(reposting because LJ decided the last chapter was too long...)
Title: Fade To Black (Not While Your Hand’s In Mine) - Epilogue
Rating: NC17 for sexual content and violence
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/demon!Dean, Sam/Dean/Ruby
Sam’s been working on it for more than two decades, though he can’t say even now why he’s sure it’s going to work, and he hasn’t managed to really convince Dean. The spell is old magic, so old it took Sam most of the first decade just to track down anyone who remembered the right words, and Ruby about a hundred trips across the globe to find them once Sam had names and places. They talk to people – and
not people – who Sam would have sworn he’d never seek out, unless it was to damn them to somewhere where they’d never be able to hurt anyone again. He meets their eyes easily when they see his physical form now and think he’s weak, isn’t afraid to call on what’s inside him, the power rarely used but never forgotten, and Sam can’t help but smirk when they do what he asks.
The improbability that they’ll actually figure it out and find it all binds the two of them, the shared quest a link between Sam and Ruby almost as tight as the one she inked into Sam and Dean so many years ago, and Sam appreciates Ruby’s tenacity in a way he never would have otherwise. That same refusal to give up and give in that let her hold onto a scrap of humanity sends her out the door and across the ocean time after time, and Sam learns to ignore the curses she throws his way as she’s leaving, the synonyms for fool she grumbles over her shoulder.
She lays down what she’s found each time she comes back. A tiny hipbone from a jungle species indigenous to what’s now a bustling metropolis, and Ruby’s eyes flash with something like pride as she unwraps it for Sam’s inspection, knows he gets how near to impossible it must have been to find it now. The crumbling-almost-to-dust parchment with the last five words, buried for so long Ruby couldn’t lift it with fingers once she’d finally found it, had to scoop it up like a not-quite-done pancake with a shovel as spatula, and she carried the box balanced flat and even all the way back from the middle east desert. The very last ingredient comes just in time, a vial of blood that Ruby works under Sam’s skin, and Sam won’t answer Dean’s growled demands to know how they got it, won’t be intimidated into talking about deals when they both know Dean would do – has done – the same in Sam’s place.
He doesn’t tell Dean that this would only work for him, that the curse of demon’s blood Azazel gave him as a baby turned out to have an improbable silver lining, and who would ever have believed that? Sam wishes he’d known, all those years when he felt like a freak, fought the difference inside him, strived so hard for normal. The irony of it makes him smile, even as the tightness in his chest is making it harder to breathe.
The spell is specific. They need to wait, respect what’s natural even as they’re ready to go against it a moment after and turn the order of things on its head. Unnatural is what their life has been ever since Sam can remember, and there’s no regret in him at all as he faces what’s ahead. Dean runs his fingers over the lines of the new tattoo, like he’s hoping to feel its power, his green eyes glittering with warring emotions, desperate hope and an agony of sadness.
Johnny and Jen are here, little Dean a rambunctious eight year old, and his little brother trailing him and looking up to him like he’s the most amazing thing ever. Sammi’s brand new Mary, blonde like her mother and skeptical like her father, is in her mother’s arms, playing with the hair on Sam’s arm as they sit by his bedside. Glen’s at work, ringing Sammi’s cell every so often for an update on Sam’s heart and how long it’s going to keep beating.
“You remember what I promised, right Dad?” Johnny says, and his eyes are red but full of determination. “We’ll take care of him.” Sammi backs up her brother, like always, makes sure their Dad knows.
Sam smiles, quiet because it’s getting hard to speak and he needs to save what’s left for Dean. He hasn’t told them, doesn’t want them to be hopeful just in case. Not sure they’d even understand completely why he has to do this.
Ruby catches his eye from across the room, and Sam knows she’s ready, believes this will work. She nods, knows like he does that it won’t be long now. Knows her part, and Sam trusts her to do it, just like she set the beginnings of his plan under the brothers’ skin so many years ago. It will work. He knows it.
Dean comes back with a glass of water and a straw, holds it to Sam’s mouth, and their kids and grandkids drop back to give him space. His hand is shaking, and Sam can feel him strain to hold it together. His eyes slide to black and back to green, and he tosses his head, impatient with himself. “Sam,” he whispers, leaning in, his amulet brushing against Sam’s chest, and Sam can hear the catch in his voice. “I can’t do this. Not without you.”
Sam reaches out and finds his brother’s hand, entangles their fingers and squeezes weakly. There’s not much time, and he needs Dean to believe in one more miracle. After all they’ve seen, everything their life has been, is that too much to ask?
“Dean,” he manages, his voice forced out in a whisper but his eyes clear and locked to his brother’s.
“If hell couldn’t come between us, what makes you think heaven can?”
Link to Sequel:
Black Is The Color Of My True Love's Eyes![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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