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“I’m proud of us.”
Six weeks ago, Sam had wished with ever fiber of his being for those to not be the last words his brother ever said to him. At the time, he couldn’t imagine anything more painful than those four simple words being born into the world on the last breath of the person who meant more to him than anything. At the time, he was willing to do anything to bring his brother back. Now, he would do almost anything to take that wish back, because the words that came after had been more painful than he could have possibly imagined.
“Sammy let me go”
The note had been left on an empty bed that had, mere hours before, held a corpse. Sam hadn’t even noticed it at first; he had been too busy tearing out of the room and racing through the bunker, calling out Dean’s name. It one only when he reached the garage and found the Impala missing that he had returned to his brother’s room and found the scrap of paper. Without punctuation, the note could be read as either a plea or a rebuke, and every time Sam picked it up, he saw it differently. But no matter how many times he returned to his brother’s room for the note, it got him no closer to understanding what had happened to Dean, or figuring out where he had gone and why he had left, or if the force that had written that note and driven away from the bunker in Dean’s car even was his brother any more.
“Right now, I am doing all I can not to come over there and rip your throat out. With my teeth.”
Sam hadn’t been sure what to expect when he walked into that bar. “The only demonized soul inside Dean is his and his alone,” Crowley had said, and though Sam knew that was probably the best-case scenario, he wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. And for the first few minutes, it didn’t seem like it meant much. Seeing his brother sitting there, alive and whole, Sam could almost believe that nothing truly bad had happened. That Crowley had heard his summons, and done as he had asked, and that it really was his brother sitting there.
And then Dean had spoken to him, and the entire conversation had gone downhill from there. He wasted no time in admitting that he had left of his own free will, that he had no desire to be cured, and that he would not be leaving without a fight. He asked if Sam was going to kill him, though he obviously knew the answer, and mocked Sam’s resolve to bring him home. Well before the gas grenade through the window chased Sam out of the bar while Dean sat unaffected by the cloud of acrid smoke, Sam knew that his brother was gone, and he would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that he was more than a little terrified of the lengths he might still have to go to to get Dean back.
“And what I’m going to do to you, Sammy? Well, that ain’t gonna be mercy either.”
The last time Sam had been in the driver’s seat of the Impala, it had been his brother’s body in the back seat, lying peacefully under a blanket, eyes closed as if he had just fallen asleep. It had been easier that way; easier to make the long drive back to the bunker without breaking down completely, without finding himself unable to go on, if he could just pretend that Dean was sleeping, that everything was going to be okay as long as he could get his brother home.
This time, it’s also just his brother’s body in the back seat, handcuffed to the door, eyes boring into the back of Sam’s skull. It’s easier this way; easier to pretend that the monster he is bringing home isn’t really his brother, that the things he’s saying are just the demon talking, and not the man. But it’s not as easy to pretend when every glance in the rearview mirror reminds him of the truth, or when every word out of the demon’s mouth sounds exactly like something Dean would say. And Sam believes every word; Dean is not going to make this easy for him.
But all he wants is his brother back. Whatever happens to him, whatever Dean does or says to him, none of that matters as long as, once this is all over, Dean is standing on the other side of it, alive and human again.