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It wasn’t raining, but it was damp. Dry lightning and thunder tore their way through the sky like loud twins throwing a tantrum. The dampness seeping into Dean’s old bones wasn’t the only thing keeping him awake. The adrenaline running through his veins to his very core kept him going. “Sam is going to die.”
On a damp Spring evening, the rubber of the Impala’s wheels screeched while Dean maneuvered the old girl down the bendy road leading up to the Church. He couldn’t get that bitch’s voice out of his head.
“Sam is going to die. Sam is going to die. Sam is going to die. Sam is going to die.”
He whipped the car around, slamming it into park and getting jostled forward so fast his head nearly hit the steering wheel. He practically flew out of the car, running straight through the dirt cloud 3500 lb beast of a car kicked up when it roared into the parking lot.
He fell running up the stairs to the Church, ripping his hand open. He didn’t feel the hot pain, only the blood dripping down his hand. Blood would be spilled on the floor if he didn’t move quicker.
He threw himself into the Church, he tried to shout but the words wouldn’t leave his lips. He practically threw his body against the door, not even bothering to turn the handle. The screws had a weak hold to the door’s moldy frame and it popped right open.
He moved as quickly as he could to Sam, the glowing figure on the ground -- falling to his knees on the floor, not even registering Crowley’s sobs. He picked up Sam and his head fell backwards, the sickly body being too light for the 6’5 man, all while feeling like a million pounds in Dean’s arms.
Dry thunder and lightning cracked like a whip in the sky above, soon Dean felt that lightning beneath his own skin. He sneered looking up at the cross. “YOU BASTARD! WHY ISN’T ANYTHING HAPPENING!?” He screamed at the symbol on the wall and pulled Sam’s body closer.
His voice broke whispering phrases that not even the reaper’s closing in could understand. He held Sam’s head up, trying to convince himself that Sam was sleeping. “No, there can’t be nothing Sammy. You can’t die for nothing. Please Sammy.”
The sky lit up, and for the first moment Dean thought it was lightning but no. Angels fell to the Earth like meteorites. Just as the ground began to shake. Whispers flooded Dean’s ears.
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas omnis incursio infernalis adversarii. Omnis legio! Omnis con... potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii. Omnis legio! Omnis congregatio et secta diabolica! Ergo, Draco maledicte et omnis......legio diabolica, adiuramus te! Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii. Omnis legio! Omnis congregatio et secta diabolica! Ergo, Draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica, adiuramus te!”
And again, and again, and again, and again. Until the whispers became screams. Dean’s ears bled and the ground shook. The sky lit up and the angels fell. Crowley sobbed because he could feel his soul again. And somewhere on the earth Castiel felt dirt under his fingernails like the dirt that would befall to his reputation.
This wasn’t a win, it was the furthest thing from it.
The drive back to the bunker was quiet, no music, no insults about said music being thrown his way. He yearned to be forced to turn down his music so he could hear Sam’s ‘according to the lore’ statement. He wanted to scream ACDC’s ‘Back in Black’ on the top of his lungs driving back to the bunker with beer in the backseat. But this wasn’t just a drive back to the bunker, it was Sammy’s last drive back to the bunker, more accurately, his corpse.
Naomi’s voice still rang crystal clear in his head, louder than the wedding bells from Sam’s wedding two years ago. “Sam is going to die.”
His ears still rang from the exorcism that practically attacked him when the gates closed. His finger still felt heavy from when he pulled that trigger. The blood on his hands and face were crusting to his skin. Despite all of that, he still felt empty.
He couldn’t look to his right, he couldn’t bear it, but his eyes kept being drawn to the glowing light under Sam’s skin. He wanted to flay that skin, to claw the energy out from underneath it. Sam was dead but those fucking trials still lived on in him.
It made him sick, this all made him sick.
The silence was deafening enough, the presence of Sam’s body in the passenger seat made him want to crash the car, but the worst part of it all was the fact that he was alone.
No Cas, no Sam, hell he could’ve even really used his dad right now. He wished he didn’t pull the trigger, that Crowley was in the side seat with him. That made him violently sick, to prefer the king of Hell’s company to being alone.
He wanted to call Abaddon, to beg her to end him, but he couldn’t even do that because she was with the other demons, clawing to get out of the gates that Sam just shut.
He felt sick.
His knuckles were white in contrast to the black steering wheel. The steering wheel he wanted to yank in the direction of a tree. He pressed the brakes and slammed the poor car into park once again.
He threw open the door and fell onto the side of the road, heaving heavily. He stumbled a little further and fell down again, turning onto his back and looking up at the stars. The stars that looked so ironically beautiful. “I can’t do this.” He whispered to nobody but the crickets and the fireflies, as the world faded out of view. The crickets filled the dead silence with their own symphony.
When he groggily woke up he was still on the side of the road being greeted by the sun right over him. He felt like there was an elephant on top of him but still empty inside. The sun beat down on his skin and the parts of him that were exposed were a light shade of pink. There was no telling how long he was asleep.
After what must have been an hour he got up and walked over to the Impala. If he had anything left in his stomach he’d have thrown up again. After crashing on the road all night and afternoon with the black Impala in the sun it felt like an oven inside the car. With the added factor of the time, things began to get messy since Sam’s body was already rotting.
The glowing from the trials was gone, being replaced by the grey complexion that every corpse sported within being an hour or two old.
He climbed into the car and started it up again. He still had a few more miles until he got to the bunker, who was he kidding? A few miles was an understatement.
He felt relieved, pulling up to the bunker; but he was quickly hit with the haunting realization of his next task, getting Sam prepped for the funeral and getting a funeral pyre ready.
He climbed out of the car and as slowly as possible, walked to the other side. He opened the door and Sam’s body nearly fell out. Quick to catch it, Dean once again was reminded of the toll of the trials, he was way too light.
He pulled the corpse out of the car and set it on the floor. He shut the car door and headed back to Sam.
He lifted him up and began to carry him but he stopped when he heard a clatter on the floor. He set Sam down and picked up the cassette tape that had fallen. ‘DEAN.’ it said on the side in Sam’s angry handwriting. He stuffed the tape in his pocket and continued with the task.
The fire from the funeral pyre burnt high and free, the opposite of Dean’s expression and demeanor. He was tired, he could barely stand. But he stood, he felt he owed that much to Sam.
He dragged himself back into the bunker, which was a mistake if you would’ve asked him. He only saw Sam.
Stepping into the war room he saw Sam, asleep.
He walked into the library, and all of a sudden remembered when Sam was a little healthier. On one of his better days when Dean actually caught him dancing around the library to a song from Mulan that he couldn’t remember.
The kitchen where they decided to bond and make cookies but it resulted in a fight where both the brothers were covered in flour and choking on it with their laughter. The kitchen where Sam would geek out about history over a spaghetti dinner that the two shared one night after Dean made the mistake of bringing up Napoleon.
The halls where Sam laughed uncontrollably after Dean crashed into a wall singing ‘Eye of the Tiger’
It wasn’t quiet anymore and Dean missed it, because all he heard and saw was Sam. Sam’s laughter, his annoyance whenever Dean pissed him off, the few times when Dean got Sam crying. He remembered hearing the doors opening and closing at three in the morning because Sam was running around collecting books after he got some genius idea.
He held his head, punching it and bending over. “Stop it.” He started to beg, remembering when he chased Sam with an electric razor as a joke. “Stop it! Please…” He continued to beg, tears running down his face.
He was tossed back into another memory, with Sam in the shooting range. “Whoever can kill more targets has to buy dinner.”
“FUCKING STOP IT!” He screamed, collapsing to his knees.
He was brought to the library, the night he actually started a conversation about mom, “You think mom would’ve liked this place?”
“Sammy… please.” His voice broke.
It stopped.
On his knees in the hallway, dried blood on his hand and face, charcoal on the tips of his fingers from cleaning up after Sam’s funeral, two day old clothes sticking to his skin like a prison, he felt the pressure of the sun’s gravity on him, all while his chest was hollow- empty inside.
He got up, he couldn’t rest just yet.
Walking to his room and kneeling- no, dropping to the floor. He pulled the cassette out of his pocket. He sighed and he put it on his thigh, taking his cassette player out. He hesitated, but he put the cassette into the player, inevitably pressing play. It wasn’t like his memories, he didn’t have to beg, he could just press stop and play, this was safe.
“Hey Dean.” He heard Sam’s voice, quiet and he already felt tears welling up in his eyes. He didn’t know how much he cried today, too much. “If you’re listening to me, then I guess I’m dead. Either that or I was shit at destroying this cassette.” He heard a bitter laugh. “But I’ve always been kinda shit, huh?”
“Sammy no…” Dean started. “It’s over for me, I think I’ve known that since it started to get bad. Maybe I was in denial, maybe it was hope; I think it was a bit of both.” Dean fell silent, listening to Sam’s voice.
“But I’m not gonna throw a pity party, I-” Sam interrupted himself, falling into a coughing fit. How could Dean forget just how sick he got towards the end? The third trial must’ve been torture. “-I want you to know, despite how much we fought; that I love you. That if you were here I’d be hugging you….” He heard Sam begin to cry, but that mantra was the same on his part.
“Dean, I’m scared. I don’t wanna live but I don’t know what’s happening to me.” Dean felt like he could climb back through time and hold his brother, but he couldn’t, all he had was a cassette tape, the only thing left of Sam besides the memories. “I know that if I were still alive, we’d probably be on the road again, in the Impala. Fighting monsters or just chasing the sunset to feel alive, y’know? Like the one time that me, you and dad chased that rainbow in Illinois.”
He remembered that day, all of them frantically trying to find it, not caring about monsters for once, only trying to find the end of a rainbow. “We never found the end of that rainbow.” Sam continued. “Not like I’m finding my end right now.”
“I know this, I know that if you’re listening to this tape, that you’re still alive. And I want you to keep going. If anybody can, it’s you, Dean.”
“I can’t Sammy.”
“Yes you can.” He heard the cassette recording of Sam counter, almost psychically. “I don’t know how you will, but do what makes you happy. Do what keeps you safe. And don’t you dare blame yourself for what has happened. This was my choice, and it had nothing to do with your actions. I love you Dean, I love you so fucking much. I made the world safer, and I want you to take advantage of that. Go on that vacation we talked about. You and Cas, toes in the sand Hawaiian shirts, the whole shebang. You two have earned it.” He heard Sam coughing again.
“Leave me dead if you can. Those are my only requests, leave me dead and live on. Can you do that for me, Dean?”
“Yeah, yeah I can.” He said to the cassette player, voice breaking as more tears spilled down his face.
The cassette player stopped, and Dean shook it. “Sam? Sammy?” He called out, shaking the player some more hoping that it was something wrong with it. But the recording ended there, that was it, there was no more. “I-I love you too, Sammy.”
And so he sobbed, shaking uncontrollably, dried blood on his hand and face, charcoal on the tips of his fingers from cleaning up after Sam’s funeral, two day old clothes sticking to his skin like a prison, he felt the pressure of the sun’s gravity on him, the mystery his mind playing on him finished, it had ended, but he didn’t want it to end. It couldn’t have ended.
Up in Heaven, Gadreel stood in front of Metatron. “I was the one who made the angels fall, even the ones in prison.” He said, much to Gadreel’s shock. “It was you-” “Yes, but I can’t take all the credit, Castiel played a huge part. With a little manipulation, but he still played his part. He said, getting up.
“If that doesn’t sway you I know what will, follow me.” He said, walking through the hallways. “As the angels were falling, the gates of Hell were shut, by none other than Sam Winchester.” Metatron explained.
Gadreel had heard that name before, but he couldn’t quite put a meaning behind it. “Sam’s older brother, Dean, and his friend Castiel, have this nasty habit of doing whatever possible to bring him back. Like a very tall cockroach, if that makes sense.” He explained, headed towards the dungeons.
“I hope your trauma from Heaven’s dungeons doesn’t impact you too much, it would be a shame if you didn’t let this sink in.”
“What are you playing at, Metatron?” Gadreel finally snapped, getting tired of Metatron’s games.
Metatron stopped in front of the first cell, a few doors down from where Gadreel used to be kept, he was anxious and scared, he hated it here.
“There are quite a few people who would just love to get their hands on him, or his soul. Including people who can give us enough power to rebuild everything in Heaven. You see Gadreel, I hold all the cards.” He said.
He stepped back to reveal the soul of Sam Winchester, chained to the wall of the cell, head hanging low, symboling he was unconscious. “This is our ticket, Gadreel. The last soul into Heaven was none other than the boy with the demon blood.”
Such a shame, the things that Sam was used for, truly. The way Dean was left on the floor after hearing what was on that tape was also heartwrenching, and the stuff Dean did as a result, god, you don’t even want to know. Dean received closure, you, unfortunately won’t. You see I wouldn’t be a good story teller if I didn’t leave at least one mystery, would I?