Chapter Text
It all starts with a telephone call.
Sam is alone in the hotel room, and he knows better than to answer the phone, of course, but Dean has gone out without him, and maybe he feels a little petulant, a little lonely, or maybe he just decides he ought to, so he picks it up on the second ring, says, "Hello?"
For a moment there's only static, and Sam has a second to think, oh shit, because he's so been here before, with the ghostly phone calls, and then sure enough, his father is saying, "Sammy, Sammy, listen to me."
"Nice try," Sam says, "but my dad's dead twice over," and the line seems to click into place.
"Okay, so that was a little obvious," Lucifer says, "But you get the idea. You could get him back. Third time's the charm," he adds, and chuckles.
"Try a new song," Sam says quietly, twisting the cord of the old fashioned phone. "This one's getting old."
Lucifer just laughs again. "It's a classic number, Sammy. Don't you think it's what Dean really wants? To have his Daddy back? You can make that happen, buddy. You can set everything right."
"Hell no," says Sam, because his careful making up with Dean is still fresh and fragile, and bringing back someone else who has historically given him a hard time about his every life decision isn't even remotely tempting.
"Don't worry," says Lucifer, "I'll figure it out. What's a lock without a key?"
The line goes dead.
After, Sam sits on the edge of the bed for a long time. He can't say for certain whether or not Lucifer's right, but he does seem to have a pretty solid point. Sam tries to come up with some positive life example of his winning out over temptation.
There was junk food, which he'd given up in high school, when he realized he just couldn't keep up with Dean at shotguns and ripping off vampires' heads. That lasted maybe a week before the lure of chips and burgers and soda defeated him.
He'd given up alcohol once, too, after cleaning up a sloppy drunk Dean one too many times. This ended up not being feasible when he realized that then he'd have to watch Dean get sloppy while he remained sober. So, that didn't last long.
There are other things, of course, girls he couldn't have, masturbation, occasional instances of stealing or cheating.
Really, his track record is not good. Interestingly, it's mostly Dean's fault. In fact, entirely, amends Sam, who hasn't had dinner, just had a chat with Lucifer, and is feeling really pretty crappy.
There's that whole demon blood thing, too, but Sam would really rather not think about that at all.
The wind picks up outside, a reminder that this time, they have a room on the end of the motel, and Sam shifts restlessly. It feels strange, this exposed wall. It's the least constrained room he's seen in a while, and yet he's never felt so trapped.
He wonders how Lucifer can call him, if he can't find Sam. Will it happen again, once he leaves this room?
In another lifetime, Sam would've come up with some big, intellectual plan, and been ready with diagrams and helpful internet FAQs waiting for Dean when he got back. In this lifetime, he settles for getting as completely drunk as is humanly possible, then passing out on Dean's bed.
**
Dean comes home halfway through the night. His cheeks are stained red, either with liquor or cold. Sam rolls over a bit, just enough to watch him drop his coat and a six pack on the hotel room desk, and toss his keys next to the pile.
Dean sits down next to him, and gives Sam an irritatingly cheerful nudge. Sam groans. His head's gone thick, and Dean smells stale, sour with sweat and beer. He's been at a bar.
"Hey Sam," Dean says, and nudges him again. "Sammy." His voice is soft, warm, round with promise.
Sam groans and rolls over completely. Dean won't give up, not when he's in a mood like this. He gets wild and speculative sometimes, late at night and fresh from a hunt or a shakedown. It makes him almost difficult to look at, with his feelings and desires filling him up nearly to the bursting.
It's times like these, when Dean is all warm and open, that make Sam want to beg him to stay here forever, all wide eyes and unfamiliar weather, and let someone else worry about the apocalypse while they work on cars and maybe learn to cook.
"Got a lead," Dean says, and Sam stares down at Dean's hands, clasped loosely in his lap. His knuckles are red, the skin taut and calloused. He's tapping one blunt, squared off finger against his lower thigh.
"What'd you find?" Sam asks, and sits up, righting his t-shirt where's it's gone twisted around him. He feels a little short of breath.
Dean leans over to unlace his boots, and the lamplight flickers as it passes over the workings of muscle and bone of his right forearm.
"A lot of hunters are thinking it's almost time," he says, and his tone is shockingly conversational.
"They're all gearing up for the fight," he continues, and though his voice is still calm, something about him is going all intense, excited.
"There's a rumor that some of them are on the trail of a special weapon."
Sam's stomach is tight. "The colt?"
Dean shakes his head, and the corner of his mouth is curved just slightly, carving out his laugh lines. When does Dean find the time to laugh?
"Something else," he says, and now he's really grinning. "Something bigger."
"Who else is after it?" Sam asks, because maybe they can just have it. Maybe one of the angels can take care of this, or something, and Sam can go back to school and make Dean fix up that shack of an off-campus house Sam used to walk by on his way to class, and they can keep the fridge fully stocked and he can crack Dean up with stories about his poetry class and Dean can say things about sorority girls that he doesn't really mean.
But Dean just smirks and says, "Doesn't matter. We're gonna get there first." He shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it past Sam, tucks a finger under the v of his t-shirt neck-line and pulls it downward, pulling at the cotton with an expansive sound of pleasant fatigue. "Get some sleep, we're headed out first thing tomorrow."
Sam thinks about protesting. He seriously entertains the thought for a moment, but he already knows Dean wouldn't understand his reluctance to leave, that it would just start a fight that he wouldn't really be able to explain, so instead he just pulls off his shirt and starts on his belt-buckle and asks, "Where're we going?"
"California," Dean sing-songs, as though this is some kind of vacation, and when Sam stands to shuck his pants, Dean gives him a cheerful shove toward his own bed, and turns out the light before Sam's head has even hit his pillow.
**
Then they're driving, have been for days. They enter California somewhere above LA, and Dean tells Sam that they're heading north along the coast. It's late afternoon, and much cooler than anyone ever thinks California would be, but Sam keeps the window down and thumbs the volume knob of the stereo up to a dull roar.
He's stretched out in his seat as the music blasts over and through him, his face thrumming with the force of the bass. Dean, beside him, is more serene than he's been in ages, driving with a supreme confidence that encompasses everything Sam knows about his brother. He drives with his whole body, and he's so relaxed, languorous, never anxious, because he always knows exactly what the car's going to do, long before it happens. There's something incredibly sensual about it.
Dean will never admit to any of this, of course. If Sam asks how he drives so well and Dean doesn't just crack a joke, he'll inevitably say, "I drive," and turn the music back up, end of conversation. He's always like that, always thinking much more than he likes to pretend he does, always far more aware than he'll admit.
For the moment, the worry lines have fallen free of Dean's face, and he seems oblivious to any world that might exist outside his car as he slowly nods to the music and cups the steering wheel warmly, almost lovingly, keeping time with the flat of his palm.
It's a warm, soft, close sound, and it resonates deeper in Sam's chest than does the music itself.
A day or two ago, somewhere between Arizona and New Mexico, Sam acquired a gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach. Of course, in the one situation where Sam really wants him to ask what's wrong, Dean is oblivious; although to be fair, Sam's really past the point of any casual conversation beginning with, "Oh, forgot to mention, Lucifer called the other night."
Dean's just starting to look at him without being all wounded about it, and Sam is certain that he'll lose any shot at Dean ever treating him like an adult again if he tells him about this now. Besides, it would only make things more awkward, talking about how Little Sammy's bound to crack.
He must have fallen asleep at some point, because he wakes up to find that the car isn't moving, and Dean's telling him to get up, get out of the car, and he's got that burstingly full look that makes him look so young.
Sam's first instinct is to make for the weapons, but Dean laughs, deep and hearty and honest, and takes him by the shoulders, palms warm and fingers outspread. He turns Sam around, and then Sam sees.
It's night now, and softly warm. The air would be thick, unbearable, during the day, but now it just presses softly, cushions them as they stand. They're pulled over on an overhang of rocky turf, and the ocean is spread out before and beneath them. Sam can see the rocky, circuitous route that they'll continue to take, and it hits him how high up they are, on this path atop a cliff, and they could almost be the only people in the universe right now. Sam wishes fiercely that this was true.
Dean's looking oddly at him, and Sam realizes that his breath is coming in short gasps, and Dean must be able to hear his heart, it's pounding so fiercely.
"Let's find somewhere to eat," Dean says, breaking the spell, and Sam feels as though he might cry.
They find a little seaside diner that's open all night. Dean orders surf and turf, and he's disgustingly pleased about finding it on a diner menu. "California," he keeps saying, in this eyebrow wiggling thumbs-up kind of way. Sam realizes that whatever they're looking for, Dean really thinks it's going to work, and suddenly he has to know why.
The lights in the diner are harsh, and Dean's squinting against them, gesturing with his forkful of shrimp as he tells some anecdote about a bar fight or something. Sam finishes off his burger and wipes a slow hand across his lips, leans back in his chair and looks up at Dean through half-closed eyes.
"Lets go see the beach," he says, and of course Dean likes this idea.
The diner is placed along the road, above the shore, but the drop doesn't look too deadly, so they trip and slide down the slope to the level of the ocean. Then, it's a short hike across a salt-bleached field of thick stalks of something that looks like wheat, and they emerge out on the waterfront, where the sand pulls at their feet and moving becomes far more of an effort.
They stop to unlace their shoes and cuff their jeans, then, with a shared glance, pad over the coarse sand, riddled with pebbles that catch under the balls of Sam's feet and make him shudder, cold and slick and pressing intimately into the tender regions of the soles of his feet.
The water is cold, wincingly, bitingly cold, but neither of them retreats. Dean's still got that wild, jubilant look on his face, and Sam shoves his hands in his pockets and tucks his neck toward his chin, and asks, "What, exactly, are we looking for?"
Dean's gone all still and calm, and he's looking out at the horizon line, and when he speaks, it's soft and slow.
"It's a cup," he begins, and lifts his hands above his head, stretching his shoulders in a ripple of fabric and muscle, highly casual. "You drink from it, you become a champion in the fight against Lucifer."
"Okay," Sam says, just as casual.
"Look, I know it sounds crazy," Dean murmurs, "But even Bobby thinks it's worth a try."
Sam doesn't bother to hold back the bitten lip at the admission that Dean's still consulting with Bobby before he talks to Sam. Dean smiles gently, though, as if he could soothe away the sting with that look.
"Supposedly it belonged to Jesus. But, you know, that's probably just a story."
Then Sam's pitching himself to the ground, into the surf, and he's laughing and laughing, strident in the quiet of the night, and Dean's standing over him and he's laughing too, and Sam can see that he's been waiting for Sam to ask him about this for a while.
"What? He asks innocently," and offers Sam a hand up.
Sam doesn't take it. "Dean," he says, raising his voice over Dean's laughter, "Just to be clear, we're looking for the fucking holy grail?"
Dean doesn't answer.
2+2=5
Are you such a dreamer?
To put the world to rights?
I'll stay home forever
Where two & two always
makes up five
I'll lay down the tracks
Sandbag & hide
January has April's showers
And two & two always
makes up five
It's the devil's way now
There is no way out
You can scream & you
can shout
It is too late now
Because
You have not been
paying attention
I try to sing along
I get it all wrong
Ezeepeezeeeezeepeeezee
NOT
I swat em like flies but
Like flies the burgers
Keep coming back
NOT
Maybe not
"All hail to the thief"
"But I am not!"
"Don't question my authority
or put me in the dock"
Cozimnot!
Go & tell the king that
The sky is falling in
When it's not
Maybe not.
(From Green Plastic Radiohead)