Chapter Text
Hours later, at dusk, they were sitting side by side on the Impala’s hood, looking out across gently rustling rows of corn. A trick of the light had painted the stalks with red, and Dean supposed that it would have been beautiful, if he hadn’t already seen enough of that color lately. All those years of hunting and he had never known until now that blood came in different shades. Depended on how much there was, and how fresh. He’d become a goddamned expert on the subject over the last year.
So he turned his head away from the setting sun, to look at Sam instead: Sam, sitting beside him, eyes on the corn, mind elsewhere. Dean looked only a moment before dropping his head down to stare at his hands because looking at his brother wasn’t any easier. Damn it, why couldn’t Sam have left it alone? He was never supposed to know. If Rachel found out … No, don’t go there, Winchester.
Dean clenched his hands into fists. Even if Sam somehow had managed to find out, he was supposed to end it. Not play medic for a murderer. Not wince and cry while he cut the bullets out of Dean’s side. Not lean Dean against his chest while they waited for his body to heal.
Dean wished like hell for what had to be the thousandth time that Dad was there. He would have done what needed to be done, no dithering about it. Hell, John Winchester never would have let things get this far.
But as angry as he was—at the bitch, at Sam, at himself—Dean couldn’t manage to blame his brother for anything. He’d walked into this all on his own by keeping his mouth shut about those damned incubus bites until it was too late. Even after, when he was in Lawrence—fucking hate that town—kneeling in the basement with Rachel smiling down at him, he could have said no.
And maybe he couldn’t end it himself—wasn’t allowed to end it—but he could have gotten someone else to pull the trigger. Bobby, maybe, or some nameless hunter from the Roadhouse. But no, that would be letting the bitch get away with it, and he still hadn’t quite given up the hope that he was going to get the chance for a little payback someday. Rachel would do well watch the fuck out if that time ever came because Dean didn’t think he had many scruples left. She’d stripped them away.
She’ll bleed. Bitch is gonna bleed for this. It had been his personal mantra since Max. Between that promise to himself and the knowledge that Sam was safe and happier than he’d been in a long time, Dean had managed to cling to sanity while wading waist deep through madness. Thoughts of Sam grinning, laughing—Sam during those three days they’d spent at Disney World after Dean had spent a particularly bad three hours with a man in Arnette, Texas—kept him from putting his fist through the mirror when he looked into it in the morning.
“Why Elise Tallahause?” Sam asked suddenly.
Dean hunched his shoulders in a shrug. “Why anyone, Sam? Probably looked at the bitch funny on the street or something.”
He saw Sam shake his head at the edge of his vision. “No, Dean. You said it yourself: it was personal with her. Think, man: did Rachel ever say anything—do anything—that might have indicated why that was?”
“She doesn’t talk to me, dude. We’re not sitting over there having a few beers together. She calls, I show up, she gives me the name and I leave.” And sometimes I tell her to go fuck herself and we head downstairs for a little quality time. God, he hoped Sam hadn't caught any of that in those dreams of his. Dean couldn't decide what was worse: Sam sneaking around in his head and getting a glimpse of all the blood he’d spilt, or Sam sneaking around in his head and seeing his sessions in the basement.
“That’s first, then,” Sam said. “We need to find out why Rachel targeted her.” Then, in a rush: “And you aren’t going back there again.”
Dean grimaced and pushed himself off the hood. He’d known this was coming. “I don’t really have a choice here, Sam.”
“We’ll work something out, okay? We’ll—Hell, I’ll knock you out and tie you up if I need to, but you aren’t—I can’t just sit here and let you go back to her, Dean.”
Dean laughed humorlessly. “Only one way to stop me, and you made it pretty clear that you aren’t willing to do what it takes.” Dean thought that he might hate his brother a little for that.
“No. There has to be another way.”
“You think I haven’t tried?” Dean demanded. He had. After she’d started giving him human targets he’d tried like hell. Alcohol didn’t do anything but make him more susceptible to her call: he’d been halfway to Lawrence before he sobered up, swerving the Impala all over the road. Miracle he hadn’t hit anyone. Drugs had worked for a little while, but he had to sober up in order to score when his stash ran out, and a minute of conscious thought was too long. She hadn’t been pleased when he finally showed up that time. Had done things that left phantom twinges of pain in him for weeks afterwards, even with his new regenerative ability. It had been worth it, though, to see the look on the bitch’s face. To know that he could do something, no matter how small, to inconvenience her.
But Sam was frowning stubbornly, and Dean knew that his brother could be worse than a mule when he put his mind to it. “I’ll find something,” he said. “We’re going to try Missouri first, maybe she can do something.”
“I can’t go back to Lawrence, man. I think the bitch can feel me when I get close enough. Hell, maybe she can sense me everywhere. If she doesn't already know something's up, she will if I go back there on my own, without her jerking the leash."
“Okay.” Sam nodded. “Missouri can come to us, then.” He was already pulling out his phone and flipping it open. Dean put a hand on his brother’s arm and was shamefully grateful when Sam didn’t flinch away.
“Not here, okay? We can call her, but not …” He wouldn’t look at the house. At the old dog that had been sitting on the front step waiting to go in for a few hours now. “Not here.”
Dean didn’t know if Missouri could do her thing long distance over the phone, but if she could he didn’t want her stumbling into this mess. Not while it was still fresh, still pressed against his skin. Not while he could still feel Landon’s fingers curled around his wrists, Landon's last breaths against his face.
Maybe she’ll end it, he thought suddenly. Missouri wasn’t hooked into the hunters the way some of their contacts were, but she knew enough to find one if she needed to. And when she found out what Dean had been doing—what he’d become—then maybe she’d turn him in to be hunted down like a rabid dog. Best not to get his hopes up, though, and doubly best not to let Sam know what he was thinking because then Sam wouldn’t call her at all.
But the idea that Missouri might not be on the “Sure, Let’s Help Dean Out” Bandwagon obviously hadn’t occurred to Dean's brother, because Sam just nodded and said, “Yeah, okay.”
Sam insisted on looking at Dean’s back again when they finally stopped driving at two in the morning and checked themselves into a fleabag motel in Colorado. Dean put up with his brother’s prodding for a few minutes and then ducked away, pulling his shirt back on.
Sam frowned at him. “I wasn’t finished, Dean.”
“Yeah, you were.” Dean flopped down on the bed and pressed his back firmly against the headboard. Sam poking at the tattoo hadn’t hurt, precisely, but it had felt damned strange. Dean had felt something moving inside him when Sam was running his fingers across his shoulder blades: something unfolding just below the skin. It was the sensation that came to him every time he killed, and to have it surface when it was Sam standing behind him—Sam’s hands pushing against that goddamned tattoo—made him sick to his stomach.
Sam was staring at him beseechingly, and Dean shook his head. “I mean it, Sam.”
“Fine. I’ll have Missouri look when she gets here.” Sam had called while Dean was in the office renting a room.
“You do that.” As if it would make any difference.
“Dean …” Sam’s head drooped, helplessly. “Why didn’t you tell me, why didn’t you …” He swallowed.
Dean’s heart clenched and his stomach heaved. He’d almost told Sam a million times—God, he’d wanted to—but … ‘Oh, and Dean? You tell Sam about this and I’ll keep you here. I don’t need to let you stay with him, now do I?’ And there had been hints of more, whenever he was close to cracking: hints that, although she couldn’t do anything to Sam directly, there were always ways around that: plenty of ways for someone as resourceful as she was. Someone who was on tea-cozy terms with the yellow-eyed son of a bitch.
“I couldn’t,” he said finally. “She would have—at first I didn’t know how bad it was, thought I could fix it without dragging you in, and then, later ... later it was too late.”
Sam’s jaw worked and Dean glanced around for a distraction—something, anything. He saw the remote for the twelve inch TV sitting on the nightstand next to him and grabbed it, flipped the TV on to what promised to be a riveting infomercial on the Wonder!Sponge. Sam stepped in front of the TV and snapped it off.
“Oh, come on. Give me a break here, dude!”
“We have to talk about this, Dean.”
“Already did. Now, you want to get out of the way, Gigantor? I think I recognized that model from—”
“Please. I can’t just … Dean, you—you’re not okay, man. And I’m not talking about the supernatural stuff. You need to talk about this, about those peop—”
“Oh, just shoot me already,” Dean snapped irritably, and then realized, too late, as Sam’s face crumpled, that he probably should have said something else. He sighed, but Sam was already slinking over to the other bed and laying down in it, curled up on his side and facing away from Dean.
“Hey,” Dean said. “I didn’t mean it, okay?”
Sam snorted in derision, but the noise came out sounding a little choked.
“All right, fine, I meant it. But I didn’t mean it now. Sam, I just don’t … I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to tell me what’s going on in your head without me having to drag it out of you for once. I want to know what you’re feeling without you getting all sarcastic on me.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I think I know what I want, Dean.” Sam had rolled over and was looking up at him, eyes wide and red. Kid had spent way too much time crying today.
“Bullshit. You’re just looking for more shit that you can feel guilty about. This isn’t your fault, Sam. It’s a cosmic joke. God woke up one morning and said, ‘hey, I haven’t fucked around with the Winchesters lately. Let’s see what I can whip up.’”
“I brought you—”
“Damn it, Sam! What’s it gonna take to get through to you? You think I haven’t known exactly what I’ve been doing? It was my choice, Sam. Mine. You don’t get to take that away from me.”
“She never gave you a choice, Dean,” Sam said quietly.
And that was it. Dean had gotten real good at not thinking about it: he’d taken everything he’d done, everything he’d been forced to do, and sealed it away. Not a perfect job, maybe, but good enough to get him through the day: to keep him moving. Now Sam had to go and pick at the scab, trying to rip through to the raw wound underneath. He’d manage it, too, if Dean didn’t get away from him soon, because for all the walls Dean had built up around himself over the years, he’d never figured out how to keep Sam on the other side. Squirmy bastard kept slipping through.
Dean shoved off the bed and grabbed his keys, sitting there on the motel table. He heard Sam sit up behind him and ignored his brother as he threw the little he’d unpacked back into his bag.
“Dean? What’re you doing?” A little boy’s voice, that, no matter how deep. The voice of a chubby five year old who wanted to know why God couldn’t bring his mommy back if he asked real nice. Dean remembered what he’d said, then.
‘God’s not real, Sammy. He’s just some story people make up so they can feel better about themselves. And you don’t need him anyway. We’ve got Dad. Better’n God any day.’
‘An’ you, right, Dean?’
‘Yeah, sure. Me too.’
“Dean?”
Dean snapped back to the present and said, coldly, “This isn’t working. I’m getting another room.”
“You can’t just walk out on me when you don’t want to deal with something!” Oh, Sam was angry now. Better than that hurt, frightened voice he’d been using before, though.
“Funny, that, coming from you.” Dean finished packing, zipped his bag up and slung it across one shoulder. Felt the old argument slip into place easily. An oldie but a goodie. Never wears out. It had been a while since he’d brought it up, though. Took Sam a second to register what he meant.
“What are you—” Then, as he got it: “Damn it, that wasn’t the same! I wasn’t running away, Dean, I was heading toward something.”
Dean shrugged. “Looked the same from where I was standing.” He was headed for the door now, not turning back, because he couldn’t look at Sam right now. Too raw, too empty. Maybe bringing Stanford up hadn’t been such a hot idea.
“Don’t you do this,” Sam ground out. “You can’t just use my going to college as some kind of out this time.”
Watch me. “I’ll try not to kill anyone else before Missouri gets here.” Dean slipped out of the room and slammed the door behind him. He jogged across the parking lot, to the relative safety of the front desk, but Sam didn’t follow.
Missouri showed up two days later: it had taken her some time to clear her schedule and get the things she thought she might need together. Sam hadn’t really told her what was going on over the phone—hadn’t known how—but he’d given her a rough outline. Some kind of compulsion on Dean. Didn’t know what the thing was that had put it there. No, they couldn’t come to Lawrence. He’d tell her when she got there.
So, two days of sitting in the motel room staring at a staticky TV and trying not to think of Dean three doors down doing … Hell, Sam wasn’t sure what Dean was doing other than drinking. Heavily. And not talking to Sam. Sam had tried calling a few times and given up when all Dean had to say was, “Is she here yet?” He could have gone over there, pounded on Dean’s door until Dean let him in so they could talk, but God help him, he didn’t want to.
It wasn’t that he blamed Dean for what he’d done—how could he, when Sam was the one who was responsible for the whole mess in the first place? Since the shock of that first day had worn off, he’d been sickened by what his brother had done, but not by his brother, which was a distinction that he wasn’t sure Dean was in the frame of mind to catch. Sam had an inkling that it would only get worse if he actually got Dean to open up and talk to him, and he didn’t know what was going to show on his face. Funny, really, that Sam could lie his ass off to any of the hundred of strangers they met and couldn’t, for the life of him, school his face when it came to Dean, while Dean was probably one of the world’s worst liars when it came to everyone but, apparently, his little brother.
So when the knock came on his door, brisk and business-like, accompanied by that deceptively soft voice calling out, “Sam? I know you’re in there, boy. Open up right this minute,” he was off the bed in a second and flying across the motel room. He threw open the door and dragged Missouri inside, bent almost in half trying to hug her. Good thing Dean wasn’t there; Sam’d never live it down. Missouri patted him on the back and then wrapped her hands around his arms and moved him, gently, back to arm’s length away. She hadn’t been smiling, but as she studied him she began to actively frown.
“Missouri, I—”
“Hush, boy. And try to calm down. You’re wound up so tight right now I can’t get anything off you.” She stared at him for a moment longer and then sighed, dropping his arms. “It’s no good. I’ll try again later.” She peered around him further into the room. “Where’s that brother of yours?”
Sam’s throat clenched. “He’s in number 5.”
Missouri raised an eyebrow at that. “He left you in here all alone? What’s going on, Sam?”
Sam told her what he could bring himself to tell her, which wasn’t a lot. He told her about the Aspect of the Demon, and about Bobby calling with Rachel’s name. About the ritual, and how Rachel had called Dean later. That she was in Lawrence, which was why they hadn’t been able to go to Missouri. That Rachel had done … things … to Dean. That she wanted him to do … things … for her. At which point, if Missouri had been Dean, she would have snorted and asked if he could vague it up a little for her. As it was she looked more than a little annoyed and worried.
“She’s powerful strong, to be so close to me and not have me sense her. You’ve no idea what she is?”
Sam shook his head. “None.”
“Does Dean?”
Sam started to say no, then hesitated. Finally answered, “Some part of him does, I think, but he doesn’t want to admit it. Back when this all started, he said that he saw what she was when that thing was possessing him, but that he forgot, after. I think maybe he made himself forget, so he wouldn’t have to know.”
Missouri sighed. “How that boy can hide so many things from himself, I don’t know. Well, no use putting it off. Let’s go see him.”
Sam opened the door for Missouri and then jogged to Dean’s room, where he tried to patiently stand still when Missouri took her time following. His stomach was turning over in knots. This was it. She was going to be able to help—had to help. Because Sam had no fucking clue what to do if she couldn’t.
He let Missouri knock on the door.
There was the sound of something breaking from inside the room, and then a muffled curse. Missouri raised one eyebrow and knocked again, more insistently.
“If tha’s you, Sammy, you better haf tha’ nosy bitch with you or I’m ‘a come out ‘n ki-kick yer ass.”
Sam winced at the look on Missouri’s face.
“Dean Wichester,” she snapped. “You open that door this instant or so help me—”
She didn’t get to finish because Dean pulled the door open before she could. He stood in the doorway, holding himself up using the doorframe and squinting at the daylight. The room behind him was dark and stank as though Dean had been pouring liquor on the floor rather than imbibing it. Sam pulled back a little from the fumes.
“S-Sorry. You here t’ turn me o’er to the posse?” Dean let go of the frame with one hand to mime a gun. Shot it and made a little ‘pow’ sound. It might have been funny if Sam hadn’t just figured out what had been going through his brother’s mind—too little, too late again.
Dean had let Sam call Missouri in because he thought she’d sic the hunters on him. The thought had never occurred to Sam, but now it was all he could think about. Oh, God, he’d done it again. He’d betrayed Dean. It was too late to get Missouri away from his brother—their faces were inches apart, she had to know …
But Missouri’s face only registered disgust. “Boy, you’re a damned fool.” Then, dismissing Dean, she turned to Sam. “Get him cleaned up, and then bring him back to your room. I’ll order some coffee.” Then she turned her back on both of them and walked away muttering about ‘stubborn Winchesters’ under her breath.
Leaving Sam staring at his brother. Dean just blinked up at him, pupils blown wide.
“You asshole,” Sam said, finally.
“Whasamatter, Sammy? Got ‘cho pannies in a twist?”
Sam shoved Dean, hard enough that his brother lost his grip on the door and toppled back into his room. Steeling himself against the smell, Sam followed quickly, then almost fell over himself. God, the fumes were strong. He kicked the door shut behind him and they were in the hot, semi-darkness. Dean had all his curtains drawn tightly shut.
“Dammi’, Sammy! Made m’ fall.”
Sam could hear Dean trying to get back to his feet and, as he flipped on the light, could finally fully see his brother. It was like looking at a train wreck. Dean was wearing sweats and a t-shirt. Stains, old and new, coated them. His hair was matted and looked slick with sweat. There were dark circles under his eyes and his skin was too pale.
“You look like shit,” Sam said, tersely.
Dean just scowled, finally having crawled to the bed. He was using it to get back onto his feet.
Sam let his eyes travel over the rest of the room and his stomach clenched. God, there was … there were … there had to be at least thirty liquor bottles lying around, most of them empty. The hard stuff. More than half those bottles had contained Everclear. Sam hurried over to Dean and hauled him up by his shirt. Dean swatted at him, missing widely.
“How much did you drink, Dean?” He shook his brother lightly, trying to get him to focus. “How much of this shit is in you and how much is on the floor?”
“Mos’ of it.”
“Which? You or the floor?”
“Me. Thing I dunno how to hol’ a bottle?”
Sam swore. “We have to get you to a hospital, Dean. Come on.”
“M’ fine. Jus’ … jus’ gimme a few minnuts.”
“You’re not fine, Dean. You drank—Jesus, I don’t know how much you drank. We have to get your stomach pumped before—”
Dean shoved at him, connecting this time. “Be fine. ‘S a poison. C’n han—handle it. Han’le more.”
“What? Oh, never mind. Shut up. Where are the keys?” Keys, keys. He had to get Dean to a hospital, now.
Dean frowned and staggered over to the head of the bed. Reached under the pillow and pulled out his knife. Drew it in one long motion across his arm before Sam had realized what he intended to do. Sam lunged across the room, grabbed Dean’s wrist and twisted, making him drop the knife. Then he snatched his brother’s other arm and stared down at it. The only sign of the cut was a smear of blood and a red line that faded even as he watched.
Dean pulled his arms back, rubbed at the blood with his thumb, then held his thumb up in Sam’s face. “See? Pis-poison’s the same. Hels—heals fast. Alc’hol’s pois’n.”
Oh. Oh yeah, right. Sam hadn’t forgotten about that because it wasn’t everyday you sliced open your brother’s stomach to pull out some bullets and then watched it heal up half an hour later, but … yeah, okay, he’d forgotten.
He stared at Dean, who was blinking back at him with bleary eyes, trying to get a grip on his anger. As though they didn’t have enough problems, now Dean had to indulge in a little binge drinking. But then he lowered his gaze and the smear of red on his brother’s arm was an accusation. After all, he’d left Dean alone to do this to himself, hadn’t he?
So Sam tried to sound at least halfway civil when he said, “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
He got Dean in the bathroom, turned the shower on and set the temperature, then tried to help Dean get his clothes off and into the stall—‘C’n wash myself, man, Jesus’—and then picked up the room a little. Found some clothes in Dean’s bag and took them outside to air them out for a few minutes, which did wonders for the smell.
An hour later Sam had Dean cleaned and dressed and sober and was seriously considering just loading him in the Impala and running. Missouri hadn’t gotten a good look at Dean yet. Maybe they could just get out of there before she found out what was going on: before it was too late. But really, Sam had already told her too much. And the Impala was parked right outside Sam’s room: she’d know if they tried to take off. Besides, there was no way he was going to get Dean to run.
“I won’t let them kill you, Dean,” Sam said before they headed over.
Dean just smiled at him, a little sadly. “You say that like you’ll have a choice.”