He’s not a demon or creature, we’ve seen him pass all the tests, so I’ll stuff my questions where the sun don’t shine.”

“Thanks Bobby,” he says sincerely. “Uh, what about Dad?”

He can almost hear Bobby’s shrug. “John knew before the rest of us that there was something going on. He’s suspicious, but he’s suspicious of a lot of people I’m not. I told him if he got any bright ideas, I’d be aiming for his kneecaps and the closest emergency room is twenty three minutes away. I think you’ll be alright.”

A few days ago, hearing something like that would have sent his blood boiling. Now he’s just relieved. “Awesome,” he says, aiming for sarcastic even though he means it, and by the way Bobby laughs he’s pretty sure he hears it.

He goes back inside and Sam’s just starting to stir, eyes blinking open and face scrunched.

Dean’s mouth twitches. Yeah, real monster like, although the bedhead is pretty close. “Morning, sunshine.”

Sam flips him off as he pushes himself upright and swings his legs over the side, rubbing the back of his hand against his mouth and grimacing. Then he freezes, the memories of last night clearly hitting him, and when his eyes dart to Dean, there’s a swirl of uncertainty and wariness there.

He smiles. “Just spoke to Bobby and told him we’d be heading his way today. He said he told Dad he’d blow his kneecaps off if he misbehaves. I’m pretty sure if we leave them alone much longer, someone’s going to end up at the hospital.” Sam flinches and he gentles his voice, “It’s okay, Sammy.”

It takes a minute, but his shoulders drop and he tentatively returns his smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says then crosses over to nudge at his shoulder. “Come on, up and at ‘em, shower and dressed and food. I’m hungry.”

Sam grabs his wrist, squeezing once with such naked gratitude on his face that Dean knows he doesn’t deserve, before he stumbles to the bathroom with a jaw cracking yawn.

Ten minutes later they’ve checked out and thrown their stuff in the trunk. They head to the nearest diner, one with overstuffed booths that squeak when they sit down. He glances at Sam over the top of the menu. There’s no hint of the panic and fear and grief that had poured out last night, that’s apparently always simmering beneath the surface. That’s the worst part, he thinks. He walks around with all of that in his head all the time, and Dean would never know it. Sure, there’d been hints that things weren’t great, like the way he reacted every time he talked about him and his Dean fighting or when he’d said this world was better off without him, but most of the time he’s so headstrong and sarcastic and confident that Dean had no idea that anything else was lurking underneath. 

Dean waits until they’ve placed their order and Sam’s taken two long sips of his coffee to say, “I have some follow up questions.”

Sam pauses, looking at him warily.

He rolls his eyes. “Relax, they’re mostly logistical.”

“Logistical?” Sam repeats. “You know that has four syllables, right?”

“Yeah, well, shut up Sam is only three,” he returns and is rewarded by a laugh. “How does this powers and demon blood thing work? Like you’ve been here for days and there haven’t been any demons around except for the one, and you didn’t exactly chomp down, but you still managed to kill it.”

Sam’s looking away from him again, but it’s not the full blown shame of the night before. He decides to count it as a win. “It’s not like that. The demon blood makes me stronger, it makes it easier to use, but the powers are just,” he swallows, “I had them before.”

“Well, having the ability to kill demons with your mind probably comes in handy during your demon ridden apocalypse,” he says, not sure what’s putting that pinched expression on his face. The drinking demon blood thing is off putting, to say the least, even if he gets the circumstances surrounding it, but just having powers isn’t anything compared to that. Lots of people have abilities and sure, plenty of hunters don’t like it, but plenty more don’t give a shit. Even Dad works with psychics sometimes.

Sam shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “I don’t do it anymore. I mean, there was this time with a horseman, but it was, uh, desperate circumstances.”

He’s not even going to touch the horseman thing. He gets the feeling Sam’s not talking about a guy on a horse. “Why not?”

“You don’t like it,” he says, then nothing else. “We just use the knife.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. So not bothering to try and save people and just killing them along with the demon is perfectly okay because his Dean doesn’t like his powers, but Sam killing Cindy is unforgivable. Right.

He swallows. “You think that the demon blood changes me, that it makes me into something I’m not and it and my powers are all tangled in your head. You trust me more if I don’t use them. After Lilith, I mentioned missing being able to save people and I – I don’t know, I was hoping you would tell me it was okay, or something. Stupid. But you got mad and started talking about when I was on demon blood and things were already so bad between us and it just. I just dropped it. It’s fine.”

Well, he hates all of that. “Does it? Change you?”

Sam shakes his head then pauses and shrugs. “It’s addicting. It has some side effects that I don’t like and there are withdrawal symptoms when I’m coming off it, and I don’t know, maybe then you could say I’m not totally in my right mind because I’m jonesing for it and I can be stupid about it. But otherwise,” he shakes his head again. “I’m me. My choices are my own and I don’t make different ones than I would normally. It’s not like an actual drug.”

“And I don’t like that?” he says slowly.

They pause as the waitress drops off their plates, but neither of them move to eat. “No. I don’t know. Sometimes you blame things I did on the demon blood and that’s easier for you and sometimes you’re mad at me anyway. I don’t know. Look, it’s whatever, okay? I lied to you and beat you and started the apocalypse.”

“Sounds like you’re lying to me now,” he points out. Letting the other him think that he needs to drink demon blood to use his powers and that it changes him when it doesn’t probably isn’t helping anything. Sam pales and Dean raises his hands. “I heard that voicemail, okay, I get it, I’m just saying. Anyway, you beat me entirely unprovoked, huh? You gave me a punch and I gave you a punch and then what?”

Sam picks up with his fork and starts messing with his scrambled eggs. “It was more than one punch.”

“From you or me?” Sam opens his mouth. “First. It sounds like you’d stopped after one punch. Did I?” Sam closes his mouth. “Uh huh, that’s what I thought. Look, I wasn’t there, you say you were pissed and took it too far, fine, I believe you. But I don’t exactly sound blameless here. Also you started the apocalypse by killing the demon that you thought would end it.”

“I listened to a demon over you,” he says.

“You said the angels and demons all told you that killing Lilith was going to end it and that we both believed that,” Dean says. “Is that not what happened?”

Sam frowns.

“Man, why are you arguing with me about this?” he presses. “You said before you and your brother mostly got fucked over by other people, so why are you trying to take all the blame now?”

He leans back in his seat and takes a long sip of coffee, eyebrows pushed together. “I don’t know. I do think that, we were just doing our best with what we had. It’s just – I don’t know. I don’t want to make excuses for myself, for what I did. Not to you.”

Dean hates the implications of that. It’s some comfort to remember how Sam had acted that first night in the bar when he’d thought that he was his Dean. He’d been angry and shouting and shoved him, hadn’t been anything like the little brother that had fallen apart on him last night, so he’s at least not a total pushover when it comes to his Dean. “So this is what we’re fighting about?”

“Oh.” He blinks. “Not really. I mean, a little, it’s definitely making it worse than it would be otherwise, and it still bubbles up, but we’d uh, mostly moved past this. Usually.”

That’s not even close to being reassuring. “So what are we fighting about?”

Sam starts eating, so Dean does too, although he notices that Sam avoids the eggs his fidgeting had turned into an unappetizing paste. “Well, you know how I told you I died a few weeks ago and the angels brought me back? You too, they took us both out. It turns out heaven is like a highlight reel of your happiest memories. We were looking for someone in heaven, so we ended up seeing a few of each other’s memories. You didn’t like mine.”

That sounds like total bullshit, but he doesn’t bother disbelieving him. “Why? Did choking me out end up in there? Kinky.”

Sam kicks him under the table. “I didn’t choke you out, shut up, and no. It was just stuff from when I was a kid or teenager, but, uh, they weren’t happy memories for you. Then we got some bad news about the apocalypse right after and it sort of, I don’t know, compounded. Or something. I’ve tried talking to you about it but you haven’t really been interested. We were in the avoidant stage when I ended up here.”

“So more of us getting fucked over by other people,” he says. And him taking it out on Sam, but he keeps that part to himself.

Sam blinks then smiles. “Yeah, I guess. Look, I know I told you a bunch of stuff, but most of the time we really are good. I mean, even when things are shit between us, they’re still – we’re still us. Heaven and hell had to work overtime to get us away from each other and even that didn’t last long. You’re being a jerk right now but it’s whatever, we’ll figure it out.”

He has to swallow twice before he can get himself to speak. “That sort of blind faith is going to get you in trouble, you know.”

“It’s not blind,” Sam counters, still smiling. “You’ve earned every bit of it.”

God, he wishes he had. He wishes he’d earned the love and devotion Sam shows his brother so easily instead of just looking like the guy who did.

~

Dean had spent thirty years being tortured, taken apart and put together in every possible combination, slow and fast and layer by layer and gutted all at once. He’s also endured his fair share of wounds topside, has received injuries that should have killed him if not for supernatural intervention and died himself more than once.

This pain is unique in its totality and how it makes everything around him go white. It’s like every single one of his nerves is being flayed open, as if needles are being shoved into every available pinprick of skin. When he comes to, he’s flat on his back and he can feel his body still shaking and twitching with the after effects. The pain is gone, but the memory of it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

He spends long moments just breathing, eventually prying his eyes open and being faced with the cheerful clear blue sky. He turns his head carefully, but nothing happens, all that pain from before not lingering in his body. He lays there and breathes until the spasms subside and then he pushes himself to sitting. Cas is lying a few feet away with his arm thrown over his eyes. Dean looks around, eyes catching on the street sign, and he can’t believe this. It’s morning, not night, but they’re still here! All that, and for what?

He reaches over to hit Cas’s stomach and receives an irritated grunt for his trouble. “Dude! We’re in the same place. What the hell?”

Cas lowers his arm to give him a fuzzy glare. Dean would say he looks like he’s on the wrong side of a bender, except he’s seen Cas then and he still didn’t look quite this much like he’d been hit by a car. “You are both correct and incorrect. We are in the same street, town, and state as we were previously. However, we are in a different universe.”

“The one with Sam?” he asks eagerly then frowns. “How are we supposed to find him? He could be anywhere!”

“He’s here,” Cas says, waving a hand around them. “Somewhere close. Ish.”

Close-ish to an angel could mean anything, but Cas has gotten a lot better at the human conception of geography. He probably has Google Maps to thank for that. “Sam and I just happened to be in the same town at the same time while a literal universe apart?”

“Well,” Cas says, some amusement making it through the exhaustion, “you are soulmates.”

Right. For whatever that’s worth. Still, he can’t help the fragile, jittery hope rushing through him. Sam’s close. Dean just has to find him. He shoves himself to his feet, grateful when it doesn’t hurt. Well, his right knee twinges, but that’s not the point. He looks down at Cas, who seems to be seconds from passing out. “Man, you gotta get up.”

“No, thank you,” he says. “This sidewalk is quite comfortable.”

He rolls his eyes. “You can’t just lie in the middle of the street, someone’s going to call the cops on you or report you as roadkill or something.”

“I am not in the middle of the street,” he says. “As you have just stated, I am on the sidewalk.”

Dean kicks him, but lightly, because he had got him to the same world as Sam.

Cas grudgingly opens his eyes. “I require rest, Dean, as I told you previously.”

“There’s a motel a couple blocks over,” he says, assuming that this world mirrors theirs. “I don’t feel like breaking you out of jail. On your feet.”

“I could rest in jail,” he says, but lets Dean pull him to standing and only sways for a moment before straightening. He almost trips over his feet the first couple steps, then he seems to remember how bodies work and looks a little less like a drunk hobo. Dean’s braced for him to go face first, but they make it to the motel without incident. His fake credit card works here, which is good because he doesn’t have that much cash on him. The guy at the check in desk is definitely giving him the hairy eyeball, but Dean just grins at him before herding Cas to the room.

He opens the door and Cas walks until he reaches the bed then collapses onto it face down. He doesn’t even bother to take his jacket off. It’s too bad that Sam is missing this, because it’s hilarious. “Don’t go anywhere, Cas.”

“Goodbye, Dean,” Cas says, or that’s what he thinks he says, since his voice is muffled by the pillow. Okay, great, one thing taken care of.

The guy at the front hadn’t seemed to be his biggest fan, but Dean figures he has to start somewhere, so he swings back around. Besides, if Sam’s here in this town, he’s hopefully not sleep under a bridge or something. “Hey. You seen a big guy, about a hand taller than me, with brown hair to about here?” He gestures to his own head, thinking that Sam could use a haircut.

“Really?” the guy asks, which, okay, is this guy new or something? Working at a motel, he’s had to have been asked way weirder questions this this. “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” he says.

“Whatever.” He points in the opposite direction they’d come from and his heartrate kicks up. “He mentioned the diner. It’s like half a mile that way.”

“Thanks,” he says, meaning it, and the guy mutters something that Dean doesn’t catch and doesn’t care about. Sam was here, he was headed to the diner, and that’s not being tortured or hurt or stuck in a ditch, thank god.

He hurries there, keeping his eyes on the streets in case he’s already missed him or there’s some other restaurant he would have ducked into instead, but soon enough he comes across an old fashioned diner that they grew up going to all across America and that remains their default. He steps inside, the bell on the door jingling cheerfully, and his knees nearly buckle he’s so relieved.

Sam is standing by the register, smiling and chatting to the waitress that fits the demographic of women that usually melt over his brother, twice his age with a perm and looking like they want nothing more than to pinch his cheeks. He’s wearing a jacket Dean doesn’t recognize and a pair of jeans he does and Dean’s crossing the distance to his side without any further thought than that he needs to get his hands on his brother.

Sam notices the movement as he gets closer and glances his way, offering him a quick smile before looking back to the waitress.

Dean feels like Sam just punched him. He thinks he honestly would have preferred it. Yanked into a whole new universe by who knows, days apart from Dean with no way to contact him, where anything could have been happening to either of them, all while Dean’s been losing his damn mind to worry and fear, and it’s like seeing him means nothing. Of course. What was he thinking? All Sam wants is to get away from him. Not having to see Dean’s face for a while has probably been like a damn vacation for him.

Sam cuts himself off mid word, blinking, then turns to look at him so quickly Dean’s surprised he doesn’t hear anything crack. He squints, looking him up and down, and his eyebrows push together.  

“Dean?” he asks with confusion and what Dean wants to call hope, but he’s probably just deluding himself. “Is that you?”

Rage courses through him, covering up the hurt like it’s always so good at doing. He fists his hands in the front of Sam’s shirt and slams him against the wall. His head thunks against the drywall and he winces, but he’s still pliant under Dean, not fighting back. God, he wishes Sam would fight back. If Sam doesn’t hate him and he doesn’t love him, then what’s left? The waitress is saying something, high pitched and worried, but Dean doesn’t give a shit. He thinks he preferred when it felt like Cas was shoving nails into his brain.

“Yeah,” Sam says, warm and wry, which doesn’t make any sense at all. “It’s you.”

He wraps one of his huge hands around Dean’s wrist and just holds on, smiling. Sam rubs his thumb against Dean's pulse point and he’s looking him up and down for injuries, like he’s concerned, like he’s happy that Dean’s here. This whole thing is confusing the hell out of him and giving him whiplash, but he feels his shoulders lowering and the beginnings of his own smile around his lips.

Then there’s a strong hand tugging on his elbow and an irritated voice saying, “Okay, tough guy, you’ve made your point. Off.”

He turns, opening his mouth to tell this busybody to get lost and – woah. Okay then. “Hey there, handsome. You come here often?”

His double doesn’t look impressed, but Sam’s laughing, and that’s what matters.

Chapter Text

The waitress is still making a fuss, and they’ve attracted a fair bit of attention, so Dean lets Sam keep ahold of his wrist and drag him outside. His double follows along, scowling, but honestly he doesn’t pay the guy much attention. He’s too busy looking Sam over, the hair that’s still a little damp at the back and the light blue shirt that had to have been the only thing in his size because they almost never bother to buy light colored t-shirts. Sam still makes the effort to keep his stupid fancy button up shirts bright, slotting quarters into the laundromat dispenser to get bleach or Tide or whatever the hell he uses. It’s the end of the world and Sam still reads the care labels on their secondhand shirts. Dean gives him shit for it, but he’d be lying if said he didn’t find it endearing. Besides, if Sam ever stopped, then he’d really feel like they were in trouble.

“What happened?” Sam asks, finally coming to a stop a block away in front of the Impala. “Do you know who dropped us here? How long have you been here?”

“Don’t know who grabbed you,” he says. Sam frowns and lets go of his wrist, but only to pull some grass from his hair with a raised eyebrow. Dean doesn’t bother explaining. “I just landed.”

Sam sucks his teeth between his bottom lip, suddenly worried. “Dean, I don’t know if I can get us both back.”

“Could you have gotten yourself back?” he demands. “Sam, what the hell? I’ve been – I had no idea where you were or what happened to you, and you’ve what, just been kicking back, having a grand old time? You’re fucking kidding me.”

Don’t think of Flagstaff, it’s nothing like Flagstaff. He hates this. He hadn’t thought of that incident in years, and now it keeps popping up.

“Yeah, I’m taking a little me time in the middle of the apocalypse,” he says sarcastically. “I found a way home, but I need the right moon phase, which is in two days. It’s also going to take blood, and if I’m going to bring us both back, it’ll take twice the amount. That’s going to be a problem.”

His mouth tightens. “What kind of blood?”

Sam flinches, just barely, so small and quick that Dean almost misses it. “Mine. It’s my blood. You’re going to have to say the spell and not fuck it up, which will be difficult because your pronunciation is shit.” He glares, but Sam is distracted, still chewing on his lip. He’s got to stop that. It’s why they’ve got like five different chapsticks rolling around the bottom of the car. “There’s also a chance that it won’t bring me with you if I’m already dead, which is going to be a problem.”

Anxiety spikes through him and he grabs Sam’s collar, giving him a rough shake that barely moves him. “What the hell are you talking about? No one’s dying.”

“I was going to need a liter or two of blood just for me and it needs to be fresh,” Sam says. “That I can survive long enough to say a spell, but twice that? I’ll be dead, no way will I still be alive to recite the incantation. Which, whatever, I was probably going to die when I got home anyway, but the spell is modified from a chant to bring the living to the place of the unliving. I don’t know if it’ll work on me if I’m already dead.”

His mouth is dry and his heart’s beating too fast, the image of all of Sam’s blood being drained out of him like a gutted deer enough to make his stomach hurt. “That was your plan? Killing yourself? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“It’s not like I’d stay that way,” he shoots back. So what? Sam with a pipe through his stomach, with a bullet in his chest, bloody and still and dead, had been just as bad as Cold Oak. The only respite, what kept Dean from absolutely losing his shit, was the knowledge that he’d be brought back. Which didn’t actually make it hurt any less. “What do you want from me, Dean? We don’t exactly have a lot of options here.” He runs a hand over his face. “Look, maybe I’ll just send you home first, okay? We can do it near a hospital and just rush me there after or something, and once I’ve recovered enough, I’ll follow.”

Right, because losing two liters of blood is no big deal, and not something that can very easily lead to Sam dead even with quick medical intervention. Dean wouldn’t even know, he’d be right back to how he was before, a world away from Sam with no idea what condition he was in, only this would be worse because he’d know that he’d just lost way more blood than he could afford to lose. Besides, even if Sam survives, he’ll die when he sends himself home.

Part of him shrinks back at Sam trying to get rid of him already, of how Dean’s just found him, just got him back, and Sam’s already trying to send him away. It’s small in comparison to the horror of what Sam’s saying, but it’s still a sharp hurt.

“No,” he says and Sam sighs, irritated, like Dean’s being difficult and unreasonable just because he won’t let Sam die. “Absolutely the fuck not, we’re not doing that shit. Once Cas has recharged, he’ll bring us back, and no one will die.” Then, because that sharp hurt is growing, because he should know better by now but he never fucking learns, “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Cas?” Sam repeats, looking around like he’s going to pop out from behind a parking sign, then he looks back to Dean and crosses his arms. “What are you talking about? Getting you home isn’t getting rid of you, I’d be going there too!”

“Whatever,” he says tiredly. The relief of Sam safe and in front of him is draining away, leaving something harder in its place. Couldn’t he have had just an hour back with his brother before being reminded that he wants nothing to do with him?

Sam lets out an irritated breath through his nose and Dean can practically see him swallowing whatever he was going to say. “When’s Cas grabbing us?”

He shrugs. “Whenever he feels up to it? I don’t know, he looked wiped when we got here.”

“So he is here,” Sam says, as if Dean had said differently, which he hadn’t. He’s such a bitch. If he hadn’t jumped right into killing himself and just waited a fucking minute, Dean would have filled him in. “Where is he? Is he okay?”

He knows that getting pissed because Sam is asking if Cas is okay is illogical at best, but it’s not like he can help it. “He’s fine. Probably. I don’t know, he’s an angel, he wasn’t bleeding or screaming or anything. I left him at the motel.”

“Okay,” Sam says in his soothing, let’s be reasonable tone, which Dean hates. “Well, let’s go get him and we can head to Bobby’s.”

Bobby’s isn’t the last place he wants to go right now, but it’s pretty close. He hasn’t faced the man since he had to burn his wife a second time because of them and he still doesn’t feel quite up to it, even if it’s a different version of him. “Why? What’s the point?”

“We told him we’d be there today,” he says. “Besides, there might be something there that can help Cas recover quicker, or help him modify the ritual I was going to do, or something. Grace is kind of the exact opposite of the intended energy source, but I don’t know, maybe it won’t matter.”

The ritual that was going to kill his brother. Where would Sam have landed? Where he was taken from? Bleeding out and dying on some sidewalk or their shitty motel room all alone. He shouldn’t have left that stupid piece of shit town, what if Sam had showed up there and died and Dean was three states over? Stupid. “I just paid for the room.”

“Cash or card?” he asks and Dean scowls. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Besides, who knows how long it’s going to take Cas to recharge. Cheaper to just stay at Bobby’s.”

“Sam,” he says, frustrated.

“Dean,” he returns, arms crossed. “Even if he can’t do anything, I’m going. I’m not leaving without saying goodbye.”

He opens his mouth to continue arguing then pauses, feeling blood drain from his face. Oops.

Sam, unfortunately, clocks it immediately and groans. “Please tell me you told Bobby what you were doing before you went universe hopping with Cas.”

“Look,” he starts, then flounders. “Uh, it was all so sudden?”

“He’s going to start naming grey hairs after us,” Sam sighs. Dean almost smiles. Bobby had complained more than once as kids that he and Sam were going to turn him grey. “Okay, well, let’s try to keep it to one version of Bobby pissed at us at a time, alright? In the car, let’s go get Cas and get out of here.”

“What?” he says, looking at the Impala then to his double, who’s been silently standing there watching them the whole time. His face is blank, but something about it sets his teeth on edge. When Sam said we earlier, he’d apparently meant him and this copy. “Man, do we have to? He’s sort of freaking me out.”

“Nice,” the other him says shortly.

Sam nudges him in the side. “Behave. He’s been helping me since I got here.”

“Thanks,” he says, only a little grudgingly, because it’s good that Sam hadn’t been totally stranded in this world. He’d have figured it out, he knows how to get cash and lift cars and stay off the radar, but Dean’s glad he didn’t have to. “But we’ve got it from here. Don’t you have your own Sam to hover over?”

He’s actually sort of surprised he hadn’t been with them, now that he thinks about it. Maybe they’re just avoiding being seen in public, but that seems sort of extreme. Identical twins exist, although by god is he glad that Sam isn’t one. Having to deal with more than one Sam growing up might actually have driven him crazy, he’d barely managed with just the one of him.

“Dean!” Sam barks right as the other him’s face crumples before smoothing out again, a moment of grief that Dean recognizes and wishes he didn’t.

“No way,” he says, instant denial like always when Sam dies. “What did you do?”

Sam grabs his arm, hissing, “Shut up, seriously, what’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me?” he repeats incredulously. “What’s wrong with him?” He shifts his attention to this world’s Dean. “What happened?” This world and theirs are supposed to be pretty close, right? He and this other version of him are wearing the same damn flannel right now. Could it be that when Sam died here, this Dean didn’t save him? “Did you actually – did you not sell your soul here? Are you stupid? Did you bury him?”

The last two words come out like a curse, but he can’t help it. He never could have buried Sam, couldn’t have burned him, none of that, he’s not strong enough and he doesn’t want to be. If he couldn’t sell his soul for him, if Sam had stayed still and cold, then Dean was going to go with him. No way was he going to try and figure out how to be alive in a world without his brother. Fuck that.

“For the love of god,” Sam says, which Dean thinks he might find funny if he wasn’t so horrified. “It was the fire, okay, stop talking.”

“With Jess?” he asks, chest clenching. God, having to pull Sam out of there, the fire so hot and terrible, the way his little brother had sobbed as he fought him, trying to get back to his girl even though they both knew she was long gone. Did he fail? Did Sam really fight him here like he hadn’t once Dean got him into the stairwell? But if Sam had continued fighting him, if he’d slipped out of Dean’s grasp and ran back into the fire for Jessica, Dean would have been right behind him. Did he not go back at all? Did he just drop Sam off at Stanford and not linger and what, he got a call from the school the next day that his little brother that he’d seen not a day before was a burnt out husk of a corpse, was nothing more than burnt bones like both Mom and Jessica had been?

“Stop that,” Sam says, warm hand coming down heavy on the back of his neck. It clamps down on the panic that had been closing in on him. Sam’s here, with him, alive and safe and not burned like Mom. “Not that fire, when we were kids, okay? Drop it.”

Oh, god, he had burned just like Mom. With Mom. Had the demon killed her before she could scream? Did Dad not wake up until it was too late, until both her and his brother were engulfed in flames? It’s not his Sam, but it is a Sam, and that’s enough to leave him feeling like he wants to hurl. “Sammy.”

“Drop it,” he repeats, squeezing.

Fine. Okay. Maybe its why whatever angel did this sent Sam to this universe specifically. It knew the world couldn’t handle more than one Sam Winchester. He tries to find the thought funny, but doesn’t quite succeed.

He risks a glance at the other him and finds him standing there with his fists clenched, mouth pressed into a thin line and his face pale and furious. Which, yeah, fair enough. He holds up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, sorry.” Then, in as close to a second apology as he can get, “Let’s go to Bobby’s.”

“Great,” this world’s Dean snaps. “Get in the back.”

He makes a face. It’s not like there’s an abundance of options, but the last time he rode in the back of the Impala uninjured was when Sam was dead, and before that probably not since he was a teenager. Even then, it had probably been because Sam was injured or sick and Dean was either trying to staunch the bleeding or Sam was so delirious that he wouldn’t settle without Dean next to him. “Dude.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” he says. “I’ve heard enough from you already. You’re lucky I’m not making you walk.”

God, what a jackass. No wonder he gets into so many bar fights, there really is something about his face that’s just asking to punched when he gets like this. “It’s not my fault that–”

Sam puts his hand over his mouth. Dean glares and licks it, but that’s never really worked in either direction. They shared one bed for most of their childhoods and Sam’s a freaking octopus, they’ve each woken up more than once with the one of them drooling on the other. Which Dean maintains wouldn’t be a problem if Sam would just stick to his side of the bed, but whatever. Sam sleeps like a – he used to say that his brother slept like a corpse, flat on his back with his hands on stomach, but now with the memory of his corpse in that position it doesn’t sound funny anymore – he sleeps all neat and polite on his own, but as soon as there’s another body in bed with him, all bets are off.

He had maybe, possibly, brought it on himself by curling around Sam in his crib after the fire, but how else was he supposed to be sure that his little brother was okay? He’d gone to bed one night after saying goodnight to Sammy, safe in his crib in his nursery where nothing was ever supposed to happen to him, and he’d woken up to flames.

“I said be nice,” Sam says. Actually, he’d said to behave. “Just get in the back, it’s seriously a two minute drive to the motel.”

It’s several hours to Bobby’s, but whatever. He scowls, but gets into the back, ignoring Sam wiping his hand on the back of his shirt as he does. Sam and other him are just standing there, not moving, and he’s about to stick his head out the window to complain when the front door opens on his side and Sam slides in, other him getting in on the other side a moment later. The sight of Sam up there with a him that’s not him is irritating, like a rock caught in his shoe, but he keeps his mouth shut. Sam’s stupid arms are definitely long enough to hit him even from the front seat.

The other him parks in front of the motel and Dean says, “We’ll be right back, Jeeves,” and receives a scowl from his double, but he thankfully stays in the car and doesn’t attempt to come with them.

Sam looks at him disapprovingly as they head to the room. “Can you try to be a little less of a jerk?”

“I can try,” he says. “Hey, is he like a psychopath or something?”

Sam pauses literally mid step. “What? No. What? Why?”

Huh. He shrugs. “Kind of always thought I would be without you.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” he says softly.

Dean’s saved by having to come up with a response to that by their arrival at the room and he tosses the key to Sam as a cheap attempt at distraction. Sam knows it, but doesn’t call him on it, instead opening the door and calling out, “Cas? You awake?”

Cas is in the exact same position he left him in. He says, “Angels do not sleep.” Or at least that’s what Dean thinks he says, since it’s kind of muffled. It’s also possible that he just made an assertion that would make him a big hit with the Welsh, but he sort of doubts it.

Sam’s mouth pulls up at the corner and he walks further into the room, stopping by Cas’s bed. “Looks like sleeping.”

He rolls over, doing a decent impression of a fish on a riverbank. He blinks, eyes focusing on Sam, and he almost smiles. “I found you.”

“Technically,” Dean says, because it was his soul that led them here and he was the one that walked a mile to the diner, “I found him.”

“You’re welcome,” Cas tells him, which, yeah, okay. “I told you that you would not be alone as I am alone.”

He grimaces. Does Cas have to say that kind of shit in front of Sam? He knows he doesn’t want to hear it.

“Thank you, Cas,” Sam says sincerely. Which is nice, but where’s his thank you? Sam meets his eyes, lips twitching, and he glares. The brat is totally doing it on purpose. “We’re going to head to Bobby’s now, alright? You can meditate in the car.”

“He wasn’t meditating,” Dean says, but actually he doesn’t really know. If angels don’t sleep, what does laying there and not moving count as? It’s kind of what he does after a nightmare when he doesn’t want to wake Sam, and he sure as shit wouldn’t call it meditating.

Cas rolls to his feet and sways so hard Dean’s half expecting him to crash back onto the bed. He probably would have if Sam hadn’t put a hand on his back to keep him upright. He frowns then shuffles forward with grim determination, the same way he’d made his way to the motel in the first place. “Meditation is not an inaccurate description.”

“Cool,” Sam says, distracted with his hands partially raised like he thinks he’s going to have to grab Cas to keep him from going down. Since Dean had been convinced of the same earlier, he can’t really fault him. Sam looks at him as Cas takes clumsy steps outside, but Dean just shrugs. He doesn’t know how this angel thing works.

With only a little wobbling, Cas makes his way over to the Impala. Sam opens the front passenger side door for him and Dean feels himself relax. Not that it would have mattered, or anything. It’s whatever, it’s just where they’re sitting, they’re not kids anymore arguing about which of them gets to sit in the front – which was always him, okay, because he was older, and also Sam had been freaking tiny as a kid, like he was saving up all his growing to do at once. Even when Dad got a truck and gave him the Impala when he was sixteen and Sammy had insisted on always driving with him instead of Dad, he’d been nervous about letting him be in the front. The lack of seatbelts hadn’t seemed like that big of a deal until he’d imagined getting in an accident and his little brother’s body being flung into the windshield. He’d tried exactly once to get Sam to sit in the back and Sam had called him a bitch, told him to stop acting like a soccer mom, and threatened to spend the entire drive flinging peanut butter M&Ms at the back of his head if he didn’t. Which would have just been a waste of good candy, so that had been that.  

“Dean, this is Cas,” Sam says after getting Cas settled. “He’s an angel and our friend.”

“I thought all angels were douchebags,” other him says, voice a lot warmer than it had been before. Is that really how he sounds talking to Sam? No wonder Dad was always giving him shit for babying him even if he wasn’t. He would have liked to, actually, but Sam handled being coddled about as well he handled being told what to do. Those first few weeks after Jessica had been a minefield, Dean constantly swinging from one to the other because Sam needed to eat and sleep and not get himself killed, but also he was a wreck and Dean had wanted to wrap him in bubble wrap and stuff him in the trunk. Not that he ever told Sam that bit, because he definitely would have ended up the one stuck in the trunk then.

The fact that Sam grew up to be so much bigger than him is really annoying actually. Little brothers shouldn’t be able to do that.

Then he thinks of the Sam here that never did and okay, maybe it’s not so bad.

“He’s the exception,” Sam says.

“Now,” Dean adds. There’d been plenty of douchebag behavior beforehand.

Cas grumbles something in reply, but Dean can’t quite make it out.

Sam closes the front door gently then opens the back one, waiting, and Dean rolls his eyes before getting back in. Instead of walking over to the other side, Sam shoves him over and slides in next to him. There’s plenty of room, but he stays pressed up against Dean’s side instead of moving back over a couple inches. Dean almost does it out of principle or to show he’s not that needy or pathetic or something, but honestly the past few days have been shit and Sam’s here and okay and he can’t make himself reject the comfort of that even though he probably should. Sam’s idea of heaven is getting as far from Dean as he can, he knows that, but after days worrying himself sick he just doesn’t care. He’ll care later, the hurt will come later, but for now he just enjoys having Sammy close.

Other Dean pulls out onto the road and Dean drops his head back against the seat. The pain of getting here is gone, but the memory is prickling right at the edge of his consciousness, like the memories of torturing and being tortured, always ready to creep in the moment he tries to catch his breath. Having Sam close helps with that too. Things can’t be that bad if Sammy’s with him.

The adrenaline crash is hitting and that, combined with Sam and the familiar rocking of the Impala, is making his eyes droop.

“Did you get any sleep while I was gone?” Sam asks quietly.

“Yeah.” Not well or for very long, but it’s not like it’d been completely avoidable. Lack of sleep definitely isn’t why all his thoughts feel so scattered. “Finally had some peace and quiet.”

“Right,” he says, elbowing him hard enough that he winces with his whole body.

If his head ends up Sam’s shoulder after, that’s just a coincidence. Dean’s tense only until Sam slumps in his seat so he’s at a better height and Dean’s head rolls against his neck. Sam presses his cheek against the top of his head just for a moment, a tacit it’s okay that he’d die if Sam said aloud. He feels himself relaxing the rest of the way, exhaustion creeping in to replace the tension as it drains away.

Sleep is just about to pull him under when he realizes something’s off and he frowns, shifting against Sam, who obviously notices. “Dean?”

“No rattle,” he mutters. There’s supposed to be a rattle. He made sure of it. He blindly reaches out for the ashtray, looking for the army man.

Sam grabs his hand and pulls it back. “I know,” he says, gentle and sad.

Dean means to do something about that, but he’s asleep before he can figure out what.

~

Sam’s Dean is a jackass.

He knew that already, thanks to that voicemail and everything else Sam had told him about the guy, but by god does he want to punch himself in the face. First he slams Sam around, no hello or hug or anything, and then he accuses him of hanging around here just for kicks. Sam had worked himself past the point of reason the first few days, stretching himself as thin as he’d needed to in order go through who knows how many books in who knows how many languages to jury rig a spell that could do the impossible, all to get back to his Dean. He’d been willing to kill himself to do it, whatever it took to get him back home as soon as possible, and instead of being grateful, instead of recognizing how fucking lucky he is to have a little brother who’s that devoted to him, he’d started giving Sam shit for needing to wait for the damn moon.

Even his anger at Sam planning to kill himself had been more derisive than concerned. How was Sam supposed to know that he’d brought an angel to help get them home? He could have just said that from the beginning instead of giving Sam a hard time for his plan. Although, Dean has to admit, he’s glad it’s not necessary. Having to watch Sam drain a liter or more of blood from his body and then having to rush him to the hospital, knowing that there are no handy angels here interested in bringing his brother back to life, would give him some type of anxiety that they definitely don’t have the drugs to treat.

That’s all before Sam’s Dean had found out about this world’s Sam.

It had been casual, not even malicious. It just seemed obvious to him that if there was a Dean, there’d be a Sam.

The horror and disbelief as he’d realized, reading the truth from his face without having to say the words. The immediacy of the condemnation, without even knowing the specifics, as if Sam dying could only ever be his fault. Which, Sam and Dad’s insistence or no, he knows it is. Or maybe not his fault, but something he could have prevented and didn’t, and the difference between the two seems so minor as to be inconsequential.

Sam’s Dean had wanted specifics and thankfully Sam hadn’t given them. He’d felt like he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, as this asshole who treated his brother like shit demanded to know why Sam wasn’t alive here and Dean hadn’t known how to answer, how to face this version of himself that may be a real piece of work, but also saved Sammy, over and over.

Dean had fumbled his first chance at saving his brother and never gotten another because of it. He doesn’t want to know what this version of him would have to say to that, even if he’d deserve it.

After his Dean had gotten in the car, Sam had looked at him with his big, concerned eyes, reaching out to grab his elbow almost like he was worried that Dean wasn’t going to stay standing. He’d mouthed an apology for his brother that he didn’t need and didn’t mean anything coming from Sam anyway. Dean had forced himself to smile at Sam, because he’s fine, because it’s not like he doesn’t know. He’s spent every day since the fire with the knowledge of what he’d lost pressing down on him and sure, meeting the adult that his Sam had never gotten a chance to be is in some ways just twisting the knife, but so what? It’s his only chance to get to know his brother and if that means having to put with an alternate, even more of an asshole version of himself, so be it.

Then there’s a passed out angel in his front seat and Sam getting in the back with his Dean, which is fine, of course. He’s spent days worrying over him and trying to get back to him, of course now that he’s here, he wants to stay close. If Dean finds himself glancing in the mirror more than normal, that’s just a coincidence.

There’s plenty of space in the backseat, but they sit pressed together in the middle like they have no choice. Sam’s Dean murmurs some things he doesn’t catch and then they’re both moving, but not apart, only so Sam’s Dean can fall asleep with his head on Sam’s shoulder. Dean sees his counterpart reach for the door for some reason, but Sam’s gently pushes his hand back down and keeps it there, practically holding his hand as his Dean slips into sleep.

They drive for a while in silence, until Dean is sure that the other him isn’t going to wake up from them talking. “He alright?”

He doesn’t want to ask. He doesn’t particularly care. But Sam looks worried. Besides, he can admit that silent and still, he looks haggard in a way he hadn’t when he was shoving Sam around or giving him shit.

“Yeah,” Sam sighs. “I told you, he’s not great at being alone.”

“He does not do well when you are apart,” the angel, Cas, says and Dean nearly sends them into the next lane over. He’d thought he was asleep, but apparently not. He’s got his eyes closed, not moving, but his voice had come out strong and steady. “It is not loneliness that haunts him, but your absence.”

“I know,” Sam says, looking down at his Dean sadly.

Personally, Dean thinks that if he values Sam so much, then he should treat him better, but he keeps his mouth shut on that front. He swallows. “So you’re an angel? I kind of expected something, uh, different.”

Cas says, “My true form is incompatible to life on earth as it’s comprised of pure energy and is roughly a thousand feet tall. This vessel is borrowed.”

“Uh, cool,” he blinks then his eyes narrow. “Wait, you’re possessing this guy? Like a demon?”

Cas opens one blue eye to glare at him. It’s not especially intimidating. “We must borrow forms to interact on earth as demons do, yes, but our methodology is different. Demons possess at will. An angel can only take a human vessel with permission.” His mouth tugs down at the corner. “My vessel and his family were devout. I had not intended for harm to come to them, but I could not prevent it. James Novak gave himself willingly in the name of God and suffered for it. I seek to save my father’s creation and I could not protect a single family. It bodes ill for our mission.”

“Cas,” Sam says, that same compassion in his voice when he’d spoken to Lenore, when he’d defended Dean from himself. “You weren’t in a great headspace. If you hadn’t been yanked back to heaven, Jimmy wouldn’t have gone home and the demons wouldn’t have done anything. Hell, if I hadn’t left him to,” he cuts himself off, lips pressed together as he looks out the window.

Dean doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but he braces himself to hear some more stupid shit about Sam that he doesn’t believe. At least Cas is close enough to hit if he feels the need. Then again, hitting a near all powerful being like angels seem to be is probably a pretty bad idea, but also Cas currently looks more like a cranky toddler than anything else.

“You had made him more than aware of the risks and he chose to return regardless,” Cas says. “Yes, you should not have left him alone, but without his daughter’s freedom at risk, he would not have agreed to give his body over to me for a second time, and his family would have remained in danger. I am not proud of that manipulation, but I won’t deny it either.” What the hell does that mean? He’s starting to think Sammy needs better friends. “You were not equipped to hold a man hostage against his will indefinitely. He would have returned no matter what and the demons would have acted. It was not you that promised him his family’s safety, but I, and it is I who failed. If anything, Sam, I owe you gratitude.”

Sam shakes his head, stilling only when the movement threatens to jostle his Dean.

“It’s true,” Cas continues. “My method of demon removal burns out the host. If you had not rescued my vessel’s wife, I would have been forced to kill her, and my promise to James would have been broken completely.”

That sounds like Sam used his powers, since it’s their only reliable method of demon removal that at least sometimes leaves the host alive. Funny how helping an angel save his vessel’s wife hadn’t made it into the conversation last night.

Sam shrugs with the shoulder his Dean isn’t sleeping on. “I needed a fix. Amelia just happened to be there after.”

“No,” Cas says, eyes opening again and looking into the mirror to see Sam, because apparently turning his head is too much effort. “I have James’s memories. You struggled to use your powers before and must have wanted it just as badly, but you did not drink despite the opportunity. Only when Amelia was in danger of being lost forever did you drink.”

Sam chews on his bottom lip. “That’s just because Dean was there before. If I’d known Dean was behind me the second time, I wouldn’t have done it, and I probably wouldn’t have been strong enough to kill the demon inside her. Amelia would have died.”

There’s something about that statement that’s niggling Dean as off, but he can’t quite put his finger on it.

“Precisely,” Cas says. “It was a choice you made given our circumstances. If you were motivated purely by your desire, then the circumstances would be inconsequential. Only opportunity would be relevant.”

Ah, that’s it. Although using a lot more dumbass words than Dean would. Also, and he’s obviously not going to say this in front of Cas and Sam’s Dean, but it’s not quite matching up with what Dean knows of his powers. He hadn’t needed demon blood to kill the demon in the girl that had attacked him, so why would he need it to take care of Amelia? Unless that’s a skill he’d only perfected after, but he’d said before he was able to kill demons, he could exorcise them. Even if he’d needed blood to kill the demon, he should have been able to pull the demon out of Amelia without it. Right?

Whatever. He’ll ask Sam the next time they’re alone.

“Do you honestly expect me to believe that you can resist the pull of Famine, but not your own natural impulses?” Cas asks tiredly. “There is no logic in this.”

He’s not sure exactly what Cas is talking about, but Sam looks out the window and doesn’t answer, stubborn now like he’d been Dean had pointed out the holes in his self recrimination.

Maybe this angel guy isn’t so bad.

Neither of them say anything after that, Cas falling back into maybe sleep while Sam alternates between looking out the window and at his brother. Dean fiddles with the radio until he finds something not terrible, since Cas is sitting on his tapes.

The next few hours pass quickly enough. He thinks at one point Sam falls asleep, his head resting on his brother’s, but the next time he looks, he’s back to staring out the window. Cas doesn’t so much as twitch, which is actually pretty unnerving, and pulling in to Bobby’s scrapyard is almost a relief.

As soon as he turns the car off, Sam’s Dean wakes with a grunt, blinking blearily and stretching his arm into Sam’s face. It’s not until Sam bats it away and his Dean grins, moving it back to rub his arm into Sam’s nose, that he realizes he’s doing it on purpose just to irritate him. Sam jabs his long fingers into Dean’s ribs, who drops his arm to guard against the spot, and Sam takes the opportunity to escape out the door. His Dean mutters, “Coward,” but his grin hasn’t totally faded as he follows Sam out.

It makes his chest ache. It’s so easy to imagine the exact same thing happening when they were kids, it’s probably a back and forth they’ve done a thousand times, something they don’t even think about. He gets out, suddenly in need of air. Cas stays exactly where he is, apparently not interested in moving unless someone is interested in making him.

The front door opens and Bobby says, “Aw hell, what have you gotten into now?”

Sam’s Dean turns at the sound of Bobby’s voice, oddly doing the same thing Sam had, looking first at his knees before raising his eyes to his face, which makes sense once Dean remembers that Sam said their Bobby is in a wheelchair.

“Oh shit.” Sam suddenly pales and grabs his Dean’s shoulder. “I have to tell you something.”

His Dean raises an eyebrow, but before Sam can continue, the front door opens again and Dad steps out. Sam’s Dean goes completely still and right, Dad’s dead in their world, he’d almost forgotten.

“Took you boys long enough,” Dad says, a faint disapproval there that Dean can’t make himself feel anything about. Mostly he’s just glad that Dad isn’t armed. He’d been hoping to talk to Dad before Sam had to deal with him, but the other world’s him and an angel showing up had thrown all his plans out of whack. Dad looks between him and Sam’s Dean and frowns. “Do I need to get the silver?”

He wants to be irritated that Dad thinks they would have came all this way with him without checking, but the truth is they hadn’t. Sam had known this Dean was his and he hadn’t questioned it, but he decides not to mention that. Something tells him Dad won’t be as quick to trust Sammy’s judgement as he’d been.

Dad and Bobby are coming down the porch and his counterpart still hasn’t moved, Dean’s not even sure if he’s breathing. Sam had said more than once that his Dean had taken Dad’s death especially hard, that they’d gotten along better and his Dean had even leaned into acting like Dad after he’d come back from hell. He’s expecting – he doesn’t know, tears, for him to reach out to Dad, to at least say he’s missed him like Sam had, something.

Except his counterpart’s voice is oddly wooden when he asks, “Did you know?”

“Know what?” Dad asks, still looking between the two of them, obviously searching for differences. Dean doesn’t know if he wants him to find them or not.

“Did you know about Sammy?” he asks. Sam flinches and lets his hand drop from his Dean’s shoulder, hunching defensively. “Did you know what Yellow Eyes did to him, about the other kids, what he was planning?”

Dad hesitates to answer, which is an answer all on its own. Dean can’t believe this. He’s seriously asking Dad about Sam’s abilities? Is he crazy? He feels a flicker of doubt. Could Sam’s Dean really have wondered if he should have killed Sam? It doesn’t seem possible, not from the man who’s first reaction to hearing his brother was dead here had been to berate him for not saving Sam, but he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing talking to Dad about this in the first place.

Sam’s Dean moves then, his face is thunderous. He darts towards Dad and shoves him hard enough that he stumbles back even as he puts up his hands, eyebrows dipped together. “So when we told you about Sam’s visions, you already knew? You knew everything” Visions? Sam hadn’t mentioned visions. “What the hell? Do you have any idea – he died!”

Dad flinches, looking from the other world’s Dean to Sam, as if checking he’s still breathing.

“You told me to save him or kill him but nothing else!” Dean shouts. “What the hell was I supposed to think? To do? I went on and on about how these kids weren’t inherently evil, how they were just people, how they were fucking victims! I hammered home over and over that they were just people, that Sammy was a person too and the demon couldn’t get him if he didn’t let it. I told him he wasn’t a killer, Dad! When the demon threw them all together and told them to fight to the death, what do you think Sam did, huh? He fucking died rather than become something I told him he wasn’t!”  

Oh.

Dean gets it now.

Dad looks lost, because knowing that the demon bled in his son’s mouth and did the same to a bunch of other kids probably doesn’t translate to knowing what the hell this Dean is talking about. Then again, that doesn’t mean their dad didn’t know. Sam said that his dad had put together the pattern to recognize the demon in the first place and had known about the Devil’s Gate and hadn’t told them, so maybe he did know exactly what the demon was planning to do with Sam before he died.

“You told me that cryptic bullshit then died and I couldn’t protect him because I didn’t know what I was supposed to protect him from!” The other world’s Dean has his hands balled up into fists at his side. The bruise Sam had left on Dad’s jaw is a deep purple and Dean’s halfway convinced it’s about to get a friend. By the way Bobby’s eyeing them, he seems to agree.

“Dean,” Dad says finally, voice almost gentle. He reaches out a hand towards him, but Sam’s Dean jerks back, shaking his head.

“I can’t do this,” he says, voice cracking, and then heads off into the junkyard, disappearing into the stacks of old, broken down cars.

Sam doesn’t look at any of them before going after his brother.

~

Holy shit.

He walks until his legs give out on him and he finds himself sitting on the hood of a VW Bug that’s missing both its entire back half and its wheels, which conveniently makes it perfect sitting height. He puts his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands, trying to calm the hell down and failing. He’s shaking like a bitch and can’t seem to stop.

How the hell had Sam done this all the time? He and Dad would scream themselves hoarse, would sometimes even get into physical fights that Dean would have to break apart. He could always see the hurt in his little brother’s eyes, but he’d just shrug it off after like it was nothing, like Dad couldn’t be fucking terrifying when he was mad whether he meant to be or not. Dad hadn’t even fought him and Dean still thinks he’s going to be sick. He’s never spoken to Dad like that before. The closest he’d gotten was when Dad had gotten mad at him for not calling to tell him that Sam was having visions, which was even dumber now since he’d known all along and hadn’t told Sam, hadn’t told him.

There are footsteps coming closer but he doesn’t move. He knows it’s Sam.

His brother sits down next to him and stretches his legs out so his ankle hooks behind Dean’s. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move, just stays there and waits with that little point of contact between them. What a little bitch. How dare he not want anything to do with him and still know exactly how to calm him down. It’s not fair.

When his breathing feels a little more even, he says, “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say nothing,” Sam says, purposefully casual in a way he knows will annoy him. Dean reaches out to hit him in the chest and he just laughs. “So.”

“I don’t know, man,” he groans, scrubbing a hand through his hair.

“You didn’t do that when we met Dad before,” he says, less teasing this time.

Or when he’d seen him on his own without Sammy, but, “That was different. That wasn’t Dad, that was,” someone else, someone Dad had stopped being the night their life went up in flames. He couldn’t get mad at that guy, the one that loved his wife and wanted to take care of his family and thought that children should be protected by sheltering them, not arming them. Seeing Dad like that hadn’t made him angry, just sad. It was just a reminder of what else that night had taken from them.

But Dad had stood there, looking so close to the man that had told him he might have to kill his brother, with that disappointed slant to his mouth. They’d been there fifteen seconds and he was already judging them, questioning him, something he’d always done, but this time Dean had lost it. He’d thought of what he’d say if he ever saw Dad again, what he’d do, and it hadn’t been that. He doesn’t know where the hell that came from.

“Yeah, I get it,” Sam says. “You know, when we went back and saw Mom and Dad, I told Dad that I understood why my father raised me like he did and I forgave him. I really meant it, but it took less than a day here and me and Dad were fighting again.”

Dean smiles. He’s not surprised. It’s like that first year again, how losing Jessica and time and being on the road had softened Sam to the idea of Dad, how he’d been worried about him and missed him and when they’d seen him again, they’d hugged like they hadn’t for years before Sam left. Then Dad had been Dad and Sam had put up with it as well as he usually did, which was not at all, and Dean had ended up shoving his way between them before someone threw a punch on the side of the road.

“You know what happened at Cold Oak isn’t your fault, right?” Sam asks.

They’re not talking about this. They’ve spent years not talking about this.

“Dean,” he says quietly.

“You beat Jake unconscious,” he says, because fuck it. “You told me that.”

Sam nods. “Yeah.”

“He’d already tried to kill you,” he continues. “Ava too, but you didn’t kill her either, and you could have, with powers or without. You left him alive and he stabbed you in the back, Sammy.”

Fuck, he’s not crying over this again, not now. Sam’s fine. He’s right next to him.

He shifts closer to Dean as if in reminder. “He was a person, Dean.”

“So?” he demands. “People kill other people in self defense all the time. You didn’t have a problem shooting him when he was opening the Devil’s Gate.”

“That’s different,” he says with this patient tone that makes Dean want to strangle him. “We knew that whatever Azazel wanted him to do, a lot of people were going to hurt and killed. If he’d stopped us from closing it when we did, things would have been even worse off.”

Is he listening to himself right now? “So it’s okay to kill him to save other people’s lives, but not your own? Sammy, I,” he takes a deep breath. “If I’d known you were going to end up there, I would have told you to kill them all.”

Sam jerks next to him. “Dean!”

“I’m serious,” he says. “You beat a soldier with super strength. The rest wouldn’t have been a problem. We both know that. I told you that you weren’t a killer, Sammy, but if it kept you alive, then I wouldn’t have cared. If the demon was going to only let one of you walk out of there, then it should have been you.”

If he’d known, he’d have killed Andy himself when they found him, no matter that he was a good kid that wouldn’t have deserved it. He’d have hunted down every one of those psychic kids so he could kill them before they could kill his brother. Sam hadn’t even been willing to kill Gordon after he’d shot at him, kidnapped Dean, and tried to blow him up twice. Of course he wasn’t going to hurt the other kids the demon had fucked over.

Years ago, he’d told Sam that what he was capable of doing for him scared him, but it doesn’t scare him anymore. After what he did in hell, sometimes it feels like what he’d do for his brother is the only thing tethering him to his humanity. However much of it is left.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says tightly. “If I had, then you wouldn’t have sold your soul and you wouldn’t have gone to–”

“I don’t care about that,” he says, even though, yeah, not going to hell would have been nice. If he hadn’t gone to hell, then he wouldn’t have broken down there, and they wouldn’t be in the middle of an apocalypse. “That’s not the point. I know why you didn’t do it, Sammy, it’s because I’d spent a year giving you reason after reason not to and I wish I hadn’t, because then you wouldn’t have died. That’s it.”

There’s silence between them then, one that Dean doesn’t want to break. Eventually Sam says, “I couldn’t do it for me,” which, yeah, Dean knows and doesn’t understand and hates, “but if I’d known what you would do after, what you’d go through because of it, I’d have done it. I’d have done it for you.”

God. What the hell does Sam expect him to do with that?

“You know what pissed me off the most about what Dad told you?” Sam asks. “It’s that he put that on you, which was such bullshit. I did it too, I know, but who else could I ask? He’d told you to look out for me my entire life and then he asks you to kill me. If he really thought I was going to go dark side, he should have just done it himself.”

Dean turns and grabs the first bit of Sam he can reach, tangling his hand in his collar. “Are you crazy? What would the point of that have been? I would have gotten as far as the hospital parking lot before blowing my brains out.”

Dad dead and in hell thanks to the demon deal and Sam dead by their father’s hand and he wouldn’t have even known why. He shudders just imagining it.

“Hey,” Sam puts his hand on top of Dean’s, but doesn’t try and pull his hand away from him, he just leaves it there. “Don’t say that. Give Dad a break, okay? He didn’t say it, not here, and I mean, look at what happened, he may have had a point. It’s not like you haven’t thought the same thing before.”

For a moment, he really thinks that Sam just punched him, and then he realizes it only feels like he has. It still takes him a moment to catch his breath, as if there really is a fist buried in his gut. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

The worst part is that Sam just looks confused. “What?”

“I’ve never wanted to fucking kill you!” he snaps. What is Sam talking about? When the hell had he – “I said if I didn’t know you, I’d want to hunt you. Hunting isn’t killing! You really telling me if you’d seen some guy controlling demons with his mind, you wouldn’t look it into? That wouldn’t seem odd to you? You’d have just gone oh, definitely completely above board, no need to investigate! We hunted Andy, but we didn’t kill him, did we?”

“I, no, uh,” he blinks. “Right. I just – that wasn’t what I – that’s good, though,” he adds, eyes downcast. “Right. Didn’t think about it like that.”

Has Sam really been walking around for the past year thinking that if Dean didn’t know him, he’d kill him? No, that can’t be right. That fight had been bad, and yeah, he’d said it like that because he knew it would hurt and he was pissed and that was the point, not his finest moment, but they’d moved on. They’d been good on that case with the movie obsessed shifter, things had almost felt okay again. He’d thought then that he knew all of Sam’s secrets, the demon blood when he was a baby and the powers and working with Ruby, and if he didn’t like them, well, at least they were on the same page and they could figure it out together.

Yeah, right. Minus the demon blood his brother was drinking whenever his back was turned. No wonder the sneaking away with Ruby hadn’t stopped even after Dean had found out about it.

Whatever, not the point. That can’t be it, but what else could Sam be talking about?

His breath catches. Does he mean in the hotel room, when Dean had called him a monster? Because they only deal with monsters one way. But he hadn’t meant it, and he’d told Sam that. He’d left him that embarrassing voicemail and he’d told him that he shouldn’t have said it and that he was sorry.

Sam’s never mentioned the voicemail. Too hopped up on demon blood to care at the time, he guesses, because no way the brother he’d grown up with would have heard that voicemail and still gone on without him, without even trying to call him back.

Maybe he had gotten it and it had just been too little too late, blood or no blood, and he hadn’t cared about his apology, at the emotion in his voice he for once hadn’t tried to hide.

Dean wants to know what the hell Sam is talking about, but he can’t bring himself to ask if he means their fight in the hotel, not when that would mean bringing up the voicemail they don’t talk about. Back when Meg had possessed him, he’d told Sam he’d rather die than kill him. That’s never changed, not for a moment.

But Sam still isn’t looking at him. Whatever he’s thinking isn’t anything good. Just because Sam breaks his heart all the time doesn’t mean he has to return the favor.

“Hey,” he says, reaching out to squeeze his knee. Sam tilts his head enough to look at him through his too long bangs. He tries to make himself smile and probably doesn’t do a great job of it, but the skin around Sam’s eyes eases, so good enough. “We should probably go face the music, huh?”

Sam’s mouth twitches and then he’s leaning back against windshield, which is miraculously intact even though pretty much nothing else about the car is. “Nah. Best thing to do after a fight with Dad is give him time to stew, remember?”

That’s actually a lie he’d told Sam so that he wouldn’t go charging back in there start up the fight all over again, but he’s pretty sure Sam had figured that one out by the time he was seventeen. His smile feels a little more real when he says, “Right,” and eases back until he’s lying next to his brother, their shoulders pressed together.

Whatever the hell else is going on, Sam’s with him.

It can’t be all bad.

Chapter Text

They stay out there for longer than they probably should, considering how they left things, but Sam doesn’t make any move to get up or say anything. He just lies there like he’s perfectly content to stay here with Dean without a hint of impatience. It’s fucking with his head a little, to be honest. It just doesn’t make sense. He has so many memories just like this, of him and Sam lying side by side with a contentment running between them that Dean has never felt with anyone else. It doesn’t seem like something he should be able to share with someone who doesn’t want anything to do with him, but he saw Sam’s heaven. Walking alone down a dark road is better to Sam than the countless hours they’ve spent on the hood of the Impala shoulder to shoulder, heads tilted to the sky.

He would have sworn those were some of Sammy’s favorite memories, especially when he’d ramble about whatever new geek thing he’d learned about the stars from a stolen copy of National Geographic or a new version of old myths he’d come across. Sam loves telling him about stupid shit that doesn’t matter, or at least Dean thought he did. He’d sounded happy then, would laugh at Dean’s mocking and call him a philistine and it would feel so warm and comfortable that Dean would think there was nothing better than this.

Why couldn’t that have been their heaven? Dean might not have even wanted to leave.

He breathes out harshly through his nose, scrubbing a hand over his face. Sam sighs and pushes himself off the car and onto his feet, stretching his arms over his head. Dean smacks him in the stomach as he passes and Sam grunts and elbows him in the back as he steps up next to him. They don’t say anything as they walk back to the house until Sam goes, “Uh, should we – is he okay?”

“What?” Dean blinks and sees Cas is still asleep in the Impala. Or not asleep, meditating, or whatever. “He’s probably fine.”

Sam rolls his eyes and goes over, gently knocking on the window until Cas moves his head back and then opening the door. “Hey, you alright?”

“That’s a broad question,” Cas says. “I am unsure of how to answer it. Could you be more specific?”

Sam’s lips twitch at the corners. “Why are you still in the car?”

“Oh,” he says. “Bobby asked me if I wanted to lay down inside and I told him that was unnecessary. Their metaphysical energies are… distracting.”

“Okay,” Sam says, because he has a larger tolerance for Cas acting like a freak than Dean does. Probably because he’s had to deal with it less. “Do you want to come inside with us?”

Cas looks around Sam to him and his frown deepens. “I suppose.” Sam takes a step back as Cas gets to his feet. All the laying around must be doing some good, because he doesn’t sway this time and seems steady enough when he walks up the porch.

They step in through the front door and Dean shouts, “Oh, Lucy!” because the alternative is slinking in with his tail between his legs and fuck that.

“Your Cuban accent is terrible,” Sam says.

“It’s not a Cuban accent, it’s a Ricky Ricardo impression,” he argues, “and it’s excellent.”

“It could use some work,” Sam says before dodging into the library to avoid getting hit.

Dean follows, obviously, to see the other him, Dad, and Bobby in the middle of reshelving a decent chunk of Bobby’s collection. They’re all staring at him and he can feel his hackles rise. He’s searching for some way to break the mounting tension that isn’t losing his temper again and finds himself legitimately distracted as he looks over the room. He goes over to the nearest bookshelf and gives it a shake, making a face when it wobbles just slightly. “I didn’t make these.”

He'd had mostly scrap to work with, so they weren’t the best he could have done, but he’d made them well. They were good and solid and he’d sanded and stained and sealed them all himself. These aren’t even the right color.

He rakes his eyes over the shelf and feels his frown deepen. He’s not a freak about organization like Sam, but he’s spent enough time in Bobby’s library to know it pretty damn well. “And these are in the wrong order.”

“No me, remember?” Sam asks and Dean has to consciously decide not to flinch. “No summer project. When I got here, Bobby’s library was how it was when we were kids.”

Christ. When Sam was really little, Dean had told him that when things went missing, they ended up in Bobby’s library and the kid had believed him. It had been funny up until he’d asked Dean if Dad kept popping up in Bobby’s library and that’s why they didn’t get along. “You went through organizing this whole thing again? You got some masochistic tendencies you haven’t told me about?”

“How was I going to start researching when I didn’t know where anything was?” Sam shoots back.

He frowns. “What were you researching?”

Sam looks at him like he’s an idiot. “How to get home. What, you think I just pulled a ritual to cross universes out of my ass?”

Oh. “I don’t know, man, you know a ton of useless shit.”

“Says the man who can name the entire cast of Jersey Shore,” Sam says.

“You never know when that’ll come in handy,” he says, biting down on a smile. Girls love talking about Jersey Shore. Sam took an art history class to impress girls, but he probably could have just taken his head out of a book for long enough to pay attention to some reality television and done just fine.

Although, considering Jess had painted and drawn and had been warily poking her way around pottery when the fire happened, Sam probably hadn’t been all that interested in impressing girls in general, but rather one in particular. Dean’s face almost drops, but he keeps it steady.

When he looks to the others, they’re still staring at him. Well, besides this universe’s him, who’s busy staring at Sam, which irritates him for no real reason that he can name. He meets Dad’s gaze and it’s the lack of anger or disappointment there that unsettles him most. He opens his mouth and only gets as far as, “Dad,” before he finds himself stuck again.

How does he apologize blaming him for the actions of another version of himself? Does he have any idea what Dean was even talking about? He must have some, he’d reacted like he had, but he has no idea about how much of this world is the same without Sam. How much about their world back home does he even know about? Does he know that he’s dead? He hadn’t seemed surprised at that, but he doesn’t think any hunter would be all that surprised to hear they’d kicked the bucket before retirement age. He probably should have spent some of the time lying next to his brother asking him what had gone on the last couple of days, but it hadn’t seemed important until just now.

“It’s alright,” Dad says and even sounds like he means it. “Seems like your old man died before you could give him a piece of your mind.”

“Yeah,” he says, then swallows. He wishes he’d done it right then while he was still lying in his hospital bed, but he’d been exhausted and in pain and pumped full of drugs and he hadn’t known that Dad was going to keel over right after. He wishes he’d demanded an explanation, that he’d told Dad he was full of shit as soon as he’d said something like that about Sam. The shock and confusion and a lifetime of not talking back to his father had kept him quiet even in the face of the worst thing his father had ever said to him.

Bobby leans back in his chair. “At least this one didn’t hit you.”

He blinks, focusing on his double. “You hit Dad?”

Is that where the bruise on his face is from? He’s seen Dad banged up more often than not, so he hadn’t questioned it.

“Me?” he says, crossing his arms. “Try again, genius.”

Ah. Of course.

He looks to Sam and waits for that familiar rush of frustration whenever he’d get into it with Dad, the way just hearing Sam bitch about him would make his blood pressure rise. Instead he’s almost amused. All the ways Sam’s changed, and this is still just the same. “Dude.”

“He’s lucky it was just one,” Sam says, unrepentant like he always is about fighting with Dad. The only times he was ever even a little sorry about it was when Dean was hurt and he’d still try and break it up, but under normal circumstances that didn’t do shit for Sam’s attitude. Sometimes he’d snap at Dean to stay out of it if it bothered him so much, as if he could watch the only family he had tear each other apart and do nothing.

His double’s mouth twitches and Dad looks down at the book he’d been shelving, almost like he agrees with him, which leaves Dean blinking. That’s definitely never happened before. There’d been plenty of times when Sam had argued with Dad about shit and been right and that hadn’t made any difference to their father. What the hell had they fought about?

He’s about to ask when Bobby says, “I see your friend is awake.”

“I was not asleep,” Cas says, an edge of exasperation there that he’s not sure anyone besides him and Sam are practiced enough to hear. “I am Castiel. I am an angel of the lord.”

Not much reaction to that besides mild skepticism. Their Dean must have filled them in.

“We usually just call him Cas,” he says.

Cas inclines his head. “I will also answer to this.”

Sam goes over to Bobby’s desk and grabs two books off it, one that Dean vaguely recognizes and the other that he could correctly shelve but not much else. Sam pauses, pulling out a folded piece of paper from the second one, eyes briefly widening in surprise before his whole face softens. “You finished the translation.”

“I told you I would,” Bobby says, meeting Sam’s eyes squarely. There’s a tentativeness from Sam that leaves Dean frowning even as it melts away under Bobby’s gaze. Sam doesn’t usually fight with Bobby. Dad’s looking at Sam now, a level of judgement that wasn’t there previously, but he’s not saying anything.

What’s that about?

“Thanks,” Sam says softly before flipping both books open and handing them to Cas. “This is what I was going to do before you showed up. Can we use it to get home any faster? I know returning home is easier than coming here, but you’ll have both me and Dean to transport this time.”

Is going back easier? Why? How does Sam know that? He doesn’t see the kid for a couple days and suddenly he’s an expert in trans-universal travel.

“That is correct,” Castiel says, scanning one book then the other. “It will take a significant amount of grace to transport the three of us back unharmed.” He blinks down at the page. “This ritual would have killed you.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Why does everyone keep saying that? I know, but I would have just been brought back.”

Cas frowns, but doesn’t argue the point further. Dean sort of wishes he would. See, he wants to be able to say, even the angel thinks it’s a stupid plan. Except then Cas says, “Besides the matter of your death, I believe this would have been quite effective. We could attempt to procure an alternate power source. This ritual will not affect me as I have no soul, but if used in conjunction with my own abilities to move between worlds, we may not have to wait until my grace has fully recovered.”

“Angels don’t have souls?” Bobby asks, a look on his face that has Dean smiling. He forgets sometimes, but Bobby’s just as a big a nerd about this stuff as Sam is. He just hides it under dirty baseball caps and a concerning whiskey habit. Not that he’s had much room to talk there recently, but still.

Cas shakes his head, still looking over Sam’s books. “Not as you have them. Human souls were my father’s final and favorite creation. Angels are structured differently.”

“Differently how?” Sam asks and Dean sort of wishes he had a camera right then so he could snap a photo of Sam and Bobby, the both of them with that same intrigued expression. Sam was a curious little brat even when they were kids, a constant litany of why and how come that drove Dean up the wall, but Bobby hadn’t been phased. He’d answer what he could and then hand him a book, telling Sam to let him know when he figured it out. The kid had loved that, silent and still all day until he talked their ears off at dinner.

“Well,” Cas says, then his frown deepens. “Human souls are the support structure of humanity, the bones upon which the rest of you is built, each one unique and complicated and integral to your existence. It’s a largely untapped well of potential because it is impossible to be all that you are capable of being. That is both the beauty and tragedy of your kind. Angels, by comparison, are invertebrates, like those of the phylum mollusca.”

What? He’d been following up until that last bit. His Latin’s pretty good, but he wouldn’t exactly describe angels as a soft race.

“What, you’re a slug?” Sam repeats dubiously. “Cas, angels are some the most powerful beings that exist.”

Dean lets out a startled laugh. Cas had spoken so warmly of humanity and then compared his own existence to a slimy bug.

“Yes,” Cas agrees. “We are exactly what we are, from creation to extermination. We simply are or are not. There is no skeleton within us, so to speak. Even now, I take refuge in James Novak as if I am a snail in a shell. We were created only for an existence on a plane which my father has found unsatisfactory.”

This world’s Dean says, “Wait, are you talking about heaven?”

He glances at Sam as he asks, which Dean doesn’t get, up until he remembers that this world’s Sam is dead and his chest hurts. Do babies grow up in heaven? Staying a six month old forever doesn’t seem like much of a heaven, but what else is there? Heaven isn’t anything new, only a facsimile of the old played on repeat. Mom’s heaven probably has a fake version of Sammy and Sammy’s is being held by a fake version of Mom, so close and yet kept apart forever in death, and fuck, he needs to stop thinking about this right now.

Soulmates share a heaven. Are they still soulmates if they barely got a chance to know each other? When this Dean dies, is he going to land in a heaven with a baby that won’t even recognize him?

No, okay, he’s done, he’s not thinking about this anymore. He means it.

“Yes,” Cas says, and it takes Dean a minute to remember what question he’s answering. “Paradise was always the garden, complete with all its imperfections and monstrosities. Earth and the humans who walk it, in all their imperfections and monstrosities, are worth preserving. Heaven is only a consolation for losing paradise.”

That’s what Dean had said in heaven. Pam had tried to tell him that it was great up there, that if he said yes and half the world died, then it wouldn’t be so bad, but it hadn’t sounded believable then and it still doesn’t. In heaven, all anyone has is a pale imitation of earth, and they’re alone. Dean hates being alone.

Well, not that he’ll be alone in his. He’ll share it with Sam, who wants nothing to do with him. Maybe God isn’t so forgiving of them and they’re granted heaven only because it’s not really what either of them wants – Sam stuck for eternity with Dean when all he wants is to get away from him, and Dean stuck forever with a brother who he knows wants nothing to do with him. Maybe Sam will set up in a little corner of their heaven away from Dean and he’ll have to content himself with false versions of his little brother who he remembers as still liking him while Sam goes on long walks and plays with dogs or whatever.

“You sound like you’re doing better,” Sam says. Dean struggles to make sense of that before he remembers that the last time Sam saw Cas was directly after they got back from heaven and he was pretty hopeless about them, the apocalypse, God, everything.

He resists the urge to raise a hand to his chest where his amulet used to be. He wore it every day for almost twenty years but he hadn’t been wearing it since Cas needed it to find God, or whatever, so he hadn’t thought he’d miss it after throwing it out. He still finds himself reaching for it or looking around when he realizes it’s not around his neck before he remembers why.

It had always been a reminder that Sam put him first, that he cared about him the most, that he wanted Dean protected more than their father. It was a sign that Sam trusted Dean to protect him, that he didn’t need the charm himself because he had Dean for that. Maybe it was stupid and childish to expect Sam to feel the same way about him now as when he was eight years old, when Dean’s let him down so many times since then, but – he doesn’t know. Who’s he kidding? It was childish and stupid and Sam’s heaven just drove that point home for him. There was no point in holding on to it when it was just a symbol of something he didn’t have anymore and maybe hadn’t for a long time.

Part of him still wishes he hadn’t gotten rid of it. He’d just been hurt, Sam’s heaven having pulled the rug out from under him even before they’d found out that God had abandoned them. Hurt and fear just make him pissed these days, because if he lets himself fall into that pit of despair he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to pull himself out. He’s been teetering on the edge of it since hell, and anger is the only thing that lets him keep ahold of his sanity a little longer, although finding out what Sam really thought about him had almost undone him completely. Even in hell, they hadn’t been able to convince him that his brother didn’t love him. It took heaven to do that.

This other Dean is wearing it, the amulet he’d thrown in the trash to hurt his brother hanging around his neck. He wishes he wouldn’t. He doesn’t get why he is. Sam didn’t give it to him here, it’s just a mild protection charm, no more remarkable than any other they’ve come across despite the connection to God.

“Yes,” Cas says, mouth curling into an almost smile. Dean really need to stay focused on the here and now rather than getting caught up on his own bullshit. “You and your brother have many faults,” gee, thanks Cas, “however it is difficult to witness the lengths you will go to for one another, even when all seems hopeless and regardless of what it costs you, and remain unmoved. Earth and the humans on it have been my father’s most beloved creation for a long time and he commanded us to care for it as he does. If I cannot bring myself to love it as much as you and Dean love each other, and so remain equally determined to fight for it, then I must accept that I failed my father long before he left heaven.”

Sam is looking at Cas all soft and gooey and all Dean can think of is heaven, are the words Mom said that still make him think of Sam, of how Sam fights for him but doesn’t want him. What’s the point of it all? Say they stop the apocalypse, save the world, whatever. Great, awesome, big ol’ win for humanity. Then what? Sam has no reason to hang around him and strikes off on his own like he’s been trying to do practically since he learned to walk and then Dean’s left alone.

Fuck, he’s tired.

“I’m gonna get a beer,” he says, too abrupt but not really caring. He wants to hit something. At least then he doesn’t have to think. “Anyone want one?”

“Dean,” Sam says, half disapproval and half beseeching and all little brother. It’s endearing and irritating and so very Sam. It still makes Dean want to smile despite everything which just isn’t fair.

“Yeah, I’ll grab you one,” he says, purposely misunderstanding, then walking out before Sam can say anything else.

He crosses through the living room to the kitchen and gets as far as hand on the handle of the fridge before he just stops, taking a deep breath and leaning forward until his forehead is tipped against the freezer. Having Sam back is good. Knowing he’s safe and unhurt and not being put through a meat grinder, literally or figuratively, means that Dean should be able to feel like he can breathe again.

But all that shit he’d been dealing with before Sam got kidnapped to another universe is just bubbling up all over again. He wishes it wouldn’t, that he didn’t care so much about the particulars. Sam probably doesn’t feel all those things that Zachariah had made Mom say to him in heaven, at least not completely. He cares about Dean. He wants him safe. He wants him happy. It should be enough.

It’s not, though.

Maybe this is all just his own problem, how desperately he wants to be needed by those he loves. Sam isn’t like this, obviously, and Dad definitely wasn’t. He’s always been different than other people, never fitting in, but he’d thought that was just because he was a hunter, because he knew things that those other people didn’t about how the world works. Except even around other hunters, he rarely finds himself able to fully relax. It used to be the only one he felt normal around was Sam, and he still does, for at least as long as it takes him to remember that Sam doesn’t want him there.

“You alright?”

The words and cadence sound like Sam, but the gruff voice has his spine snapping straight even when there’s no reprimand behind it. He turns, trying to smile, but the effort feels more like an exaggerated grimace than anything else. “Dad. Hey.”

Dad glances over him, that quiet, contemplative look that he last remembers on his face from when they finally told Dad about Sam’s visions.

He hadn’t liked it back then when it was directed at his brother and he’s not a big fan of it now. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says, which is such an obvious lie that Dean doesn’t even feel compelled to point it out. Dad shakes his head. “You’re different. With Sam, I don’t have anything to compare it to, and when I feel like I have no idea what to do with him or think about him, I can go, well, it’s not like I have any practice. But you I know, and, I just – are you okay? Really?”

He hasn’t been okay in a long time. Maybe not since Mom died, definitely not since hell. There were some periods in between where he thought he was doing pretty good. Most of them because of Sam. There’s no point in telling Dad that, so instead he says, “You didn’t really have any idea what to do about Sam back home either. I’m not sure practice has anything to do with it.”

He’d been expecting an eyeroll or a laugh, but Dad actually looks sad for a moment before he smooths his face back out. “Sam said that too. That we didn’t get along and I was never proud of him.”

“You were,” he says, hearing the sudden fierceness in his own voice and almost feeling surprised by it. Sam had always thought that Dad loved Dean more, but it’s not true. Alright, Dad had sold his soul for him and told him that he might have to kill Sam, but there was twenty two years before that where Dean would have sworn on his life that Sam was the favorite son. He’s never figured out how to reconcile that, but he doesn’t think his lifetime of watching Dad and Sam interact can be totally wiped out by one terrible day, not matter how bad. “You’re just too – he drove you crazy, alright. He’s smarter than us both and stubborn as hell and he’s always had his own ideas about things, ones that we definitely didn’t teach him. You two would fight like hell, but you respected that about him even though you hated it.”

That’s the thing Sam never got, that the fact that Dad would argue with him at all meant something. He’d never do that with Dean, never give as much as he did with Sam. He’d explain himself to Sam sometimes, tell him what they were doing and why instead of just barking out orders. With Dean, he just expected obedience.   

“You think the same way,” he continues. “It used to drive me nuts, actually, how we’d be planning a hunt and you would say half a sentence and Sam would say another and you’d both know exactly what you were talking about and I’d have to play catch up.” He and Sam could do that too, but that was born of familiarity. Dad and Sammy just got each other in fundamental way that had nothing to with a shared history or even getting along most days. “Things weren’t perfect, but up until Sam left for Stanford,” he stops, breaking off. They weren’t perfect, but they were together. Dean had tried to keep the peace, tried to keep Sam and Dad from killing each other, and had gotten his failure shoved in his face when Sam had walked out that door.

It had felt like a fuck up as colossal and life altering as when he’d nearly gotten Sam get killed by the shtriga.

“Stanford?” Dad repeats in surprise. “Sam mentioned college, but not where. Stanford? Really?”

“Full ride and everything,” he says. Dad’s got that same look on his face as he’d sometimes get when they checked in on Sam, this quiet pride and pleasure that if he’d let Sam see just once then maybe their family wouldn’t have fallen apart at the seams. He still doesn’t understand why Dad had told Sam to walk out that door and never come back. Dean had said that to Sam when he was as low as he could get and so turned around he could barely tell up from down, and he’d still known it was a shit thing to say and he hadn’t meant it. He’d just gotten his ass beat and Sam had chosen a demon over him and it was the only thing he could think to say that would hurt Sam as much as he’d hurt him. He doesn’t know what the hell Dad could have possibly been thinking when he’d said it. “He’s good, Dad.”

It's a general statement, about him being a good student and a good hunter and a good son, in his own way, but by the way Dad’s face shifts, Dean knows that’s not how he takes it. He braces himself for he doesn’t even know what, but Dad lets out a long breath and rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. I just – seeing him kill that demon, how he just pulled it out of her like it was nothing.” He shakes his head. “That must have taken some getting used to.”

The blood rushing in hears almost drowns out the sensation of his heart doing double time in his chest. Dad can’t be saying what he thinks he is. It’s not possible. “What?”

“The possessed girl,” he says. “Didn’t he say? Dean, our Dean, was attacked by a demon yesterday. Sam pulled it out of her and killed it. I will say, I’ve never seen someone be so unharmed after a possession, even a short one. The girl was completely fine.”

“Right,” he says faintly before clearing his throat. “Yeah, it’s really, uh – sorry, I’ve gotta,” he gestures towards the library, ignoring the frown on Dad’s face.

No way. When would he even had the chance to – although Dean’s been doing his best to ignore him since heaven, so he’d actually have had plenty of time if he wanted –

“Hey,” Sam says, looking up from where he’s pulling books off the shelf to hand to Cas. “No beer?”

He’s teasing him, trying to pull him back into conversation, trying to smooth over his awkward departure. Dean’s body feels too tight under his skin.

“Sam, outside.” He forces himself not to look at the others. This isn’t a conversation they can have in front of other people, especially hunters, no matter who they are. He can’t believe this is a conversation they need to have at all. “Now.”

“What?” His face scrunches up in confusion, but he must read something off of Dean’s face, because he shoves the books in his hands at Cas and says, “Yeah, alright.”

He turns and walks out and Sam follows him. He walks into the junkyard, not as far as before, but far enough that they won’t be able to hear them. He comes to a stop, head lowered and breathing hard through his nose.

“Dean?” Sam puts a tentative hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay? Did Dad say something? If he did, don’t worry about it, seriously. I’ve been winding him up for days.”

He shrugs off Sam’s hand and turns to face him, ignoring the look of surprised hurt that Sam’s quick to tuck away. “Yeah, Sam, Dad said something. When did you do it? After you landed here? Before?”

“Do what?” Sam asks.

He can’t fucking believe this. He shoves Sam hard enough that he stumbles back, although he knows that’s more because he’s surprised him than anything else. “He told me about the demon, Sam. How much did you drink? When did you do it? Where’d you leave the body?”

Sam cycles through several emotions too fast for Dean to categorize before he presses his lips into a firm line and crosses his arms. “I didn’t drink her, I exorcised her. She was just a kid and the demon was going to snap your neck, Dean, it’s not like I had much of a choice.”

“You always have a damn choice!” he roars, refusing to feel anything about the way Sam flinches. “What the hell, Sam? Why would you do that?”

He denied Famine and walked himself into the panic room after. Why would he choose to drink demon blood now? For what reason? Even if hearing that God has abandoned them had hit him harder than he’s been letting on, what the hell does he get out of doing this? Besides power, but Sam’s never been all that interested in power for power’s sake, only power to achieve something, and he doesn’t know what the hell this achieves.

“I really can’t trust you at all, can I?” he asks viciously and Sam’s hands fall to his sides. Part of him is telling him to stop, that this isn’t helping anything. But even after heaven, Sammy’s been the one thing keeping him going and if Sam’s lying to him and sneaking around and doing who knows what else on him again, then what’s the point of it all? “Haven’t you learned a goddamn thing? It was bad enough before, but now, with everything going on you’re really, I just, fuck! I thought we were past that, and instead you’ve just been – how long have you been lying to me? How long have you been going behind my back and–”

“It’s not like that,” Sam interrupts, eyes big and wet and Dean wants to scream. “Dean, please, come on. Don’t do this, just let me explain.”

“Explain?” he spits. “What could you possibly say to explain this? Actually, what lies did you tell those people in there? I know it’s not the truth. Doing that crap in front of Dad, have you actually lost your mind? You’re lucky he didn’t–”

“ENOUGH!”

Dean is pushed back and then there’s a hand in the front of his shirt and when he blinks it’s to see his double’s furious face inches from his own with his fist cocked back, ready to clock him good, and Sam’s hand around the other Dean’s arm, holding him back. What the hell?

“Dean,” Sam says softly and he nearly snarls when he realizes Sam’s not talking to him. “It’s okay, don’t–”

“It’s not okay,” his double snaps. “He doesn’t get to talk to you like that.” He focuses on him and gives him a hard shake. “You hear me? You don’t get to say shit like that to him, especially without letting him talk.”

He shoves himself away, tearing his double’s hand off him. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you, asshole. Fuck off.”

“No,” he says. “What the hell is wrong with you? He didn’t drink demon blood and if you’d shut the fuck up for two minutes, he would have told you that.”

He opens his mouth then turns to Sam, demanding, “You told him?”

Sam chews on his bottom lip, hesitating. Before he can respond, the other Dean steps in front of him, cutting off his view of his brother. “Do you hear yourself? You were just giving him shit because you thought he lied to us and now you’re mad at him for telling the truth? Pick a lane, dude.”

“That’s not,” he scowls, frustrated. “Seriously, man, fuck off.”

“Seriously, man,” he says mockingly, “no. Why don’t you take a deep breath and calm down, and maybe I’ll consider it.”

“Calm down?” he chokes. He’s going to kill this guy.

Sam puts a hand on the other Dean’s arm, stepping out from behind him. “Hey, it’s alright. Really. It’s okay, he doesn’t mean it.”

Dean can’t breathe for a moment, dozens of memories from their childhood tumbling through his mind and overlapping over each other. How many times had he wrapped an arm around Sam’s skinny shoulders, back before he and Dad really got into it and all Sam had wanted was for Dad to listen, and said those same words? It’s okay, Sammy, he’d say, dropping his chin on top of his little brother’s head. He doesn’t mean it.

Suddenly, the anger doesn’t feel as comforting as it had a moment ago.

The other Dean shakes his head and gives him a searching look that would get him punched in other circumstances. “Sammy, go back inside. Your brother and I need to have a talk.”

“It’s Sam,” Dean snaps at the same time as Sam says, “Maybe that’s not such a great idea.”

The new flood of hurt at least brings the anger to the surface once more. “You let him call you Sammy?”

He flounders for a moment, mouth opening and closing before he spreads his hands helplessly. “He’s you.”

He fucking is not. Before he can unstick his tongue enough to say that, this world’s Dean says gently, “It’s okay, I won’t hurt him.”

“I can’t promise the same,” he says.

His double just rolls his eyes. “Sammy, go back inside and help Cas with the spell. We won’t be long.”

Sam looks between them cautiously. Dean keeps his mouth shut. He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Be nice.”

He and his double meet each other’s eyes and say in unison, “He’s talking to you.”

That should get a laugh out of Sam, but he barely manages to twitch his lips into a smile before he’s heading back towards the house, shoulders slumped.

~

Dean had felt bad at first, for sneaking out and following them, especially under Bobby’s knowing look.

Then Sam’s Dean had started running his mouth and the only thing he’d felt bad about is he hadn’t gotten a chance to hit him before Sam had stopped him.

Now he’s standing in front of the asshole, each of them eyeing the other warily. Sam’s Dean cants his head to the side, then says, “Okay, what?”

He realizes a beat too late he was listening for the fading sound of Sam’s footsteps. Probably to make sure he isn’t lingering to eavesdrop. It wouldn’t even have occurred to him, he was just trying to gather his thoughts, trying to figure out what to say to this version of himself that might penetrate his thick skull.

“You want to trade places?” he asks.

Sam’s Dean stares at him like he’s got a few screws loose. “What?”

“Dad’s alive here,” he says. “Bobby’s walking. We just left a hunt with Caleb. Pastor Jim is still kicking. Ellen and Jo are doing just fine. No apocalypse. Barely even any demons, I’d never seen one before last night.”

“Huh,” he says with barely hidden resentment. “He really did tell you everything, didn’t he?”

Dean ignores that. “What do you say? Let’s trade.”

“It doesn’t work like that, dipshit,” he says, already trying to get away from him. “I don’t have time for this crap.”

He steps in front of him to stop him from leaving. “Sure it does. If Cas brought you here, then he can bring me there. You stay here, where your father and all your friends are alive and there are no demons and angels breathing down your neck. I’ll go to your world with Sam.”

He scoffs. “You have no idea what you’d be getting yourself into.”

“No,” he agrees, because Sam had been pretty light on the specifics of the end of the world. “But I’ll have Sam. We’ll figure it out together.”

Christ. These are feelings he’s buried deep because he knows he’s not supposed to have them, because Sam isn’t his and it’ll help no one to forget that. But that was before he found out what a huge asshole Sam’s Dean is. This is for Sam. If it’s for Sam, it’s okay.

The other world’s Dean clenches his hands into fists. “Just because your Sam died–”

“What do you care?” Dean interrupts before he can say something that he’ll have to punch him for, his promise to Sam be damned. “You don’t trust him. You don’t listen to him. You don’t even seem to like him that much.”

Sam’s Dean grabs the front of his shirt and slams him back against the nearest junker. He has to make an effort not to wince. “Shut up. I gave up everything for him and he–”

“What?” he snaps. “Doesn’t grovel appropriately? Doesn’t obey your every word in gratitude? Well, grab the pitchforks then.”

The muscle in his cheek twitches. “No, that’s not – you don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t care what Sam told you, you don’t know shit. You weren’t there.”

“What difference would that make?” he sneers. “You were and you don’t seem to know shit either. Fine, he’s done too much, he doesn’t listen, he’s not grateful for all you’ve done for him. Leave him here then.”

He flinches. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You don’t want to trade worlds?” He shrugs. “Fine, whatever. Leave him here. You don’t want to deal with him anymore, but you want him safe, because hey, he’s still your little brother? Leave him here. With me. You know I’ll take care of him, because I’m you, and you’re free to deal with your little apocalypse however you want without having to worry about Sam either getting hurt or getting in your way. I’ll take him as is, lies and demon blood and all.”

His grip loosens on his shirt, his eyes wide and lost, and for a second Dean thinks that he miscalculated and Sam’s Dean is about to take him up on it. Which he’d agree to in a heartbeat, but it would devastate Sam, so it would only almost be worth it. Then his eyes narrow into a glare. “No way. What the hell is wrong with you?”

This is for Sam, he reminds himself. “I didn’t carry him out of the fire.”

Sam’s Dean stares. “What?”

“I looked up and saw Mom on the ceiling and,” he swallows. “Dad told me to take Sammy outside but I wouldn’t go without Mom. Sammy was crying and I begged Dad to save Mom and he tried until he couldn’t, then he picked us up and carried us both outside. But it was too late, Sammy had gotten too much smoke in his lungs. He couldn’t breath right.” Dean feels like he can’t breathe right whenever he talks about this, but he’s used to that. His Sam is beyond his help now, but this Sam isn’t. “He died because I didn’t carry him out like you did.”

The horror in the other Dean’s face doesn’t sting like he thought it would. It’s nothing that he doesn’t live with every day, after all.

“No matter what the hell is going on with your world, with angels and demons and the apocalypse and everyone you know dropping like flies, or with Sam, with whatever lies you think he’s telling you or actions that you don’t like, you wouldn’t trade your life for mine and you know it. He’s the most important thing in your world and instead of treating him like shit, you could maybe act like it once in a while.” Sam’s Dean is just staring at him, but he’s not swinging, so he figures they’re doing pretty good. He continues softly, “You went to hell for him, man. What could he have done that’s so goddamn unforgivable?”

“It’s not that,” Sam’s Dean says, for the first time not sounding like a total douchebag. “It’s – there are things – it’s complicated.”

God, is he so tired of hearing that. “After Sam saved me, he ran. I sent Dad and Bobby back here and then went looking for him.”

Sam’s Dean’s eyes go distant for a moment. “No forests around there. The park? Under some huge tree. Reading.” He frowns. “No, not with – drinking, yeah? He prefers tequila when he’s drinking for pleasure, but whiskey when he’s upset. Vodka when things are really fucking dire.”

Dean’s chest clenches. It had taken him hours to find Sam and he’d mostly just gotten lucky. But this Dean, the one that had grown up with Sam and taken care of him and saved him, knows him. It’s why Sam’s willing to take so much shit from him and also what makes his actions so inexplicable. How can he know Sam so well and also not seem to not know him at all? It doesn’t make any sense. “Everything Sam knows about me, he learned from you. He thought I was going to kill him.”

Sam’s Dean sways away from him like he’s been hit.

“He’d told me days ago that I was better off here with him dead and he thought when I caught up to him that I was going to kill him and when he told me about Cold Oak, he said he wished you’d let him stay dead,” he says ruthlessly. The other him looks fragile just then, like one more blow will shatter him to pieces. For Sam’s sake, he gentles his voice. “I get shit is fucked up for you back home and you’ve been through literal hell, but you can’t just say things to him like it doesn’t matter. You’re his big brother and when you say shit like he’s a blood sucking freak and you’re going to kill him, he believes you.”

Sam can say he doesn’t mean it all he wants. Maybe that’s something he knows, but it’s not what he believes. Sam takes to heart every cruel word his Dean says to him, so he needs to stop saying them.

“The hell?” Sam’s Dean snaps, back to being angry again. “I never said that. I would never say that! If that’s what he told you–”

“He didn’t have to tell me anything,” he interrupts. It’s like talking to a brick wall. Or Dad. “I heard the voicemail you left him. I don’t care what was going on or that he’d just kicked your ass or choked you or whatever. He didn’t deserve that.”

“The voicemail?” he repeats, now a concerning shade of pale. Damn, he has a lot of freckles.

“Yeah, the one where you called him a vampire and a monster and told him that he wasn’t your brother anymore?” Christ, how many voicemails saying terrible shit to Sam has he left if he needs to be reminded about which one. “Neither of you knew what would happen when he killed Lilith, otherwise he wouldn’t have done it. Obviously. He was trying to stop the apocalypse and you say all that to him? Come on.”

Sam’s Dean is shaking his head. “No, I didn’t – that’s not what I said. I left him a voicemail. I didn’t say any of that.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Sure. Except I heard it myself and it was definitely you.”

“No,” he says again, but he doesn’t seem interested in arguing any further. He tries to move around him, but Dean grabs his elbow and doesn’t let go when he tries to pull himself free. “Dude, what?”

Dean studies his face for a long moment. He seems genuinely shaken rather than just defensive and he sighs. “Look, I don’t know all the details, fine, but Sam loves you and thinks that you’d be better off if he was dead. You have to fix it, because I can’t.” This hurts, but it’s the truth. It doesn’t matter how many times Dean insists that having Sam is worth more than anything else. He’s not the one Sam needs to hear it from. “I’m not his brother. You are.”

His back straightens, as if just being reminded he’s Sam’s brother is enough to steady him. He pats his hand before pulling away and this time Dean lets him. “I know.”

~

Jesus Christ, he needs a drink.

This isn’t a conversation he wants to have sober, but he needs to have a clear head. Not that he ever really has a clear head for long, it’s either the alcohol or hell, and usually some nausea inducing combination that leaves him unable to escape either.

He leaves his double outside, heading straight for the house before he can second guess or talk himself out of it. Is this what Sam was talking about earlier? He should have pushed, but he’d gotten out of that habit, trying to shield himself from blows before they land because he’s not sure how much more he can take. But if he’s missing things this big about Sam, it’s time for a new strategy. It’s not like the old one was doing that much good anyway.

At first he thinks the library is empty, but then he looks down. Sam is sitting on the floor with his back to the wall and one knee bent to rest a book against. He looks up from reading and offers Dean a weak smile. “Hey. Everything alright? He’s still in one piece, right?”

He doesn’t want to talk about the other Dean. “He’s fine.”

Sam’s smile dims. “Right. That’s good.”

“Where’d everyone go?” he asks. He’ll get there, he tells himself. He’s just building up to it.

“Dad and Bobby are in the garage working on a car or something.” Amusement briefly breaks through. “I think Cas was sort of freaking them out, but he’s upstairs reading now.”

He must have been, if they’re voluntarily working together on something when no one’s life is on the line. “What’re you reading?”

He’s expecting some dense mythological tome, since that’s most of Bobby’s library, but Sam’s cheeks color. He closes it and puts one of his huge hands over the cover. “Nothing.”

“Uh huh,” he says and Sam’s flush deepens, but he takes his hand off the book.

Oh.

It’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of those expensive editions that Bobby had picked up somewhere and treated like it was a dime store novel, the cloth cover a faded green and the text gilded gold. He’d helped Sam learn how to read with some illustrated, kid version of the story of King Arthur and he’s been fond of them ever since. Sam had gotten really sick once when they were at Bobby’s, when Sam was maybe nine, and he’d been almost delirious with fever and wouldn’t settle no matter what they did. Dean had asked Bobby if he had any stories about King Arthur out of desperation and Bobby had brought him that book. He’d sat next to Sam and let his little brother burrow his burning body into his side and read to him until he’d finally fallen asleep. Dean’s lost track of how many times he’s held that very book in his hands since then and read to Sam when he was sick or injured or couldn’t sleep.

Dean swallows and sits down next to him, back against the wall and his leg pressed against Sam’s. He takes the book from Sam and notices with a pang how this one is in a lot better condition than the one sitting in Bobby’s library back home, absent the years of his and Sam’s hands on it.

He wants to start with the voicemail, to figure out what the hell is going on there, but he’s starting to think maybe their problems started before that. He may not have said whatever was on that voicemail the other Dean heard, but Sam had believed it. He thinks that worse.

“Okay,” he says, briefly closing his eyes. “Tell me what happened.”

He can practically feel Sam’s confusion. “Dean?”

“Yesterday, with the demon,” he says. It’s as good a segue as any and it’s why Sam’s huddled on the floor like a kid reading a book from their childhood. “Tell me what happened. How it happened. I’m listening.”

He hadn’t before, not wanting to hear it, the excuses for his lies or how he could possibly excuse drinking demon blood. How he could be willing to give up his humanity and leave Dean to exist on this piece of shit earth without him. Honestly, he still doesn’t think there’s anything Sam could say that would make that okay.

But Sam’s his brother. He can at least listen to him.

Chapter Text

Dean can feel the weight of Sam’s incredulity, but he refuses to turn and look at him. He thinks this might be easier that way. He hears Sam swallow. “Really?”

He rolls his eyes. “Really. Now hurry up, we’re not getting any younger.”

“Okay.” He knows if he looks over, he’ll see Sam compulsively lacing and unlacing his fingers or fiddling with the edge of his shirt. When they were kids, Dean had taught him knife tricks just to get him to stop fidgeting when he was nervous. Which, alright, didn’t exactly work, but at least it was sort of intimidating to see Sam flipping a blade over his knuckles instead of wringing his hands like a grandma. “Okay. Well, first, uh. Okay, you’re not going to like this, but you have to let me explain first. You can’t get mad until I’m done.”

His stomach sinks. This is clearly off to a great start. Well, it’s not like Sam’s saying he can’t get mad at all, just that he has to wait. That’s fair. He thinks. “Alright, Sammy, just get to the point.”

“I lied,” he says, speaking so quickly that words almost blend together. Dean’s hands clench and he bites on the inside of his cheek so hard he tastes blood. It’s not like it’s that much of a surprise, right? He’s lied to him about the demon blood before. “Well, sort of, I guess. I just didn’t correct you even though you were wrong because it didn’t seem worth the fight and I didn’t think it mattered, and I don’t really know why you thought it to begin with, but uh – yeah. Anyway. I don’t need to drink demon blood to use my powers.”

What?

He breaks his rule of not looking at Sam, which was probably a pipe dream to begin with. He’s rubbing his fingers over a hole in his jeans that’s definitely going to be bigger by the end of this conversation. “Since when?”

Sam gives him an exasperated look that would get him pinched in other circumstances. “Since forever? Come on, Dean, needing to drink to use my powers doesn’t make any sense. I exorcised Samhain without it.”

“No you didn’t,” he says automatically.

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah, I did. I think I’d know.”

Dean feels a spike of rage and he takes a deep breath. He’s listening. They’re having a conversation. Fuck, he doesn’t remember talking to his brother being this hard. But Sam hadn’t been lying to his face before. “You were sneaking out to meet Ruby the entire time.”

That whole year where Dean felt like he was losing his mind and the world was collapsing in on them and Sam was running off with that demon bitch.

“Yeah,” Sam says, and the shock of hearing him not even try to deny it knocks the anger out of him. “For practice. Dude, blood or no blood, banishing a demon back to hell is hard, especially since I had to send them back deep to make sure Lilith wouldn’t let them out again. Once I figured out how to do it, it was actually easier to kill them. Or, not easier, but simpler. I’m just unmaking them, I don’t have to move them to a whole different plane of existence. It takes more power, but it’s more straightforward too.”

Dean can honestly say he’s never thought about the particulars of Sam’s powers before. He’d tried not to think about them at all. “And drinking demon blood gives you more power.”

Sam nods. It’s not anything that either of them hadn’t known.

This doesn’t make any sense. Sam had barely been able to use his powers, then he’d seen his brother bite into that demon’s neck and drink, and after that he’d yanked the demon out of Jimmy’s wife like it was nothing. Dean figured he must have been drinking blood the entire time if that’s what let him use his abilities, that he must have been doing it even before Dean was brought back. He’d told himself that’s why Sam had lied to him and snuck out on him and wouldn’t listen to him. It was just that he was caught up in the addiction, that’s all.

He's not sure how he feels about the idea that some of that was just Sam.

“When did you start drinking it?” he asks. He remembers Sam wanting to talk about it in the car after they’d left the Novaks, wanting to explain himself, but Dean hadn’t been interested. He’d just stuffed Sam in the panic room instead, sure that he’d been doing this to himself the whole time.

“About a month after you died,” he says.

Dean stares at him. Now he’s just confused. “Okay. So you were drinking blood the whole time.”

“What?” Sam frowns. “No. I stopped after you got back. I didn’t start again until after the magicians case.”

“You stopped,” he repeats slowly. Sam has to be messing with him.

He shrugs. “I’d only done it in the first place to try and get you out of hell. You were out, so there wasn’t any rush. I liked being able to save people, I liked how much easier the blood made it, but – the blood that was already in me, that’s been in me since I was baby, I couldn’t do anything about, but I didn’t have to add. I didn’t like drinking it. If I didn’t need it, then I didn’t want it.”

“I didn’t want you to do that,” he says, digging his nails into his thighs to keep from grabbing Sam and shaking him. “Don’t you put this on me. I would have rather stayed in hell than have you do that to yourself.”

It’s too terrible. It’s not fair. He’d sold his soul to bring Sam back and now it’s his fault that Sam had been willing to damn his?

Sam’s quiet for just long enough for Dean to feel his temper fraying before he asks, “Is it my fault that you went to hell? Am I responsible for the decades you spent being tortured?”

“Of course not!” Dean snaps. What the hell is he talking about now? “That had nothing to do with you. I made that deal myself.”

“Yeah,” he breathes out, mouth trembling before he bites he hard on his lower lip. “Exactly. Just because I did it because of you doesn’t make it your fault, Dean.”

“But I didn’t want you to,” he says. How is Sam not getting this?

Sam rolls his eyes. “Well, I didn’t want you selling your soul to bring me back from the dead. If I’d had any say in it, I would have stayed dead and you would have stayed out of hell and the whole world would be better off for it.”

Dean doesn’t realize he’s moved until he sees his hand is fisted in the front of his brother’s shirt. “Don’t say that. Don’t fucking say that.”

There’s a long moment where Sam studies his face and then something about him seems to relax. Dean has no idea what he could be reading from his expression that he doesn’t already know. “I told you. When I realized I couldn’t bring you back, I was going to kill myself going after Lilith, and the one reason not to was the chance that I could get your soul out of hell. Drinking some blood seemed a small price to pay for saving you.”

Dean lets go of him, hand falling to his side. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. Sam was supposed to mourn him and move on. He wasn’t supposed to be as destroyed by Dean dying as Dean had been over him.

He swallows. “But you started again. After I came back.”

“Well,” he says, the wryness in his voice steadying Dean, “there was the apocalypse.”

“The magicians didn’t have anything to do with the apocalypse,” he points out. It had been a normal case. Well, relatively normal. No angels or demons mucking about. He’d also been back for about half a year at that point, so what about that case had made Sam think that chowing down on demon blood was a good idea?

Sam licks his lips and agrees, “No. But do you remember what Jay said to us at the end?”

He remembers that it hadn’t felt like much of a victory, the old man robbed of his only friends and his only joy, but not much else immediately comes to mind. Dean thinks back, trying to figure out what the hell Sam is talking about.

It doesn’t take him long.

Dean had tried to comfort Jay by telling him that he’d done the right thing.

Jay hadn’t been comforted.

Are you sure about that? he’d asked. You know, Charlie was like my brother. And now he’s dead. Because I did the right thing.

“Sammy,” he says, lost. Why is this about him? He doesn’t want this to be about him.

“I couldn’t make that same mistake twice,” Sam says, voice tight.

What’s he talking about now? Maybe the real reason he doesn’t talk to Sam is because it gives him a headache. “What do you mean twice?”

“Dean,” he says, frustrated. “I killed Lilith.”

“Yeah, I know.” Dean tries to lighten the mood, just a little, because this is killing him, “I was there.”

Sam doesn’t seem to appreciate it. “When she tried to kill me and couldn’t, I saw her face. She was afraid. Of me. But it was too late for that to do me any good because she’d already taken you away from me.” Tears are leaking from Sam’s eyes and he wipes them away angrily. “I killed Lilith. Which means if I hadn’t been so worried about doing the right thing, about not turning into a monster you’d have to kill, I could have saved you. If I’d spent the year working on my powers, drinking demon blood, whatever it took, I would have been strong enough to kill Lilith when she came for your soul. You never would have gone to hell. I could have saved you, Dean, and I didn’t. I cared too much about doing the right thing and you died because of it.”

“Sammy, killing her started the apocalypse,” he says, but gently. He’s not trying to make Sam feel bad about it. Not right now, anyway.

“She was the last seal,” Sam says. “If I’d killed her then, there wouldn’t have been a first.”

Right. Because Dean broke the first seal by torturing innocent souls in hell. But Sam isn’t saying it like he blames Dean, so he pushes the thought aside for now. “Sammy, that’s crazy talk.”

“Because becoming a monster to save myself would have been perfectly fine, but becoming one to save you would be unacceptable,” he scoffs. At least he’s not crying anymore.

“You’re not a monster, stop saying that,” he says. And, yeah, exactly, not that killing the other psychic kids to stay alive would have made him a monster. Not that he’s a monster now. Dean hadn’t meant it when he’d said it to Sam any more than he’d meant it when he told Sam to not come back if he walked out that door. Maybe the other Dean has a point. He hadn’t thought his words would cut Sam this deep. After all, why would Dean’s opinion matter to him when Dean doesn’t matter to him?

He's starting to think he might have miscalculated on that part.

“Anyway,” Sam says, and Dean’s eyes narrow. They’re not done talking about this. “When the demon possessed girl attacked you, uh, other you, I pulled it out and killed it, yeah, but I haven’t drank any demon blood since Famine. I promise.”

There’s an entreaty there that he couldn’t ignore even if he wanted to. He claps a hand on his brother’s knee and says, “I believe you,” and he does, but that just raises more questions. “You stopped drinking blood when I came back and started again after the magicians case.”

“Yes,” Sam says, eyeing him warily.

Dean frowns, struggling with how to say this before landing on, “I didn’t notice.”

“Yeah, that was kind of the point,” he says.

But Dean shakes his head. “No. I didn’t notice.” He shifts, agitated and nothing he can do about it. “You detoxed off demon blood and started it up again and I didn’t know.”

How is that possible? The demon blood turned Sam into someone he wasn’t, made him act recklessly, stupidly, turned him into someone that Dean didn’t recognize. That’s what he’d told himself.

“I was hiding it from you. I didn’t want you to know.” Sam sounds reluctant and guilty but that’s not what Dean means. That’s not the part that’s tripping him up.

If being on the blood changes his brother, shouldn’t he have noticed? Shouldn’t it have been obvious when it stopped and started? He thought that Sam had been drinking it since he got topside and it was easy to attribute everything to the blood, but he’d been clean for six months before deciding to drink it again.

How the hell had he gotten clean without Dean noticing?

“Did you wean yourself off when I got back or something? Taper off slow and steady?” he asks.

“What?” Sam frowns. “No, it, uh, doesn’t really work like that. I just stopped drinking.”

“You just stopped,” he says blankly. Right. Okay, they’ll go back to that. “When you were going without, your powers weren’t working. With Jimmy’s family, you weren’t back in top form again until you drank.”

The horror of seeing Sam bite into her had made his blood run cold. There’d been blood all over his little brother’s lips and chin, messy like when he was toddler and had gotten spaghettios all over his face. For a moment, Dean hadn’t been sure if he was still his brother, or just something else wearing his face.

“Well, that’s the downside,” Sam says, as if the downside isn’t inherit to the whole drinking demon blood thing. “It makes my powers stronger and while it’s in me, I’m more powerful than ever. When it’s wearing off, my control goes to shit until it’s either completely out of my system or I drink again. On the come down, I can barely do an exorcism without messing it up, which usually ends up being dangerous to the host since what I’m messing up is keeping control of the demon.”

Alarm bells are going off in the back of his mind. Losing control of his powers while he’s detoxing matches with what happened in the panic room. It’s just that if something like that had happened to Sam when he’d been topside again, he feels like he would have noticed. “Sam, when you were in the panic room–”

Sam flinches so violently that there’s an inch more space between them than there was before.

Dean falls silent.

“Yeah,” Sam says with a shaky exhale. “Um, didn’t that seem odd to you?”

He stares at him, not knowing what to say, a slow sinking starting in his gut. Whatever Sam’s about to say, it’s not going to be good. “What do you mean?”

He sits there, lips pressed together and clearly holding back. Dean waits. Sam is the talker between them and when he clams up, Dean just has to wait him out. He hasn’t had the patience for that recently and he doesn’t really have it now, but he forces himself to stay still and silent.

It works. Sam pushes a hand through his hair, not looking at him. “I hadn’t had blood for weeks before that, Dean, and sure, I wasn’t thinking clearly, I never should have left Jimmy alone, and I was really craving it, but I wasn’t – there was no – and, I mean, I’d just drank, remember? That very night. But twelve hours later I’m having withdrawals so bad that I’m hallucinating and losing control of my powers and it – it really hurt. A lot.” He swallows. “I’d come off it before, and it sucks, but it’s not that.”

Sam’s right, it doesn’t make any sense. He’d been so overwhelmed with finding out what Sam had done, with the final seals being broken one by one, with Cas acting like a huge dick and twisting a promise of obedience out of him that he didn’t want to give, with tracking Sam down, that he hadn’t thought it through. “What – why,” he stops, not sure how to ask this, what exactly it is he’s supposed to ask.

“It was the purification symbols Bobby added, I think,” Sam says, mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “A nice touch. It forces the blood out. It made it – Dean, come on, I couldn’t stand, I could barely move, I couldn’t think or tell real from fake, that’s how messed up I was. Then I get out and I’m – well, not fine, but I’m getting one over Bobby, boosting cars, getting a hotel room no problem?”

He hadn’t thought of that. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “We didn’t – I didn’t – that wasn’t,” He takes a deep breath. “Sammy, I didn’t know.”

He’d have known if he’d asked. If he’d let Sam explain like he tried on the way to Bobby’s, he would have known that Sam had detoxed before without it nearly killing him and that something was wrong. If he’d stayed down there and listened to Sam instead of just desperately trying to ignore his screams, he would have explained.

It had seemed acceptable, a necessary evil, when he thought it was what was needed to get his brother clean.

Now he thinks he might have tortured Sam for no reason.

How many nightmares has he had of his little brother on his rack? Of taking all the skills he learned under Alistair and using them on the one person he cares about most? In the end, he hadn’t needed the rack, a good sharp knife, or anything at all. He’d tortured his brother while he’d thought he was saving him.

“After Lilith, you said it all burned out of you,” he says wildly. “Was that true?”

Sam lowers his eyes, shoulders hunched. “Oh, uh, not, I mean.” He takes a breath. “No. I just didn’t want to go back in there.”

“But you did. After Famine. Why would you,” he stops because he can’t even say it.

“You wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told you I didn’t need it and we didn’t have the time to waste,” Sam says, then shrugs. “It’s efficient, I’ll give it that, and you weren’t, you know,” he chews on his bottom lip. “You weren’t mad at me. As mad at me. I figured you’d probably let me out after. And when I woke up, you were there. That was nice.”

Had Sammy thought they were going to keep him in there even after he was clean? Kept in a cage like an animal?

They hadn’t told him otherwise, Dean realizes with a sick jolt. They hadn’t told him anything. Dean had just been furious and disappointed and terrified and he’d said some stupid shit to Sam before leaving him in the panic room to suffer alone.

He’d thought what Sam was going through was just a natural, terrible part of the demon blood leaving his system. He hadn’t known that it was something horrible he was inflicting on his brother.

Sam had gone through that willingly after Famine. Dean had just let his brother down again, had left him easy pickings for the demons to come after him and hadn’t been able to get the ring from Famine like he’d told Sam he would. Sam had needed to come in and save him and Cas and had been the one to kill Famine because Dean couldn’t do anything right.

Dean had failed Sam in every way and left him to suffer alone in the panic room again and when Sam had come out of it, he’d smiled at him. He’d been relieved and happy to have Dean sitting next to him, even though all his suffering had been Dean’s fault.

His stomach rolls and he leans forward, head between his knees, and takes deep, greedy breaths. It won’t be the first time he’s thrown up on Bobby’s fugly carpet, although, in this world, maybe it would be.

“Woah, hey, you’re okay,” Sam says, a big hand landing on his back and rubbing soothing circles. This is what Dean should have done for Sam, if he was going to force him to detox like that. Sure, eventually Sam’s powers tossing him around would have forced him out, but he hadn’t even tried.

He turns blindly, eyes still squeezed shut against the sudden nausea, and grabs Sam’s shoulder, then reaches higher and cups his cheek, fingers digging probably too hard into his the back of his skull but Sam doesn’t try to pull away. Dean forces his eyes open and says, “I’m really sorry, Sammy. I should have listened to you before. I didn’t want – that wasn’t the point, of that, I swear. I’m sorry.”

Christ, he feels like he’s about to start crying, but seriously, how many more times can he fuck up taking care of his brother before Sam just washes his hands of him? At this point, he wouldn’t even blame him.

Sam stares at him in shock, just breathing, then his lips slowly pull back into a grin. “It’s okay,” he says warmly. Dean starts to shake his head. “Dean, really. I forgive you, okay?” Then, softly, still smiling, “It means a lot. Hearing you say sorry.”

He’s said it before. Except, he remembers, the voicemail he left and the voicemail Sam got are apparently different. Whatever it says, he’s no longer surprised that Sam believed it.

And it had taken the Dean from this world rubbing his face in it for him to buy a clue.  

“Do you want to stay here?” he asks abruptly.

Sam blinks. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not good at this anymore,” he says. He hasn’t been for a while, apparently, and fuck that hurts. He should have known. Why did he think he could torture innocent souls for ten years and still be worth anything after?

“Good at what?” Sam asks, seeming genuinely lost, and that’s something.

He swallows. “Taking care of you.”

Sam’s mouth drops open.

“I’m all messed up, Sammy,” he says quietly. It’s not like he hadn’t known that before, but by god has this conversation driven the point home. “But that other me, he’s not, uh, you know, and he loves you too.” Obviously. As if there’s ever a version of him that wouldn’t. “His head’s still screwed on right. He won’t fuck it up like I have.” Or at least he better not. Dean will kick his ass.

There’s a beat of complete silence where Dean realizes that neither of them are breathing and then Sam grabs his shoulders and gives him a good, hard shake. Dean slaps at his arms but it doesn’t do anything. “One, that wouldn’t even work because whatever put me here will yank me back, and two, even if it would, absolutely not.”

He stills.

Sam’s scowl eases, but his grip doesn’t. Dean doesn’t mind. “He’s you. I care about him because he’s you, he’s my brother because you’re my brother, but he’s not you. You’re the one that grew up with me, that’s taken care of me my entire life, that knows me inside and out. You taught me how to read and how to shoot and how to talk to girls. You are the only thing that kept me from completely losing my mind from Dad’s bullshit when we were kids and from the grief of losing Jess. Every shit thing we’ve been through has only ever been a little bearable because you were there with me. Living without you was so much worse than dealing with you that it’s not even comparable, although, yes, if we could maybe continue this thing where you at least let me say my piece before flying off the handle, that’d be great.”

He winces, because the bar really can’t get any lower. “I’m pretty deep in the red here, Sammy.”

The panic room, all the shit he gave Sam after he killed Lilith, the hundred and one way his anger keeps bubbling over and he ends up taking it out on his brother.

“So?” Sam asks. He doesn’t sound angry anymore, but it’s worse than that, small and sad. “I don’t like playing this game with you, Dean. Since when do we keep score?”

He has been keeping score, he realizes, totaling up all the times that Sam has left him sick and reeling and digging into it each time he’d needed that hot pulse of rage under his kin to keep from losing his mind. Except he hasn’t even been fair about it, not balancing the scales with all of Sam’s patience and teasing and the times he’s saved his ass. Worse than that, he’s pretty sure that Sam hasn’t been keeping score, just wiping the slate clean between them like usual even though Dean hasn’t been doing the same.

“You went to hell for me, Dean,” Sam continues while Dean’s still trying to figure out how to respond in a way that’s not just crying like a little bitch. “You think I’m the same person I was before I watched you get torn apart in front of me? Before I had to live for months knowing you were in hell and there was nothing I could do about it? Because I know I’m not. Why should you have to be the same person after being tortured for forty years?”

But he’d liked that person. Most days, anyway.

He looks to Sam who’s breathing hard, eyes wide and imploring, his hands still digging into Dean’s shoulders. Alive, and here, and still holding on to him when any sane person would have probably washed their hands of him a long time ago.

Not dead and rotting in a grave in Cold Oak.

If the cost of his brother alive is the death of the person he used to be before he went to hell, it doesn’t seem like such a terrible loss. But he thinks he’d like him back, at least a little.

What he’d liked the most about himself was how he took care of his brother. Not perfectly by any means, he’d fucked it up plenty, but he used to be solid. Dependable.

He wants to be that again.

Part of him wants to tell Sam that, but he’s not sure how to say it in a way he’d believe. Instead, he just corrects, “Thirty years.”

He was tortured in hell for thirty years. He did the torturing himself for the last ten.

Sam huffs and opens his mouth, then seems to think better of it. “Whatever, that’s not the point.”

“Yeah,” he says, wishing this all didn’t make him feel so lost. “I just,” he starts, and then doesn’t know where to go from there. This is all so hard, but he supposes if it was easy, they wouldn’t have ended up here in the first place.

“I know,” Sam says, pressure easing off his shoulders as Sam loosens his grip. “I know you want back the little brother you remember, but I just can’t – even before you were gone, that year leading up to losing you was, it really,” he takes a deep breath. Dean remembers how Sam had run himself into the ground trying to find something, anything, to keep him out of hell. It had frustrated and worried him, and has much as he’d wished Sam would stop, it had meant a lot to him too. To see the lengths he’d go to for him and how desperate he was to keep Dean with him, or at least keep him out of hell.

Dean would do anything for his brother. He’s the big brother. Taking care of Sam is his job. In that graveyard in Calvary, when he’d confronted him about his deal, Sam had looked at him and said there was nothing he wouldn’t do for him. It hadn’t been the first time that Sam had said something like that, and far from the first time he’d done something to prove it, but it was the first time Dean had really believed him. It had been worth it for that alone, for one perfect moment where he’d known down to his bones that Sam loved him as much as he loved Sam.

He'd wanted that for so long, craved it, needed it, and now he’s thinking Sam would be better off without it.

If Sam loved him less, he never would have started drinking demon blood in the first place. Before, the idea that his little brother didn’t love him had been torture. Now, he almost wishes it was true.

Dean had sold his soul and brought his brother back to life. Dean had sold his soul and damned his brother worse than what Dean had gone through when Dad had done it to him. When Dad had died, they weren’t in the middle of a demon war. When Dad had died, he’d still had Sam. Sam had been alone in every way that mattered, the last surviving Winchester. A fate worse than death as far as Dean’s concerned. Those two days with Sam dead had been agony.

If his brother’s different, then that’s Dean fault. He did this to him. But honestly, “You’re not that different.”

Still stubborn as hell, still too smart, still reckless in ways that drive Dean crazy and no one else seems to get. Still his stupid, annoying, beloved little brother.

“I’ll be better,” Dean says. He’s not sure how exactly he’s going to do that, how he’ll handle it the next time hell and despair threaten to sweep him under and only anger lets him pull himself out, but, “I’ll try to be better, Sammy. I promise.”

Sam face softens into something soppy enough that Dean braces himself, but he only clears his throat before asking, “Damn, what did you say to yourself out there?”

It takes him a moment to realize Sam’s talking about his conversation with his other self and then he nearly groans.

Oh fuck, right, the voicemail.

He doesn’t want to ask, he seriously doesn’t want to ask, because he’s already going to have an emotional hangover and possibly break out in hives from all of this. Part of him wants to just skip it, save it for tomorrow when he’s had some time to recover, but the rest of him knows better. Sam thinking for one second that Dean would be willing to kill him is a second too long, and it’s been a lot longer than that.

“About the voicemail he heard,” Dean begins.

“It’s okay,” Sam says quickly, “you didn’t mean it.”

He nearly flinches at the words, echoes of all the times he’d said that to Sam about Dad still haunting him, but if anything that just makes him more determined. He promised to be better and this is part of that.

“I did,” he insists and Sam pales, swaying away from him. Wait, fuck, he’s doing this all wrong. “I meant the one I left, which based on what other me said, isn’t the one you got. Can I listen to it?” Sam’s hesitating, so he adds, “Please?”

Sam grimaces, then sighs and slips his hand into his pocket and hands his phone over. He’s clearly humoring him, but Dean will take it. He skips through the older voicemails Sam has saved, mouth twitching briefly at a couple of them, but his amusement drains when the mechanical voice reads him the date that Sam killed Lilith and then it kicks over to his voice

He nearly drops the phone.

The words are bad enough. But when he’d called Sam a monster in the hotel room, when he’d first seen him use his powers to exorcise a demon and told him that if he didn’t know him then he’d want to hunt him, he hadn’t sounded like this. He’d been mad, sure, but he’d also been afraid and heartbroken and at no point has he ever hated his brother. In this voicemail, he sounds like he hates him, which he thinks might be worse than calling him a monster and a vampire, than saying that Sam isn’t him anymore and that he’s tired of saving him and instead he’s going to kill him.

Which would never happen anyway.

If he really had believed that Sam was beyond saving, that nothing of the brother he knew was left, he wouldn’t kill Sam.

He’d kill himself.

He wants to get mad at Sam for believing this could be him, that he could say these things to him. Except he’d come pretty close to it a few times. Sure, he’d never called him a vampire or a bloodsucking freak, but the first thing he’d done after finding out that Sam drank demon blood was lock him in the panic room. He’s pretty sure Sam would have preferred being called a vampire to that.

Also, he’d just tortured his brother and he hadn’t even known it. Even in all his nightmares of his brother on his rack, he’d never imagined torturing him on accident. Then he’d tracked him down and refused his offer to work with him. Sam had literally been forced to escape him and been put through hell by him and still he’d asked Dean to come with him. He’d goaded Sam into a punch because Sam wouldn’t let him kill Ruby and he felt like he was losing the only thing that mattered to him and if Sam started it, then it was okay. Except even after everything, Sam had stopped after one punch, had stood there and waited. He should have stopped, like how Sam stopped when Dean hit him after Dad died. Instead Dean had hit him at least three more times before Sam had snapped and gave him what was asking for, although he really hadn’t thought through the fact that Sam was bigger and stronger and hadn’t spent the past year looking down the bottom of a bottle.

After all that, of course Sam had believed the voicemail.

Later, he’d said that Sam was just high and the demon blood changed him as a way to excuse his brother’s actions, to justify all the hurt festering like an open wound, but now the thought makes him ill. Sam had stopped and started drinking blood and stopped again after Lilith and Dean hadn’t been able to tell. Whatever detoxing on his own is like, it’s nothing Sam hadn’t been able to disguise as coming off a bender from Dean’s death or guilt and anxiety over releasing Lucifer. Every time Dean had blamed the demon blood, he’d meant it as a kind of absolution, something to lesson the guilt the bowing Sam’s shoulders. After listening to this voicemail and hearing how his voice had been twisted with hatred as he’d said that Sam wasn’t himself anymore, he doesn’t think it helped. He thinks it probably felt like a knife to the gut every time and Sam just took it.

He really, really wishes he had a drink.

He takes a deep, steadying breath. “Why did you keep it?”

“The voicemail?” Sam asks. Dean nods. He looks at him for long moment, considering. “After Lilith, when you were acting like a dick or treating me in a way that felt unfair, I’d listen to it. And I’d figure it could be worse and just try and be thankful it wasn’t.”

Dean digs the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“Dude, hey,” Sam grabs onto his wrists and pulls them away. “It’s alright. Neither of us were exactly at our best that day.”

He wishes Sam would stop making excuses for him.

“We’re fixing this,” he says, getting to his feet. He looks down at Sam and holds out his hand.

“What are you talking about?” Sam asks, but doesn’t hesitate to grab his hand and let Dean pull him up.

He’d pulled a lot of shit that day, but he didn’t do this. Dean’s already said that and Sam either didn’t understand what he meant or hadn’t believed him. He doesn’t bother trying to explain again, just leads Sam along behind him until he gets with the program and follows him up the stairs. He goes into what’s unofficially been his and Sam’s room since they were kids, is momentarily thrown by there only being one bed, then focuses on Cas who’s laying on it with a book held above him. Cas turns his head to look at them and frowns. “What’s wrong?”

Cas is getting better at interpreting human facial expressions. Or at least his and Sam’s, since they’re the humans he sees most. He holds out Sam’s phone. “Can you fix this?”

“I have many impressive abilities,” Cas says. “Cellular mobile repair is not among them.”

Dean rolls his eyes and plays the voicemail again. He fees Sam shuffle uncomfortably behind him, but he doesn’t try to stop him.

Cas drops his book and sits up, an intense look on his face, and takes the phone from him. “You did not say this. We were listening.”

“Right,” he says, resisting the urge to check Sam’s reaction. “Can you–”

“This is Zachariah’s work,” Cas says, eyes going unfocused. “It is not a sophisticated alteration.”

He moves to hand Sam’s phone back, but Dean doesn’t take it. “So can you fix it?”

“I already have,” Cas says, a slight irritation entering his voice.

“Oh. Thanks,” he says, grabbing the phone. He turns and holds it out to Sam, who’s looking at him with a mix of suspicion and a fragile uncertainty there that’s seriously going to break his heart. “Sammy, look, that wasn’t me. I did leave you a voicemail after we fought, but it wasn’t that. I swear.”

Sam takes his phone and swallows before playing the voicemail again.

The first thing Dean hears is his own shaky inhale and his shoulders instantly loosen. This is it. This is what he wanted Sam to know after goading him into a fight and getting choked by him and throwing Dad’s words at his back and having Sam call his bluff, because that’s all it ever was.

Hey, it’s me. Uh. Look, I’ll just get right to it. I’m still pissed, and I owe you a serious beatdown. But… I shouldn’t have said what I said. I’m not Dad. We’re brothers. We’re family. And no matter how bad it gets, that doesn’t change. Sammy, I’m sorry.

Sam is looking down at the phone, eyes huge. There’s no hatred in his voice like the other voicemail, just a raw vulnerability and faint pleading that makes his skin crawl a little to hear. He could never bring himself to sound like that for anyone but Sam.

“I didn’t know,” Dean says. “I thought that was the voicemail you got. I know it doesn’t make up for anything, but–”

“It does,” Sam interrupts, voice tight.

He shakes his head, but they can address that later. He has to finish getting this out now because otherwise he doesn’t think he’ll be able to get it out at all. “I went about it all wrong, I get that now, but I was,” man, this fucking sucks, “I was terrified, okay? I thought drinking demon blood, like actively choosing to do it, would damn your soul, and that when you died, you’d go to hell, and I couldn’t – I’d been, Sammy, I know what they do to souls down there. From both sides. You on the rack is my worst nightmare. Bobby thought we should let you drink, just until you could kill Lilith and stop the apocalypse, but then Cas told me that drinking the amount of blood you’d need to kill her would change you forever, that it would turn you into something that would have to be hunted–”

“Oh.”

Dean pauses, turning to Cas. Honestly, he’d forgotten he was here, and he’d really prefer to finish this conversation without an audience. But Cas is sitting on the edge of the bed, looking up at them with his forehead wrinkled. “What?”

“I lied,” Cas says. “My apologies. I would have clarified sooner, but I thought it was obvious.”

Dean continues to stare at him. He has to swallow to wet his mouth enough to speak. “Pardon?”

“Well, he did consume enough blood to kill Lilith, and it didn’t change him. I therefore assumed my deception was apparent. Sam is Lucifer’s true vessel.” Dean sees Sam flinch out of the corner of his eye. “Lucifer is the father of all demons. Demonic blood cannot harm Sam as it would harm others, whether as a corrosive or corruptive force. Famine also said this, if you’ll recall. There is no amount of demon blood that can cause Sam any lasting harm, either to his physical form or his soul. I believe you witnessed the truth of this yourself when he was infected by the Croatoan virus, did you not?”

He hadn’t thought of it like that, since it hadn’t been demon blood, exactly, but it had been demonic. He’d been thinking that Sam’s reaction to demon blood had been because he’s susceptible to it, but instead it’s because he’s resistant.

He couldn’t have gotten this more wrong if he tried. He stumbles to the bed and falls heavily on the edge, leaning forward to put his head in his hands.

Cas shifts uneasily next to him. “I apologize for whatever distress or misunderstanding I caused. I was still loyal to heaven and so working towards their goals of the apocalypse with Michael and Lucifer in their true vessels and I had not anticipated–”

“Why’d you let him go back in the panic room then?” he interrupts. If Cas knew that Sam could just wait out the addiction, that he’d be fine detoxing the long way around, then why had he stood there and listened to Sam scream?

“That was his choice,” Cas answers, confused. “He expressed his desire to detox in such a manner and requested we not release him until it was complete. Should I not have listened to his wishes?”

Sam had only done that because of him. He’d put himself through that again for no reason besides that Dean hadn’t believed in him.

“It’s alright, Cas,” Sams says, sounding closer. “Just give us a minute, okay?”

“Of course,” he says, almost sounding grateful as he gets to his feet.

There’s the sound of his footsteps then the door opening and closing. Sam sits next to him, the dip in the mattress pushing them together. He breathes out harshly. “I’m sorry, Sammy, I’m really,” his voice cracks and he swallows, pressure pounding behind his eyes.

He used to be good at this. Maybe all his other skills were questionable, but there was a time when he was good at being Sam’s brother.

Sam says, “I’m sorry too.”

“Don’t,” he starts, frustrated. Sam already apologized months ago, including for things he shouldn’t have had to, and he doesn’t want to hear it again. He feels bad enough as it is.

“When I got that voicemail, I thought that killing Lilith was the only thing I had left,” Sam says and Dean squeezes his eyes shut. “I was hoping that if I could stop the apocalypse then maybe you’d understand, but I’d mostly accepted that you wouldn’t, that if doing this didn’t kill me, I’d just do my best to kill as many demons as were left until you caught up with me.” He’s going to be sick, he’s seriously going to hurl. At least up here the floor is hardwood. “If I’d gotten your voicemail, I would have wanted to wait for you if I could. I would have called you back and told you where I was and what I was doing. I still would have done it alone if I had to, but I would have told you that I was sorry and I loved you and that I had to do this, but I’d do my best to come home after.”

He lifts his head and feels the tears clumping his eyelashes together and wet on his cheeks but he can’t bring himself to care. The cautious hope is almost a surprise, the way he can feel a current of that ever present anger ebbing away. Having Sam ignore the voicemail, like it meant nothing to him, like Dean meant nothing to him, and his brother choosing to face Lilith with Ruby instead of him even after that had fueled more of his resentment and rage than Sam accidentally starting the apocalypse. It was just that getting mad at his brother for starting the end of the times was easier than confronting the fact that maybe Sam didn’t care about him like he thought he did.

Except he does. He’d never gotten Dean’s voicemail, had instead gotten something to push him away from Dean for good, and had still come back to him in the end. It’s loyalty bordering on stupidity and he couldn’t be more grateful for it if he tried.

Sam’s looking at him with a warmth that cuts him to the quick. “Sometimes I need to do what I need to do, even if you don’t like it, but I always want to come home after.”

“To me?” he asks, because that can’t be right, but he wants it to be. It’s like there’s a weight on his chest and he’s able to breathe deeply for the first time in a long time all at once, crushing and freeing, and he wants it so badly. He doesn’t know if he’s ever wanted anything more.

Sam smiles at him then, all dimples. “Yeah. Where else? You’ve been my home my entire life.”

He’s moving before he can think not to, his self control snapped, and he turns to haul his brother against him. Sam doesn’t hesitate, folding his arms around him and holding on just as tightly as Dean is holding him. It’s a good thing they don’t have any chest injuries for once.

Dean’s even more of a failure than he thought he was and Sammy still loves him anyway. It’s almost enough to make him believe that God hasn’t totally abandoned him.

Eventually they pull apart and Sam nudges him gently in the ribs. “Hey, I have a question.”

“Shoot,” he says, scrubbing a hand over his face. Thank fuck no one else is here to see this. It’s barely tolerable with just Sam.

“I get that Cas lied to you, but,” he hesitates, then continues, “it was me against the world, man.”

Well, Cas had actually used that to get Dean to swear fealty to heaven, like one of the knights from their book, by saying that Dean could kill Lilith in Sam’s stead if he did. Considering he was just a regular guy with no demon killing powers, that probably should have raised some alarm bells, but he was so desperate to save Sam from that fate that he hadn’t cared about the particulars.

But that’s not really what Sam’s asking and if Cas hadn’t offered him an out, a way to sacrifice himself instead, he’s pretty sure he still would have made the same choice. “You’re more important to me than the world.”

Sam looks stricken, which, seriously, how is this news? Anna’s plan of tearing his brother into a million tiny pieces might have actually worked, but Dean sure as hell wasn’t willing to find out. If she’d proposed doing it to both of them, he might have been able to stomach that, but thankfully she hadn’t tried.

“After Cold Oak,” he starts, because saying after you died still hurts no matter how long it’s been or how many times it’s happened, “when Yellow Eyes was trying to unleash all the demons of hell onto the world and we didn’t know the particulars but we knew it was bad, the apocalypse come early, Bobby tried to get me to bury you. He wanted me to come with him and help him, he said whatever was happening was big, world ending big. I said, well, then let it end.” He licks his lips then shrugs. “I don’t care about the world if you’re not in it.”

It's not exactly true, he cares in an abstract sense, he knows he should care at least, but the grief of Sam dead and him alone eclipses any concern or empathy he has for anything else.

“Dean,” Sam says softly, a grief there that doesn’t make any sense to him. “What if something happens to me? You shouldn’t – I’d want you to move on. To bury me. I want you to have more than me.”

“I don’t want anything but you,” he says, which, yeah, mortifying, but he thinks Sam should have figured out that one out on his own by now. Sam brought this up a few months before Dad died and his answer hasn’t changed. If he could choose something for himself, he’d choose Sam by his side. “If I bury you, I’m joining you. We can argue about it in heaven. That should eat up a century or two at least.”

“But what if I don’t end up there?” Sam presses. “If I’m not there to join, you should live a good, long life. For me. That’s what I want.”

“You’re not going to hell,” Dean scoffs. He tortured souls for ten years and God still let him in, to say nothing of some his questionable decisions on earth. Sam hasn’t done anything close to that and Cas said the demon blood doesn’t matter, hell, they saw that it didn’t matter the last time they died and ended up in heaven. His stomach drops, because he may be Sam’s home, but he’s run away from him before. But he comes back. He’s told Dean that he always wants to come back. That’s more important than that he leaves. Dean’s deciding that right now and he’s sticking to it. “If you want your own space in heaven, we can manage that. It’s fine. I know before I – but it’s okay, we’ll work something out so that you don’t have to spend it all with me. I don’t mind.”

He’s lying, but he wants it to be true, which he thinks should count for something. Frankly, considering everything, it’s no wonder that Sam wants a break from him. If they can manage to somehow stop the apocalypse and Dean can figure out how to take care of his little brother like he’s supposed to, maybe Sam’s heaven will be different the next time they die. Maybe he’ll want Dean there.

That strange grief has slipped from Sam’s face, which is good, but now he just looks baffled. “Dude. What are you talking about?”

Dean stares back, equally confused, but before he can say anything there’s a single knock at the door before it swings open. He’s entirely unsurprised to see Cas. They’ve told him that knocking two or three times is standard, and absolutely not once – and, in fact, Sam had argued that only doing it once doesn’t qualify as knocking – but frankly it had taken Cas so long to catch onto the concept in general he’s given up trying to correct it.

“I do not wish to interrupt,” Cas says, looking between them with his eyebrows pinched together, “however, there’s a young woman here to see Sam.”

“You get some cross dimensional nookie?” he asks, elbowing him in the side. “That’s my boy.”

Sam smacks his arm away. “No, shut up. Who is it, Cas?”

“I am unfamiliar with her,” he says. “However, she is insistent on speaking with you. Your father appears agitated.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. Dad’s pretty good at getting along with people, at least at first. It’s usually continued exposure that gets him in trouble.

“Ah.” Sam’s mouth twitches. He gives Dean a stern look. “Be nice.”

“I’m always nice,” he protests, trailing behind Sam as he heads down the stairs. Then he considers the emotionally draining and exhausting conversation they’d just had, and amends, “To women.”

Sam tries to trip him down the stairs in response, so Dean shoves him so he stumbles down the last couple and has to do a stupid little hop to keep from landing on his face.

Talk is cheap, but considering the smile he can’t help and doesn’t bother to hide as Sammy shoots him a dirty look, he thinks it’s a pretty good start.

~

Dean spends probably too long standing in Bobby’s junkyard, taking deep breaths and trying not to think about anything at all.

So far being a big brother has mostly consisted of getting his heart broken over and over again and the times in between when he’s filled with a ridiculous sort of happiness and contentment that he didn’t know he was capable of. If Sam’s Dean wasn’t such an asshole, he’d ask him if it was like this for him too or if it’s just the circumstances pushing everything to eleven.

He considers going back inside, but ends up reorganizes the trunk instead. He keeps it how Dad kept it, but Sam had bitched about it for ten minutes straight before Dean had gotten tired of hearing it and turned up the music until it had drowned him out and Sam had rolled his eyes and laughed and rolled down the windows rather than turn the music down.

He thinks this would hurt less if he was sending Sam back to a world that wasn’t about to end, or with a version of him that didn’t remind him so much of Dad, but honestly he’s not sure it would make much of a difference. He’d feel better about it, probably, but he thinks it would hurt just the same. Sam’s leaving him. Everything else is just details.

It’s fine.

He’s known from the beginning that Sam isn’t his to keep.

When there’s nothing left to do but stand there and twiddle his thumbs, he gives in and heads inside. It’s getting dark anyway. There’s the low murmur of voices coming from the library and he can’t quite make anything out, but it doesn’t sound like the rage and recrimination from earlier, which is a good sign.

He doesn’t want to interrupt, so he goes through the kitchen and then wanders out the back. Rumsfield lifts his head as he passes and then drops it, obviously disappointed. Dean, unlike Sam, doesn’t throw himself to the ground to start wrestling with him, but he feels bad enough to give him a few head pats before moving on.

There’s a clanking coming from the garage, and then voices, and he steps inside to see Dad and Bobby arguing over the open engine of a rust orange ’84 Camaro. Bobby’s holding a wrench like he’s thinking of braining Dad with it, but they pause when he walks in. He raises an eyebrow. “Philosophical differences?”

Dad’s lips twitch but Bobby says, “Your father has no appreciation for art.”

“You’re going to need to rebuild the whole engine and there’s no way you’re going to be able to sell it for enough to make it worth the time and parts,” Dad says. “It’s a money sink. Between this and hunting, it’s a wonder the lights stay on.”

“Says the man who hasn’t earned an honest dollar in what, two decades?” Bobby returns. It’s probably been a bit more than that. “You know damn well I can get the parts cheap, it’s just the time. Sue a man for having a hobby.”

“Yeah, and in that time you could get three cars running and sellable,” Dad argues. “Forget the loss in profit when – if – you sell it, you’ll also lose out on all the money you could have made if you’d been working on other shit. This would take forever even if you weren’t doing hunts in between.”

“I’m an old man,” he says and Dean bites on the inside of his cheek. He can just imagine Bobby’s reaction if any of them dared to call him old. “I’m not exactly running from hunt to hunt. I’ve got the time.”

Dean kicks a milk crate out to sit on. Neither of them seem to notice.

“Sure,” Dad says skeptically. “I heard about the abominable snowman last year.”

Dean perks up.

“It wasn’t an abominable snowman,” Bobby says in disgust. “You should know better than to believe a word out of Rufus’s mouth.”

“Didn’t hear it from Rufus,” Dad returns, mild, because that’s obvious. From what he remembers, Rufus had only put up with Dad for Bobby’s benefit. “What was it then?”

Bobby opens his mouth, pauses, then scowls. “Just because I don’t know what it was doesn’t make it a damn abominable snowman. Just because a victim’s teeth are missing doesn’t make it the tooth fairy.”

“No, it probably makes it witches,” Dad says. “What’s your alternate explanation again?”

“Oh, shut up,” Bobby grumbles. “Are you going to help or are you going to bitch?”

Dad shrugs. “It’s both or neither, take it or leave it.”

“How could I forget,” he grumbles, but passes over the wrench and Dad takes it without comment.

Dean could probably get up and help too, maybe take Dad’s place since only so many of them can fit around the engine, but he instead he leans back and listens to Dad and Bobby continue to bicker back and forth like grumpy old man white noise. He’s leaning back against the wall, almost falling asleep, when there’s a knock on the door and a woman’s voice says, “You should really set up barriers against the undead.”

They’re all on their feet and facing the door in the next moment, weapons drawn. Dean’s the first to drop his. “Lenore? What happened?”

There are smears of blood on her clothes and on the side of her neck, but when she smiles her teeth are human. “It’s not mine. Or human,” she adds with a look towards Dad. “Where’s Sam? I have something for him.”

“Do you have it?” Dad asks eagerly.

No way. It’s been two days. Besides, Lenore had only agreed to find out where Luther and his nest was, not to go get it herself.

“Where’s Sam?” she repeats. “He hasn’t gone back yet, has he?”

“No,” Dean says. Dad scowls, but it’s pointless to lie to her. She could just sniff him out if she wanted to. “He’s inside.”

Lenore nods and turns, heading towards the door leading to the kitchen. Dean follows, obviously, and Dad and Bobby do too. The library is quiet, but they find Castiel is lying on the couch in the living room and thumbing through one of Bobby’s books. He looks over when they enter and slowly closes it. “This woman is not alive.”

“Not dead either,” Lenore says, not taking offense. “I’m looking for Sam.”

“Do you have it or not?” Dad asks.

Lenore ignores him and asks Castiel, “Can you get him for me?”

“Yes, I am capable of this,” Castiel says, then gets up and heads towards the stairs.

Dad crosses his arms. “What do you have to say to him that you can’t say to us?”

“Guess you’ll have to wait and see,” she answers. She watches Castiel climb the stairs and waits until he’s out of sight to ask, “What’s that guy’s deal? He knew what I was with one look.”

“Ah,” Dean says. He debates lying, but it’s not like there’s anything she can do with the truth. “He’s an angel from Sam’s world.”

She blinks. “Like, an angel angel? From the bible?”

“I guess,” he says. He hasn’t seen him do anything particularly angelic. Although, he did bring himself and Sam’s Dean here from a different world, which per Sam only an angel can do.

“Oh,” she settles on finally, blinking. “Okay.”

Dad glares and crosses his arms, all but tapping his foot. Lenore’s eyes narrow.

He wishes Castiel would hurry up. He feels like he’s two seconds from finding himself in the middle of a showdown.

Chapter Text

Dean looks up just in time to see his double trip Sam down the stairs. He feels his blood pressure spike, but Sam catches himself and sends his Dean a glare with no heat. Sam’s Dean is smirking at him and Castiel is standing behind them. There’s no expression on his face that Dean can pick up on, although there is an air of perpetual exasperation around him. Dean’s not sure if that’s his opinion about humanity in general or Sam and his Dean specifically.

Lenore blinks, looking between him and the other Dean with a raised eyebrow.

Sam catches sight of her and his expression instantly shifts to concern. “Are you alright?” He crosses the room to stand in front of her, hands hovering in front of her uncertainly. “Is your nest okay? Did something happen-”

“Everything’s fine,” she interrupts, some tension easing from her at Sam’s appearance. “Luther heard I was asking about him and that my nest was on the move and thought it would be an opportune time to finish what he started. We were only a state away when he caught up with us.”

He knew they had history!

“And how did that go for them?” Sam asks.

“Well, last time it was just me and Eli and they nearly killed us.” She grins, mouth going wide as she drops her second set teeth. He knows Lenore isn’t here to hurt them and he still feels his blood pressure spike at the sight of all those sharp teeth so close to his brother. “This time I’m the leader of a nest of a hundred. Even split up, it was his six against my twenty. He and Kate won’t be bothering anyone again.”

Sam smiles and tugs the sleeve of his shirt down over his hand. He reaches out to Lenore and her fangs, then bypasses them to clean the blood from her neck. “Good.”

The moment lingers until Sam’s Dean shouts, “Lenore! Right?” Has he spent the whole time trying to remember her name? Sam had recognized her straight off. Sam’s Dean wrinkles his nose. “Dude, you banged Lenore? Seriously, what is it with you and monsters? At some point it turns from a type into a fetish.”

Dean feels his hackles rise. What a thing to accuse his own brother of! Especially after everything else.

Except Sam doesn’t seem hurt, not even in that quiet way when he’s trying to hide it. He just rolls his eyes.

Lenore glares at the other him and bares her fangs in his direction, which he doesn’t react to at all. “I like the other you better.”

“Hey!” Sam’s Dean frowns and glances his way. He tries not to appear to smug, but probably isn’t very successful. He’s not trying that hard. “Whatever.”

Sam shakes his head. “Okay, one, last time you brought this up, you were the one that got whammied by the monster,” his Dean grimaces, but doesn’t deny it, which, what, “and secondly, what’s wrong with you?” He looks to Dad. “Some of those places we stayed at as kids had to have had lead paint. How much of it did he eat? It’s okay, you can tell us, I’ve always just assumed.”

That would explain some of his anger management issues.

Dad raises an eyebrow and doesn’t say anything. Sam’s Dean smacks him in the back. “Shut up. If anyone ate paint chips, it was you. You were always getting into shit you weren’t supposed to every time me or Dad turned our backs.”

“Wonder where I picked that up from,” Sam says mildly.

Sam’s Dean cracks his knuckles, all show, and Sam’s amusement seems genuine. Lenore retracts her fangs and licks her lips. “You aren’t going to ask?”

“Do I have to?” Sam returns.

Lenore smiles. “No.” She reaches behind her under her jacket and pulls out a gun from her waistband, a long barreled revolver that looks at least a hundred years out of date.

Dad takes a step forward, an eagerness on his face that reminds Dean uncomfortably of the height of his desperation to find the thing that killed Mom and Sammy. Sam had said that getting the Colt would do their father know favors and with one look Dean knows that he was right.

Sam’s Dean blinks, leaning closer. “You have the Colt?”

“Only for as long as it took me to get here,” she says, handing it over to Sam without hesitation. “This thing seems like it’s more trouble than it’s worth. All my enemies die easily enough and I’m uninterested by attracting the kind that don’t by holding on to the gun they probably don’t want anyone to have.” She nods towards it. “There are only two bullets left. Luther did his best to keep his possession of it under wraps, but apparently people came after him that could only be stopped by those bullets. Otherwise I doubt he would have wasted them.”

Something else Sam had warned him about.

Sam passes the gun to his Dean, who automatically pops the chamber open and dumps the bullets into his hand to look them over. He nods and sticks them back in, so Dean supposes they’re the correct ones.

“Do you want to get cleaned up?” Sam asks, eyebrows pushed together. “Or stay the night? We can black out the windows upstairs.”

Dean risks a glance at Bobby, but if he has any opinions about Sam inviting a vampire to spend the night at his house, he doesn’t show it.

She shakes her head, but there’s something wistful there that Dean doesn’t think has anything to do with a hot shower. Sam hasn’t been frightened of her once, had shoved his bleeding arm in her face and hadn’t hesitated to touch her gently when she had all her teeth out. Huh. Maybe the other him wasn’t just being a dick earlier. It’s always the quiet ones. Not that Sam’s been particularly quiet since he arrived, minus all the hours spent pouring over Bobby’s books.

“I better not,” Lenore says. “My people are waiting for me and we’re trying to be at least two states over by sunrise.”

Sam frowns but nods before saying sincerely, “Thank you, Lenore. We really appreciate this.”

“Thank you, Sam,” she echoes softly, not saying what for, but Dean can guess.

She waves at the rest of them before leaving out the front door, apparently serious about getting back to her people as quickly as possible. He supposes that he shouldn’t be surprised considering she hadn’t even stopped to clean all the blood off before coming to deliver the gun to Sam.

Dad steps towards Sam’s Dean. “Is that really it?”

“Far as I can tell,” he says, passing it over. Dad handles it reverently and even Bobby comes for a closer look. From what he can see it just looks like a normal gun, so he’s not sure what they find so fascinating. “Do you just want it as insurance or something? I thought you guys didn’t really deal with demons here and no apocalypse means the standard exorcism should be pretty effective against most of them.”

Sam’s head snaps around to them. “It’s nothing–”

“The demon responsible for your mother and brother’s deaths is still out there,” Dad says. Sam grimaces and rubs a hand over his face.

There’s a moment Sam’s Dean just blinks, then his face settles into a fierce scowl. “So, we going to summon Azazel or what?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sam says quickly.

Bobby raises an eyebrow. “You know its name, so we could do a proper summoning, but it doesn’t compel them. What, you hoping it just gets bored, decides to show up, and stays still long enough for you to get off a shot?”

“We can summon it into a devil’s trap,” Sam’s Dean says.

“That won’t hold him and you know it,” Sam says. “We shouldn’t rock the boat. He’s not causing problems here, I haven’t seen any signs of what he did last time, and getting his attention is more trouble than it’s worth.”

His Dean just stares at him. “That thing killed Mom. And you.”

“Not the first time,” he says which makes Dean’s eyes narrow. “Things are good here and digging into Azazel is swinging a bat at a hornet’s nest. We have to go home and deal with the apocalypse, which means whatever mess we cause here will be something they have to clean up after we’re gone.”

“What mess?” Sam’s Dean counters. “We summon Yellow Eyes, he shows up, we put a bullet between his eyes for a second time. Done.”

“Right, and when that leads to instability in hell and demons start popping up everywhere and people are getting possessed and killed because of our personal revenge?” Sam demands. “You’re not thinking this through.”

Bobby whistles and they focus on him. “Am I missing something here? Unless he feels like answering, this isn’t going to do anything more than let him know you’re looking for him. Which, I gotta agree with Sam here, doesn’t seem like the smartest move.”

Sam just grimaces.

“A demon can be summoned by force,” Sam’s Dean says then turns to face Castiel who’s still hovering by the stairs. “But it requires a very specific, hard to get ingredient.”

Castiel sighs, reaches up to his head, and plucks out a single hair. “Do you have a silver bowl?”

“We’re not doing this,” Sam interrupts, crossing his massive arms over his chest. “This could all go wrong so quickly and for what? It’s not worth it.”

His Dean mirrors his pose. “What are you going on about? It is worth it and we’ll be fine. If the gun and the devil’s trap fail, so what? We’ll still have you. Your freaky demon powers can play backup.”

Dean looks at him sharply but Sam just seems exasperated. “Even if we kill him without a problem, that’s completely ignoring the issues that will cause with hell’s hierarchy. We know what happened last time.”

“Because of the apocalypse,” Dean shoots back. “Without that throwing a wrench in things, hell will probably figure itself out just fine. Demons will still have to claw themselves out the old fashioned way.” Sam shakes his head but Dean glares. “He killed you, Sammy, I’m not letting him walk away from that. We’re doing this. You going to do the ritual or are you going to make me paw through Bobby’s books for it myself?”

Dad’s eyes narrow. “You knew there was a way to summon the demon? So when you went on about how I wouldn’t be able to track it down–”

“You need an angel feather,” Sam snaps. “I didn’t exactly expect Cas to show up and any other angel wouldn’t be interested in helping, to say the least.”

Dean looks towards the hair that Castiel is still holding. “Feather?”

“It’s metaphorical,” Castiel explains. “I do not have feathers in this form.”

Sam’s Dean tilts his head to the side. “What if you possessed a bird? Would those count as angel feathers?”

“Don’t be stupid, a bird can’t consent to possession,” Sam says before frowning, momentarily distracted. “Can it?”

They both look to Castiel who’s got an expression on his face that Dean would personally categorize as tired of their shit. “We will not be testing this hypothesis.”

“Chicken,” Sam’s Dean mocks.

Sam groans, but he’s also clearly biting down on a laugh.

“What else do we need?” Dad asks with that familiar, terrifying determination.

All of Sam’s humor drains away. “Nothing. This is a bad idea.”

“Sam,” Dad says, voice hard and warning, as if Sam hasn’t demonstrated repeatedly how well he takes to being spoke too like that. He takes a step towards Sam and Dean feels himself tense along with Sam’s Dean, who has a dark look on his face that he hopes isn’t on his own.

“Alright, everyone calm down,” Bobby interrupts. “Does this ritual need moonlight? A certain phase or to be done under the stars or at midnight?”

Sam’s Dean makes a face and looks over to him.

Sam’s jaw clenches as he keeps stubbornly silent, then he sighs and shakes his head. “No. It can be done whenever, there’s not much difference.”

“Then there’s no reason for us to continue this discussion tonight,” Bobby says firmly. “If we’re going to summon a demon powerful enough to walk out of devil’s trap in my living room, I for one want a decent night’s sleep first.”

“What’s that?” Sam and his Dean ask at the same time in the same wry tone.

Bobby’s mouth twitches. “No jinx?”

“Dad banned it when we were kids,” Sam’s Dean says. “It drove him nuts.”

Dean blinks. Dad has a short temper about a lot of things, but banning saying jinx seems excessive. Then again, they also drove Dad to a point where he didn’t care about Dean sticking legos down the vents, so maybe nothing’s off the table.

Sam must pick up on their confusion, because he explains, “We changed the game. The goal was to speak in unison for as long as possible. We got really good at it.”

Ah. That would probably do it.

Bobby’s amusement deepens before he clears his throat, “Alright, it’s getting late, and I was up half the night translating and researching. I’m eating dinner and going to bed.” He looks them over and says, “There’s the spare bed and the couch pulls out, but beyond that you’re on your own.”

“I don’t sleep,” Castiel offers.

“I got a spare bed in my room in town,” Dad says. Right. Obviously he’ll go back with Dad and Sam and his Dean will take the couch and bed. That’s the only configuration that makes sense. It’s fine.

“Whatever,” Sam’s Dean says. “Me and Sammy have shared beds for over half our lives anyway. Another night won’t hurt.”

Dean pauses. He’d be fine spending the night with Dad, really, but if he doesn’t have to–  

Sam makes a seesaw motion with his hand. “Well, it probably will a little. We were a lot smaller then.”

“You were a lot smaller then,” his Dean retorts. “Some of us didn’t wait until we were sixteen to start growing.”

“No,” Sam agrees. “Some of us did stop growing at sixteen, though.”

Sam’s Dean punches him in the arm and Sam laughs. His Dean’s smile widens at that and only drops when he looks over at Dad and holds out his hand. “Leave the Colt with us.”

Dad tightens his grip on the handle of the gun. “Why?”

“So we know you’ll come back here rather than going off on your own,” he says, which Dean has to admit is a reasonable concern. “I know you want Yellow Eyes dead. I do too. That bastard shouldn’t exist in any universe, not after what he did to our family. But we’re doing this together.”

Something crosses across Sam’s face that he can’t quite catch. He knows that Sam thinks is a bad idea, that it could bring more trouble than it’s worth, but Dean’s not quite sure why. They have the Colt and it killed Azazel just fine in their world. If for some reason it fails, they have Sam. His Dean is completely confident in this plan and the angel doesn’t seem concerned, so he doesn’t understand why Sam is hesitating.

Dad presses his lips together and doesn’t move.

Dean wiggles his fingers impatiently. “Come on, I’ll give it back. Hell, you can even be the one to shoot him.”

“It should be Dean,” Sam says before Dad can respond to that. They all turn to look at him and he swallows. “This world’s Dean. Symmetry, or whatever, since he’s the one that killed him in our world. I don’t want to do this, but if we’re going to, it should be Dean.”

He feels frozen, his mouth too dry to speak. It shouldn’t be him. He could have saved Sammy and he hadn’t. He doesn’t deserve to be the one to kill Azazel. Sam’s Dean had earned it.

Dad’s looking at him and Dean’s just about to try and make himself move, to shake his head and tell Dad he doesn’t want it even though he does, that it should be him getting revenge for his wife and son, but then Dad says, “Alright. Dean will shoot him,” and hands the gun over.

He takes a deep, steadying breath, suddenly lightheaded.

Alright.

~

Dean falls asleep back to back with Sam on Bobby’s flimsy pull out couch and wakes up curled around Sam, drooling on his shoulder and an arm thrown over his waist. Sam’s still in the same position he fell asleep in, more or less, except he’s got a loose grip on Dean’s wrist

Okay, maybe he’s the clingy one. Like that’s news to anybody. He’d mostly grown out of it until Dad died and he’d found himself even more determined not to lose track of Sam if they were sharing the same space. He was getting over it, really, and then Sam had died in his arms and he’d never really recovered from that.

Sam’s breathing deep and even and Dean carefully extricates himself from his brother and then the bed, wincing at a particularly loud squeak of the springs. But Sam doesn’t wake, just rolls over into the warm spot that Dean’s left, looking less than half his age with the lines of stress gone from his face.

He heads into the kitchen, starting a pot of coffee and looking in Bobby’s fridge, but he ends up giving up on that quickly. He’d checked it last night too, he’s not sure what he thought would have changed since then. In the end they’d just ordered pizza. They’re in serious need of a grocery run. He does scrounge up a granola bar from the same cabinet that Bobby keeps the whiskey in, which will at least keep his stomach from eating itself in protest.

He heads out onto the porch and drops down on the steps, a hot coffee cradled between his hands. Rumsfield opens one suspicious eye and then goes back to sleep with a snort. The early morning air is still damp with chill and he breathes in deeply, the smell of Bobby’s junkyard just the same even in a world so different from theirs.

Last night he’d slept better than he had in a long time, Sam safe and next to him. The guilt that their talk had dug up from him still hadn’t been enough to outweigh the relief at knowing that Sam hadn’t gotten his voicemail, at hearing him say that Dean’s his home. It’s a balm against years of hurt, old and new, real and, it turns out, not-so-real.

God, he’s been such an ass.

“There you are,” Sam says, pushing the door open. He’s still sleep rumpled, hair a mess and barefoot in sweatpants and grey shirt that Dean’s pretty sure is his.

He shifts, turning sidewise on the stairs and leaning back against the railing, automatically making room for him. Sam sits facing him, mirroring his position except with one leg bent and the other thrown over Dean’s. Rumsfield crawls forward to rest his head on Sam’s knee, tail wagging enthusiastically.

Sam pulls Dean’s coffee from his hand, taking a long sip and only scrunching his nose a little at the whiskey, or maybe just the lack of cream because he hadn’t added that much. It’s for the best anyway, a little alcohol will go a long way in killing Sam’s morning breath. He keeps it balanced on the knee Rumsfield hasn’t claimed instead of handing it back, which, annoying, but Dean’s not really in the mood to fight him for it. “I want to talk about heaven.”

Dean jerks away, even though there’s really nowhere for him to go. Sam boxing him in and keeping hold of his coffee now seems more strategic than it had a moment ago. “What? Why?”

Sam shifts his weight. “Because I know you’re mad, but I don’t know why.”

He feels his temper flare and has to make a conscious decision not to snap at him. He can’t really blame Sam for not wanting anything to do with him, considering, but seriously? He doesn’t know why that hurts him? Why he’s upset by that? For fuck’s sake. “If you don’t get it, there’s no point in–”

“No,” Sam interrupts. “If I don’t get it, then explain it to me.” He swallows. “I’m tired of us not talking. That hasn’t really seemed to do us a lot of favors.”

True enough. Sammy walked into the panic room rather than talk to him. This is a good thing, he thinks fatalistically, some sort of progress or something, even though he thinks he’d rather dry himself out in the panic room himself than do this. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Sam echoes with relief then straightens his shoulders. Dean wishes he’d give him his mug back. “So what is it specifically? I mean, you didn’t seem to mind the Thanksgiving one that much–”

“It’s fine,” he says, because this one is, mostly. Maybe it’s for the best they start easy and work up to the one that makes him feel like Sammy’s ripping his heart out of his chest. “You’ve always wanted normal and this was your first taste of it, it’s whatever.”

Sam’s forehead crinkles and he opens his mouth then closes it. He’s quiet for long enough that Dean’s starting to get antsy when he says, “Not to start another argument, but safe and normal aren’t the same thing. And in the interest of being honest with each other, that’s not why that’s a good memory for me.”

Yeah, obviously they’re not the same, it’s why Sam looking for safety by turning his back on hunting had never made any sense to him. But that’s an old argument, one that they’ve had often enough that it doesn’t even feel tender, so he focuses on the second part. “What do you mean? Was brace face your first big boy crush or something?”

Sam kicks his leg, but not very hard, and Dean smiles. “No. I mean, Stephanie was nice and I liked her, but, um, it was mostly her mom.”

Dean perks up. “Sammy! Got some Stacy’s mom going on?”

“You’re disgusting,” Sam says, but like he’s laughing on the inside. “Not like that. You showed up late to the memory, remember?” Oh, yeah. He hadn’t thought of that. “Don’t get mad at me, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, because he’s struggling to think of anything Sam could have done at eleven in some stranger’s house that would make him mad.

Sam taps his fingers against his thigh. “Stephanie had to distract her sisters while her mom was cooking and she said I could go outside to play football with the guys rather than playing dolls with them, even though I wouldn’t have minded,” of course he wouldn’t have, the big girl, “but she seemed sort of embarrassed at having to play little kid games to occupy her sisters and I wanted her to like me so I didn’t push. But her dad kept asking me questions about home, and Dad, and why he wasn’t home and where you were spending the day.” Right. Dean had been on the hunt with Dad, but Sam obviously knew he couldn’t say he was on his own, so he’d had to lie about Dad being away on business and maybe Dean working the holiday at a job he didn’t have or hanging out with a girl or whatever, something that wouldn’t give away that he wasn’t living on his own. “I didn’t want to deal with that, so I went to the kitchen and asked her mom if she needed help with anything. She was cooking everything on her own.”

He stops, hesitating again, and Dean’s not sure what part of this is supposed to be a good memory or what he’s supposed to be mad about, so he prompts, “Okay?”

“She said she was fine and I could go play, but, I don’t know, apparently my face gave away that I really didn’t want to do that. So she said, actually, she could really use the help, and she had me peel potatoes and grab seasonings for her and mix things. She asked me about school and what I liked doing and what I was reading. She was really nice and everything was warm and clean and smelled good. There was this moment at the end, where she fixed my hair and wiped something off my face and thanked me for helping her because usually this was the most lonely part of the day, and I,” he looks down, the soft smile that had been on his face tugging into a frown. “I wondered if maybe it was what having a mom felt like.”

Dean’s chest clenches. “Sammy.”

“I know she’s not Mom,” he says hurriedly. Dean remembers with a wince how he used to blow up at Sam for mentioning Mom when they were kids, filled with grief and fear and no idea how to share any of that with Sam, or Dad, or anyone. Depressingly little has changed. “She was just being kind to her daughter’s friend who was alone on Thanksgiving. I get that. But it was nice. I’d never really – I didn’t have anything to compare it to.”

Because Mom had died when Sammy was too young to remember her. He’d never known what she was like, what it felt like to have a mom, except from some random woman who’d only met him that day. Then on the heels of reliving that, he goes to Dean’s memory, and sees Mom. Except it’s not his memory, so she can’t see him or hear him, doesn’t look at him, nothing.

Even in heaven, Sammy doesn’t get to have Mom.

Sam continues, “I mean, you’re not totally wrong though. It was also the first time I really – I thought that it was maybe something I could have one day. Not a mom, obviously, but something like that. A place that was warm and clean and safe and full of family. I was the interloper, the awkward guest, but if it was something that was really mine – I would have liked that.”

“Would have?” he repeats. “You don’t still want that?”

His face tightens and he shrugs. “I’ve buried or burned pretty much my entire family, Dean, and we’re in the middle of the end of the world. It’s not exactly in the cards right now.”

Sam buried him.

He knew that, obviously, but he’d never really thought about it.

Sam must have cleaned him up as best he could and changed his clothes into something that wasn’t torn apart. He probably stitched him up too, so the new clothes wouldn’t just get blood soaked. He had lifted Dean’s amulet off his neck and worn it around his own until Dean was alive again, something Sam had given up on happening. He was planning to die wearing Dean’s amulet.

Dean remembers dropping it into the trash and his jaw aches with nausea. Maybe it’s for the best he hasn’t had anything more than a granola bar.

Sam had gotten a simple pine box and dug a shallow grave and put Dean in the ground, covering him with shovelful after shovelful of dirt. They have a lot of experience with digging and filling graves. If he was quick about it, it would have only taken a couple hours.

Dean can’t imagine that Sam was quick about it.

“Anyway,” Sam says, shifting to press his leg more firmly against Dean’s in clear concern. He forces himself to focus back on Sam. “That’s what that was about. What did you mean when you said you thought I was dead at Flagstaff? Didn’t you track me down like a day later?”

He doesn’t have it in him to get pissed just then, but he doesn’t feel at all bad about the incredulity. “What are you talking about? It took us nearly a week to find you! I had no idea what the hell happened to you, how was I supposed to know you ran away?”

Sam makes a face. “I didn’t run away, it’s not my fault that you and Dad finished your hunts up early. If you’d gotten back when you were supposed to, you never would have noticed me missing.” A shyly pleased look crosses his face. “It really took a week? I hadn’t thought I’d covered my tracks that well.”

“Well, you’d already been gone a week by the time I got back, it took us a while to figure out what you’d done,” he says, confusion softening some of the anger he can feel lingering beneath the surface. “You think Dad would have been so pissed if we’d thought you were fine and it had only taken us a day to pick you up?”

He blinks. “Yes? Look, man, I know I said it before, but I really don’t remember it that way. Dad was always upset at me about something and he didn’t seem any madder at me than the time I skipped training to go to soccer practice. You pissed and giving me the silent treatment too was a little unusual, sure, but it’s not like you kept it up for long.”

“Dad wasn’t always mad at you,” he says while trying to piece the rest of what Sam said together. He wasn’t then, at least, not for a couple more years.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, he was. Only we hadn’t progressed to the yelling stage yet, so he just got angry and silent, which is what happened at Flagstaff. He literally said two words to me, remember? Pack up. That’s it. You didn’t say anything at all. How was I supposed to know it had been such a big deal for you guys? I seriously thought you were just mad because I left the apartment unwatched and you’d had to go out of your way to come get me.”

Dean hadn’t been able to talk when they’d walked into that cabin. They’d figured out Sam had left on his own, that he was staying at a cabin at a campground run by a neighbor they’d had two years ago, but there had been days before that when Dean was sure Sam was lying dead in a ditch somewhere. He’d been so relieved to see him alive, to see him fine and giving Dad attitude and none the worse for wear, and at the same time so completely furious at him for making Dean live for days with his worst nightmare playing out in front of him, Sam dead and it his fault, that he’d blanked out. He’d wanted to grab onto Sam and never let go and also strangle him for doing this to them that the impulses had cancelled each other out and he’d just stood there, throat too tight to say anything. From Sam’s perspective, it probably had just looked like he was being standoffish and pissed.

“What do you mean we finished our hunts early?” he asks mostly to distract himself from his own thoughts. He hadn’t thought he’d needed to say anything, Sam had obviously known what he’d done. Except maybe it had been him and Dad that had the wrong of it. “You ran away. On my watch.”

“I was only on your watch on a technicality,” Sam says. “Remember? You ditched me to go on that hunt with Pastor Jim. Dude, you told me you were going to be gone for a month, and Dad’s hunt was supposed to be weeks longer than that. I wasn’t running away, I’d just gone somewhere else. That town sucked. I was going to head back in another week. If you guys hadn’t finished up early, I would have totally gotten away with it.”

That town had sucked. It’s part of the reason he’d been so relieved to have an excuse to leave. “You didn’t leave a note. Or call me. Or tell anyone where you were going.”

“Uh, yeah, because as I just said, you weren’t supposed to find out about it,” Sam says, bitchily enough that he has to resist the urge smack him. He compromises by stealing his coffee back. “Obviously if I told you I was going to go off on my own for a few weeks doing whatever until you got back, you’d have freaked out and tried to stop me. Just because I wasn’t running away didn’t mean I wasn’t sneaking off.”

Okay. That actually does make some sort of sense, why Sam hadn’t argued with Dad about getting in the car if he really had been trying to run or acted embarrassed or sorry. It also explains why Sam had been so confused about his reaction in heaven, why he’d been excited to see the dog and the cabin and hadn’t understood what Dean was talking about when he’d snapped at him for it. For Dean, it was Sam running away with no concern about what him disappearing had done to Dean or Dad and then that their fear and worry had been so inconsequential as to not be worth remembering. For Sam, it had been him getting caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to and his little vacation being cut short. A bummer, but not much more than that.

It's still a memory without Dean, one of his happiest memories once again on his own rather than with his family, but it stings a lot less now that he knows that wasn’t the point of it. Which, now without the stress and hurt and haze of pain clawing at him, he’s thinking he should have picked up before now. Sam had lit up at the dog, had laughed and told Dean that of course it was a good memory, but he hadn’t said anything about being away from Dean and Dad.

Well. Except.

“You said you were on your own and you’d done nothing but eat Funyuns and Mr. Pibb for two weeks,” Dean says. “But you could have done that at home. You didn’t have to run aw – leave to do that.”

They’d left Sam on his own all the time. There shouldn’t have been anything special about it.

Sam gets quiet again. Dean waits him out, sipping at his coffee. It’s gone lukewarm and especially bitter without the heat to mask it. “I meant on my own as, you know, really on my own. I’d taken the grocery money with me just in case, but it wasn’t an apartment or hotel room that Dad had prepaid, it was something I’d managed to figure out on my own because Mrs. Connelly had liked me and remembered me. I didn’t even really end up using the money and gave the same amount Dad had left us back to him when he asked. I lied and said I was fourteen and worked as a grocery bagger. Half the reason I’d lived on Funyuns and Mr. Pibb was to make up for the money I’d spent, to prove that I didn’t need it. Bones was Mrs. Connelly’s son’s dog, only he was spending the summer with his father and she didn’t want to deal with him, so she was more than happy to let me stay in a cabin in exchange for looking after him and some yard maintenance. It was fun, I really did have a great time, but I also proved to myself that I could take care of myself if I had to.”

Dad had confronted Mrs. Connelly about letting Sam stay on his own, saying that he’d run away and they were worried sick. The old woman – who in hindsight was probably only in her forties – had been unimpressed and asked Dad how she was supposed to know? Dad had left Sam alone so often when they’d been neighbors this had hardly seemed out of the ordinary.

“Why would you have had to?” he asks. He and Sam were way more independent than most kids due to circumstance, him having to look after Sam so young and Sam from being on his own. Going a step beyond that seems unnecessary.

Sam gives him a flat look. “Dude.”

He gets it a second later, his stomach flipping uncomfortably. “If something had happened to us, Bobby would have taken you. Or Pastor Jim. You never would have been on your own.”

“Yeah, more hunters who could die on me,” Sam says and Dean winces. He softens. “I know that. But I hated when you would both leave. If you were with me and Dad died, I’d have you. If I was on a hunt with you and something got both you and Dad, it would probably get me too. But when you both were on hunts and left me behind? It kept me up at night. I felt helpless. But going off on my own, proving that if the worst happened, I would be able to take care of myself, that was something I could do. And I got to hang out on a campground and have a dog and swim in the lake and eat whatever and I earned my own money for once. I was busy, I wasn’t sitting in that apartment staring at the walls and worrying myself sick. It was fun and productive and it felt good. I’m sorry that you were worried and that Dad gave you a hard time, but that’s just not what it was about for me.”

That’s an understatement. Dean hadn’t been worried, he’d been devastated. He thought he’d lost Sam, that the most important person in his life was dead and his life was just as over as if it’d been him. It had taken a day for him to really accept that something was wrong, that Sam wasn’t just staying at a friend’s house or something, and then he’d been the one to call Dad, tears that he couldn’t help clogging his voice as he told him that Sam was gone and didn’t know what had happened. Dad had abandoned his hunt and come home, had been furious with Dean for leaving to help Jim even though they’d left Sammy on his own countless times before, and the fury and disappointment and fear in Dad’s eyes had left him almost as gutted as losing Sam to begin with. Once he’d hit his grown spurt, Sam would sometimes goad Dad into getting physical with him when they fought, which Dean had never understood and hated. Except looking back at that moment, he would have legitimately rather had Dad beat him.

But Sam hadn’t thought of it that way. He hadn’t even known about it.

It still doesn’t feel great, but it doesn’t feel like pressing on an open wound either.

“Okay,” he says finally and Sam’s shoulders loosen. “I get that, Sammy.” Then, “Did it help? Proving that to yourself?”

Sam sucks his bottom lip between his teeth. “Yes and no. It helped me not spiral so much about what would happen to me if you guys never came home, but it didn’t make me worry any less about you and Dad.”

“Oh,” he says, swallowing. “Right.”

There’s one more memory from Sam’s heaven for them to talk about.

He really, really doesn’t want to.

The silence stretches between them, not exactly uncomfortable, but not easy either. Eventually he looks up at Sam and finds his brother watching him, a patient look on his face that makes Dean realize with a lurch that Sam’s waiting for him to start.

“I just,” he starts, then swallows. “That was a really bad night for me. When you left.”

It’s the worst day of his life that doesn’t involve someone he loves dying.

“I know,” Sam says. “I just don’t–”

“Think of it that way,” he finishes, just like he had in heaven, although this time it’s more tired than accusatory, which is better, he thinks. He looks at the space over Sam’s head. “I know. I just don’t get why it had to be walking twenty miles in the dark after fighting with Dad and not, I don’t know, arriving at Stanford or your first class or something.”

Even him sitting on the bus, hyping himself up for college or something, would have been better than the walk immediately after.

Sam’s not saying anything again, which isn’t fair, because it’s his turn. He looks at him and he’s not sure what expression he’s expecting to see on his brother’s face, but it’s not the scrunchy eyebrow confusion he’s greeted with. “What?”

“What?” he returns blankly.

“I didn’t walk twenty miles to the bus stop,” Sam says. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” he echoes then frowns. “What are you talking about?”

They’d been in the middle of nowhere. There were no cabs and probably not anyone for Sam to try and hitch a ride from either.

“Dean, what happened after Dad and I fought and I walked out?” Sam asks.

Why the hell is Sam asking about this? He doesn’t want to think about it. But Sam’s been annoyingly honest with him this whole conversation, so he supposes he can be a little honest back, even if it sucks. “He kept yelling and going on about – well, you can probably guess, and he drank and I drank and then I woke up the next morning in the car.”

“Okay,” Sam says slowly. “And nothing else of note in between there?”

“Uh,” he tries to think back, but after Sam walking out, it all gets a little hazy. “No? Probably. I don’t really remember. I guess I drank sort of lot.”

As if that’s a surprise.

Sam rubs a hand over his face. “I can’t believe this. Is that why you – no, we’re not talking about this if you don’t even – get up.”

Dean stares as Sam gets to his feet and then looks down at him impatiently. He looks mad, but normal little brother mad, not furious going to fling him through walls mad. He even holds out his hand to Dean when he doesn’t move fast enough for his liking, so he takes it and lets Sam haul him upright. It’s a good thing that he’d finished the coffee otherwise he would have ended up wearing it just then.

Sam doesn’t let go of his hand as he drags him back inside through the living room and to the library. Cas is laying on the ground, a book held above him.

“Cas, I need your help with something,” Sam says.

He looks over at them and raises an eyebrow. “Yes, Sam?”

“Can you show share a memory of mine with Dean?” he asks.

Cas puts the book aside and rolls to his feet. “Yes.”

Dean understands the ulterior motive behind Sam not letting go of his hand when he tries to back away and can’t get very far. “Hey, that’s not – I don’t need to–”

“Shut up,” Sam says, yanking him forward hard enough that he stumbles.

“Think of the memory you wish to share,” Cas says.

Sam closes his eyes and Dean tries one more, “Cas,” but doesn’t get the rest of it out before Cas raises both hands and presses two fingers to both his and Sam’s foreheads. He means to pull away, but he must not move fast enough, because the next thing he knows he’s on that same dark, tree lined road he’d been with Sam on in heaven.

He groans. What the hell is this going to achieve? He’s trying to be cool about this, like honest to god really trying not to take it personally considering how many passes Sam is giving him over his own bullshit behavior, but there’s no way watching a memory that’s one of the best days of Sam’s life and one of his worst is going to help them.

There’s Sam ahead of him and he shouts, “Dude, come on! This is stupid, let’s get out of here.”

No reaction.

He lets out an irritated breath and jogs towards him. “Look, I’m not trying to be a dick here, but you’ve got to–”

It’s not Sam.

Or it is, but not present day Sam. He probably should have realized that earlier. He’s got a backpack on, and a duffle bag slug over his shoulder, his hair isn’t quite as long, and now that Dean’s closer he can tell Sam’s missing the last couple inches he’d grown at Stanford. Right. This is Sam’s memory so this is him at nineteen, the night he left.

He’s crying.

Dean stares, trying to understand. Sam’s clenching his jaw so hard he’s going to crack a tooth, he’s walking forward with purposeful, even steps, and tears are spilling out of his eyes and down his cheeks.

What the hell? This is one of best memories?

A familiar rumble distracts him and he looks away to see the Impala come screeching down the road. Sam scrubs his arm across his face, trying to hide the evidence, and the Impala comes to a halt next to him. Dean stares uncomprehendingly at his twenty three year old self glaring out the passenger side. “Get in.”

Sam says nothing, just picks up the pace and walks a little faster.

The memory version of him takes his foot off the break to roll on next to him. “Sammy, I’m serious, get in the fucking car.”

Dean doesn’t move, but he’s carried along with the memory anyway. That’s his car, that looks like him, but that can’t be him. The next time he saw Sam after he walked out the door was three and a half years later when he broke into his apartment. This never happened.

Did it?

“I’m not going back,” Sam says, voice hoarse, probably from a combination of the screaming and the tears. “You can’t drag me back there, especially after what Dad said, and just expect–”

“What good would that do?” he snaps. “I bring you back home, you’ll just walk right back out. You’ve made that real fucking clear. Whatever. You planning to walk the next fifteen miles?”

Sam’s shoulders tighten. “I’ll do what I have to.”

“Well, you don’t have to,” he says. “Stop being a little bitch and get in the car.”

Sam stops and the Impala does too. He finally turns to face the car. Dean sees himself clock Sam’s poorly hidden tears and the way his face briefly tightens at the obvious signs of his brother’s distress. “You offering me a ride?”

“With our luck, you’ll get eaten by a coyote or picked up by some serial killing trucker with a thing for too tall whiny brats,” he says.

There’s a beat when neither of them move or say anything. Then Sam opens the door next to Dean to put his stuff in and goes around to slide into the passenger seat. Dean slams on the gas almost before Sam gets the door shut.

Dean doesn’t move, but the next moment he finds himself in the backseat of the Impala.

Sam is turned to face the younger version of him. He frowns then leans forward, sniffing around Dean’s neck. He shoves him back, but Sam’s frown has deepened. “Have you been drinking?”

“What’s it to you?” he snaps.

“Should you be driving?” he asks. “Here, pull over, I’ll do it.”

“I’m fine,” Dean says. “It wasn’t that much. Besides, what am I going to hit, a tree?”

“With our luck,” Sam echoes and Dean almost smiles.

They’re silent after that, but Sam keeps looking at him and Dean keeps staring at the road, an intense concentration he recognizes from himself when he shouldn’t be driving and knows it.

He doesn’t remember any of this. He knew that he’d gotten drunk that night, that he’d lost time, but he hadn’t thought it was anything important. He hadn’t known he was missing anything that mattered. Sam had walked out and Dad had ordered him to let him because if he wanted to abandon this family so badly that there was nothing they could do about it and Dean had obeyed.

He thought he’d obeyed. He always listened to Dad. Why would this time be any different?

They make it to the bus stop and Dean throws the car in park but puts his hands back on the wheel, holding on with a white knuckled grip and continuing to look ahead through the windshield.

Sam is sitting there, staring at him like he has throughout the whole drive. The memory Dean’s lips press together before he says, harsh and so obviously close to cracking, “Sammy–”

Sam lunges forward, wrapping his arms around Dean’s shoulders and pulling him tight against him.

There’s a half a second where Dean doesn’t move and then he’s turning into it, crushing Sam to his chest and pressing his face into his hair. He can see the fine trembling of Sam’s body against his and how the memory version of him must feel it and clings to him even tighter. When they eventually, reluctantly pull apart, the memory Dean’s eyes are red and there are no tears probably through sheer force of will and nothing else. He’s got a hand gripping the back of Sam’s neck hard enough that it has to hurt, but Sam doesn’t try to move away from it. “You be careful, you hear me? You take care of yourself.”

“Okay,” Sam says quietly then swallows. “You too. Okay? Don’t…”

Don’t get hurt. Don’t die. Don’t make me an only child. Don’t.

Sam says none of it but Dean hears it all easily.

“I won’t if you won’t,” Dean says. “The world’s a dangerous place and not just because of the monsters. Don’t forget that.”

“I won’t,” he says.

Dean swallows and lifts his hand off the back of Sam’s neck a finger at a time and then ends up gripping the back of the seat.

Sam swallows. “Is Dad going to be mad? That you drove me?”

Yeah. That at least makes sense now. Dad had barely spoken to him the two days after Sam left. He’d thought it was just residual anger at Sam that he was taking out on him, but it wasn’t. It was because of this.

The Dean in Sam’s memory shrugs. “Dad’s not your problem anymore.”

“He’s yours and you’re still mine,” Sam says.

Dean’s grip loosens and there’s that almost smile again. “Yeah?”

“You’re my brother,” Sam says, that same stubborn look to his face that had led to more fights between him and Dad than Dean could count, the same look that hadn’t left his face the whole screaming match about Stanford. “You’ll always be my problem.”

There’s a real smile on his face now. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

Sam returns it briefly before swallowing and climbing out, then going to Dean’s side to grab his backpack and duffle. He hesitates next to the driver’s side door and Dean’s looking out at him, once again neither of them saying anything or moving.

Finally Dean says, “Go, Sammy. It’s okay.”

He’s lying, he’s obviously lying and Sam has to know it, but it does seem to mean something to him. That he tried.

“Thanks, Dean,” Sam says quietly before hitching his duffle up over his shoulder and walking towards the bus station.

He looks back just once, right before stepping inside, and waves. Dean doesn’t know if he waves back because the next moment he’s blinking in Bobby’s library, Cas letting his hands drop and Sam looking at him expectantly.

Dean’s mouth is dry and his heart is pounding and – “Why did you – why didn’t you say anything? Before?”

“You realized it was that night and said it was one of the worst nights of your life,” Sam says. “What did you want me to say? Besides, it’s not like I knew you got blackout drunk after and didn’t remember any of it.”

He wants to get blackout drunk right now or sit down or something. But he just stands there and stares at Sam. “That’s one of your happiest memories?”

It’s not – it means a lot, that it’s him, that he did make it into the highlight real even after everything. That apparently none of Sam’s heaven was about leaving him, even if it wasn’t about staying with him. It’s just that he still doesn’t quite get it. They have tons of happy memories together, ones that have nothing to do with Dad, ones that are sweet without being bitter. Why this one?

Sam nods, biting on his bottom lip before saying, “You disobeyed Dad. For me.”

He stares.

“You’d gone against him before, but only when you were worried about me, when you thought I was in danger or something. In your head if it’s to keep me safe, it doesn’t count. I wasn’t in danger. I was nineteen and armed, I would have been fine walking on a deserted road and you know it. But you came after me anyway, even though Dad told you not to.” He shrugs. “I’m not complicated, Dean. I want to be able to make my own choices and I want you to choose me even when you don’t like them.”

Dean feels like his entire relationship with Sam is being shifted sidewise, every fight now under a different light. Half the time he had no idea what Sam was thinking, what he was trying to get at or what it was he actually wanted. But it was this.

It turns the whole year after he came back from hell inside out, all the fights with Dad where Sam would end up mad at him too, even the way acted after killing Lilith. Maybe especially that.

“Have either of you considered that a majority of your interpersonal conflicts arise from a lack of communication?” Cas asks. Dean had sort of forgotten he was there. Again. He really is going to put a bell on him one of these days. “That was a significant element that heaven took into consideration in its manipulation.”

“Shut up, Cas,” they say together.

Cas sighs, but there’s a smile lingering at the corners of his mouth. Sam shifts so his shoulder brushes against Dean’s and he leans into him, just for a moment.

Sam doesn’t want to get away from him. He doesn’t want to leave him. He wants his independence and Dean both, which before he would have thought a contradiction, but now he thinks he’s starting to get it.

~

He and Sam have gone through an entire pot of coffee by the time this world’s Dean and Bobby make it downstairs. Sam gets up to start another one, making cups for both of them. The way this world’s Dean smiling at Sam while he takes the mug he hands him bothers him less than it would have yesterday.

There’s a loud knock at the door that has three of them standing up straight and then grimacing and Bobby rolling his eyes before Dad steps inside. His gaze sweeps over them, assessing, and he holds up a large brown paper bag. “I brought bagels.”

Oh thank god.

He and his double eat them cold, dipping them in cream cheese, while Sam makes a face at them and puts his and Bobby’s in the toaster. Castiel wanders in at that point, standing in the corner and watching them eat like the freak he is.

“How does this work exactly?” Dad asks.

He wipes cream cheese off his mouth. “Summon the demon and pull the trigger before something can go wrong. We should do it inside a devil’s trap just in case.”

“Foolproof plan,” Sam mutters. “And a waste of a devil’s trap.”

Dean ignores him. Yeah, it probably won’t work on Azazel, considering he hadn’t so much as flinched at holy water, but it won’t hurt. Besides, all it wastes is some chalk and however long it takes them to draw it. And by them, he does mean Sam. “He likes to monologue. I wouldn’t let him. As soon as he appears, shoot him.”

He’ll definitely say some shit about this world’s Sam that will piss him the fuck off and probably push his double into a psychotic break. It’s for the best if they don’t give him the chance.

Sam is giving him a bitchy look, but seriously, the best way to do this is fast. “We’ve got you and Cas as back up. It’ll be fine.”

“I fear I won’t be able to do much in my current state, but I’ll endeavor to be useful if necessary,” Cas says.

“Current state,” Sam teases. “Like I haven’t had to save your ass from demons significantly less powerful than Azazel.”

Cas makes a face but doesn’t deny it.

Dean says, “Good thing you’ll be there, then, isn’t it?”

Sam flips him off and he grins.

“Alright,” Dad says, wiping his hands on his jeans before getting to his feet. “Let’s do this then.”

“Now?” Sam asks incredulously.

“Any reason to wait?” Dad asks.

Sam hesitates.

He nods. “Alright then. Boys. Bobby.”

Bobby looks to Sam who frowns but shrugs. Bobby responds with a frown of his own, but says, “No time like the present, I suppose. Do I have all the ingredients we’ll need?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, resigned. “I’ll get them.”

Dad nods and moves to Bobby’s library, calling, “Help me roll up the rug.”

Bobby huffs and goes after him. “Stop messing with my shit.”

Dad says something back, but Dean can’t quite make out what.

Sam moves to head to the basement, but his double grabs his arm, looking at him a nervousness and concern that has Dean squirming uncomfortably. He knows those emotions, but it’s been a long time since he showed them as easily. “Do you really think this is going to go wrong?”

Sam looks at the other him for a long time before saying quietly, “I don’t think it’s going to go how you want it to.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Sam squeezes his arm and then moves past him before he can ask and they both watch Sam walk away. His double turns to him after, a clear question in his eyes.

“It’ll be fine,” he says, not quite as confident in that assessment as he was before, but Sam’s just being paranoid. Compared to all the shit they’ve deal with recently, this will be easy.

An hour later all of the furniture in Bobby’s living room has been pushed to the edges and the most complicated devil’s trap Dean’s ever seen has been drawn onto his floor and surrounded by thirteen white candles. Sam’s holding a silver bowl containing Cas’s hair, yarrow, bones that Dean sure hopes Bobby scavenged from some witch’s hex bags, holy oil, ashes he probably shouldn’t ask too many questions about, and a couple drops of Sam’s blood. He’s pretty sure that’s only necessary for a crossroads summoning, but correcting Sam on magical minutia doesn’t tend to go well and he’s wound tight enough as it is. If it doesn’t work, they can just redo it.

This world’s Dean is right next to Sam, tension in every line of him despite the easy grip he has on the Colt. The rest of them are standing loosely around the circle, holding holy water and salt and gopher dust and whatever else could possibly work against a demon, even though Sam’s probably right and it won’t do much good against this one. It’s better than nothing.

Sam starts chanting, the Latin falling easily off his tongue. Dean feels a pressure building around them, like the heaviness in the air right before it rains, and sweat breaks out on the back of his neck.

He gets to the end and there’s a bright flash of light, temporarily blinding, and he can only make out the outline of a figure appearing in the middle of the summoning circle. This world’s Dean raises the Colt, finger already squeezing on the trigger. Sam grabs his wrist and shoves his arm down, sending a bullet through Bobby’s floorboards, and what the hell, sure they have one more bullet left but that’s no reason to waste one –

Dean’s stomach drops.

Black slacks and a matching button up shirt, silver rings on almost every finger, and hair nearly to his shoulders. Tall and broad but lean in a way that Dean hasn’t seen in years, almost fine boned in comparison. This can’t be happening, this can’t be real, the last time he saw this it was a hallucination induced by ghost sickness, but this time he has nothing to blame it on, no other explanation than the cold harshness of reality.

Sam stands there glaring at them with yellow eyes.

Chapter Text

Dean can’t breathe.

It’s impossible, it’s completely impossible, his little brother died when he was six months old because Dean didn’t carry him out. It looks like Sam, but it can’t be Sam. Is the demon making himself look like him just to fuck with them? Or has he – no, he was buried with Mom, but what if Azazel came back for his body, what if he’s been walking around in his little brother’s corpse this entire time –

He’s going to be sick.

No one is moving, no one is doing anything, the shock of seeing something that looks like Sam in the circle robbing them of anything else.

Except then Sam lets go of his wrist, and Dean should raise the gun again, he thinks, but he can’t do it, he can’t shoot something wearing his brother’s face. Sam shifts next to him, crosses his arms, and says, “Knock it off.”

What?

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” the Sam in the circle asks, sounding just right, just like the Sam standing next to him. “Or was it something more like this?” His eyes shift from yellow to completely black, exactly like the possessed girl that had attacked him.

Dad makes a noise like he’s been punched and throws a vial of holy water at him. It doesn’t do anything but take out one of the lit candles and get his shirt wet. He doesn’t react to it at all, but he wouldn’t, right? Sam had said that none of this would work on Azazel.

“Will you quit being a jackass?” Sam demands. “I tried to talk to them out of it.”

The black recedes from his eyes, except now they’re Sam’s familiar hazel, not a hint of yellow. He looks pointedly at the bowl at Sam’s feet. “Yeah, you clearly tried real hard.”

Sam shrugs, unrepentant and lips twitching. “Fair’s fair. You did the same to me.”

“That’s different!” he snaps. “I show up to handle an escapee, and what do I see? Some asshole walking around with my face, answering to my name, spending time with my father and my brother! What did you expect me to do?”

“And that’s the best you could come up with?” Sam asks. “You’re lucky she didn’t snap his neck.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’d have killed her the moment she actually tried. I’m not slow like you are.”

“Slow?” Sam demands, offended. “I’m not slow!”

“Could have fooled me,” he says. “You took your sweet time killing her. I thought it was going to prove you were a fake and I could kill you both, but apparently you’re also a fan of waiting to last second even though her hands were on Dean’s throat. Imagine my surprise when you actually did it.”

“I killed Lilith,” he says resentfully, “I think I can handle some two bit demon, thanks.”

The man in the circle laughs. It sounds like Sam’s laugh. “You did not kill Lilith.”

“Did too,” he retorts, “and I’ve got the apocalypse riding my ass to prove it.”

“How many demons did you drink to pull that one off?” he snipes.

“One,” he says, then frowns. “One and a third?”

He blinks, startled. “Bullshit. There’s no way. Prove it.”

“Prove it?” Sam echoes then huffs. “That’s disgusting.”

He shrugs. “Hey, if you can’t hack it–”

“Oh, shut up,” Sam grumbles. He reaches into his back pocket for Dean’s silver knife that he still hasn’t given back. He pushes up his sleeve and drags it over his arm. Why does he keep doing that?

He moves to step into the circle and Dean shakes off his shock to clamp his hand around Sam’s arm, feeling his blood smear beneath his fingertips. “Don’t.”

“It’s okay,” Sam says gently, a smile on his face that doesn’t make any sense because Dean’s pretty sure he’s losing his mind. “He’s not going to hurt me.”

“What are you talking about? I’m going to kick your ass,” the man in the circle says. He lifts a foot over the white candles as he steps out of the devil’s trap easily, another thing Sam had warned them about.

He tries to jerk Sam behind him, sees everyone finally start to move, but Sam refuses to budge and man with his face walks up to them and takes the knife from Sam’s hand. He licks Sam’s blood off the edge slowly, eyebrows pushed together, and now Dean’s nauseous for a whole different reason.

He looks at the knife in surprise. “Huh. Okay, maybe you did kill her.”

“Maybe,” Sam repeats mockingly. “Do you believe I’m you now?”

“I believed you were me before,” he says. “I would have killed you otherwise. The face, the voice, that can all be faked. The powers? That’s sort of an us specialty.” He licks his lips. “Although yours are a little different than mine. Give me another taste.”

Sam makes a face. “What? No. Don’t be gross.”

“Come on, you’re already bleeding, don’t be a baby,” he says, trying to grab Sam’s arm. “Just one more lick.”

Sam bats him away with his free hand. “You don’t need another taste, you’re just being a freak on purpose.”

He laughs again, but it’s harsher than the last one. “Well, it’s not like it’s hard.”

“Sam,” the other world’s Dean says and the both of them turn their heads toward him. He’s pale and wide eyed and Dean imagines he looks just the same right then. “What’s going on? Is that – his eyes–”

His eyes go yellow again and Sam’s Dean flinches. Sam smacks his chest. “Stop that.”

He rolls his eyes and halfway through they shift back to hazel. “It’s a nice intimidation tactic.”

“Who here are you trying to intimidate?” Sam asks and he frowns. Sam sighs and places his hand over Dean’s, which is still tightly clasped over his bleeding arm. He squeezes and Dean forces his gaze onto him, even though looking away from a potential threat is stupid, even though he can feel his sudden glare on him. “Dean, I didn’t die here.”

His gaze flicks to the man behind Sam, who looks like him, who sounds like him, who – is him? “I don’t understand. You said – the circle, and the holy water, how can you be sure?”

How does he know that’s really him and not just a demon riding around in his body?

“I can kill demons,” Sam says. “They feel different. There’s no demon inside of him. It’s just me.”

“How?” Sam’s Dean asks, coming to stand on the other side of Sam and edging around – around this world’s Sam. God. This world’s Sam. His Sam. “He’s, I mean, how much blood did he drink to–”

“I’m right here,” his Sam interrupts in irritation, “and I’m a little passed training wheels.” He tilts his head to the side and a circle of fire appears above his head. Through the flames, he can’t tell if it’s supposed to be a halo or a crown. He thinks that might be the point.

Sam shoves him in the side. “Quit it.”

“Will you stop that?” he scowls, pushing Sam’s hand away, but the fire does disappear from over his head.

Sam shoves him again.

His Sam’s eyes narrow but Dad says, “Boys,” and they all pause before looking over at him, his Sam a beat behind the rest of them.

Dad’s face is carefully blank, although he’s got a white knuckled grip on the bag of salt. Bobby’s eyebrows are high and his eyes keep flickering from one Sam to the other.

He can’t really read Castiel, but that’s not new. However the angel does frown and say, “This explains much. I had wondered.”

Dad takes a deep, steadying breath that means he’s about two seconds away from screaming or shooting something. Dean’s not sure he can blame him. “Well, someone better explain it to me. Quickly.”

His Sam turns to the other world’s Sam. He makes a face. “What, me?”

“This little family reunion was your idea,” his Sam says. “You handle it.”

He crosses his arms defensively. “They were going to summon you no matter what I did. At least this way you didn’t get shot.”

Oh, god. Sweat breaks out over his body and the Colt feels too heavy in his hand. He wishes there was someplace he could put it down. He’d almost shot his brother.

“Except if you hadn’t been the one to do the summoning, I’d have been able to resist it,” he says. “Your fault, your problem.”

“And when nothing showed up?” he asks. “How exactly did you expect me to explain that one?”

“I’m sure you would have figured something out,” he replies.

Sam’s Dean frowns. “Wait, what do you mean nothing would have showed up? What happened to Azazel?”

The Sams raise their eyebrows at each other at the same time, equally expectant. Dean thinks he’d be able to find that funny, even in these circumstances, but as he’s staring at his Sam’s face something clicks over. His stomach turns itself inside out and for one moment he really does think he’s going to throw up. His Sam’s thinner in the face than the one he’s spent the past week with and it makes him look younger. It’s the final piece that snaps something into place. Every time he saw Sam sleep, saw his face soften in a way that made him appear younger, he’d felt a pang of familiarity that he couldn’t explain. Sam as an adult obviously looks nothing like he had as a baby. There’s nothing there for him to recognize.

Except there is.

“I’ve seen you before,” he says, hearing the strain in his voice. “Haven’t I?” He lets go of Sam’s arm and hears the other him curse before pulling a bandana out of his pocket to wrap around the wound, but he can’t focus on that right now. He reaches out to his Sam but stops just shy of touching him and he tells himself it’s because he doesn’t want to get blood on him.

He’s sure of it. He just can’t remember where or when. How could he meet his brother and not know him? Well, he hadn’t recognized the other world’s Sam either, but that’s different. He thinks it should be different.

For just a second the snarkiness drops off his Sam’s face, leaving behind something that almost looks vulnerable, and then Sam’s turning away from him and rubbing a hand over his face. “Fuck. I need a drink.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “It’s nine in the morning.”

His Sam drops his hand. “So?”

“Alcoholic,” the other world’s Sam says.

“Teetotaler,” his Sam shoots back.

“Boys,” Dad says again.

Christ. Sam’s probably right about that drink.

~

Dean thinks this is good, through all the static threatening to overwhelm him. It’s a Sam out of his nightmares, but not quite. Sam acting like a brat when confronted with a yellow eyed version of himself had probably been the only thing to keep Dean losing it in front of all of them, which is probably why he’d done it. His deep seated instincts are telling him that if Sam’s acting like this, then they can’t be in any real danger, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

He’s feeling better now that they’ve moved from the deconstructed living room and they’re all seated around Bobby’s dining room table, which is usually covered with a random assortment of shit both magical and mechanical, but was apparently recently cleaned off for the great library reorganization. Despite the time, they’ve all got a drink in hand, including Cas who’s either not going to drink it at all or will drink it all at once because he still hasn’t fully grasped the concept of sipping. He still has a hand clenched around the bandana he’d tied around Sam’s arm. It’s ostensibly to stop the bleeding, even though it was a shallow cut and it definitely doesn’t need it, but Sam hasn’t called him out on it. It probably would have stopped bleeding all on its own by the time Dean got over there if this world’s version of him hadn’t gripped him like he had and squeezed more blood out of him. He wants to get pissed about that, but considering everything, he’s not sure he can blame him.

This world’s Sam has the whiskey bottle by him and he’s already drained one glass. Dad and the other him haven’t taken their eyes off him, although he suspects for slightly different reasons. He doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that Dad and this world’s Sam ended up sitting at the opposite heads of the table.

“What happened to the demon?” Dad asks, breaking the tense silence.

“I know lots of demons,” Sam says. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

Dean feels his lips twitch despite everything. It’s almost comforting that Sam talking back to Dad is a multi-universal constant.

Dad’s unphased. “The yellow eyed one that killed your mother. Azazel.”

This Sam looks to his Sam, who sighs, irritated, but says, “You killed him. Ten years ago, I think.”

Sam raises his glass in a parody of salute. “Eleven, but good work, Sherlock.”

This Sam killed Azazel when he was fifteen? Jesus.

“You knew about this, Sammy?” this world’s Dean asks, finally looking away from his Sam to stare across the table at Dean’s. There’s a hurt and confusion there that pulls a reluctant sympathy out of him, but then he’s distracted by the way this world’s Sam twitches and takes a long swallow of his drink. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know,” Sam objects, leaning forward and looking at him with a big eyed earnestness that Dean knows is devastating, from personal experience. “Not until – look, I suspected, okay but I wasn’t really sure until I killed the demon inside that girl.”

Bobby frowns. “What’s that got to do with it?”

His Sam glances at his double, but this world’s Sam just takes another drink. Part of him wonders why this world’s Sam is hanging around when he so obviously doesn’t want to be here, but he’s probably smart enough to know that if they summoned him once, they could do it twice. Or however many times they need to in order to get him to stick around.

“Just start from the beginning,” Dad orders.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” Sam says and Cas lets out a puff of air that he thinks might count as a laugh. Thanks to all the time spent at Pastor Jim’s and his recent involvement in the biblical apocalypse, Dean knows it’s the first line of the bible. Dad shoots him an irritated look, but the worst part is that it’s actually almost relevant. Thankfully, Sam drops it and continues, “I was suspicious as soon as you told me that I died in the fire, or because of it, whatever. None of the other kids did, here or back home, and some of them didn’t have anyone to rescue them. They were just inexplicably fine. It doesn’t make any sense for Azazel to go to the trouble of coming after us and setting the fire just to let us die in it.”

“I held you,” Dad says, a catch in his voice. “You were still and you got cold in my hands. They took me back there and let me hold you but you didn’t – you were always moving, talking, even when you slept you were fussing. But you were still.”

Dean takes a bracing drink, wishing he didn’t know exactly how that felt, holding Sammy as he went cold, as he was too still and heavy and –

Sam’s knee knocks into his, pressing their legs together, a line of warmth pulling him to the here and now, and he lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“That wasn’t me,” this world’s Sam says, tone gentled just enough that he almost sounds like his Sam. “It was someone else’s baby spelled to look like me. That’s all. I don’t know who you buried with your wife, but it wasn’t me. I mean, obviously.”

“It felt like you,” Dad says.

This world’s Sam looks away, shifting in his seat, then his eye catches on Sam and he says, “Go on.”

Dean feels Sam sigh next to him. “I started looking into demon activity and the other kids. I was the last one he went after and, from what I could tell, none of the others were visited or affected by him like in my world. Plus a decade ago demon activity took a sharp decline and has been getting less and less ever since. Then we went down to Lenore’s nest and I felt eyes on me.”

This world’s Sam grumbles, “The Enochian on your ribs is really annoying.”

“And ears on me too, apparently,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. “Eavesdropping and spying. Great.”

“Again, what did you expect?” he snaps. “I’m there to handle a stray, it should be in and out, except then I see you. You’re lucky I didn’t just kill you on the spot.”

“Yeah, like you didn’t try,” Sam scoffs. “Only I’m not a demon, so it didn’t do shit, and that’s when you bought a clue.”

“Whatever,” he says. “Like you would have done any differently.”

The other Dean sits a little straighter. “Wait, all those times that you thought someone was watching us, someone was?” He looks to this world’s Sam. “You were?”

He shrugs. “None of them are allowed to touch you. Especially while looking like me.”

This world’s Dean’s face does something complicated that Dean doesn’t quite catch.

“As if you don’t spent time watching them every time you had to do some catch and kill,” Sam scoffs. “I was just a convenient excuse to be even more of a creep than usual.”

“Why are you so annoying?” this world’s Sam asks. “I’m not this annoying.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Sam says.

Bobby interrupts, thankfully. “The demon in the girl was scared of you. I just thought she sensed your powers somehow, but that’s not it. She was scared of you, specifically. She recognized you.”

His Sam nods. “That’s what sealed it for me. I suspected before, but after that I was pretty sure.” He looks to the other Dean. “I was going to tell you, but there really hasn’t been any time since then to – I wanted to talk to him first, before I said anything, but then Dean showed up and you were all so gung ho about summoning Azazel, I just didn’t have the chance.”

“So you just decided what, fuck it, and summoned me anyway?” the other Sam demands. “Are you out of your mind? I’m the king of hell. You had no idea what I’d do or if I was evil and insane. Great work putting our family in danger, genius.”

Christ, Dean thinks faintly. Sam’s the king of hell. When this had happened in his nightmares, there’d been more fire and brimstone and less cat fighting.

“I knew you weren’t evil,” Sam says. “Insane is still up for debate, though.”

This world’s Sam glares. “How? Because you’re not? You’ve got a lot of faith in yourself there, Sammy.”

Sam laughs, just off enough that Dean squeezes down on Sam’s arm which he really doesn’t have any excuse to keep holding. “Not really. I knew because you’re king of hell and the first seal remains unbroken.”

This time when he grips Sam’s arm, it’s more for him than Sam.

This world’s Sam doesn’t quite flinch, but it’s close. “Maybe I just delegate.”

“First seal?” Dad asks and Dean swears his blood stops moving in his veins. This isn’t the worst of his failures, not with the memory of Sam dying in his arms so close to the surface, but that one he’d fixed. This one he’s done nothing but make worse.

Sam hesitates, but must see there’s no way around it. “We’re dealing with the apocalypse in our world. There are thousands of possible seals to free Lucifer from his cage, but only sixty six need to be undone, and the only ones that are non negotiable are the first and the last. The first seal is a righteous man spilling blood in hell.”

His double snorts. “Righteous, right. Specifically, a son descended from the line of Cain – which is us, by the way – willfully inflicting pain upon an innocent soul within the depths of hell. Most of the blood down there isn’t really blood, and trust me, I’ve spilled plenty of it. Just not from anyone that would trigger the breaking of a seal.”

Yeah, Dean thinks faintly. That makes sense.

For some reason, Dad is looking at his Sam in horror, which makes Dean want to tuck Sam behind him, or distract Dad, or something. What’s his problem?

“Why would you do that, Sammy?” Dad asks.

Sam presses his lips together and says nothing. Dean feels clammy all over and he’s definitely hurting Sam with how tightly he’s holding his injured arm. He appreciates what Sam’s doing here, but he can’t let him take the heat for this. It’s not his fault and he’s struggled for years with the idea that that their father thought there was something wrong with him, something evil or monstrous. Dean has to say something. He’s going to say something. Just as soon as he can make himself say anything at all.

This world’s Sam drains the last of the whiskey in his glass and pours his – third glass? Maybe fourth. He gestures towards him casually with his now half full glass, somehow managing not to spill any of it. “Oh, it was him.”

Dad’s gaze shift to him and he swallows. “Dean?”

He briefly closes his eyes then looks to this world’s Sam, not quite able to make himself see the look on his father’s face yet. “Why – how did–”

“You’ve been to hell and he hasn’t,” he shrugs. “Alistair, right?”

Black is starting to creep into the corners of his vision, but he makes himself ask, “How?”

Sam pauses with the glass halfway to his mouth and lowers it, his eyes going over him in a way Dean is most use to seeing when Sam’s working his way through a particularly old or interesting manuscript. “His fingerprints are sort of all over you.”

His lungs feel frozen. Of course they are. Of course. Why wouldn’t they be?

“Shut up,” his Sam hisses. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

This world’s Sam blinks at his double, eyebrows dipping together. “Wrong with me? What’s wrong with you! What were you doing while all this was happening? What was our brother doing in hell anyway?”

Dean stands so quickly that his chair clatters to the ground behind him. Sam is saying something, but he can’t make it out over the blood rushing in his ears. He stumbles outside, letting Bobby’s door slam too loudly behind him, and grips onto the porch railing. He squeezes his eyes shut and breathes in the cool air, feeling the wood smoothed with age under his palms and the barely their breeze and tries to just not think, to empty his head of all the thoughts threatening to drown him.

“Are you well, Dean?”

He turns to see Cas standing there, face arranged into a look of concern that he’s never sure if he picked up from him or Sam. “Can you see it?”

“Dean,” he starts, a tone to his voice that tells Dean he’s going to say something that isn’t the answer to his fucking question.

He’s not interested. “Can you?”

Cas is quiet for long enough that Dean thinks he’s going to refuse to answer. Then, “All human souls show signs of their experiences. Yours is no different. However, whatever it is that this universe’s Sam sees that links you to Alistair eludes me.”

Okay. That’s something. That’s good. But the real problem is –

The front door opens again, then it’s Sam, his Sam, sounding aggrieved as he says, “Hey, ignore him, he’s spent too much time in hell and doesn’t–”

“Don’t,” he says, then tries to say something else, but can’t think of what. What the hell could he possibly say? He could ask Sam what he really wants to know. He’s going to. Any second now.

Sam walks up behind him and settles his large hand on Dean’s shoulder, warm and solid, and he just stands there and breathes with his brother at his back and tries to let everything else fade, at least for a little bit. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. At the end of the day, this is all that really matters.

~

Dean watches as his double basically runs away. He’s felt like he was barely holding onto his sanity since the moment the other world’s Sam told him that his Sam was standing in front of him, but this still feels like one more unbelievable thing. Now he gets why Sam had flipflopped between saying he’d started the apocalypse and started the next part of it. Sam had been drunk and crying and out of his mind while he’d clung to Dean and told him about the apocalypse and he still hadn’t said that his brother was the one to start it. He’s not sure if he admires or resents that level of loyalty, but what he knows for sure is that he can’t believe Sam’s Dean was so comfortable giving him shit over everything when he’s the one that had kicked off the apocalypse by torturing an innocent soul.

“What’s your problem?” the other world’s Sam snaps. “Why the fuck would you say that to him?”

“Say what?” his Sam snaps right back. “It’s not like he doesn’t know. He was there.”

“I know you’re not that stupid because I’m not that stupid,” Sam says, getting up to go after his brother. He punches his Sam in the shoulder as he passes, hard enough that his chair skitters back an inch.

Sam rubs his shoulder, glaring. “Jackass!” he calls out, but the other Sam doesn’t so much as pause.

He leans back in chair, exhaustion briefly breaking through his irritation, and Dean gets a flash of a kid, tired and scared and lost, and holy fucking shit. “That was you.”

Sam drops his hand, a split second of hurt on his face before he says, “He hit me! All I did was answer a fucking question.”

He has no idea what that’s supposed to mean. He doesn’t have the room right now to figure it out. Sam had said he’d killed Azazel eleven years ago. It fits. He feels so fucking stupid. “At that hotel. That’s where – that was you.”

The haunted hotel, the kid he’d found freaked out wandering the halls, who’d grabbed onto his arm and looked at him with these huge scared eyes. Dean had thought he was scared of the ghosts. He’d tried to comfort him, had found something about him easy and familiar, had thought to himself for one moment that maybe this is what it would be like to be a big brother for real instead of just on a technicality, and he’d hated himself for it.

But that was Sam.

“Dean?” Dad asks, voice gruff.

Sam’s face has drained of color, gripping his glass so tightly that Dean’s worried he’s going to break it. He swallows. “That haunted hotel case we had when I was, I don’t know, nineteen, twenty. The kid I told you I found wandering the halls while we were tracking it down. That was Sam.”

He’d seen his little brother, talked to him, even touched him, and he hadn’t even known it. How could he have not known?

“What are you talking about?” Dad asks.

Dean doesn’t answer him, too focused on Sam. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Why didn’t he say anything then? Why has he not said anything for the past eleven years? He clearly knows who they are, somehow. The other world’s Sam said that he watched them whenever he had to catch a stray and his Sam hadn’t denied it. Dean can’t blame him for not caring about them when he was raised away from them, when they let him get stolen by a demon and never noticed it wasn’t him they buried. It’s just that doesn’t sound like the actions of someone who doesn’t care about them.

“I didn’t mean,” Sam starts, then changes tracks. “I was just there to kill the demons that were watching you.”

Okay, creepy. “Why were there demons watching us?”

“They were always watching you,” Sam says.

Even creepier and makes Dean feel uncomfortable even in retrospect. Although maybe he owes Dad an apology for the times he’d thought that he had genuinely lost it, putting up cat’s eye shells and layers of salt while half mad with the conviction that they were being watched or stalked or who knows what. It really isn’t being paranoid if they are out to get you.

“Why were demons always watching us?” Dad asks.

Sam looks away from them and shrugs. “To keep me in line.”

Dean’s mouth goes dry, the implications of that making him dizzy. “But you didn’t stay in line. You killed him.”

“Yeah, and I risked your lives to do it,” Sam snaps. “If I hadn’t gotten there before they found out what I – whatever.”

Sam had been so small, nothing even close to his now towering height. The other world’s Sam had mentioned having a late growth spurt but he’d never properly appreciated that before, finding it difficult to imagine the guy who stood a half foot over Dad as ever having been short. But he doesn’t have to imagine it, he’d seen it. Sam had been terrified and ran over to him as soon as he caught sight of him, looking him over and shaking. Dean had thought that he’d seen a ghost, had tucked the kid against his side and looked around for the ghost he thought for sure was after him. But nothing had shown up. He thought it had gotten distracted, maybe gotten caught up with Dad or one of the other guests at the hotel, but it had never been after him.

Sam hadn’t been scared of anything. He’d been scared for them. He’d run over to Dean and been so relieved to see him not because he was scared of a ghost, but because he thought he was going to be too late, that his brother and father’s deaths were going to be the price he paid for killing the demon that had killed his mother and stolen him and done who knows what else to him.

“You didn’t even tell me your name,” Dean says, gutted. Stupid. He’s so stupid. If he’d been able to recognize his own brother, then he could have done something. Anything. He would have grabbed onto Sam and not let go.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sam says. “You’re hunters. What were you going to do, welcome your demon blood tainted brother who you didn’t know home with open arms?”

“Yes!” he shouts. “Exactly that!”

Sam presses his lips together, body tight with tension. He looks away, in the direction the other world’s Sam had gone, and his face gets that much tighter before he lets out a short, bitter laugh. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Even if you didn’t come home,” Dad says quietly, “you didn’t leave either. You could have left, it’s not like they could have stopped you, but you became king of hell instead.”

Dean turns to Dad, furious. That’s what he wants to talk about right now? That’s what he feels is relevant? Their Sam is alive and in front of them and he’s bitching about his life choices.  

Sam still isn’t looking at them. He says flatly, “You wouldn’t have liked what would have happened if I’d let someone else take the position. I stop evil things from hurting good people this way. I make sure they’re safe.”

Don’t worry, he’d said to the kid who was looking up at him with desperation and was cutting off circulation in his arm with how tightly he was clutching it. This is what my dad and I do. We stop evil things from hurting good people. We keep them safe. It’s sort of a family business.

Did he – because of what he said? Did Sam stay in hell because of that, because of some shit Dean said when he hadn’t had all the facts, when – was it so Sam could also – fuck, why had that been what he’d hooked onto and not the next bit?

I won’t let anything happen to you, he’d said, trying to get him to calm down, to believe it, because he’d meant every word. I promise.

What a joke. What a load of shit. Dean hasn’t been able to protect Sam from anything, not for a single moment. Even back then it was really Sam protecting him.

But if he’d known that scared kid was his little brother, he would have done anything to keep that promise for more than just that night. No matter what Sam had done under Azazel in hell, he wouldn’t care, he doesn’t care. That’s not important. Not compared to Sam being the little brother who he asked for and loved and lost.

Why is Dad asking about why he stayed in hell? That doesn’t matter. It’s not important. The only question that matters is why he didn’t come home and how they can stop him from leaving again. Once the other world’s Sam goes back to his world, back to the apocalypse with his asshole brother, they won’t be able to summon their Sam again.

If Sam does try and leave them for good, that won’t stop Dean. He refuses to accept losing him again. Dad chased after a demon he had no hint of finding for over twenty years to avenge his wife. Dean won’t do any less to track down his brother now that he knows he’s alive. Hell, from the sounds of it, he’ll just have to track down a demon and Sam will show up to take care of it. Probably not the smartest move on his end, but he’s risked more for less.  

Sam picks up the bottle to pour himself another glass, still with that bitter twist to his mouth, and Dean can’t take this anymore. He drops his forehead into the palm of his hand and Sam freezes “I’m sorry, I didn’t–”

“No,” Sam interrupts, too loud. “It’s fine.”

There’s pressure building behind his eyes that he’s trying to resist and he lifts his head, sure he looks as wrecked as he feels. “I should have–”

“Nothing,” he insists, almost frantic with it. “You shouldn’t have done anything, it’s fine, it’s whatever, we’re all fine.”

“Sammy,” he says helplessly, because that’s not true, it’s so obviously not true, and he wants to rage and scream and also just sob and he wants to hold onto Sam as tightly as Sam ahd held onto him all those years ago. But Sam doesn’t want that. Whatever he thought back then, he has to know better now, and he still doesn’t want to come home.

He thought he’d gotten used to the feeling of Sam breaking his heart, but every crack is a fresh pain, unlike any other.

Sam’s eyes go huge and he says, “I didn’t mean to – don’t,” and then he gives up, just gets up and walks out with the whiskey bottle still clutched in his hand.

Dean lets him go because he’s in no condition to stop him, everything he wants to do and everything he wants to say all fighting for space inside of him. It’s okay. The other world’s Sam won’t let him go too far.  

~

Dean’s been standing there for he doesn’t even know how long when he finally marshals enough strength to ask, “Can you see what’s wrong with me?”

He keeps himself turned away from Sam and braces as if for a physical blow because there’s nothing else he can do.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Sam objects.  

They both know damn well that isn’t true. “Tell me.”

“I am telling you,” he insists. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Dean.”

“Sammy,” he says, trying to sound stern, but he can’t quite manage it. “Just – do you know what the other you was talking about in there?”

Sam’s quiet, which is an answer all its own.

He rubs a hand roughly over his face like that will do something for the burn in his eyes. “Is it, I mean, when he said fingerprints–”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sam says softly. “It’s not some big thing, it’s just.” He swallows. “I’ve got it too, sort of. From Azazel.”

That’s what gets him to turn, fear lodging in his throat. Sam doesn’t let go of his shoulder, but he doesn’t really want him to. “Did he hurt you?”

When would he have had the chance? He was with Sam almost every minute from the time he lost Jessica to when Dean put a bullet between Azazel’s eyes. Except for Cold Oak, and Dean already knows there were things that Sam was keeping from him from those days, this could just be one more.

“Not like that,” Sam says and Dean almost feels weak kneed with relief. “I’ve got his blood inside of me and it never really left. Angels, even some other demons, they look at me and see it. What the other me was talking about in there is different. More subtle. I didn’t even notice until after I’d faced Alistair myself, so don’t drive yourself crazy with it, okay? It’s not a big deal.”

It is a big deal. Sammy can’t help the demon blood, that’s something that was done to him as a baby, but Dean’s isn’t like that. His little brother seeing some sort of mark from all the torture he’d endured is one thing, it’s not great, it actually really freaking sucks, but it’s still not the worst part. “Are my fingerprints on them?”

Sam’s face scrunches up. “What?”

“I tortured a lot of people, Sammy,” he chokes out.

He’s braced for anger, disgust, condemnation, but Sam’s face just slips into sympathy, which is somehow worse. He hates himself so much for what he did down there. Why won’t Sam do the same? It isn’t right.

The first time he’d seen Sam exorcise a demon with his powers, he’d told him if he didn’t know him, then he’d want to hunt him. If any decent person could see what he’d done to those innocent people in hell, they’d take him out like putting down a feral dog. The fact that Roy and Walt had thought that killing Sam was justified and that he was just collateral damage had been so backwards that if they hadn’t murdered his brother in front of him, he almost might have found it funny.

“Dean,” Sam starts, voice full of so much compassion that Dean’s certain it’s going to kill him.

The front door slams open and this world’s Sam stumbles out, half drunk bottle of whiskey clenched in his fist. He loses track of his feet and has to catch onto the railing to keep from going over it. Dean notices that Cas has made himself scarce at some point. Probably Sam had conveyed something to him through his eyebrows while Dean’s back was turned, since learning when to exit a situation is another human skill that Cas has yet to really pick up on.

“Wow,” his Sam says. “I take it back, you’re not an alcoholic. If you were, you’d be better at holding your liquor.”

“Fuck you,” Sam groans, folding himself down on the front steps and leaning his head against the railing. “This is all your fault.”

“I’m not the one that’s been hiding from my family for ten years,” his Sam says. “Oh, sorry, eleven.”

This world’s Sam flinches. “You don’t get it. You – whatever.” He swallows and jerks his head back towards the door. “Can you do something? He’s freaking out.”

“Damn, two Deans freaking out at the same time,” Sam says flatly. “If only there were two of me.”

Dean elbows Sam in the side. He’s not freaking out. He’s having a measured, rational reaction to unexpected news. Sam rolls his eyes and doesn’t take it back, the brat.

“I don’t know how to talk to him,” this world’s Sam says quietly. “You do.”

Sam pauses, glancing at the door and chewing on his bottom lip.

“Go,” Dean says. It’s a toss up if whatever Sam was going to say to him would have actually been a comfort or just flayed him alive, so he doesn’t mind putting it off. Besides, he’s not the one that just found out his brother who he’d thought was dead for twenty six years is alive and king of hell. “I’m good.”

The skeptical look he gets in return is fair enough, but Sam sighs and says, “Fine,” before focusing on his double and saying, “But keep your mouth shut while I’m gone. I can only clean up so many of your messes at once.”

This world’s Sam flips him off, but his shoulders visibly loosen at Sam’s agreement, so it’s not that effective.

His Sam squeezes his shoulder before going back inside, careful to not let the door slam shut behind him. They really are doing a number on Bobby’s door.

Sam slumps, all little brother dejected in a way that Dean’s seen a thousand times and always found difficult to impossible to ignore. That it’s a Sam instead of his Sam really doesn’t make that much of a difference.

He sits next to him on the steps, leaving an inch of space between them that he’d never bother to keep with his Sam. “You going to finish that?”

Sam groans and passes the bottle over. “Probably best that I don’t. I don’t really drink much normally.”

Yeah. Sammy’s a big guy with a decent tolerance who likes to drink, but he can go weeks only having a beer with Dean and not even notice that he’s being outdrunk by sorority girls.

“Sorry,” Sam says, eyes closed. “About earlier. This really wasn’t how I was planning to spend my day.”

Dean takes a long sip before asking, “How were you planning to spend it?”

He turns his head to look at him. “What?”

“What’s a day in the life of the king of hell look like?” he asks. “Stoke the flames of the damned in the morning, a quick lunch of barbecued souls, and then what? Hot yoga?”

Sam lets out a soft huff of laughter. “Not really. I mean, I did have lunch plans that I guess I’m not showing up for, and I don’t have my phone on me to reschedule.”

“Dining in the torture chamber or the throne room?” he asks.

“Nobu,” he says.

Dean blinks.

His mouth twitches. “It’s a sushi place.”

He wrinkles his nose. “What is it with you and raw fish?”

That’s a taste Sam had picked up in Stanford that Dean had no interest in getting on board with. For one, you had to eat a million of them to feel close to full, and it was probably some sort of health hazard on top of that. He did like the wasabi, though.

“It’s good,” he says simply, the same answer his Sam always gave.

“Sure,” he agrees, instead of the rant he usually responds with. He swallows. His Sam will never tell him the truth about this, but this one might. “What did you mean about fingerprints?”

Sam looks at him, contemplative, but doesn’t say anything.

“I wasn’t just,” he starts, then has to swallow again. He’s already told Sam this before. It shouldn’t be so hard. Except his Sam can never really understand what it is he’d done down there, and Dean’s grateful of that every day. But this Sam will. “I was in hell for four months topside, but, you know, time doesn’t really work the same down below. I held out for the first three months. I tried, I did, but I just – I said yes and Alistair let me off the rack and I picked up his knife and I,” broke first the seal, started the apocalypse, just plain broke, “used it. I liked it. I did to others what Alistair had done to me and I enjoyed it.”

Is that written on his soul too? Not only what he’d endured, but what he’d done? How many souls are there down in hell with his bloody fingerprints all over them?

“You want another go?” Sam asks.

Dean hadn’t even realized he’d lowered his head until it’s shooting up to stare at Sam in horror.

“There aren’t any innocent souls in hell anymore, but there’s still plenty of torture going on,” he says casually. “You do enough fucked up shit in life, you pay for it in death. They deserve it, man, and I don’t mind. Say the word and I’ll set you up with your own rack, whatever you need, and some souls who’ve really earned it, real assholes. If anything, you’d be helping me out. The work still has to get done, you know? Hell’s not like heaven, it doesn’t run on gooey feel good memories.”

His vision is narrowing again and he can hear his heart pounding in his ears, sweat breaking out all over and his jaw aching. His ears are ringing with phantom screams, he knows what it’s like to plunge his hands inside someone’s stomach and yank, and later how to be precise about it, how to take them apart piece by agonizing piece. The cold satisfaction in a job well done, in his own unbroken skin, in how all his blood was inside of him while theirs spilled out around him and over him. They sobbed and begged and he didn’t listen, he didn’t care, he’d spent his whole life running towards the screams to save people and now he’s the thing they need to be saved from and all he can do is hurt them a little more, more blood, more pain, more fear, more and more until he’s less and less –

“-an! Dean! Don’t pass out, fuck, your brother’s going to kill me.” There’s a solid whack against his back and he’s taking in a deep, greedy breath that quickly threatens to turn into a cough. He hadn’t known he’d stopped.

Sam pushes him back, not letting him hunch over so his lungs can fully expand, but that’s not the only reason he wants to curl up into himself. It’s like after he tortured Alistair, shaking and right on the edge of something terrible, something he’ll have no idea how to crawl his way out of. He doesn’t want to be that person, that’s not – he latches onto what Sam had just said, about his Sam, feeling the tears leaking out of his eyes and not caring. He doesn’t want to be what he was in hell. He wants to be Sam’s brother.

“Look at me,” Sam orders and he obeys without thinking. He’s gripping Dean’s shoulders hard enough to hurt, thumbs digging into the muscles, but it’s more grounding than painful. “I know Alistair, Dean. He never lets anyone off the rack.”

He shakes his head and tries to speak, but his mouth is too dry.

Sam gives him a little shake. “If you enjoyed it, if you were anything like him, like any of them, you’d have jumped at my offer. You’d crave it. Dream about it. It wouldn’t be your worst nightmare.”

“Not my worst nightmare,” he croaks.

That’s Sam dead in his arms. Always. Even when he’d given in to Alistair, he still hadn’t regretted his deal. Anything was better than failing to keep his brother safe.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Close enough. When you have nightmares of hell, what are they about? What was done to you? Or what you did to other people?”

He stays silent. Sometimes it’s from when he was on the rack, what he endured for thirty years, but they’re mostly about the ten after. Sometimes he wakes up and expects his hands to be red with someone else’s blood. “What I did to them can’t–”

“Dean,” he interrupts. “You’re not listening to me. Alistair never lets anyone off his rack. If he took you off, that just means he found a better way to make you hang. And if you keep blaming yourself for this shit, you’re going to stay there. He’s the best at what he does for a reason. Once he really gets you, when he figures out what makes you tick and how to take you apart, he doesn’t even have to lift a finger. You’ll continue torturing yourself long after he’s done with you.” That’s – that true, he knows it is, because that’s something Alistair taught him. But it doesn’t apply to him. It can’t. He made the choice to pick up the knife each time and he doesn’t get to just absolve himself of that. Sam runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “When Alistair is kept on a short enough leash, he does good work. Of a sort. It’s almost a shame that I’ll have to kill him.”

He blinks. “What? Why do you have to kill him?”

Sam looks at him like he’s an idiot. “He hurt you.”

“Not this Alistair,” he says, not sure why he’s arguing. It’s not as if Alistair is a good guy here. Or anywhere, ever, he’s pretty sure. “Not your me.”

He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. What did your Sam do to him?”

Dean bites down on a grin. He’d been beaten unconscious and nearly bled out after Alistair had gotten free, so he’d been forced to get the details later, and there’d been the horror of being forced to torture again and being tortured again and finding out that he’d broken the first seal and his worry over Sam’s powers all crowding his mind at the time. But in hindsight, it had been pretty badass. “The angels wanted me to try and torture information out of him, which went about as well as you’d expect. Sam tracked us down, got the information out of him in about thirty seconds, then killed him. Alistair died screaming.”

“Huh,” Sam says, his lips pulling back into a smile. “I guess he really is me.”

Chapter Text

Dean hears Bobby get up, probably to replace the bottle of whiskey Sam had just walked off with. He drops his head into his hand, grinding his palm against his forehead. He had his brother right in front of him over ten fucking years ago and he didn’t do anything with it. He walked him back to the room that apparently wasn’t his and salted the threshold, promising him it would keep him safe, as if some salt would really do anything against any of the things that had been after him his whole fucking life –

“Dean,” Dad says quietly. “I’m trying to keep an open mind here, but don’t get your hopes up. He’s not like the other Sam. He didn’t grow up with us.”

He lets his hand drop, looking at him incredulously. “Yeah, he didn’t. Who’s fault is that?”

Some stupid, petty, illogical part of him is convinced that if Dad has let him see the body, if he’d let Dean hold his little brother one last time, that he would have known it wasn’t him. The rational side of him knows he probably wouldn’t have and that it wouldn’t have mattered if he had, that no one would listen to a hysterical, grieving, traumatized four year old, that the whole reason they hadn’t let him see Sammy again was to not mess him up even more than he already was, but he doesn’t care. Dad had held the baby that wasn’t his brother and buried him with Mom and never suspected they were mourning a stranger. If Dad’s wedding ring were silver instead of gold, would that have been enough to break the illusion? Maybe they still couldn’t have gotten him back from the demons, Dad didn’t know anything back then and demons weren’t easy to fight even in the best of circumstances, but. But.

He doesn’t know. They can never know.

“He’s the king of hell,” Dad says with a heavy sort of finality that has Dean curling his hands into fists.

“He’s Sam!” he snaps. “He’s our Sam. Besides, weren’t you listening? If he’d ever hurt an innocent soul, then we’d have an apocalypse on our hands, and we don’t. So whatever he’s done isn’t that.”

“If he were to hurt an innocent soul in hell,” Dad corrects. “If he’s done it outside of it–”

“What makes you think he has?” he demands. This is ridiculous. “Demon activity has been going down ever since he took control of hell, so he’s either killing them or corralling them, which doesn’t actually seem like a problem. The only thing we know for sure he’s been doing outside of hell is saving our asses from demons!”

“Who are after us because of him,” Dad says.

When Sam had punched Dad, it had been legitimately shocking. Just letting it out on Dad like that had seemed only a step away from insanity, but he’s starting to understand the impulse. “Because we couldn’t protect him! Because by some miracle, he still considers us family and cares about us and killing us would hurt him. You should be fucking grateful we’re targets. If we weren’t, then that would mean he didn’t care about us at all.”

Dad’s face tightens but he doesn’t say anything and Dean legitimately feels as if he’s about to lose his mind.

“Dean’s right,” the other world’s Sam says, stepping back into the dining room.

He feels his heartrate jack up. “Is he–”

“Outside with Dean,” Sam says, a knowing look on his face that’s also fond. Whatever. Dean doesn’t mind being transparent when it’s Sam, especially since it’s not like it makes much of a difference when he can read Dean like a book anyway. If he wanted to, he could probably keep secrets from his Sam since he doesn’t have a lifetime of mind reading on his side, but frankly Dean has no interest in trying. “Hopefully not saying anything else to freak him out.”

“You can’t know what he’s done,” Dad says.

Sam doesn’t even look surprised about Dad being like this. “The same could be said for you. Or me, or Dean, both of them. But if I’d found any evidence he was doing anything like eating babies or hurting people, I wouldn’t have brought him here. He’s managing hell, he’s watching out for you, and if he’s done some questionable shit, well, you’re probably the last person qualified to call him on it.”

Dad’s lips press together, nothing about him giving even an inch for no reason that Dean can name other than stubbornness.

“I suppose you can try and kill him if you want,” Sam says. “There’s still a bullet left in the Colt. He did take away your opportunity to avenge your wife.”

“No one’s going to kill him,” Dean snaps. The way Dad looks vaguely nauseous at the idea does make him feel a little better. “We’re going to – I don’t know. I don’t know what we’re going to do, fuck.”

Sam softens, walking over and nudging him in the side, close and warm and smiling down at him. Dean feels himself return it almost automatically, unable to help it despite everything else going on. “Look, he’s kind of an asshole, and frankly I think he should have grown a pair and talked to you a long time ago, but at the end of the day he’s still me, remember? Not an evil mirror version of me. Just one that’s had to deal with a whole different kind of fucked up childhood than I did.”

Dad shifts uncomfortably at that, but he keeps his mouth shut, which he thinks counts as minor miracle, or at least progress.

“He was raised in hell,” Dean says, not sure if he’s arguing the point or just saying it to say it. It’s so big and horrible that he can barely imagine it and saying it out loud doesn’t actually do much to make it feel any more real. He wonders if this is how Sam feels about his Dean’s stint down under.

Sam makes a face and opens his mouth, but he’s cut off by the other version of himself walking inside with the other world’s Dean. “Actually,” his Sam says, “I was raised in Los Angeles. But close enough, I guess.”

Los Angeles? Los Angeles? This whole time his brother was living in the land of movie stars and kale smoothies?

“Dude,” Sam’s Dean says. He looks a lot better than he had when he’d booked it out of here. “What is it with you and California?”

“What’s wrong with California?” his Sam asks with a frown.

The other Dean opens his mouth and Sam says, “Don’t even start,” and he closes it with an eyeroll. “No one can be raised in hell. Or, well, they could, but it would probably drive them mad.” Sam’s lips twitch and he looks over at his double. “Is that what made you finally snap and kill Azazel? You were just tired of being a teenager?”

The other Dean’s face clears in understanding then winces. Not a great reaction.

“Raising me in hell would have been evil,” his Sam says, but kind of approvingly, and he’s not sure what to think of that.  

“What are you talking about?” Bobby asks from the doorway, new whiskey bottle in hand.

“Time doesn’t move the same way in hell as it does up here,” his Sam says. “It’s twelve times slower, but if you’ve got a living body down there, it ages in time with the world above, not below. So if I’d been raised in hell rather than just taken a lot of trips down there, it would have taken twelve years for me to age one year.”

“A teenager for eighty four years,” the other world’s Sam whistles. “Brutal.”

He makes a face. “Don’t remind me. I spent the first year after I killed Azazel almost entirely in hell trying to get things under control. I was fifteen for like a decade. It sucked.”

Wow. That really does sound like hell.

“You got any food?” his Sam asks while he’s still trying to come up to some sort of response to that. “I drank too much.”

“Lightweight,” Sam says and his Sam just flips him off.

Sam’s Dean claps him on the shoulder and then leaves his hand there. “Pot calling the kettle black there, Sammy.”

“I’m not a lightweight, you just have a problem,” Sam protests. “If you want to have a functioning liver a decade from now, we’re going to have to do something about that.”

Dean makes a face. “How about we survive the apocalypse first and deal with your mother henning after? The way things are going, we’re not going to be here a decade from now. Hell, we’re not going to be here a year from now.”

Sam’s Dean can’t see Sam’s face since he’s standing right next to and slightly behind him, but Dean can. Except he can’t make sense of the half second of guilt that flashes across it. For starting the apocalypse? But his Dean had a hand in that too. More than that, they’ve talked about the apocalypse before and, outside of Sam drunk and sobbing, he hadn’t really reacted like that.

Dad jerks a thumb behind him and says, “There are bagels in the kitchen,” with an unreadable expression on his face. He’s known Dad his entire life and half the time it’s like looking at brick wall. He’s only known Sam less than a week and he already feels like he knows him so well, despite the fact that what he doesn’t know about Sam could probably fill every book in Bobby’s library.

His Sam heads in the direction of the kitchen, the rest of them following even though Bobby’s kitchen really isn’t meant to house this many people. He rummages around and takes an onion bagel out. He starts looking around the kitchen, bagel in hand. The other world’s Sam rolls his and walks over, taking it out of his hand and saying, “I’ll make it.”

“What if we have different tastes?” Sam asks, but relaxes against the counter.

“Yeah, I’m sure you’d prefer it with fava beans and a nice Chianti, but you’ll just have to settle for cream cheese,” Sam says dryly.

He and the other Dean both snort, but his Sam just stares blankly.

Sam’s Dean says, “Dude, no way. You’ve never seen Hannibal?”

“Sorry, I was a little busy running hell to keep up on pop culture,” he says. “I’ll be sure to get right on that.”

“We’ve got to fix this,” the other Dean mutters, like Sam’s lack of film literacy is more upsetting than – everything else about him.

His Sam rolls his eyes. “Because you brought me here for a movie night.” He shifts his focus on his double. “Why did you bring me here, Sam?”

“I didn’t really see a way around it,” Sam says, but with a stiffness that has Dean frowning. He’s not an expert, but he’s pretty sure that Sam is lying. He feels even more confident with his assessment when he sees that the actual expert is frowning too.

“I think you did,” his Sam says. “You’d already made up your mind that I wasn’t evil, so that’s not something you were worried about. But you wanted to summon me alone first anyway. Those were your own words. We’ve been prying into my shit and I think it’s time we take a crack at yours. What did you want to talk to me about?”

Sam clenches his jaw and doesn’t answer. It’s Bobby who says, “Let me guess. Philosophical differences?”

His Sam and the other world’s Dean don’t have any context for that, but Dad’s face shifts and Dean crosses his arms. That can’t be right. Why would Sam need to talk to his double about the apocalypse? It’s not even happening here. Surely he and his Dean know more about it than an alternate version of Sam would, even one who’s king of hell.

Of course, Sam immediately refutes that by licking his lips and saying, “We’re dealing with the apocalypse. Almost full on. The seals are all broken and Lucifer’s out of his cage so there’s really only one more step left.”

The other world’s Dean drops his eyes and he really wishes he knew what they were talking about. For all the tidbits that Sam has dropped about the apocalypse, he still hasn’t said what it is the angels want him to do.

The bagels pops up from the toaster, something mundane and almost comical that should break the mounting tension, but actually just ends up adding to it. His Sam waits until the other world’s Sam has turned away from him to open the fridge before saying, “I heard.”

There’s more silence, Sam not turning back around until it’s to walk over to the table and put down a toasted bagel with, in Dean’s personal opinion, not nearly enough cream cheese. “Can I do it?”

Both Sams are staring at each other with an intensity Dean can’t parse. It’s some consolation that his double looks equally confused by whatever silent conversation is happening in front of him. Finally, his Sam says quietly, “That’s a one way trip, Sammy.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Sam says.

“Okay, hold on,” the other Dean interrupts, going for hard but it’s not quite enough to hide the thread of panic underneath. “A one way trip where? What’s he talking about, Sammy?”

His Sam opens his mouth and Sam orders, “Don’t,” in a tone of voice that reminds him of Dad.

“Why not?” Sam asks. “You spilled all my secrets to my brother. I thought we were going tit for tat on this shit.”

The other world’s Sam glares. “I did not, don’t be a dick. I told him you were alive, which frankly you should have told him a long time ago.”

“That wasn’t your decision to make,” his Sam snaps. “I’ve been keeping them safe my entire life and you just stroll in and act like – you had no right to–”

“You want to talk ulterior motives?” Sam interrupts. “Fine. How about we get into the real reason you let the demon get that close to Dean, because we both know you didn’t need to do it that way. You could have grabbed me and interrogated me at any point, I could have demonstrated my powers for you alone if that’s really what it would have taken to convince you. But you didn’t do that because–”

His Sam gets to his feet and hisses, “Shut up!”

“Because,” he repeats stubbornly, “it wasn’t about proving that I was you. It was about seeing what your family would think of you when they found out you were a freak.”

The chairs around the table go skittering to opposite ends of the kitchen and the dishware rattles dangerously inside the cabinets. He sees his double look freaked out for a moment before forcing his expression into calm neutrality. Bobby’s frowning at his cabinets and Dad’s tense and Dean feels another crack in his already abused heart.

“I don’t need to hear this from you,” his Sam snaps. “Like you would do any different. Either way, you were going home. If they hated you, so what? You’d go home to your brother who loves you. If I told them and,” he cuts himself off, taking a deep breath, and everything stops rattling. “You exorcised a demon to save his life and you still ran. You saved a girl from possession and probably death and you still didn’t think they’d be okay with it. Fuck you for acting like I’m doing something wrong by not wanting my only family to try and kill me.”

Dean’s chest clenches. They wouldn’t have. Even before meeting the Sam from the other world, they wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have.

“You already didn’t have them,” Sam says, hands spread wide. “If you told them the truth and it went poorly, what would you have really lost?”

“Hope,” his Sam says before he’s biting his bottom lip, looking even more pissed than he had before. He clearly hadn’t meant to say that.

“Hope will kill you just as fast as despair. As king of hell, you should know that,” he retorts. “You didn’t keep watching either me or Dean after I ran, I didn’t feel your eyes again after, so where’d you go? What did you do after seeing your brother go chasing after me despite everything?”

His Sam flinches.

“I asked for you,” Dean says and when his Sam’s eyes focus on him it almost feels like a physical blow. There’s so much there in his little brother’s eyes and he’s not sure how to fix it, if he even can, but he wants to. He just has to hope that counts for something. His mouth goes dry and he swallows before he can say, “I wanted a little brother. I asked our parents for you over and over again. Dad can confirm it.” He pauses, but Dad doesn’t say anything and Sam doesn’t look away from him, so he continues, “I was so excited when Mom told me you were coming. The day we lost you was the worst day of my life.”

“Mom died,” he says, a barely there wobble in his voice. “Of course it was.”

“Losing Mom was terrible,” he agrees. “But you’re my little brother.”

Keeping mom safe wasn’t his responsibility, but keeping Sammy safe was. No matter what anybody says about it, no matter that he was only a little kid and no one could ever expect that of him, it doesn’t matter. He’d expected it of himself.

“What did you drink?” Sam’s Dean asks. “When you stopped watching them after?”

His Sam has to blink several times before shifting his attention to Dean’s alternate self. His lips twist and for a second he thinks he’s going to ignore the question, but then he says, “Vodka.”

The other world’s Dean whistles, face creased in sympathy. He tries to find it funny that both Sams ran away to drown their sorrows at the same time for opposite reasons, but it hurts too much.

“You shouldn’t have said anything,” his Sam says. “It wasn’t your choice to make and you’re an asshole for doing it anyway. I’m the king of hell. What’s your excuse?”

Sam shrugs. “I care more about my brother than I care about myself, and yeah, before you ask, I can live with that. Now answer my question. Can I do it or not?”

“If you wanted me to be able to answer that question, then you should have let me have another taste,” he says.

Sam silently holds out his arm.

His Sam’s lips quirk up on the corners. “Okay, I lied, I don’t need another taste.” He rubs a hand over his mouth. “You weren’t trained like I was, man, it’s different.”

“I’m barely trained,” he says. “I only worked with Ruby for a year. But I didn’t think that really mattered.”

Sam drops his hand. “Ruby. Ruby? You know she’s Lilith’s lapdog, right?”

His counterpart turns to Sam, eyebrows raised.

“Figured that out eventually, thanks,” he says, refusing to look at his brother. “It’s not exactly like I had an inner working of hell to go off of.”

The other world’s Dean grins. “Didn’t stop you two from getting of–”

“Shut up, Dean,” Sam says quickly, cheeks flushed.

Oh, wow. Okay, maybe Sam does have a type. A demon? Really?

“Ruby?” his Sam asks. “Really?” He frowns, tilting his head to the side. “How was she?”

Sam shrugs, a smirk curling over his mouth, and Dean’s counterpart waves a hand. “Okay, okay, I really don’t need to hear this again. Once was enough to traumatize me for life, thanks. Sam, what are you getting at here? Trained for what?”

“You are trained,” his Sam says, both ignoring and providing a distraction from the other Dean’s question. He wonders for a moment if his Sam is doing it on purpose and decides that he probably is. “Our abilities are part of who we are, like it or not. The specific ins and outs of using them aren’t that important, you’re right, but general strengthening is. It’s all connected. Training your body and mind strengthens our abilities just as much as working them specifically. If we’re stronger in one area then we’re stronger in all areas. The only way you wouldn’t be trained is if you were weak and stupid and hadn’t tried to do much of anything your life, leaving every skill you had to atrophy.” He looks the other world’s Sam up and down and shakes his head. “Which you clearly didn’t do. What the hell is with the bodybuilder look? Taking time to juice in between demon attacks?”

“I’m not on steroids!” Sam protests, offended, and weirdly that’s the thing that eases the tension in the room a little bit. Bobby even rolls his eyes. “What the hell?”

“He works out when he’s stressed,” Dean offers, smiling.

His Sam makes a face. “Has he considered Zoloft?”

His breath freezes in his lungs. Sam said that he hadn’t started watching them until they’d gone down to meet up with Gordon.

The other world’s Sam throws him a look that he can’t interpret before saying, “It’s okay if you’re jealous. I mean, I look good with long hair, maybe I should grow it out.”

“No,” Sam’s Dean says, crossing his arms. His Sam shifts his offended look in his direction. “This is cute, but stop trying to distract me. What the hell are you two going on about?”

The Sams look at each other for a long time before his Sam shrugs and says, “Yeah, you can probably do it. But honestly, I’d say yes for real before attempting it.”

Say yes to what? Dean would kill for some context about this conversation. All he knows is that his counterpart is suddenly worried, his concern obvious in a way that means he’s not even bothering to hide it.

“No, you wouldn’t,” the other world’s Sam says. “I mean, obviously.”

Sam shakes his head. “There’s a world of difference between being king and that and you know it. It’s not worth it.”

“It’ll save the world,” Sam says softly. “It means I can put him back where he won’t be able to hurt anyone anymore. It’s worth it.”

“Okay!” the other Dean shouts. “What the hell are you talking about? How are you going to put Lucifer back in the cage?”

Both Sams are staring at each other again, having a silent conversation that Dean thinks is starting to piss him off. The other world’s Sam says, “Don’t,” stepping forward, but he’s not fast enough.

“By saying yes to Lucifer,” his Sam says. “Once he possesses Sam, if Sam can take back control of his body, he’ll have the power of Lucifer in his true vessel. Which means he’ll be able to open the cage back up and jump right in.” He cuts his eyes back to Sam, who’s pissed. “Of course, that means being trapped with the devil in the deepest pit of hell for all eternity, but, hey, he’s right. It’ll save the world and stop the apocalypse.”

~

Dean’s lungs forget how to work and blood is rushing in his ears. He can hear the distant sounds of his father asking questions, of Sam arguing with himself, but it all feels like it’s happening under water.

He’d thought Sam dying was his worst nightmare, or him turning yellow eyed, or becoming Lucifer’s vessel. All of them terrible and heart breaking and different ways, but in his most desperate and terrible moments, those were the worst things he could possibly imagine happening.

Leave it to Sammy to come up with something even worse.

“Are you out of your mind?” he finally manages to croak. “Absolutely not!”

Sam looks over to him with his huge, ridiculous eyes, like this is some stupid movie he wants to see or a bullshit hunt he wants to cross three states to look into, something he can needle Dean into agreeing to like it doesn’t matter. “This is how we defeat him. Dean, I really think I can do it, and this me thinks so too! He’d know better than anyone–”

“I don’t give a fuck if you can do it or not,” he interrupts. “That’s not the problem. The problem is that this ends up with you worse than dead, Sammy. I was in hell for forty years and you know what it did to me. This would be nothing compared to that. Alistair is bad, but he’s not the fucking devil. You would be tortured forever. Literally forever, don’t you get that?” His throat closes up and he has to force himself to speak through the tightness. “I won’t even get you back in heaven.”

Or he will, but a fake memory version of him, all that would be left of his brother. Heaven really would be hell for him then, nothing but the solitude he’d feared and tried to avoid his entire life. Not only would he be spending eternity alone, but he’d be aware that every moment he was in heaven, Sammy was being tortured in hell by Lucifer. His stomach clenches. He’d rather be back on Alistair’s rack.

“We share a heaven?” the other Sam asks, a hopeful note to his voice that would break Dean’s heart if it wasn’t already being shattered into a million pieces.

“Yeah,” his Sam says, distracted. “Dean, this would literally save the world.”

He shakes his head. Seriously, how can Sam not get this by now? “I told you. I don’t care about the world if you’re not in it.”

Sam’s been thinking about this, planning it, it’s not some spur of the moment or off the cuff idea. It’s why he’d tried to tell Dean to live on after him, it’s why he’d said that he might not end up in heaven. Not because he thought his soul would be sent to hell when he died, but because he was planning to send himself there permanently, to a place that no one but God could reach and he’s made it more than clear that he’s not interested in doing anything for them. Could he break the seals all over again, Dean wonders wildly. He’d go down to hell and pick up his knife again if it meant freeing Sam. But Lilith is the last seal and they can’t kill her twice. Is there a way to bring her back? Where do demons go when they die? Sam had said that when he kills demons, he unmakes them, but can they be remade?

He doesn’t even want to be thinking shit like this but he knows Sam. He won’t give him a choice. Dean wants to scream and rage, wants to knock some sense into his dumbass brother, but the truth of it is that Sam doesn’t need his permission to do this no matter how badly Dean wishes he did. It’s like Stanford, like the demon blood, like going after Lilith, like a hundred or thousand other things from their lives. Sam wants to make his own choices and he wants Dean to choose him even he doesn’t like them, but push comes to shove and Sam is going to do whatever he feels is best regardless of what Dean thinks about it.

If Sam decides to say yes, there’s nothing Dean can do to stop him.

“This is the only way,” Sam insists. “We already know that the Colt can’t kill him and God won’t. Even if I continue to deny him, he’ll continue hurting people, killing them, twisting them. If we both say yes, the apocalypse kills half the planet if we’re lucky.” Dean opens his mouth and Sam shakes his head. “If only you were to say yes, Michael would just wait me out. He wants this fight with Lucifer, but he wants it with his brother in his true vessel. If you say yes, I’ll do the same thing but it will be a hell of a lot harder with Michael on earth because he’ll just try and stop me, and also you’ll be stuck as his muppet for however long he’s interested in being on earth. I have to do this. It’s the only way.”

It’s not. It can’t be. How can Sam even think this is the answer? Let half the planet die then. Maybe Pamela in his heaven was right. They’ll all die and go to heaven and get to play pretend at the lives they used to live and – okay, it still sounds miserable, still sounds more like a horror movie than eternal paradise, but whatever. Pamela and Ash had seemed happy enough. If it keeps Sam from being tortured by Lucifer for eternity, then he’s not sure how much he cares.

“Well,” the other Sam says. “Not necessarily.”

Sam presses his lips together. “It’s too risky.”

“And letting the devil possess you so you can turn his own powers against him isn’t?” Sam asks dryly. “If you time it right and abandon ship at the last second–”

“I’d still be in hell and if I have time to escape the cage, Lucifer does too,” he argues.

Sam shrugs. “So? We do well in hell. You’re not acclimated like I am, but there’s more than one way out and you’ll still have your body. I give it a decade max to claw your way out, and that’s hell time, so practically no time on earth.”

“And if Lucifer escapes?” his Sam challenges.

“Again, so? Try again. It’s not like he’s ever not going to take you up on your yes and he’ll know what you’re planning to do the second he gets inside you anyway. If he doesn’t figure it out beforehand, which he probably will. The stories of Lucifer describe him a lot of ways, but stupid isn’t one of them.” This world’s Sam licks his lips, looking more like his brother than he has since he appeared. “I get making the sacrifice play, even if you’re really taking it to the extreme here, but there’s no reason to be stupid about it. If you’re strong enough to take control of your body and use Lucifer’s powers as your own, then you’re strong enough to cast him out. Push him into the cage and close it from the outside.”

Dean is wary of saying anything, of distracting this world’s Sam from convincing his Sam not to throw his life away, not to leave him. For better or worse, Sam’s always listened to himself over others. This is making it all a little too literal, but if it works then Dean won’t even care.

Sam damning himself to the devil is unacceptable and unthinkable. But this, sending the devil back and escaping, even if it means fighting his way out of hell – it’s not great, he never wants Sam to see the place that broke him, but he can live with it. He will live with it, if the alternative is Sam suffering who knows what until the end of time.

“It’s too much,” his Sam says, shaking his head. “Ejecting Lucifer out my body and trying to control him after and closing the cage while not falling into it myself? It’s all way too much. One of those I could probably handle, but not all of them, and it’s stupid to try when the whole world hangs in the balance.”

No. Come on. Dean can’t be forced to live with this. He won’t be able to do it, except he won’t have a choice. He’ll have to exist in heaven without his brother for an eternity. Maybe if he begs enough, Cas can unmake him like Sam unmakes demons.

This world’s Sam sighs and runs a hand over his face. “Fuck. You’re so – I want you to know you are easily the more annoying of us. How do you not choke on your own self righteousness?” His Sam opens his mouth, but the other Sam keeps talking. “Fine. I’ll help.”

Sam blinks. “Help how?”

“Take me back with you,” he says grimly. “You handle pushing him out and into the cage and I’ll handle making sure it closes after him and you stay out of it.”

Hope rockets through him like adrenaline. He knows from experience the crash is even worse after it leaves, but he can’t help it.

“Why would you do that?” Sam asks. “It’s not your world on the line and it’s dangerous. If we fail, Lucifer might go after you instead. He doesn’t need two of us alive.”

“He doesn’t need me at all,” he says. “I’m from the wrong universe and sure, he could use my body as well as yours, but it won’t feel right. Angels are sensitive to that sort of off frequency bullshit. I bet your angel has had a headache since he got here. He’ll probably kill me if we fail and I really don’t want to die, so how about we get this right the first time?”

His Sam is still unconvinced and Dean wants to shake him.

This world’s Sam rolls his eyes and gestures in his direction. “Will you look at him? I get you’ve got your head shoved up your ass looking for the greater good, or whatever, but I’ve spent my entire life doing heinous shit to keep my family safe. What do you think happens to your brother after you’re gone? Because from where I’m standing, it’s nothing good.”

His Sam flinches.

“I don’t know how he ended up in hell in your world, but he was there because you couldn’t keep him out of it,” this world’s Sam says, and Jesus, he might as well have punched him. Sam tried. It’s not his fault. “How about we learn from our mistakes and not damn him to hell all over again? Does that sound good to you? Christ, you’re a pain in the ass.”

“Please,” Dean says, hating how small and pathetic he sounds, but also if it gets Sam to agree then he doesn’t care. He’s tried ordering Sam around, forcing him, getting angry at him. It hadn’t worked before and Sam’s not the only who needs to learn from his mistakes. “Sammy, please. I don’t want to lose you again. If you’re going to do this, then at least try to save yourself after. Let him help.”

The silence stretches between them until it snaps, until Sam lets out an explosive sigh and says, “I need to think,” and stalks out of the room.

Dean waits until he hears the door open and closing to cover his face with his hand, breathing shakily. Today has been such a shitshow. At least he’s not the one running away this time, but it probably says something uncomplimentary about all of them that they can’t get through one conversation without someone feeling the need to leave in the middle of it.

“Aren’t you going to go after him?”

Dean drops his hand to look at his counterpart then shakes his head. “He’s not upset. Or not, you know, personally. Whatever. He needs to think through his shit first and then if he comes to the wrong conclusion, I’ll yell at him then.” Or burst into tears and beg, since he’s pretty sure that will get him further than yelling. He’ll do it too.

He hadn’t seen any way for them to get out of the apocalypse and now they have one. It’s still terrifying, the idea of letting Sam get that close to his own destruction, but it’s more hope for the world than he had before, which means more hope for him and Sam both than he had before.

Sam won’t abandon the world, no matter what Dean wants, not even if he cries and begs. But he might take the chance of saving both the world and himself if he can convince himself that he’s worth taking the risk for. If he fails, that’s okay. Dean will do whatever it takes to get him to understand that if he cares about Dean at all, he’s not disposable. Not without a fight.

“Well, while he does that, can I borrow someone’s phone?” Sam asks.

His counterpart silently hands his over. Sam inputs a number and lifts it to his ear.

“Put it on speaker,” Dad says. Dean can’t even begin to know what his father thinks about everything and just then he really can’t bring himself to care. In their world, Dad is dead, and if he was ever Dean’s priority, he’s not anymore.

He’s expecting a fight, since that’s Dad and Sam’s default state, but Sam just rolls his eyes and does it. It only rings twice before an unfortunately familiar voice answers, “You stood me up.”

“Got kidnapped, you’ll get over it,” Sam says. “As if you didn’t eat without me.”

“Well, it’d be a waste of a reservation otherwise,” he says. “Who kept you kidnapped long enough for you to miss lunch? Or are you just losing your touch?”

“Fuck you,” Sam says, but he’s laughing. “I’m taking a trip. You’re in charge while I’m gone.”

There’s a lingering silence on the other end. Then, “I can’t help but notice that you didn’t answer my question and also you haven’t taken a vacation once in the uncountable number of years that I’ve known you. Are you still kidnapped? Is this some sort of ploy? Do you need to be rescued?”

He makes a face. “Technically I’m still kidnapped, but it’s fine, it’s mostly by choice at this point. Just keep hell from freezing over until I get back, alright?”

Dean finally manages to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Crowley? Really? You’re leaving that douchebag in charge of hell?”

Sam shoots him a look and Dean holds up his hands in surrender. Whatever, he guesses Sam knows how to run his own shit, fine, whatever. Crowley, though? Really?

“Samuel,” Crowley says. “Was that perhaps your brother’s voice I just heard?”

“I didn’t call you to hear your opinion on my life choices,” he says. “I’m giving you orders.”

“Yes, my liege. Of course, my liege,” he answers. “I would never dream of disobeying the great and terrible King Samuel. Enough of that. How the hell did a couple of two bit hunters manage to get the drop on you? How did they even know you were alive?” A pause. “Are they listening to this conversation right now?”

“You know they are otherwise you wouldn’t have called me my liege, even as a joke,” Sam says. “I’ll tell Meg to keep an eye on you if you’re going to be a bitch about this.”

Meg. Meg? For fuck’s sake. Sam and Crowley trades a few more barbs that sound a little too found for his peace of mind before he hangs up. Dean manages about two seconds of keeping his mouth shut. “Crowley and Meg? Seriously?”

“Because I have a plethora of options to run shit down there,” he says. “You’ve been to hell. Who would you pick?”

Well. When he puts it like that.

“You know them?” Bobby asks.

The whiskey bottle he’d entered the room with is a lot emptier than it was before, but Dean supposes that’s only fair. “Yeah. Crowley’s a dick and Meg’s worse.”

“Meg is okay,” Sam says. “She obeys orders and spends enough time around humans that she sort of knows how to act like one.”

“And Crowley?” Dad asks.

A strange look comes over Sam’s face and he shrugs. “He’s not so bad.”

Christ. “Please tell me you’re not sleeping with him.”

Crowley propositions Sam every other breath in their world. The whole demon thing clearly isn’t enough to stop Sam, and sure, Crowley’s a dude, but if he possessed a cute enough girl – no matter what pretty words Ruby said to Sam, he’s pretty sure Sam wouldn’t have slept with her if the body she’d been in hadn’t been smokin’ –

“Gross,” Sam says and Dean breathes a little easier. “No, absolutely not. Why would you even say that?”

“He hits on you all the time, man, I don’t know,” Dean says.

Sam actually looks a little green at that, which, Dean agrees, obviously, but when Sam had found out that his other self had sex with Ruby, he’d just been intrigued.

“Aren’t you jumping the gun a little bit?” this world’s Dean asks. “What if Sam doesn’t agree?”

“He will,” he and Sam say at the same time and he doesn’t bother to hide his grin. Sam continues, “I’m not really interested in taking no for an answer here. It’s whatever, their angel can bring me there and bring me back. Unless something goes wrong, it’ll be like two days.”

Dean frowns. Where has Cas gotten to? He should probably be here for this. “Cas.”

There’s that sound that Dean and Sam both agree sounds a little like wings in the wind even though they’ve never seen any physical wings and Cas insists he doesn’t have them anyway. Cas stand in front of them and Dean tries not to smirk how everyone but Sam startles at his appearance. “Hello Dean. Is everything alright? Sam is pacing outside.”

That’s good news, actually. It means he’s arguing with himself, that he’s taking this seriously and not just going with his gut response of denial. He might still manage to talk himself out of it, but if he does then Dean can send this world’s Sam out to talk himself into it. “We’re discussing logistics. Can you bring King Sammy here with us to our world and then bring him back after?”

Cas frowns. “Why would we want to–”

Dean waves a dismissive hand. “We’ll get into that later. Answers first.”

“I will need to be at something approaching full power to manage this,” Cas says. “I will also need to be similarly situated to return him. It is easier to return us to our original world than it was to bring us here, but bringing Sam from his world into ours will add a layer of difficulty. There is also the issue finding the correct world to return Sam to. Sorting through the many universes to find the one with Sam’s correct frequency could become overly draining, however, as long as this world’s Dean remains here, it should not be a problem. The real difficulty lies in the amount of grace I will need to perform these acts and the amount of time it will take to amass it.”

“How squeamish are you?” Sam asks.

Cas sends him a flat look. “I am a soldier of God that has existed for longer than the plane on which your planet sits. I have witnessed atrocities committed by your kind and acts of God so terrible that people have trembled to record them.”

“So not very then,” Sam says. “Powering you up won’t be an issue if you’re good with taking a little field trip down to hell. Our methods of extraction may differ from heaven’s, but it’s all human souls and power is power.”

Dean’s stomach swoops, remembering the part he used to take in that extraction from both sides. Cas’s face doesn’t give anything away, he just inclines his head and says, “That would be sufficient, thank you.”

“What did you mean?” his counterpart asks. “About being able to bring Sam back as long as I’m here?”

Sam pales, mouth opening to no doubt tell Cas to shut his, but he doesn’t speak fast enough. Cas answers, “You and Sam are soulmates in every universe. Your souls vibrate at the same frequency. If I have access to one of your souls, I can find the other anywhere. Even if it resides in another world.”

He already knows that the angels weren’t truly trying to rescue him from hell, not until he broke, but the reminder still stings. If they’d wanted to find him in the bowels of hell, all they would have needed to do was go to Sam, who would have agreed to let them use his soul as a guidelight in a heartbeat. But stomping all the hope out of Sam and leaving only broken desperation had been another part of their plan, so of course they never would have done that even after Dean broke the seal. How much would it have helped Sam to have real, tangible proof that he was able to save Dean just by existing? They’ll never know.

“Soulmates?” This world’s Dean is staring a hole into Sam, who’s refusing to look at him. “What does that mean?”

“You are each other’s completion in all things,” Cas says. “For better or worse.”

What a statement.

“Guess heaven didn’t think that one through, huh?” he asks, mostly just to try and break the strange tension between this other version of him and Sam. “This apocalypse thing probably would have been a lot easier to get going otherwise.”

He may have landed himself in hell for Sam and broke the first seal because of it, but he’s sure they could have gotten him to hell a thousand different ways. Saying no to an archangel determined to get his yes is something he’s pretty sure he could only do for Sam.

Cas blinks. “This is not heaven’s design. I suppose it may be God’s, in the way that all things are his design, but from all accounts he abandoned his plan long before your souls were brought into existence.”

Dean stares, thoroughly confused. “What?”

“Soulmates are not created by specific hands,” he continues. “Your parents’ love was arranged by heaven and blessed by a cupid to ensure your and Sam’s births. Soulmates are a quirk of existence. Most people neither have them nor meet them if they do until after their death. It’s happenstance, like two identical snowflakes managing to exist on earth within a hundred years of each other. That you have spent a lifetime with your soulmate is a rare blessing.” He frowns. “So to speak, as there was no actual blessing, since heaven likely would have also preferred you and Sam had a weaker bond. Manipulating you both into your proper places took the combined forces of heaven and hell and we still nearly failed.”

“Oh,” he says, trying not to sound as dazed as he feels. “Okay then.”

Cas tilts his head to the side and his lips twitch up. “I might have agreed with that assessment once, but no longer. I have grown fond of you and your brother, but I find you’re both at your best when you’re together rather than apart.”

Yeah. Dean thinks so too. If they’d managed that from the beginning, Lucifer would still be in his cage and the both of them would probably have a lot less scars. Both metaphorical and physical.

He’s so caught up in his thoughts that he must miss the sound of the door opening again, because when he looks up his Sam is standing there, hair a mess like he kept running his hands through it. He looks ridiculous. If he’d just let Dean cut it to something reasonable, he wouldn’t have this problem. Although considering how this world’s Sam has hair almost to his shoulders, he supposes it could be worse.

His Sam sweeps his gaze over them and raises an eyebrow. “Have you all just been standing here since I left?”

No. Yes. Sort of, but they were talking about stuff, whatever.

“Shut up,” this world’s Sam says. “Have you come to the sane, logical conclusion or are we going to waste time arguing about it some more?”

Sam rolls his eyes but when he meets Dean’s gaze there’s nothing but compassion there. His stomach clenches. That’s not good. He doesn’t want Sam feeling sorry for leaving him behind, he wants him to not leave him behind. Not like this, he can take it any other way, he promises he can, he’ll be good about it like he never has before if only it means Sam doesn’t throw himself into the pit with Lucifer.

Sam smiles at him and Dean feels fear clawing its way up his throat. Dean’s not taking no for an answer. He’ll convince Sam or his counterpart will. It’s going to be okay.

“Alright,” Sam says. “We’ll try it your way.”

Oh thank fuck.

It’s times like these that if Dean didn’t know better, he’d almost believe a higher power.