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runedgirlTitle:But Blood Is Thicker
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
runedgirl
Artist:chomaisky
Pairing:Sam/Dean, minor Dean/OFC and Dean/OMC
Rating:NC17
* * *
Crowley is good at finding demons for Dean to kill. Sometimes they’re in league with Abaddon. Sometimes they’re his own, or they think they are. Doesn’t matter anymore, they’re all expendable. Means to an end. Abbadon has eluded them so far, but she won’t be able to forever. They’re getting closer.
He watches while Dean dispatches the last of them, adding two more headless corpses to the pile of six already at his feet. Dean’s stronger than ever, barely-reined-in fury as he swings the blade expertly, so quick and smooth that the demons fall to the ground still looking determined, thinking they’re about to get the jump on him. That’s less and less likely every day, every time they find another unsuspecting group of demons to practice on.
Crowley knows to make himself scarce afterwards, peering through the doorway as Dean circles the room, the whites of his eyes showing and his nostrils flared. The scent of sulfur is thick, and the scent of blood thicker, as he kicks the bodies, checking for signs of life. Crowley isn’t sure, at this point, what Dean would do if one of the poor slobs actually woke up, if a meatsuit survived being ridden for god knows how long. Soon it won’t matter to Dean, he thinks with a smile.
When Dean comes back to himself, Crowley’s waiting in the car.
“What’s happening to me?” Dean asks, and his hands are shaky, trembling on the wheel.
“You’re getting stronger. Getting ready to fight Abaddon. Isn’t that what you want? To send her back to hell—and then we’ll find that nasty Gadreel and the scribe, and teach them not to meddle with things they shouldn’t.”
“Gadreel,” Dean growls, and Crowley watches as his knuckles go white, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
“That’s right,” Crowley agrees. “You want to take him out, too, don’t you, Dean? For what he did to you—and to Sam.” Crowley can see the mark glowing through the cotton of Dean’s shirt, dull orange and throbbing. “Make him pay for the lies he told, for what that did to you and Sam.”
“Fuck,” Dean curses, and clutches at his arm.
“Drive,” Crowley urges. It’s getting too dangerous to goad Dean, the mark making him unpredictable. “Abaddon is close, and Gadreel will be our next stop after her.”
Dean turns the key, and the Impala’s engine roars.
* * *
When it becomes clear that he’s not going to catch up to Dean, Sam forces himself to stop and think things through. Despite weeks of research, he doesn’t know enough about the mark of Cain and what it’s doing to his brother. And there’s only one person who can tell him.
Finding Cain is easier than finding Dean and Crowley; he’s not particularly hiding, especially now that he’s freed from the burden of the mark for the first time in centuries.
He favors the country; Sam finds him in a stone farmhouse in Kansas. Of course it’s Kansas. Not that far from where they were born.
“Sam Winchester,” Cain says as Sam gets out of the car and walks across the lawn. The grass is long, but there’s a path of flagstones leading to the house. Cain is on the porch, like he was expecting the visit.
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“You, too,” Sam says.
Cain beckons him up the steps.
“So why has another Winchester invaded my privacy? I don’t have anything to give you. I’m just a man now.”
He motions to a rough-hewn rocking chair on the porch, and Sam sits down. Cain sits beside him, a glass of what looks lemonade in his hand. He doesn’t offer one to Sam.
“I’m looking for my brother.”
Cain takes a sip and looks out over the lawn. “You won’t find him. Not if he doesn’t want to be found.”
“He found you,” Sam reminds him.
Cain smiles a little at that, but it’s a dark smile. “That’s true,” he allows. “With a little help from the King of Hell.”
Fuck. Knew it.
“Tell me about the mark. What is it doing to him?”
Cain sips his lemonade and rocks slowly back and forth.
“Drains his humanity. Makes him a killer. Makes him forget whatever pain caused him to take it up in the first place.”
“Why him?” Sam presses. “Why did you give it to Dean?”
“Ah, that’s an easy one. Because he was worthy. So few men would have been. But your brother, Crowley was right about him.”
Sam wants to strangle Crowley with his bare hands. Instead he keeps talking.
“How does he give it up?”
Cain laughs then, tipping his chair back and looking at Sam.
“Give it up? There is no giving it up. He bears the mark until he dies—or finds someone else who’s worthy. But like I said, few men are. Most men couldn’t tolerate it, the burden would be too great.”
The answer hits Sam like a physical blow. Is this it? Dean stuck with the mark and Sam helpless to change it?
Cain abruptly gets up, taking the last sip of his lemonade. “Well, Sam, thanks for stopping by. But this is as much socializing as I can handle, and I’ve told you all I can. Good luck finding your brother. He’ll make a formidable leader for the Knights of Hell.”
“Over my dead body,” Sam answers, and Cain pauses.
“Perhaps,” he says. “Now, go.”
Sam is all the way to the car when Cain speaks again.
“You’re not very different from your brother, are you, Sam?”
“What?” What kind of question is that? They’re like night and day most of the time, Sam thinks.
“Two brothers, both worthy. Dean just got there first.”
Cain disappears into the house, and Sam gets back to driving. Cain's words ring in his ears, and Sam drives faster.
The dreams get worse as he gets closer, drenched in blood and deafening with screams. It’s like Sam’s back in the cage again, Lucifer tormenting him with visions of disemboweled and dismembered bodies. But this time it’s his brother’s form wielding the blade, killing without remorse.
Sometimes Sam gets a glimpse of Dean’s face, the feral smile that’s cold as a reptile’s, his eyes an expressionless black. Dean’s hands are red with blood, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up. The mark glows even redder than the blood, steaming with heat where it rises from pale flesh.
Dean never sees him, though Sam is always screaming.
Sam can feel the gravel under his knees as he falls to the ground, begging. The breadth of his brother’s shoulders and the bow of his legs as he walks away are familiar, but that’s all.
Sam wakes in a sweat, gasping.
He catches up in Morton, Idaho. Abaddon made her last stand there, and from what Sam can tell when he arrives the next morning, she put up a good fight.
He finds a dozen bodies, most of them decapitated. There’s blood everywhere, and the lingering smell of sulfur. There’s no trace of Abaddon herself, but that’s to be expected. Sam knows Dean was victorious, because Crowley told him so.
A single text, because Crowley is a dick and couldn’t resist crowing about it.
“It’s over. Abaddon is dead and Dean is mine. Until we meet again, Moose. Love, C.”
Well, fuck that.
Dean is not Crowley’s, or anyone else’s. Dean is Sam’s.
* * *
Crowley doesn’t try very hard to hide after that, though he does keep going west all the way to the coast. Sam drives the rental car right up to the seven-foot gate and waits. It takes three minutes for the buzzer to sound and the gates to swing open. Sam follows a winding, tree-lined driveway to an imposing grey stone mansion. He parks at the tiled roundabout, next to a cheesy fountain.
The front door swings open before he can knock, and a demon wearing an attractive female meatsuit waves him in. Sam wonders if an exorcism would free an innocent human, or if the person the demon’s wearing is long dead. Knowing Crowley, probably the latter.
“He’s in the study,” she says, and looks him up and down. “Good genes in your family, I guess.”
“I guess,” Sam says, and follows her down the hall.
Crowley is sitting behind a large desk, neat stacks of papers piled to one side. He smiles like he’s actually happy to see Sam.
“Moose! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Where’s my brother?” Sam demands, scanning the room. They’re alone. The other demon has left, closing the double doors behind her.
“Drink?” Crowley offers instead, pouring himself some scotch and holding a glass out for Sam.
“Where is he, Crowley?”
Crowley takes a sip and smacks his lips thoughtfully. “I don’t believe Dean wants to see you, Sam.”
“Really? Well, that’s too fucking bad, because I want to see him.”
Crowley puts down his glass. “That’s not what I heard. You were the one who set the terms, Sam. You were the one who said ‘not brothers.’”
The anger is simmering hot in Sam’s belly now, making his fingers twitch and want to reach for the gun at his back, blow Crowley’s smug face right off. “It’s none of your business what I said or didn’t say. Where is he, Crowley? Tell me, or you’ll be sorry.”
Crowley outright laughs at that. “Oh, Moose, you’re so hot when you’re mad. But haven’t you heard? I’m well and truly the King of Hell once again, and now I’ve got the Knights of Hell at my back. Dean made sure of that.”
It’s what Sam expected, but the confirmation still hits with thudding pain in his chest. “No.”
Crowley smiles. “Yes.”
It’s hard to think when his entire body just wants to do something, but Sam forces himself to stand still and stay calm.
“If you’re so sure of his loyalty, then why not let me see him?” he asks, finally, trying to keep his voice cocky instead of demanding. “What? Is the King of Hell afraid of a mere man?”
He doesn’t actually expect it to work; it’s too transparent. But Crowley is nothing if not predictable when it comes to his pride, especially with the Winchesters.
“My dear boy, I’m not afraid of anything. Not anymore.”
“Then let me see him.” Sam isn’t backing down. He holds Crowley’s gaze, a clear challenge.
Crowley knocks back the rest of his drink and stands up. “Fine. But you won’t like what you see, Moose.”
Sam’s heart is beating triple time as he follows Crowley down the long hallways, past sunny verandas with overflowing flower boxes and more tacky statues and fountains, past a cavernous library with thirty-foot stacks and rolling ladders and leather-bound books that look as ancient as Crowley himself. They descend a spiraling staircase, two stories down to where there’s a chill in the air and a faint smell of moist earth. Sam can hear sounds now, muffled and distant, thuds and scratches and shouts. As he gets closer, he identifies some of the sounds as human, or once human. There’s a scream, more thuds, and then abrupt silence.
They round a turn and the hall opens up into a gymnasium, ringed with a few rows of stadium seats. The wood floor is slick with blood, and a demon drags a body to a side exit, its head nearly severed, its eyes still wide open.
At the other end of the gym is Dean, the first blade in his hand, his bare chest and arms streaked with blood. He whirls as Crowley and Sam enter, scenting the air as he raises the blade, and his black eyes narrow.
There is no spark of recognition on his face, or in those expressionless eyes.
“Dean,” Sam says, and it comes out softly, aghast. “No.”
Dean takes a step toward them, his grip tightening on the blade. He advances like a predator, bare feet noiseless on the wood floor, his jaw set as he stalks forward.
Sam’s instincts kick in, fear tightening his spine and making his stomach flip. This is not Dean. This is his worst nightmare.
Crowley raises a hand, and Dean pauses. Sam can see him trembling with the effort of standing still, his upper lip curling in a snarl as his eyes dart from Crowley to Sam.
“Stand down,” Crowley orders. “At least for now. Sam has just come to talk, haven’t you, Sam? To make peace with the way things are now. We don’t have to kill him—at least, not right away.”
Dean lowers the blade a bit, but he keeps his eyes on Sam and the hand holding the blade still shakes. The mark glows bright red on his bare arm, angry and raised like a wound that will never heal.
“Dean,” Sam says again.
Dean growls. There’s no other way to describe it, and Sam wonders with a sense of abject horror if Dean can speak. If Dean can even understand him.
Crowley holds out his hand and nods at the blade. “Hand it over.”
Dean growls more loudly.
Crowley snaps his fingers impatiently. “I said, stand down and hand it over.”
Three demons appear from behind them and flank Dean, but none of them touch him. He snarls at them, too, and they flinch when he snaps his teeth angrily in their direction.
“Now, Dean,” Crowley orders.
Slowly, reluctantly, Dean extends his arm and lets Crowley get his hand on the blade. For a moment, they’re both holding it, Crowley pulling and Dean seemingly unable to let go. Finally, with another growl that sounds full of pain, Dean lets Crowley take the blade from him.
“That’s enough for today,” Crowley says, nodding to the three demons, who all look fearful. “Go help him wash up and meet us in the study.”
Dean blinks, looking like he’s not sure where he is or how he got there. Sam holds his breath, hoping for a sign that Dean recognizes him, but there’s nothing. One demon puts a hand on his shoulder to lead him away and he whirls on her and hisses. She nearly falls in her haste to get away from him, but he follows them to the exit where the bodies disappeared without looking back.
“I tried to spare you,” Crowley says when he and Sam are back in his study. “For old time’s sake. You and me, we go way back, after all.”
Sam picks up the glass of scotch he turned down before and takes a few fortifying gulps. Crowley pours himself another and refills Sam’s.
“Is he always like that?” Sam keeps his voice calm, conversational.
“When he’s holding the blade, he’s a bit…unpredictable.”
Sam raises an eyebrow.
“Can’t be helped,” Crowley says, waving a hand. “The more he kills, the better he is at it.”
“And the more he’s a demon.”
Sam wants to ask if all the bodies dragged from the gym were possessed, but he’s not sure he wants to know.
“Exactly,” Crowley confirms. “Glad you understand, Sam. No hard feelings.”
Sam wants very much to kill him.
Crowley’s saved by Sam’s last vestiges of good sense—and by Dean joining them in the study.
He’s got a tee shirt on, a clean pair of jeans and the familiar boots that he favors. There’s no more blood, but his eyes are black as ever.
“Say hello to your brother,” Crowley says, and holds out a glass of scotch.
Dean crosses the room and takes it, glancing briefly at Sam.
“I don’t have a brother,” he says, and half of Sam is overwhelmed with relief that Dean can still talk while the other half despairs at his words.
“Dean,” he starts, and Dean turns around and fixes him with a glare.
“I don’t have anything to say to you. You shouldn’t be here.”
So Dean does know him, then. Relief floods through Sam again.
“I have something to say to you. But I’d rather not say it in front of him.”
Crowley smirks. “Too bad, Moose. Whatever you have to say to Dean, just say it. As much as I enjoy ogling your impressive physique, Dean’s right. You shouldn’t be here.”
Again, Sam thinks about slicing through Crowley’s throat, wiping that smirk off his face. But the bastard holds all the cards right now.
“Fine. I just—I wanted to explain that I never—I never meant that we weren’t brothers, Dean. You have to know that. I just meant—I didn’t want you to excuse everything because we are. I wanted you to understand how much you hurt me.”
Dean is turned away from Sam, staring out the picture window that overlooks the courtyard. He gives no indication that he’s even heard.
“Dean, please—please try to understand. I just wanted you to say you were sorry.”
Dean finally turns then, his head cocked toward Sam, his black eyes blank.
“I’m not,” he says.
Even Crowley looks a little bit shocked.
“Maybe I was, before. Maybe. I don’t really remember.”
Dean shrugs, and holds his glass out for a refill.
“I can help you to,” Sam starts, desperate for some way to get through, to find Dean underneath this uncaring, cold shell of a man—demon.
Dean slams his glass down hard on the desk, startling both Sam and Crowley. He stares at Sam, and his jaw is set. The muscles in his arm are corded tight, making the mark ripple as he clenches the glass. It flares pink, like a new brand, and Sam knows it would be warm to the touch.
“I don’t want to,” Dean says lowly, almost a growl. “I don’t want your help.”
“I know that’s not true,” Sam tries, and he’s babbling now, sensing that his window of opportunity is slamming shut. “I know you love me, Dean, you always have, it’s who you are. We’re brothers, you can’t change that—I don’t want to change it, I never did…”
“GET OUT!” Dean shouts, and the mark is bright red now, throbbing. Dean slides the glass of scotch across the desk. It falls over halfway to the other side, liquor staining Crowley’s crisp white papers, flies off the edge and shatters on the mahogany floor.
Dean doesn’t spare it a glance; he’s glaring at Sam. “I know what you said and I know what you want—and now I want that, too, Sam. So get the fuck out and don’t come back.”
Crowley nods and two demons take Sam by the arms, pulling him toward the door.
“No! No, Dean, don’t do this—you can’t do this! Do you even know what you’re doing?” Sam struggles, but the demons are strong and there are more of them in the hallway, in the yard.
“I did what I had to,” Dean insists, and it’s so preposterous, words that have been thrown around by both of them again and again, echoed by Cas, by Metatron, by fucking Gadreel.
“You don’t have to do this!” Sam yells from the hallway where the demons have him now. The doors to the study slam shut, and he’s pushed toward the front door, into the courtyard. The demons are rough, but the pain of their grip on him barely registers. Sam has lost Dean, and the agony of that is far worse.
For 72 hours, Sam drinks himself into a stupor, first at a bar an hour or so from the mansion, then at a motel where he can alternate drinking and sobbing and falling into a fitful sleep, each time waking up from another nightmare to a blinding headache.
On the fourth day he drives back to the mansion. This time, he parks six blocks away and walks. It’s dark, but the mansion is brightly lit outside, floodlights and video cameras peppered throughout the perimeter. Crowley is a paranoid bastard. Even now, when he has virtually no enemies left, he’s well guarded.
There are small portions of the perimeter that aren’t illuminated as well as others, with thicker brush and taller trees, and Sam camps out there ten nights in a row, listening to bits of conversation from the demons on guard.
“Crowley says he’s almost ready. They’ll go after those stick-up-their-ass angels soon.”
“Gadreel?” the other demon asks, and she shakes her head. “Seems like a pathetic loser to me.”
“Don’t underestimate him. He managed to kill some significant players.”
Sam thinks of Kevin, and the look on Mrs. Tran’s face when she came to collect his ghost.
“He’s a puppet for that egomaniac nutcase Metatron,” the other demon insists.
“Just like Winchester is for Crowley,” the first one says, and they both laugh.
Sam’s fingers clench tightly on the handle of his gun, but he stays quiet.
In between eavesdropping, Sam surveys every inch of the property. He knows the sections of fence that would be easy to climb over or squeeze under. He knows which rooms have windows, and where those windows open out. He follows a driveway to the back of the property and down a steep grade to a delivery dock. Sometimes the door there opens and the demons toss some bodies out. On the other side of that door, Sam realizes, is the gymnasium where he watched Dean practice killing. A truck comes by to pick the bodies up every other morning.
And, every other night, a dark-blue van pulls up to the front gate and waits for the gates to open so it can drive inside. It’s hard to see from his vantage point in the brush, but Sam thinks there are usually a dozen or so demons inside. They’re herded into the complex, while the demons on guard snicker.
“Stupid bastards don’t know they’re just cannon fodder.”
“Better them than us,” the other one points out.
“True. I heard Crowley’s switching to humans on Saturday, though. Wants to test just how much of a demon Dean is, before they go after the angels.”
Time’s up.
That night Sam follows the van as it leaves, trails it all the way to a warehouse two hours south. Once the driver has parked and left, Sam picks the lock on the back door and opens it up. The empty van is lined with benches. No shackles, so the demons being transported must be clueless. Or terrified.
Sam doesn’t drink that day or the next. He makes sure he eats well, works out, sleeps eight hours. He makes three trips to the Walmart one town over, and spends more time looking in the mirror than he has in decades. His dreams are as violent as ever, but when he wakes on Saturday morning, he feels calmer than he has in months.
The blue van arrives right on schedule, pausing outside the gate. It takes Sam only seconds to open the back door and climb inside. The terrified people lining the benches shrink away from him, and nobody says a word as Sam takes a seat beside them.
The demons throw the doors open a few minutes later, hauling the people out and pushing them up the stairs and through the door. Crowley is nowhere in sight, and Sam breathes a temporary sigh of relief. His disguise is good—he’s been doing this for decades, after all—but he doesn’t want to take a chance. Crowley’s a smart bastard.
They go down the spiral staircase and are shoved along the hallway. The gymnasium is ahead, and Sam steels himself for what he’s about to attempt. He estimates his chances of success at less than 10%, but for Dean, Sam will keep trying until he’s dead. Which might be soon.
The demons open the double doors to the gym and herd the clueless humans in. There are eight of them in addition to Sam. Five men, two women, and a boy who looks about fourteen. Sam tries not to think about whether any of them will survive.
Part Four
Author:
runedgirlArtist:
chomaiskyPairing:Sam/Dean, minor Dean/OFC and Dean/OMC
Rating:NC17
* * *
Crowley is good at finding demons for Dean to kill. Sometimes they’re in league with Abaddon. Sometimes they’re his own, or they think they are. Doesn’t matter anymore, they’re all expendable. Means to an end. Abbadon has eluded them so far, but she won’t be able to forever. They’re getting closer.
He watches while Dean dispatches the last of them, adding two more headless corpses to the pile of six already at his feet. Dean’s stronger than ever, barely-reined-in fury as he swings the blade expertly, so quick and smooth that the demons fall to the ground still looking determined, thinking they’re about to get the jump on him. That’s less and less likely every day, every time they find another unsuspecting group of demons to practice on.
Crowley knows to make himself scarce afterwards, peering through the doorway as Dean circles the room, the whites of his eyes showing and his nostrils flared. The scent of sulfur is thick, and the scent of blood thicker, as he kicks the bodies, checking for signs of life. Crowley isn’t sure, at this point, what Dean would do if one of the poor slobs actually woke up, if a meatsuit survived being ridden for god knows how long. Soon it won’t matter to Dean, he thinks with a smile.
When Dean comes back to himself, Crowley’s waiting in the car.
“What’s happening to me?” Dean asks, and his hands are shaky, trembling on the wheel.
“You’re getting stronger. Getting ready to fight Abaddon. Isn’t that what you want? To send her back to hell—and then we’ll find that nasty Gadreel and the scribe, and teach them not to meddle with things they shouldn’t.”
“Gadreel,” Dean growls, and Crowley watches as his knuckles go white, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
“That’s right,” Crowley agrees. “You want to take him out, too, don’t you, Dean? For what he did to you—and to Sam.” Crowley can see the mark glowing through the cotton of Dean’s shirt, dull orange and throbbing. “Make him pay for the lies he told, for what that did to you and Sam.”
“Fuck,” Dean curses, and clutches at his arm.
“Drive,” Crowley urges. It’s getting too dangerous to goad Dean, the mark making him unpredictable. “Abaddon is close, and Gadreel will be our next stop after her.”
Dean turns the key, and the Impala’s engine roars.
* * *
When it becomes clear that he’s not going to catch up to Dean, Sam forces himself to stop and think things through. Despite weeks of research, he doesn’t know enough about the mark of Cain and what it’s doing to his brother. And there’s only one person who can tell him.
Finding Cain is easier than finding Dean and Crowley; he’s not particularly hiding, especially now that he’s freed from the burden of the mark for the first time in centuries.
He favors the country; Sam finds him in a stone farmhouse in Kansas. Of course it’s Kansas. Not that far from where they were born.
“Sam Winchester,” Cain says as Sam gets out of the car and walks across the lawn. The grass is long, but there’s a path of flagstones leading to the house. Cain is on the porch, like he was expecting the visit.
“I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“You, too,” Sam says.
Cain beckons him up the steps.
“So why has another Winchester invaded my privacy? I don’t have anything to give you. I’m just a man now.”
He motions to a rough-hewn rocking chair on the porch, and Sam sits down. Cain sits beside him, a glass of what looks lemonade in his hand. He doesn’t offer one to Sam.
“I’m looking for my brother.”
Cain takes a sip and looks out over the lawn. “You won’t find him. Not if he doesn’t want to be found.”
“He found you,” Sam reminds him.
Cain smiles a little at that, but it’s a dark smile. “That’s true,” he allows. “With a little help from the King of Hell.”
Fuck. Knew it.
“Tell me about the mark. What is it doing to him?”
Cain sips his lemonade and rocks slowly back and forth.
“Drains his humanity. Makes him a killer. Makes him forget whatever pain caused him to take it up in the first place.”
“Why him?” Sam presses. “Why did you give it to Dean?”
“Ah, that’s an easy one. Because he was worthy. So few men would have been. But your brother, Crowley was right about him.”
Sam wants to strangle Crowley with his bare hands. Instead he keeps talking.
“How does he give it up?”
Cain laughs then, tipping his chair back and looking at Sam.
“Give it up? There is no giving it up. He bears the mark until he dies—or finds someone else who’s worthy. But like I said, few men are. Most men couldn’t tolerate it, the burden would be too great.”
The answer hits Sam like a physical blow. Is this it? Dean stuck with the mark and Sam helpless to change it?
Cain abruptly gets up, taking the last sip of his lemonade. “Well, Sam, thanks for stopping by. But this is as much socializing as I can handle, and I’ve told you all I can. Good luck finding your brother. He’ll make a formidable leader for the Knights of Hell.”
“Over my dead body,” Sam answers, and Cain pauses.
“Perhaps,” he says. “Now, go.”
Sam is all the way to the car when Cain speaks again.
“You’re not very different from your brother, are you, Sam?”
“What?” What kind of question is that? They’re like night and day most of the time, Sam thinks.
“Two brothers, both worthy. Dean just got there first.”
Cain disappears into the house, and Sam gets back to driving. Cain's words ring in his ears, and Sam drives faster.
The dreams get worse as he gets closer, drenched in blood and deafening with screams. It’s like Sam’s back in the cage again, Lucifer tormenting him with visions of disemboweled and dismembered bodies. But this time it’s his brother’s form wielding the blade, killing without remorse.
Sometimes Sam gets a glimpse of Dean’s face, the feral smile that’s cold as a reptile’s, his eyes an expressionless black. Dean’s hands are red with blood, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up. The mark glows even redder than the blood, steaming with heat where it rises from pale flesh.
Dean never sees him, though Sam is always screaming.
Sam can feel the gravel under his knees as he falls to the ground, begging. The breadth of his brother’s shoulders and the bow of his legs as he walks away are familiar, but that’s all.
Sam wakes in a sweat, gasping.
He catches up in Morton, Idaho. Abaddon made her last stand there, and from what Sam can tell when he arrives the next morning, she put up a good fight.
He finds a dozen bodies, most of them decapitated. There’s blood everywhere, and the lingering smell of sulfur. There’s no trace of Abaddon herself, but that’s to be expected. Sam knows Dean was victorious, because Crowley told him so.
A single text, because Crowley is a dick and couldn’t resist crowing about it.
“It’s over. Abaddon is dead and Dean is mine. Until we meet again, Moose. Love, C.”
Well, fuck that.
Dean is not Crowley’s, or anyone else’s. Dean is Sam’s.
* * *
Crowley doesn’t try very hard to hide after that, though he does keep going west all the way to the coast. Sam drives the rental car right up to the seven-foot gate and waits. It takes three minutes for the buzzer to sound and the gates to swing open. Sam follows a winding, tree-lined driveway to an imposing grey stone mansion. He parks at the tiled roundabout, next to a cheesy fountain.
The front door swings open before he can knock, and a demon wearing an attractive female meatsuit waves him in. Sam wonders if an exorcism would free an innocent human, or if the person the demon’s wearing is long dead. Knowing Crowley, probably the latter.
“He’s in the study,” she says, and looks him up and down. “Good genes in your family, I guess.”
“I guess,” Sam says, and follows her down the hall.
Crowley is sitting behind a large desk, neat stacks of papers piled to one side. He smiles like he’s actually happy to see Sam.
“Moose! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Where’s my brother?” Sam demands, scanning the room. They’re alone. The other demon has left, closing the double doors behind her.
“Drink?” Crowley offers instead, pouring himself some scotch and holding a glass out for Sam.
“Where is he, Crowley?”
Crowley takes a sip and smacks his lips thoughtfully. “I don’t believe Dean wants to see you, Sam.”
“Really? Well, that’s too fucking bad, because I want to see him.”
Crowley puts down his glass. “That’s not what I heard. You were the one who set the terms, Sam. You were the one who said ‘not brothers.’”
The anger is simmering hot in Sam’s belly now, making his fingers twitch and want to reach for the gun at his back, blow Crowley’s smug face right off. “It’s none of your business what I said or didn’t say. Where is he, Crowley? Tell me, or you’ll be sorry.”
Crowley outright laughs at that. “Oh, Moose, you’re so hot when you’re mad. But haven’t you heard? I’m well and truly the King of Hell once again, and now I’ve got the Knights of Hell at my back. Dean made sure of that.”
It’s what Sam expected, but the confirmation still hits with thudding pain in his chest. “No.”
Crowley smiles. “Yes.”
It’s hard to think when his entire body just wants to do something, but Sam forces himself to stand still and stay calm.
“If you’re so sure of his loyalty, then why not let me see him?” he asks, finally, trying to keep his voice cocky instead of demanding. “What? Is the King of Hell afraid of a mere man?”
He doesn’t actually expect it to work; it’s too transparent. But Crowley is nothing if not predictable when it comes to his pride, especially with the Winchesters.
“My dear boy, I’m not afraid of anything. Not anymore.”
“Then let me see him.” Sam isn’t backing down. He holds Crowley’s gaze, a clear challenge.
Crowley knocks back the rest of his drink and stands up. “Fine. But you won’t like what you see, Moose.”
Sam’s heart is beating triple time as he follows Crowley down the long hallways, past sunny verandas with overflowing flower boxes and more tacky statues and fountains, past a cavernous library with thirty-foot stacks and rolling ladders and leather-bound books that look as ancient as Crowley himself. They descend a spiraling staircase, two stories down to where there’s a chill in the air and a faint smell of moist earth. Sam can hear sounds now, muffled and distant, thuds and scratches and shouts. As he gets closer, he identifies some of the sounds as human, or once human. There’s a scream, more thuds, and then abrupt silence.
They round a turn and the hall opens up into a gymnasium, ringed with a few rows of stadium seats. The wood floor is slick with blood, and a demon drags a body to a side exit, its head nearly severed, its eyes still wide open.
At the other end of the gym is Dean, the first blade in his hand, his bare chest and arms streaked with blood. He whirls as Crowley and Sam enter, scenting the air as he raises the blade, and his black eyes narrow.
There is no spark of recognition on his face, or in those expressionless eyes.
“Dean,” Sam says, and it comes out softly, aghast. “No.”
Dean takes a step toward them, his grip tightening on the blade. He advances like a predator, bare feet noiseless on the wood floor, his jaw set as he stalks forward.
Sam’s instincts kick in, fear tightening his spine and making his stomach flip. This is not Dean. This is his worst nightmare.
Crowley raises a hand, and Dean pauses. Sam can see him trembling with the effort of standing still, his upper lip curling in a snarl as his eyes dart from Crowley to Sam.
“Stand down,” Crowley orders. “At least for now. Sam has just come to talk, haven’t you, Sam? To make peace with the way things are now. We don’t have to kill him—at least, not right away.”
Dean lowers the blade a bit, but he keeps his eyes on Sam and the hand holding the blade still shakes. The mark glows bright red on his bare arm, angry and raised like a wound that will never heal.
“Dean,” Sam says again.
Dean growls. There’s no other way to describe it, and Sam wonders with a sense of abject horror if Dean can speak. If Dean can even understand him.
Crowley holds out his hand and nods at the blade. “Hand it over.”
Dean growls more loudly.
Crowley snaps his fingers impatiently. “I said, stand down and hand it over.”
Three demons appear from behind them and flank Dean, but none of them touch him. He snarls at them, too, and they flinch when he snaps his teeth angrily in their direction.
“Now, Dean,” Crowley orders.
Slowly, reluctantly, Dean extends his arm and lets Crowley get his hand on the blade. For a moment, they’re both holding it, Crowley pulling and Dean seemingly unable to let go. Finally, with another growl that sounds full of pain, Dean lets Crowley take the blade from him.
“That’s enough for today,” Crowley says, nodding to the three demons, who all look fearful. “Go help him wash up and meet us in the study.”
Dean blinks, looking like he’s not sure where he is or how he got there. Sam holds his breath, hoping for a sign that Dean recognizes him, but there’s nothing. One demon puts a hand on his shoulder to lead him away and he whirls on her and hisses. She nearly falls in her haste to get away from him, but he follows them to the exit where the bodies disappeared without looking back.
“I tried to spare you,” Crowley says when he and Sam are back in his study. “For old time’s sake. You and me, we go way back, after all.”
Sam picks up the glass of scotch he turned down before and takes a few fortifying gulps. Crowley pours himself another and refills Sam’s.
“Is he always like that?” Sam keeps his voice calm, conversational.
“When he’s holding the blade, he’s a bit…unpredictable.”
Sam raises an eyebrow.
“Can’t be helped,” Crowley says, waving a hand. “The more he kills, the better he is at it.”
“And the more he’s a demon.”
Sam wants to ask if all the bodies dragged from the gym were possessed, but he’s not sure he wants to know.
“Exactly,” Crowley confirms. “Glad you understand, Sam. No hard feelings.”
Sam wants very much to kill him.
Crowley’s saved by Sam’s last vestiges of good sense—and by Dean joining them in the study.
He’s got a tee shirt on, a clean pair of jeans and the familiar boots that he favors. There’s no more blood, but his eyes are black as ever.
“Say hello to your brother,” Crowley says, and holds out a glass of scotch.
Dean crosses the room and takes it, glancing briefly at Sam.
“I don’t have a brother,” he says, and half of Sam is overwhelmed with relief that Dean can still talk while the other half despairs at his words.
“Dean,” he starts, and Dean turns around and fixes him with a glare.
“I don’t have anything to say to you. You shouldn’t be here.”
So Dean does know him, then. Relief floods through Sam again.
“I have something to say to you. But I’d rather not say it in front of him.”
Crowley smirks. “Too bad, Moose. Whatever you have to say to Dean, just say it. As much as I enjoy ogling your impressive physique, Dean’s right. You shouldn’t be here.”
Again, Sam thinks about slicing through Crowley’s throat, wiping that smirk off his face. But the bastard holds all the cards right now.
“Fine. I just—I wanted to explain that I never—I never meant that we weren’t brothers, Dean. You have to know that. I just meant—I didn’t want you to excuse everything because we are. I wanted you to understand how much you hurt me.”
Dean is turned away from Sam, staring out the picture window that overlooks the courtyard. He gives no indication that he’s even heard.
“Dean, please—please try to understand. I just wanted you to say you were sorry.”
Dean finally turns then, his head cocked toward Sam, his black eyes blank.
“I’m not,” he says.
Even Crowley looks a little bit shocked.
“Maybe I was, before. Maybe. I don’t really remember.”
Dean shrugs, and holds his glass out for a refill.
“I can help you to,” Sam starts, desperate for some way to get through, to find Dean underneath this uncaring, cold shell of a man—demon.
Dean slams his glass down hard on the desk, startling both Sam and Crowley. He stares at Sam, and his jaw is set. The muscles in his arm are corded tight, making the mark ripple as he clenches the glass. It flares pink, like a new brand, and Sam knows it would be warm to the touch.
“I don’t want to,” Dean says lowly, almost a growl. “I don’t want your help.”
“I know that’s not true,” Sam tries, and he’s babbling now, sensing that his window of opportunity is slamming shut. “I know you love me, Dean, you always have, it’s who you are. We’re brothers, you can’t change that—I don’t want to change it, I never did…”
“GET OUT!” Dean shouts, and the mark is bright red now, throbbing. Dean slides the glass of scotch across the desk. It falls over halfway to the other side, liquor staining Crowley’s crisp white papers, flies off the edge and shatters on the mahogany floor.
Dean doesn’t spare it a glance; he’s glaring at Sam. “I know what you said and I know what you want—and now I want that, too, Sam. So get the fuck out and don’t come back.”
Crowley nods and two demons take Sam by the arms, pulling him toward the door.
“No! No, Dean, don’t do this—you can’t do this! Do you even know what you’re doing?” Sam struggles, but the demons are strong and there are more of them in the hallway, in the yard.
“I did what I had to,” Dean insists, and it’s so preposterous, words that have been thrown around by both of them again and again, echoed by Cas, by Metatron, by fucking Gadreel.
“You don’t have to do this!” Sam yells from the hallway where the demons have him now. The doors to the study slam shut, and he’s pushed toward the front door, into the courtyard. The demons are rough, but the pain of their grip on him barely registers. Sam has lost Dean, and the agony of that is far worse.
For 72 hours, Sam drinks himself into a stupor, first at a bar an hour or so from the mansion, then at a motel where he can alternate drinking and sobbing and falling into a fitful sleep, each time waking up from another nightmare to a blinding headache.
On the fourth day he drives back to the mansion. This time, he parks six blocks away and walks. It’s dark, but the mansion is brightly lit outside, floodlights and video cameras peppered throughout the perimeter. Crowley is a paranoid bastard. Even now, when he has virtually no enemies left, he’s well guarded.
There are small portions of the perimeter that aren’t illuminated as well as others, with thicker brush and taller trees, and Sam camps out there ten nights in a row, listening to bits of conversation from the demons on guard.
“Crowley says he’s almost ready. They’ll go after those stick-up-their-ass angels soon.”
“Gadreel?” the other demon asks, and she shakes her head. “Seems like a pathetic loser to me.”
“Don’t underestimate him. He managed to kill some significant players.”
Sam thinks of Kevin, and the look on Mrs. Tran’s face when she came to collect his ghost.
“He’s a puppet for that egomaniac nutcase Metatron,” the other demon insists.
“Just like Winchester is for Crowley,” the first one says, and they both laugh.
Sam’s fingers clench tightly on the handle of his gun, but he stays quiet.
In between eavesdropping, Sam surveys every inch of the property. He knows the sections of fence that would be easy to climb over or squeeze under. He knows which rooms have windows, and where those windows open out. He follows a driveway to the back of the property and down a steep grade to a delivery dock. Sometimes the door there opens and the demons toss some bodies out. On the other side of that door, Sam realizes, is the gymnasium where he watched Dean practice killing. A truck comes by to pick the bodies up every other morning.
And, every other night, a dark-blue van pulls up to the front gate and waits for the gates to open so it can drive inside. It’s hard to see from his vantage point in the brush, but Sam thinks there are usually a dozen or so demons inside. They’re herded into the complex, while the demons on guard snicker.
“Stupid bastards don’t know they’re just cannon fodder.”
“Better them than us,” the other one points out.
“True. I heard Crowley’s switching to humans on Saturday, though. Wants to test just how much of a demon Dean is, before they go after the angels.”
Time’s up.
That night Sam follows the van as it leaves, trails it all the way to a warehouse two hours south. Once the driver has parked and left, Sam picks the lock on the back door and opens it up. The empty van is lined with benches. No shackles, so the demons being transported must be clueless. Or terrified.
Sam doesn’t drink that day or the next. He makes sure he eats well, works out, sleeps eight hours. He makes three trips to the Walmart one town over, and spends more time looking in the mirror than he has in decades. His dreams are as violent as ever, but when he wakes on Saturday morning, he feels calmer than he has in months.
The blue van arrives right on schedule, pausing outside the gate. It takes Sam only seconds to open the back door and climb inside. The terrified people lining the benches shrink away from him, and nobody says a word as Sam takes a seat beside them.
The demons throw the doors open a few minutes later, hauling the people out and pushing them up the stairs and through the door. Crowley is nowhere in sight, and Sam breathes a temporary sigh of relief. His disguise is good—he’s been doing this for decades, after all—but he doesn’t want to take a chance. Crowley’s a smart bastard.
They go down the spiral staircase and are shoved along the hallway. The gymnasium is ahead, and Sam steels himself for what he’s about to attempt. He estimates his chances of success at less than 10%, but for Dean, Sam will keep trying until he’s dead. Which might be soon.
The demons open the double doors to the gym and herd the clueless humans in. There are eight of them in addition to Sam. Five men, two women, and a boy who looks about fourteen. Sam tries not to think about whether any of them will survive.
Part Four
