Title: One Year, Four Months

Disclaimer: Written for fun, not profit. Lyrics belong to the credited artist.

Summary: Sam/Dean Wincest, future fic. When Dean escapes from Hell, it takes him four months to find his brother again. Oneshot. Complete.

Warning: Angst out the wazoo. Demon Dean. Sam’s hurt. It ain’t happy, folks.

Feedback: Is love.

‘I reach to the sky as the moon looks on, my one last year has come and gone, time to let your love rain down on me.’ – Alana Grace.

Dean dies in the Impala. It’s fitting. It’s all he wants. He acts as if he hasn’t been keeping track of the days, of the minutes, but he has been. Of course he has been. Sam hasn’t. Not as well. He’s a couple of days out, and he’s asleep when Dean realizes he probably has four hours left.

He dresses like it’s any ordinary day. Just past midnight he makes his way out of the motel room, sparing a brief glance for Sam. He doesn’t touch his brother. Dean is afraid of what he might do if his skin comes into contact with Sam’s. There is so much they haven’t talked about. So much they haven’t said. And it’s his fault because he’s been playing it all swagger and bravado. Oh well. He is about to suffer for his sins, to receive absolution through an eternity of pain. Talk about baptism by fire. He closes the door softly behind him and doesn’t leave a note.

Dean doesn’t drive far, but he wallows in every moment. A mile. He puts a mile between himself and his little brother and pulls over, cranks up the music and sits back. This is nice. Any other day of any other year and he’d be in his seventh heaven... as it is his stomach is in knots. He knows there won’t be a body left behind. So strange. He just knows. But Sam will find the car and Sam will know then what happened. There’s no point interrupting Sammy’s last few hours of peaceful rest just because he’s about to make his exit. It doesn’t have to be big and dramatic. It’s as small as the breath in his lungs stuttering to a halt.

He loses his train of thought several times, and he guesses this is how it happens. His body is already telling him to let go. They won’t have to send the hell hounds after him, no way. He’s waiting for it, a willing sacrifice. Take me. Anything to avoid hurting Sam any more.

Goddamn it, but he’s scared. He’s so scared of what’s to come. Hell is real and it’s about to open its greedy

mouth and swallow him down. And down and down. Dean closes his eyes and opens them to a knock on the window.

Early, he thinks, eager. He opens his eyes to Sam’s face, filled with anger. Damn. He turns the music down to a thumping hum, rolls the window down and says, “Hey, bro.”

Sam’s eyes are wide like a child’s. “Tonight?” he asks. “Now?”

Dean checks his watch. “About an hour, by my count.”

“Dean. Unlock the door. I’m not leaving you alone.”

He lets Sam in because he doesn’t want the last thing he does to be have an argument with the most important person in his life. Sam slips into the passenger seat as he has for so long now. His breath clouds in front of him and he looks at Dean, sidelong.

He says the words he hasn’t been saying for months. “I don’t know how to save you. I never knew how.”

Dean smiles. “I kind of figured.”

“I’m so sorry, Dean...”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

Sam sniffs and stares out at the empty, dark road before them. “Yeah, it is.” He reaches out his hand and puts it on Dean’s. “It is.”

Looking down at their joined hands, Dean shakes his head. “If you keep blaming yourself, I’m gonna kick you out into the cold. How’d you like that, huh?” They haven’t touched in a while. Dean has been avoiding touching Sam, because he’s so close to the finish line now, he isn’t sure if it will drive him insane and make him do things he won’t be alive long enough to regret.

“Do you want to talk?” Sam asks softly.

“Nah.”

“Not about anything?”

“I’m good, Sammy. Thanks.” If they talk he’ll say something terrible. He’ll say something that will linger on long after he’s gone.

“Nothing?”

Dean looks at Sam’s profile. “Do you want to talk?”

“It’s not about what I want.”

“It can be.”

“Damn it. Dean... Dean. You’re going to die. Can we make this about you? For once? For this one time, can this be about you, about how much this... this bites ass.”

“I know. I just don’t think talking will change anything. It’s too late,” Dean doesn’t want to talk about how much of a failure he feels. He just wants to let go. Waiting for the end may not really be as bad as the end itself, but it feels that way. Right now, waiting is the last thing he wants to do. Waiting means sitting with Sam, watching while Sam tries to control his emotions.

“Is there anything you want?”

“A last request?”

Sam shakes his head bitterly. “If you want to call it that.”

Dean holds his breath to keep from speaking, but the words come out anyway. “Surprise me.”

“What?”

“Surprise me. Sammy, surprise me.”

“Okay.” Sam turns and stares at him. “Close your eyes.”

Dean obeys. He closes his eyes and after a moment, feels Sam’s breath close to his face, tickling across his upper lip. He murmurs, “Sam...” then he’s not talking. Then his brother is kissing him. Not softly. Hard and wanting and Dean wonders why. Is this really the last memory Sam wants of them?

It doesn’t matter. This is the memory that’s forming. Tears press hot in Dean’s eyes and he can’t believe this can end. Can’t believe they can end. They’re forever, aren’t they? Brothers and now something else. Or just an extension of what they have always been to each other. Maybe. It’s too late for theorizing. Just feel, Dean orders himself, and for this one night only he listens.

Sam pulls away and runs his tongue lightly over Dean’s lips. It tingles.

“Sam...”

“Surprised?”

“A little.”

“Good.”

Without discussing it they move to the backseat, draped across each other like separate pieces of the same skin. Silence eats them. The moments slip by, and Dean knows that Sam’s counting each and every one.

When it begins, it’s not all hellfire and terror. Instead, Dean feels a pain in his chest. Either he’s dying or his heart is breaking.

Or both.

“Sammy,” he says.

Sam looks straight ahead, pulls Dean’s head down into his lap and strokes his hands over his hair, over his mouth and nose like he’s remembering him already. “It’ll be okay,” he says, “Dean, it’ll all be okay.”

The last words Dean says are; “How’s it end, Sammy?”

“Happily ever after, of course.” Sam smiles down.

For a second that seems to last forever there is no pain. There is no torment. There isn’t even any regret. Only the light building and the brightness of Sam’s smile, and the feeling of his little brother’s tears on his face.

‘I come to you in pieces, so you can make me whole.’ – Red

The day Dean drags himself out of Hell, the ground splits open and tries to swallow him back down. He can barely walk, can barely move. The sky wants to fall and crush him, but he’s unbreakable. No way will anything take him back there. As his eyes adjust to the dull light and his skin stings, raw and split open, he wonders what he’s doing here. Why. Why leave just because he has the chance? A chance to battle and crawl towards the sudden light.

This corner of the world is grey and ugly. The land reveals his reflection. Piece by piece. The withered, windswept trees and oil stained sea. The rocks that break when he touches them. A warm human makes for a cold demon. The warmer the colder. Demons don’t have bodies, it’s their essence that escapes the pit, that possesses whatever meat puppet they choose to inhabit. They pull the strings. Part of Dean’s deal is that he clings to his physical form – ideal for torture, built for pain. All he has seen for countless time is hellfire and his own blood trickling, blinding him. The dull light of day astounds his eyes. What is this thing in the sky? He stares up as sand finds his open wounds. Pain. He knows pain; he knows it better than he ever knew his own lost soul.

A soul.

A soul is heavy. It weighs you down. He needs to be light and free.

Light. Sunlight. He recalls it now, glittering across a bright smile. A lost smile. He cannot remember what it is to smile, only a grimace of agony. Injury. One of the favourite punishments is his body, how it reforms, heals itself. His teeth hide behind his lips, teeth that have been broken inside his mouth a million times. The taste of blood is the only taste he knows. The chewing of smashed teeth to create more suffering.

It comes to him slowly. A beach. He is on a beach. It makes sense. Hell opens on a deserted beach. The sewn shut mouth slashed open. He remembers that. Slaves to bodily suffering cannot grasp anything except the concept, the prospect, of new pain. Fresh scars.

So much time has passed (hasn’t it?) and he expects worse. He expects nothing. He’s already sold his soul and now he has no soul left to sell. He’s convinced of this.

Yet he doesn’t feel soulless, just surprised.

He does not expect girls walking the streets, eyes bright, blonde hair shimmering. Irrationally, he wants to tear it out by the roots. Wants to see them fall.

All in a row.

He has no desire to save anybody except... except...

The worst torture for a hero is seeing those he cannot save. Dean has watched his family fall apart, seen Sammy lose his soul in an ordinary way, day by day, to the merciless grind of the fight. Become a machine. He has seen a thousand versions of his brother’s death and he doesn’t know which one to believe. None of them. What is Hell? Hell is being forever trapped. Hell is pain and pain and pain.

And he wants to give that back. To everyone.

Except Sam. Sammy.

They watch him. The eyes of the world. A man walking down the street in a strange town in rags, covered in bruises, in welts and scars. His torn feet leave bloody footprints and Dean relishes every little stone that comes in contact with the open cuts. This is torment he can control.

What he can’t control is the beat of his heart, smashing itself against his chest and screaming: Sam, Sam, Sam, beating him from the inside.

The first time Dean sees his eyes change to the empty black it doesn’t even surprise him. He’s glancing in the reflective glass of a grocery store window and he has blood smeared on a t-shirt that doesn’t belong to him, the clothing of a guy who yelled something at him for no reason. You want to get out of my way, freak. Fucking bum. Dean has always been a killer, but he’s never been a demon. And the thought doesn’t terrify him, doesn’t make him think of himself differently. He doesn’t feel broken or damaged or different.

If anything, Dean feels stronger than he has in years.

If you can survive Hell, he tells himself, you can survive anything.

Except being alone.

It takes him four months to track Sam to a crappy motel. Four months obscured by blood. Dean is constantly washing his hands, getting all the red out from under his nails. When his brother finally sees him, Dean has to hide what’s happened to him. He isn’t entirely sure how this demonic aspect works, if he can control it... if it’s just something that will come on him from time to time. He honestly does not care. It has helped him to survive so much better than he did as a weak, mortality and soul riddled human being.

Sam’s motel is swept by an ocean breeze, the paint peeling off of the outside. Dean looks around, but his car is nowhere to be seen. He finds Room 13 and thinks there must be something in that, the unluckiest number in the world and his little brother in that room. Ha. Dean rattles the door handle – locked – and the first words he hears from Sam’s mouth are, “I’m paid up ’til Tuesday. No housekeeping, thanks.”

Dean shrugs, thinks of speaking and figures that Sam will just overreact. He always overreacts like that. Instead he just pushes the door open. The lock cracks.

“What...” Sam is sitting cross legged on the floor next to the bed, doing absolutely nothing apparently. Just staring at the wall. He gets up when the door opens, his arms shooting out to touch the wall and the bed.

Dean watches and clears his throat. “So, I guess that whole apocalypse thing never happened? Figures. Demons are organized but, damn; they don’t have a whole lot of follow through.”

“Dean?”

“No, Sammy, it’s Peter Pan.”

Sam turns towards him. Looks right at him. “Dean? No... I don’t want to know... I don’t want to know about this.”

“Didn’t salt the door, Sam? Rookie mistake. I taught you better.” He pushes the door shut as he enters. He has to really force it to close.

“I did salt the door. I did,” Sam’s voice is rising and Dean can see that he has indeed put rock salt down, but the formation is bad. There are big chunks missing. “Leave me alone, please. I don’t know anything.”

“Sammy? It’s me.” Finally, Dean sees what’s wrong. Sam’s pupils are moving too fast. Not right. He frowns. “Sam? Can’t you see me?”

“Get out! It won’t work!”

“Goddamn it, Sam, what the hell did you do to yourself?” He finds himself saying his brother’s name over and over, just wanting to hear it coming from his lips. Dean clears the distance between them in a few determined steps, puts his hands on Sam’s arms.

Sam freezes. “Do it,” he says, “you’re going to. I can’t... can’t... can’t keep going.”

“You really can’t see me?”

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“Sammy,” Dean feels something pull inside him. He has been searching for Sam for so long and this is the first time that he’s connected being with Sam to having any kind of emotions. It has just been his mission up until now. But now it comes back to him. All the love. Every little bit of it. It slams in on him and crushes him against his little brother. He pulls Sam into his arms. “What happened, tell me what happened. I’ll fucking kill them. I’ll kill the bastard. Who hurt you? Sammy? Just tell me, tell me and I’ll get them.”

Sounding utterly bemused, Sam asks, “Dean?” This time there is something else in his voice. A little belief. “I put salt down. Can’t be a demon. Can’t be anything else. Can’t, can’t be Dean.”

All the love.

And then the pain.

“Here,” Dean pushes Sam backwards gently, pressing him down so he’s sitting on the bed. Then Dean takes his place right beside him. He holds Sam’s hands, lifts them to his face. “It’s me.”

“You... you left... you went...”

“I came back.”

“You can’t.”

“I can do anything, Sammy.”

Sam presses his thumbs against Dean’s cheekbones. Dean shuts his eyes and Sam touches his eyelashes softly. So, so softly. As if he’s looking after a tiny baby bird. Dean leans forward and inhales the scent of Sam’s skin being so close. It makes him shiver. Sam runs his fingers across Dean’s lips and squeezes his earlobes, rubs his jaw line, his chin.

“Dean,” he says after a long time, “I don’t understand. You died. There was this big flash of light and you were gone.”

“Light?”

“Like bright light, hot,” Sam says, and he smiles faintly, “that’s why I can’t... see so good.”

“Can you see at all?”

Sam thinks for a moment, and Dean can feel him starting to tell a lie, to himself. Then he shakes his head. “No.” He runs his fingers through Dean’s hair. “Soft,” he comments. “One year, four months.”

Dean knows exactly what he’s talking about but he still murmurs, “Huh?” The tender touch is almost more than he can bear. He does his best not to flinch away, not to fear pain. He can feel his insides twisting with terror. What he is now. He shouldn’t feel fear, he should bring it. It’s Sam, he reminds himself, he won’t ever hurt you. Your brother loves you. “What’s that, Sammy?”

“That’s how long I’ve been here without you.”

Dean screams in his sleep. He knows this because Sam shakes him awake and he hisses, pulling away.

“Dean, it’s Sammy. You’re safe.” Sam clings to him. Just two brothers holding onto each other on a thin motel mattress. Dean’s skin crawls with being touched. He has to train himself to enjoy it once more. If he’ll ever manage that, he has no idea.

Gibberish spills out of his mouth and he doesn’t even know what he’s saying, what language he’s speaking. If any.

Sam shakes him gently. “Dean! Dean, come on!” He sounds like a scared ten-year-old.

“Ith... uhkay,” Dean slurs, getting to grips with language. It occurs to him that he didn’t speak for a year, the only sound he made was screams. When he isn’t concentrating, language is a barrier he can’t cross. “It’s okay,” he says after a couple of minutes, “sorry.”

“Did you dream?”

“No.”

“You were screaming.”

“It’s a reflex,” he says sharply, wrapping Sam in his arms. That’s true. A pathetic whimper or a glass shattering scream, it’s all the same. Like time. Dean was in Hell for years, for thirty lifetimes, and yet here he is. One year,

four months later.

“Can you tell me about it? Where you were?”

Dean closes his eyes, turns his head away as Sam pulls himself up so he’s snuggling against Dean, like that’s just how lonely he’s been. “No.”

“Dean...”

“Sammy, I said no. Another time.”

“I just want to know how you got out...”

“Goddamn it, Sam, no!”

Sam falls silent, running his hands across the marks left on Dean’s skin. Night time and the world outside is dark. Dean doesn’t think there’s any point in telling him this. Sam’s world is always dark now. Because of Dean. Because Dean saved Sam’s life by ending his own. And Dean has to live with this. Of all the versions of Sam’s life he saw in Hell, this is one that evaded him.

How can he say to Sam: I don’t know how I got out. Except that I needed to be with you. Nothing can keep me from you. I know that now. I understand. He can’t. The words won’t form. There is probably some terrible, huge reason for him being here, he is most likely part of someone’s master plan. A pawn. Maybe it’s just another tortured delusion. The walls of his mind caving. If that’s true, he doesn’t care. This is the world he wants to live in, whatever the price.

“I’m scared of this.”

“What?”

“There’s something different about you,” Sam whispers, his face against Dean’s chest, fingers stroking over another scar.

Dean looks down at his little brother. He sets his jaw. “No, Sammy,” he says, hearing how tender, how soft, he sounds, how sure of his own lie, “there isn’t.”

End