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The temperature has plummeted when Dean returns to the car, cold enough that he plunges his hands into his coat pockets without thinking about it. This morning, it was hot enough to strip down to just their dress shirts in the car. By noon, Sam had basically sweat through his, and Dean kept the windows in the car down. The heat made it harder to concentrate on keeping Michael out of his conscious mind because everything was so sticky and muggy and uncomfortable, and Michael’s banging and pleading grew from a headache to something intelligible, something that sounded a lot like a human voice screaming: I know what you’re planning. It won’t succeed. The headache grew and mounted and by the time they got here to see Donatello, it felt like someone was taking fingernails to the soft flesh of his brain.
But it’s still early spring, so the temperature goes way down with the sun, and it’s a relief — the chill and the way he was able to do a little bit of good before he dies. Really it’s all he’s ever wanted.
Sam’s leaning against the car, watching his breath crystallize in front of him. He’s got a beer in his hand and a look on his face that’s completely unreadable. Sam doesn’t drink very much any more, not in years. He’ll nurse a beer for hours and leave it half empty to let Dean finish. He’s always been something of lightweight, especially for a man his size, and they haven’t had a chance to eat today, and Sam hasn’t been out here on his own for more than two minutes, and the way he’s holding the beer can makes Dean think that it’s basically empty. Not that Dean can blame him, or has any room to talk, but Sam’s been hard enough to deal with sober today.
A twinge of guilt, quiet quip. “Where’s the party?”
Sam tosses him a beer deftly, still staring straight ahead of him, past Dean, voice flat.Dean leans back next to him, cracks open the beer. It’s a shitty brand for a shitty day, and Dean would prefer to spend the last few hours he has left as a free man sober. It’s a first for him, but having his mind and body taken over has given him a new perspective.
“Right here.”
Sam’s looking anywhere but at Dean, and when he speaks again, his voice has that unsteady tenor of a man at his limit. “I mean we’re celebrating, right? But not too much.” A hollow empty laugh, and Dean angles his body to look at Sam. He knows what’s coming next, all the little snide remarks all day, all week. “Tomorrow — we’re back on track. No rest for the self destructive.”
Dean wants to argue. What, does Sam thinks this is easy for him? That he relishes being trapped in a confined space with an archangel until the earth turns to ash? He wants to say — This is the last thing I want. He wants to tell Sam about his dreams of suffocating, of drowning, how in those dreams he thinks for a second that he’s in that pine box in Illinois again and he has to claw his way out, and they’ll have to do the whole apocalypse over again, and he’ll have learned nothing. Sam will still lie to him about the demon blood and Ruby and he’ll still fail Sam in every imaginable way, and at the end, Sam will still go to Hell. He doesn’t say it; he says something else, raising the beer can to his lips. It tastes like shit.
Whatever he says, it triggers something in Sam. Sam — pushing himself off the car, fighting to keep his voice even, looking at him, looking right at him with those eyes. His brother’s sad, earnest eyes, brow furrowed and saying all the words Dean knows Sam’s been trying to keep to himself for the last few days. Dean can’t look at him, but he knows, he knows what he’ll see if he turns his head even a fraction of an inch.
“Are you sorry that after all these years, our entire lives, I’ve looked up to you, I’ve copied you, I - I followed you to Hell and back? Are you sorry that all that means nothing now?”
Hell and back, he thinks, like a gut to the punch. “Who’s saying that?” Hell and back. He does turn to look at Sam now. Surprised to see him angry, drawn up to his full height. He tries not to think about Sam’s Hell. They both try all they can to not think about Hell.
“You are.” The particular set of Sam’s jaw he would get when he was gearing up to fight Dad. When he knew that he wasn’t just right but that he would win. There’s always been a righteousness to Sam’s anger, Dean remembers. Dean used to cower from it, especially when Sam was fifteen, sixteen years old, and Dean wanted nothing more than the three of them to go back to how it was before, when before was a more of a dream than a reality. Before — before Sam got so goddamn difficult, like Dad would say after finally caving to whatever it is that Sam wanted. Once, Sam got them two extra months in a town he particularly liked, where he finished eighth grade. Another time, he convinced John to go the hospital after a nasty hunt, going so far as to almost wrench the backseat of the car door open and threaten to throw himself out — because then he wouldn’t have a choice. Everyday there was another fight. Usually it was over something stupid (Sam sat in the car in Texas in August for three hours because he didn’t want to eat at a diner again and refused to go in; seventeen and skinny and the beginning of his week long hunger strike — John didn’t cave that time, Sam did), but always the same shining eyes and indignant grimace. The belief that he was right. It’s been a while, it’s been years maybe, since Dean’s seen that look on his brother’s face.
“We’re the guys who saved the world, we don’t just check out of it!” Sam shoves him.
It shocks him, forces him to look at Sam. He feels like his father. Like John must have felt every time he was faced down with Sam, wiry but certain.
“I have tried everything!” Dean insists. It feels like the truth in the face of Sam’s accusations that he hasn’t done enough. Dean never understood as a kid why John couldn’t let it go. He would sit in the passenger seat while Sam and John screamed at each other for over an hour at a time, sometimes about the life John dragged them through, sometimes about the music he played, and Dean just wanted to sink into the leather and disappear, cover his ears and drown them both out, or cry Let it go, Dad, please! But he couldn’t do that then, because the one time he tried John fixed him with a stare so cold that Dean felt himself turn inside out, like John was seeing right into him, like he could see the fissures in his soul that were left when Mom died that never got filled in quite right. He didn’t get it then. He gets it now. There’s something about Sam — about his face and his voice and the shape of his hand over Dean’s heart. It’s impossible to let go.
It’s impossible for either of them to let go. Sam keeps pounding on Dean’s chest like he can beat the sense into him, motion erratic and desperate, his voice climbing higher. He huffs, trying to catch his breath. “I believe in us, Dean.” His own name is prayer on his brother’s lips. He didn’t want to tell Sam. He couldn’t make Sam do this, and he couldn’t face him. He can’t face him now.
Sam’s fist makes contact with his cheek, and the shock of it dulls the pain. He can’t think of the last time Sam hit him. He’s looking back up at Sam, trying to put this all back together. Sam drinking alone, the dark circles under his eyes, his hair sweaty and matted on his forehead even though it’s below fifty degrees. Sam’s been unraveling for months, and Dean’s about to pull on the last stitch holding him precariously together. Sam’s gearing up for another swing, but Dean’s ready for it this time, grabs his fist. Sam makes some wild choking sounds the part of Dean’s brain that isn’t preoccupied with keeping Michael at bay registers as aborted sobs, and all Dean can think about is making sure Sam doesn’t look at him like that ever again — desolate, wild eyes, face pink from keeping himself from crying. Sam collapses into him, heavy and solid. Cheek to cheek, chest to chest, Sam grabbing fistfuls of Dean’s jacket like if he lets go Dean will disintegrate. Dean’s afraid to let go, afraid that the wild beating of Sam’s heart will accelerate and Sam will slip from his grasp. Sam keeps grappling with Dean’s jacket, raking his fingernails against Dean’s back through his clothes, like it will keep Dean here with him. Dean has the very real sense that he’s literally holding Sam together.
He closes his eyes. He can’t do this to him. Damn the consequences. They’ll be terrible and dire. People will probably die. They don’t learn and they probably never will, but it’s better than this, it’s better than Sam coming apart at the seams and Dean not being around to stitch him back together. “Let’s go home,” he says to Sam’s shoulder, because he can’t say it to Sam’s face. “You heard me, let’s go home.”
They disentangle. Cas has joined them, but Dean doesn’t have the energy to spare him. He’s going to live to regret this. He knows this. He reaches up a hand to touch Sam’s cheek, chiding, but Sam’s succeeded, because Dean’s going to live, and the relief he feels is all his. He’s going to live, and he knows how to live with regret, better than anyone.
He watches Sam climb into the car, tucking his broad shoulders to fit inside. Dean takes a moment to himself as Cas gets in the backseat. The cool spring air has lost lost its rejuvenating effects. He’s just tired, and Michael has started his banging again, ramming himself against every corner of Dean’s skull, whispering to him in Dean’s own voice: You should have gotten rid of me. You should have gotten rid of us. You shouldn’t trust your brother. You should have gotten rid of me. Sam curls up against the window and closes his eyes. It’s like thirty minutes to the bunker, and Sam plans to sleep for every one of them, if he can, but the tension doesn’t leave his face. Dean sighs, realizes again how much he missed while he was trying to deal with his self-created archangel problem, get in and starts the car.
The ride home is awkward and quiet. Sam has his back to Dean, staring out the window, still sniffling. Cas doesn’t say a thing, and Dean digs his fingernails into the leather of the steering wheel. He wants to say something, anything, but it’s hard to concentrate on stopping when brake lights pop up in front of him and he’s still got an archangel banging away in his skull, like the pumping of blood in his ears — only off beat and louder. He hates driving in traffic, any traffic. Even just stopping behind two cars at a red light. The other cars are giving him and his trailer a wide berth, and he keeps forgetting that he’s got the box towing along behind them and taking the turns to fast, jostling it. Each time he does, Sam gasps sharply and from the corner of his eye, Dean can see Sam’s shoulders tense a little more. He doesn’t relax them again, so that by the time they’re parked in the garage, Sam’s basically curled in on himself in a tight nervous little ball, and Dean can’t help it, the way it loosens something tight in his chest, to see his kid brother superimposed on the grownup world-weary features of the gigantic man who’s been sitting in his passengers’ seat for the last fifteen years. Lately, if he really thinks about it, Dean’s been seeing a lot more of that Sam. Dean doesn’t know if it’s their old age or all the shit they’ve seen or something else entirely that’s been turning Sam into this quiet, unsure creature he is now, but he still doesn’t have the words to ask.
Cas is gone, his shoes clicking down the halls, maybe to find Jack. He turns the lights off in the garage at the doorway, forgetting Sam and Dean entirely, leaving them sitting in the dark. He never got the hang of living with humans. Or maybe Cas knew it would be easier to ask what needs to be asked in the dark, to move Sam from his hunched position and mold him back into something human shaped if no one could see the transition, not even Dean. Dean doesn’t have the words to talk to Sam. He probably never will, but it is easier in the dark to reach out and touch Sam’s back, pretend to ignore the way Sam flinches at the contact.
“Hey, you asleep?” Dean asks. He won’t remove his hand from Sam’s back until Sam tells him to. The banging in his head quiets a little as long as he can feel the warmth radiating from Sam through his coat, the rise and fall of his unsteady breath. They’re alive, which is always a step up for them. As long as they’re alive, things can get better, and Dean stops himself from thinking about how they can also and regularly do get worse.
“No.” Sam’s voice is hoarse and quiet, but it’s certain in a way that Dean didn’t even know he was longing for until tonight, until Sam came at him with long overdue anger.
“Aright,” Dean grunts. “Come on, let’s go.”
Sam doesn’t move, so neither does Dean. He counts the breaths before Sam says something else. Twelve. In and out. In and out. The expansion of his ribs in his chest, of Sam’s back against his hand, makes Michael’s voice, grown to bellows, quiet again, or at least, easier to ignore. “Dean.” Sam says at last. A long pause. “I’m sorry, man.”
“For what?” It comes out sharp, but Dean knows for what. For doing exactly what Sam always does, which is hanging on when the circumstances seem impossible.
“For falling apart.”
“Yeah, well…” Dean coughs, rubs Sam’s back without thinking and Sam relaxes his shoulders a fraction of a percent when he does. “I woulda done the same, if things were in reverse. Hell, I woulda locked you in your room until you gave in.” Sam huffs. He doesn’t think it’s funny, which is good because Dean isn’t joking. It’s always like that with them. Dean making all the decisions for the both of them. What Sam can and can’t live with, how and when Sam’s allowed to sacrifice himself. “Look, Sam.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Whatever you’re about to say. Dean, I’ll figure this out. I promise.” Sam sounds sure, but he’s still turned away from Dean.
“That’s not what I was gonna say.”
This makes Sam straighten up, turn around. It’s cramped in the car, but there’s no place else they could talk about this. It’s unlikely to work out that stoop in Sam’s shoulder either — a change of scenery. “What were you going to say?”
“I was gonna say —” Dean coughs again. Michael is laughing at him, a bitter, echoing laugh that says that Dean’s a fool for trusting his brother. “That, uh. It’s not fair, ya know. That you’re always the one who’s keeping the faith. So I’m gonna try harder.”
“Yeah, whatever, Dean.” Sam sighs long and heavy and stretches, so Dean pulls his hand away at last, even though it feels wrong. “You’re always saying that.”
“I mean it this time.” He does, or at least, he feels a lot more serious about it. Than he did ten years ago before he let Sam throw himself into Hell, or when he lied about it when Sam was walking around with the devil riding shotgun and he wore his Hell wounds raw and bleeding for the whole world to see, or any of the other times he tried to promise to them both that he trusts Sam, that he trusts Sam like he’s the grown man he is — the grown, competent man, who’s there to help Dean carry his shit just like Dean wants to help with Sam’s.
“You always do.” Which might be true or might not be. “I just want you to know — I’m not being selfless here. I can’t do this without you.” Whatever this is. With that, Sam gets out of the car, disappears into the shadows of the bunker, leaving Dean alone in the dark with Michael, cracking into the weak parts of his skull.