Static - Section Three

[glasslogic]

~~~~~

A while later, having braced his nerves with nothing harder than water, Sam pushed open the door and forced himself to enter the room.

The moon was high and light filtering in through the blinds striped the floor, the bed and the figure on it. Jeans were lying in a heap by the door and Sam knew it was naked under the thin sheets. He was still afraid to try and touch its mind again, but he had to know. Bobby couldn’t come up with a different plan that would give them any information they didn’t already have, and while Bobby wouldn’t say it, Sam knew he believed the demon when it claimed it was Dean. All of its movements, all of its words -- they were Dean’s. Against that, all Sam had was a bone-deep certainty that it was different. That what he had touched that night wasn’t the same brother he had known his entire life, even in his post-Hell incarnation.

The figure on the bed lay still, eyes closed, under his scrutiny. Sam knew it wasn’t asleep, but he appreciated the facade of privacy. Whether it was Dean or not, both of them understood where the evening was heading.

He knelt by the edge of the bed and pulled the sheet down until he could see the entire tattoo. He drew a deep breath and laid his hand over it; the design fit completely under his palm, telltale tingling immediately setting in. Not unpleasant, just unmistakable. It still felt authentic to him. Sam stared down at it in the shadows until his gaze was distracted by the angle of the hip at his fingertips. He suddenly wondered what would happen if he laid a blade in the hollow there and pressed, if he followed the thin spill of blood with his mouth into the soft thatch of hair just under the edge of the sheet…

Sam made a small sound and wrenched his gaze away. He left his hand pressed against warm skin. It occurred to him he could feel more than the tingling in his palm, he could also feel a heartbeat. That heartbeat, that mimicry of life that Dean maintained for him. To make it that much easier for Sam to pretend.

Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He slid his hand from the hip, over the muscles of the belly, across the ribs, until it rested over the heart. Now his hand touched the dark ink of the anti-possession tattoo they had gotten together more than a decade earlier, after Sam had spent a week possessed by the demon Meg. His fingers covered the weal that broke it.

The only marks on Dean’s flesh were there because of Sam. He thought there might be something poetic about that, but it would be the bad poetry -- Goth, maybe Emo, written by suicides and adored by teenagers. He knew what Dean would say if Sam told him his body was like Emo poetry. At the least, it would probably involve a possession check and a lot of yelling. Sam would give a lot to hear that yelling. He cursed himself for a coward and reached out again with his mind...

Moments later, Sam let out a shuddering breath and fought back tears.

“Dean…”

“I told you, Sam.” Dean propped himself up on one elbow and reached out with the other arm.

“You had to say that.” Sam leaned in and wrapped his arms around his brother, burying his face in his shoulder.

“I really, really, did. You have no fucking idea what this week has been like. Would it have killed you to tell Bobby where you were?” Dean pulled him in close and leaned back again, dragging Sam up. Sam pulled free to get up from his knees and kick his shoes off.

“I was afraid it actually might,” Sam muttered.

He shed the rest of his clothes and slid under the sheets next to Dean. One fumbling hand through the rails of the headboard found the knife in usual spot. Dean lay beside him, seemingly content with whatever Sam wanted to do now that he was sure Sam wasn’t going to run. It was a change in how things usually went between them, but Sam was still too  overwhelmed with relief to bother with his usual distance.

He pressed the edge of the blade over Dean’s collarbone, dragging down hard and sharp, then tossed it to the floor and licked the spilling blood off his brother’s chest before finding the wound itself with his tongue. But Dean was only content to lay complacent for so long, and after a few minutes the cut healed with the speed of thought and the encounter changed into something more frantic. Grasping hands and teeth that closed on his skin just enough to add to the bright ache Sam could feel building with every second that passed.

Before it could overwhelm him, something snapped in his mind and then he was falling into a spiraling, rushing darkness that stung his eyes and ears with a cacophony of noise and feelings he couldn't begin to make sense of. Amidst the madness, he could still feel another body wrapped around his, awareness of his own flesh like something disconnected from his mind. Then orgasm rolled over him and he lost track of everything in a confused scramble of physical sensation.

When he came back to himself, the world wasn’t spinning and Sam shoved free of Dean in a panic. The bare wood of the uneven floorboards as he scooted away dug splinters into his skin, but hardly registered. He stopped when his back hit the wall and looked around wildly, uncertain where he even was.

It took him a good minute to realize he was still in his bedroom.

Paint flaked off the wall where his shoulders pressed against it and the warped floor looked like it was a century old. Most of the popcorn had fallen from the slanted ceiling and it seemed oddly bare in the bright moonlight coming in through the naked windows, blinds lying in a cordless heap below the remains of the ledge. The clothes they had piled beside the bed were disintegrated to rags and the bed itself was just... gone. Dean was sprawled like a corpse on his side in a pile of dust, loose springs and a few pitted bits of metal around him -- the remains of the mattress, bed fastenings and dresser hardware. The silver blade they used for their private ritual was black under what looked like decades of tarnish.

Fuck.

Sam’s heart was pounding, but before he could force himself to do... something, Dean stirred. He sat up slowly, dust clinging to his skin like ashes. He didn’t look upset, or confused, or anything familiar.

“Dean,” Sam whispered.

Dean turned his head until he was meeting Sam’s gaze and Sam froze. His brother’s eyes weren’t green, and they weren’t black either. Sam remembered the impression he’d had, before, when he was so sure Dean wasn’t Dean anymore: that his eyes were a different color. He’d convinced himself it was a trick of light, and had larger concerns to handle -- but now there was no mistake and no confusion. Dean’s eyes were the same gray as the dust that coated his skin. But deeper, a living color that had nothing of humanity in it. He made a curious head tilt as he regarded Sam, then stood and extended a hand. Sam clinched back and grabbed for the door handle and pulled, but the handle came free in his grasp and the door was warped into place. Before he could just kick it down, he felt a touch against his shoulder blade and spun to face Dean from inches away. Dean’s expression wasn’t so remote anymore, now he looked... troubled. He closed his eyes and staggered, then fell to his knees. Sam was torn between fleeing or trying to help him.

“Sam,” Dean gasped hoarsely.

Sam didn't move an inch. “Dean, are you... okay?”

The word seemed inadequate against what he had felt and the state of the room.

“No. Help me up. Hard to... come back.”

Sam still didn’t move, and after a long moment, Dean looked up wearily, eyes green and expression pained. Sam licked his lips nervously and stared at him.

“Something wrong with your hands, Sam?”

“Look at this room, Dean! I think we’ve had enough touching for one night. What the hell is going on?!”

Dean stood up on his own and rubbed at his eyes. “It’s--”

“If you even think of finishing that sentence with ‘nothing,’ I swear to God, I’ll start swinging.”

“Think you’ve got it in you, Sammy?” Dean asked derisively.

“I’ve had enough crap from you. Something is wrong.” He gestured wildly to the room. “And I don’t believe you don’t know what it is.”

Dean looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. “Shit.”

“Yeah. And that’s... When you were touching me, I mean... when I was feeding from you, when we had sex afterwards. It was wrong; it felt weird, Dean. Whatever the hell is happening, it isn’t just about you, okay? We’ve already got more stuff on our plate than we can handle and-- God damn it, Dean! We have been through too fucking much together for you to be keeping secrets like this!”

“Okay.”

“That’s it? Just ‘okay’?” Sam demanded.

“You’re right.” Dean shrugged and gestured to the room.

Sam let his fists slowly unclench.

“Can we clean up first?” Dean continued, “Or at least get out of this room, you know, before the floor caves in?”

The fragile-feeling boards beneath his feet were groaning in an alarming manner every time he shifted his weight, and with Dean acting... cooperative, and like Dean, Sam was able to pull his attention back to more practical matters. Like not having this conversation naked, and getting the dirt and stickiness off his skin. He reached for the door again, but it was still stuck fast in its frame. Dean stepped up and laid a hand on the battered white paint. In a heartbeat, the door dissolved into dust, raining down to the floor in silence and leaving an empty frame. Dean stepped wordlessly through and vanished into the bathroom.

Sam felt a cold sweat spring up all over again, swallowed hard and headed for the kitchen where his duffle bag had a change of clothes and he could wash off in the sink. And pick splinters out of his ass.

Ten minutes later, he was sitting on the floor against the wall in the living room, drinking water and waiting for Dean. Whatever had happened in the bedroom had been mostly confined to that area; there were some signs of damage extending into the hallway, but not enough that Sam was worried about structural integrity.

When Dean finally emerged from the bathroom, he was wearing clothes from the laundry basket and his hair stuck up in damp spikes. He headed for the kitchen and started rummaging in the fridge.

“You ready for the big revelation or you want to drag this out some more?” Sam demanded. “Maybe wash the Impala, take a road trip? It’s not like I’m in a hurry or anything. What’s one bedroom? It’s not like we don’t have most of a house left!”

Dean rolled a chair into the living room and settled into it. “Stop being such a drama queen. You want to know what’s going on?” He shrugged, in another lifetime Sam would have said he looked nervous. “I’m a demon, Sam. A real demon.”

Sam blinked, somewhat underwhelmed. “I know that, Dean. That was news... a year ago.”

“Not like Lilith and the rest of the pathetic hold-overs,” Dean explained with exaggerated patience. “I’m the real thing, an Entropic demon. Get it?” He gave Sam an expectant look.

It took a moment for the words to make sense. When they did, Sam was pretty sure that the last thing he did was ‘get it.’ He was starting to get the sinking feeling that no matter how bad he had thought things were, they were so much worse.

“How is that possible, Dean? How can... You said no Entropic demon could exist on this Plane -- that they wouldn’t want to! I don’t understand.”

“That’s, uh, kind of a funny story,” Dean hedged. “They don’t, usually. I mean -- part of becoming one is to kind of have all of what you were scoured away. You... can’t imagine, Sam. There aren’t words. It’s just...” Dean’s voice trailed off and he looked far away for a moment with an expression of what Sam could only call longing. Sam felt a different kind of fear spring up.

“Dean?”

“Well,” Dean asked in a voice tinged with impatience, “how did you think I was able to come back so quickly?”

“I thought the angels helped you! You told me the angels helped you come back in exchange for your promising to free them! What part of that says ‘oh, and I’m also an entirely different category of monster, just so you know.’ How could you not tell me this? You deliberately lied to me!”

“I didn’t lie.” The mildly offended tone made Sam wish he had something heavy to throw.

“Dean!”

“What! I didn’t lie, Sam! Everything I told you was complete truth. You’re the one who thought I said something else.”

Sam gritted his teeth. “You flat out told me Entropic demons didn’t exist on this plane. So how about instead of trying to piss me off, you just tell me what the fuck is going on with you!”

Dean crossed his arms. “Fine. You know when I died, I went to the Rendering, right?”

“And you broke the first Seal for the Cage.”

“Right, yeah, good times. So... after that, no one cared so much about me and I just kind of, uh, followed the voices deeper in until I found who was whispering at me.”

“The angel,” Sam said tightly.

“Are you telling this story or am I?” Dean demanded. “Because if you know all of this, I can just shut up and you can talk.”

Sam looked unrepentant and nodded tightly for Dean to go on.

“They couldn’t just give me anything, Sam. They couldn’t presto magic me into a demon, or send me back alive to the world. They have almost no power; it’s taking almost everything they have just to continue existing. Angels, from Heaven or Hell, are guardians; they aren’t really a part of the Entropy or Creation of their domains. So when Lucifer shoved them way down into Entropy and made the barrier so they couldn’t rise again, well, it had the same effect as it had on Lucifer’s followers when the angels dragged them down too. They’ve practically been neutered.”

“I know that part, Dean!”

“Good for you, Sam.” Dean wasn’t looking at him again, though; his gaze was off towards the window.

“So they couldn’t just send you back,” Sam prodded.

“Did I tell you how Entropic demons happen?”

“I don’t remember. If you did, it wasn’t what I was paying the most attention to at the time.”

Dean nodded. “It’s important now. When you die, normally a soul descends and everything about their life just kinda falls away until there is nothing but... peace. It’s the most amazing feeling, like making up for everything bad that ever happened in your life, and you don’t want to do anything but sink deeper, and deeper until... well,” Dean shrugged, “whatever is happening has happened. But that’s most souls, the one’s that make it through the Rendering. Souls that become Entropic demons aren’t willing to just go with the flow, they fight, and if they fight hard enough, instead of being swept into the storm they learn to ride it. They learn to chart their own path through the chaos instead of being gently swept into oblivion. But they don’t have human identities anymore. They don’t remember or care about anything in this Plane. They are totally consumed by their nature.”

“But not you.” Sam frowned. “You came back for... Lilith.”

“I came back for Lilith,” Dean agreed. “And for you,” he added after a moment. “That’s what the angels gave me. They said that they would hold what makes me Dean Winchester if I would descend and fight that battle; if I survived to make the transformation, they would kick me back to the Material Plane with the memory of myself -- and enough wards and filters that I could process this place and act on it like the Rendering demons do.”

“Is that... if your eyes turn that gray color because you’re this other kind of demon, why did they turn black before?”

Dean shrugged. “When in Rome. It’s easier to control what color than stop it from changing at all when things get ... tense.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this in the first place!” Sam growled, angry, scared, and still not certain what everything Dean was explaining meant. “And what the hell does this have to do with what happened in the bedroom? You’ve been like this for over a year now and I didn’t have a clue. Why is now different?!”

“I’m not exactly enjoying this conversation, Sam,” Dean snapped. “I didn’t tell you before because it would have just complicated things and it didn’t matter. You thought I was a demon, I was a demon, and arguing with you about meaningless details wouldn’t have changed anything. And when I first came back to, well, me, I also didn’t really give a damn what you understood as long as you were cooperating. The angels gave me my memories back, but it wasn’t an instant fix, you know? And it wasn’t just a matter of picking my memories back up; I had to learn how to value them too, color them with more emotions than just destructive ones. That took time, and it’s not perfect,” he shrugged, “but it’s as close as anyone who’s been through Hell can come. And then afterwards, when I felt maybe a little guilty... you finally trusted me. We were getting along and things seemed fine. I didn’t want to have this conversation and maybe have you throw some kind of hysterical fit!”

Sam gaped speechless for a moment before exploding. “Hysterical fit?! The bed dissolved, Dean. The room looks like it belongs in a house two hundred years old. Our clothes look like they came off corpses. I don’t even know what to say about what having sex with you was like; I’m trying not to think about it. I don’t think I’m having a hysterical fit, but if I was, I think maybe it’s a little deserved! You said the angels wrapped you all up so you’re just like the other demons now, but I’ve got to tell you, Dean, I’ve spent way too much time with other demons and I don’t remember any furniture dissolving.”

“Yeah, that’s...” Dean looked a little shamefaced. “I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you for a few days now. About this stuff.”

“Now’s good for me, Dean. Is now good for you?” Sam’s expression said pretty clearly that any answer that wasn’t yes would start a fight, a real one rather than the normal bitching.

“Something’s happened in Hell.”

“And you’ve been meaning to mention it for days?! Did it just not come up in conversation? What does that even mean, Dean?”

“I don’t know,” Dean snapped. “But the filters that keep me all fluffy and harmless are... failing. It was slow, really slow at first. I wasn’t even sure what was going on. Things were just irritating, and then I started doing things that just... made messes, that made me feel a little better. But after what happened with you flipping out, and then just now... They’re failing, Sam.”

Sam thought of the kitchen and other things that had made living with Dean fun. Shoes that he tripped over, bookmarks on random pages. He had thought Dean more annoying to live with than he remembered, but chalked it up to the golden haze of memory and the inflexibility of age.

“I tried to reach out to the angel, to see if I could get any clues about what was going on. They want something from me still, so it didn’t make any sense they would be unraveling the very thing that lets me function,” Dean continued. “But there was nothing, like yelling into the wind.”

“I didn’t think you could communicate with it. Wasn’t that why I had to put up with nauseating headaches during our little quest?” Sam growled.

“It’s not that kind of contact.” Dean shrugged. “It’s more of a friendly wave kind of thing. I’m here, you’re here, Hell is a beautiful place. But it didn’t answer. That’s very wrong, Sam. However much our communication sucks, it has a leash on what passes for my soul. I should be able to feel it on the other end. Something is seriously screwed up.”

Sam studied Dean’s face for a minute. “That’s not all.”

“No. These disasters, your visions, what you said when you were having nightmares... I think I was wrong.”

“Wrong about what, Dean?” Sam asked ominously.

“The amped up Rendering demons that were here to, I don’t know, hold Lucifer’s cape or suck on his toes, whatever. I might have been wrong when I told you they would have gone back to Hell after we rained on their happy plans. I think they stayed, and... I think maybe there are more now. Maybe we stopped one Apocalypse only to kick off a different one.” Dean’s smile was thin and unhappy. “I think that’s what the World has been trying to show you. I don’t know how the earlier ones play into it yet, but I bet if we do some more digging, those places and things will be connected to demons, or at least really suspicious accidents. That ritual at the warehouse wasn’t done by any low level pond scum, and... the timing is just too good. This demonic crap, your visions and the dream warnings all start about the same time my filters start to unravel? The angels of Hell aren’t answering the phone, Sam. Someone’s cut the line.”

Sam slumped back against the wall and considered the conversation. “So... that’s it then? A bunch of unusually powerful demons are running around causing who-knows-what problems for who-knows-what reasons and the angels of Hell have gone missing at the same time. Which can’t be anything good. Oh yeah, and you’re a demon, just not a demon like I thought. Instead, you’re some kind of cosmic force of chaos -- have I got this right so far, Dean?”

“Interesting you should mention that last part.”

Sam groaned and banged his head against the wall. “What else?”

Dean shrugged. “It’s just that, like you said, I’m kind of a powerful Entropic presence and, um, well, you have to remember that it was the filters the angels set up that let me pretend I wasn’t. Now the filters are collapsing, and if the angels aren’t around anymore...”

“I think you need to be a little clearer, Dean. I think we have some communication problems and I want to be absolutely certain I understand what you’re trying to say.”

Dean met his eyes directly. “I’m saying that if we don’t find some way to fix the filters, and soon, then you won’t have to worry about what the other demons are up to. I won’t be Dean anymore, I’ll be a full-blown Entropic Demon and what I’ll do to this world, there aren’t even words for.”



Chapter Five

My boy builds coffins with hammers and nails
He doesn't build ships, he has no use for sails
He doesn't make tables, dresses or chairs
He can't carve a whistle cause he just doesn't care
                                      ~My Boy Builds Coffins, Florence and the Machine

Sam was out in the evening’s unseasonable chill. The darkness suited his mood. His arms were wrapped tightly around himself and he scuffed his shoes on the concrete as he walked, taking his anger and frustration out on something that couldn’t hit back.

After Dean’s last little confession, the house had been too small for the both of them and Sam had stormed out with a pointed order to Dean to not move an inch until he got back. He doubted the demon, his brother, would follow that order, but as long as he was giving Sam space, it was good enough.

He made two more angry passes around the block before feeling enough tension loosen in his muscles that he thought he could talk to Dean again without yelling.

Dean was still sitting in the living room when Sam walked back in, just flipping his cell phone closed. “I called Bobby.”

“Why?”

Dean shrugged. “I figured you were gonna insist on telling him anyway and I thought I’d spare you the headache.”

“How did he take it?”

“Still cussing when I hung up. You might want to call him back, later.”

Sam nodded and slumped onto one of the mismatched chairs in the kitchen.

“What are we going to do, Dean?” he asked, feeling exhausted now that the adrenaline was depleted and he could feel the aftereffects of the curse creeping into his muscles. “How bad is this going to get? If you’re a danger to everyone and everything around you... I can’t stay away from you. I’d rather have my throat cut than wait around for the curse to kill me. Is that really what we’re down to?”

“You saw what I did to the bedroom, Sam--”

Sam gave him a withering look.

“--But there isn’t a mark on you,” Dean continued. “The curse, this tie between us, even when I was other for a few minutes, I knew you. I could taste your heartbeat, feel the weight of your soul. I protected you, I wanted to protect you, because I recognized you. It shouldn't be possible; you shouldn’t have any more meaning to me when I’m like that than anything else in this Plane does. But you do. You aren’t in danger from me, Sam. I don’t think,” he added.

“Just everything else in the world is.” Sam rubbed at gritty eyes. “So, what’s going to happen? Do you age things, is that it?”

Dean snorted. “We should be so lucky.”

“Look, Dean. I’m tired. I get that you thrive on chaos, really. I know you can’t help it. But we have so many disasters to handle right now, I don’t even know which way to look first. So please just answer my damn questions so I can pass out in a corner and pretend I’m in the Bahamas for a few hours before I have to actually try and make some kind of plan.”

“Fine. Creation is basically order, structure and stability. Predictability, boring crap like that. Entropy is the opposite. Chaos, confusion, random acts of crazy, and change. Rapid aging is a form of Entropic change that follows the natural order of things here while still screwing with the usual pace of stuff. It’s being nice like that because my aura is still weak and the filters are still pretty strong. As they break down more, things are going to get more... unpredictable.”

“Rain of toads kind of unpredictable?”

Dean grimaced. “Or kittens, or anvils, or asteroids.”

Sam took a deep breath. “What kind of timeframe are we talking about?”

Dean’s expression lost focus for a moment and Sam had the sudden feeling he was sitting in a room with a corpse. Which, of course, he was. He was just about to head back outside to walk off some more of the awful crawling feeling when Dean blinked a few times and refocused.

“Don’t know; hard to say. Episodes like tonight... probably start getting more frequent over the next couple of weeks.”

“How long until we reach the anvil stage?”

Dean’s smile had little humor in it. “Maybe a year. Maybe, at the outside. But I’ll be causing massive amounts of more explainable disturbances long before then. Storms, floods, fires, freaky-ass natural occurrences.”

“Can you try and stay away from populated areas?”

“You still don’t understand, Sam. The only thing I’ll be trying to do is escape this Plane. I’m not going to understand anything. This world is only going to be a confusing, nightmarish prison I want to smash.”

“But the curse, you’ll still recognize me?”

“Not as my brother, but maybe as something... valued. I can’t believe the curse has held up to this much of my nature, really. Lilith might be a class-A bitch, but she’s one heck of a spellcaster. Earlier in the bedroom, when I was slipping, I tried to escape then, back to Hell. It’s instinctive. But the filters weren’t weak enough for me to slip free. Even if they had been, though, the curse grabbed hold of me like a bear-trap. I wouldn’t ever have given Lilith credit for being able to cast something that would hold a real demon against its will.”

“So even if you were completely subsumed, had no recollection of your agreement with the angels, or me, or anything, and all the filters were gone -- you would still be trapped here?”

“Unless this thing breaks.” Dean shrugged.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Dean rose and walked outside. Sam paced for a few minutes, then finally slumped down against the wall, wracking his brain. Dean walked back in a few minutes later carrying a blanket from the Impala’s trunk; he slid down to sit beside Sam.

“We need answers.” Sam looked hopeful that Dean might have come up with something.

“You need sleep,” Dean replied, tugging at Sam’s sleeve, pulling him down.

“I need the planet not burned to a crisp as a playground for things from Hell,” Sam snapped, shaking Dean off.

“Sam, sleep.” Dean grabbed hold again. “You’ll think better and feel better. I promise I’ll keep thinking about it while you rest. It’s not a crime to be human and alive, but you aren’t going to do anyone any good if you keep slamming your head into a wall because your brain is full of fuzz.”

“You cremated my bed, Dean. Excuse me if I don’t go hop into my pajamas and tuck myself in!”

But Dean was persistent and Sam let himself be coaxed down until his head was pillowed on Dean’s thigh. Dean tossed the blanket over him and reached over his own head to flip the light switch off.

In the darkness, lying on a hard floor surrounded by the familiar scents of the Impala and his brother, Sam felt very young. Transported back to a time when Dean was still alive and could protect him from anything, and the biggest problem in his life was how miserable his father was going to make the school year. Not apocalypses, or atrocities, or angels, or demons.

“Dean,” Sam whispered, his normal voice seeming too loud in the protective cover of night, “what if we can’t fix the filters? You won’t be able to do what you promised.”

“You can do it for me. I have faith in you, Sam. The angels just want to be free; I don’t think they care who does it.” Dean pulled the blanket up a little higher and ran his hand over Sam’s hair, the gentle stroke coaxing Sam even closer to sleep.

Sam’s eyelids were incredibly heavy and he could feel his thoughts trailing off; he fought it back. “But if you’re trapped here, and causing all of that damage--”

“We’ll have to find a way to release me so I can go back to Hell. It’s okay, Sam. I’ll want that.”

Sam struggled to think. “That’s not... If it’s the curse that’s holding you here, we tried to break that before. You said there wasn’t a way. Missouri told me it couldn’t be done. The only way to break it is to kill me. And if I’m dead, there won’t be anyone to free the angels; and if they aren’t free, it will be like you’re in the Rendering, forever.”

“If it’s me or the world, Sam, I want you to choose the world.”

“That isn’t fair, Dean. And the demons would still be here, still be hurting people and destroying things.”

“Go to sleep, Sam.”

“I’d like the house to still be here when I wake up,” Sam mumbled, surrendering.

Dean snorted, the familiarity comforting.

“I’ll do my best.”

~~~~~

Sam woke up the next morning feeling like his spine was misaligned from spending the night on the floor, and with a crick in his neck from the awkward angle. Dean had scooted out from under him at some point and one of the threadbare cushions from the kitchen had been shoved under his head. The cushion was from a chair that had been rescued off a curb in the college dump and it was assaulting his nose with a unique kind of... fragrance. Sam grimaced and forced himself up. He didn’t feel really rested, but he at least had a few new ideas to go with the new day.

Dean was humming When The Levee Breaks in the kitchen and Sam tried hard not to read something ominous in the choice.

He climbed to his feet and headed for the bathroom. Sam was just rinsing out his toothbrush when he glanced in the mirror. He didn’t look as old as he felt, but at thirty-five he wasn’t as young as he used to be either. The ache in his back testified to that if nothing else.

He was inspecting a few scattered strands of gray in his hair when his brother found him.

“Need some Clairol?” Dean asked, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed.

“Thanks, but I think the problem is under control,” Sam answered dryly, turning to face him. Dean wasn’t smiling like Sam expected.

“How long has that been happening?” He nodded towards Sam’s head.

“What, my hair? Uh... awhile. It’s just a couple of strands, Dean. I’m getting older, and it’s not like my life has been one of placid calmness, you know? I’ve earned the right to some gray.”

“Whatever.” Dean headed back down the hallway and Sam was left with the impression that his brother had been genuinely upset. He followed after him, intending to address the issues but was distracted by a plate of food shoved into his hands as soon as he walked into the kitchen.

“You cooked?”

“You see anyone else around here wielding a spatula?” Dean was still slamming things around, but Sam was starving and hot food trumped a pointless argument. Scrambled eggs and hash browns dragged out of the freezer weren’t high on Sam’s preferred dining list, but after the turmoil of the past day, he was ravenous.

When he was finished and had eaten every scrap of his own food and half of Dean’s, Sam pushed his plate away and announced firmly. “I have a plan.”

~~~~~

“That’s a horrible plan, Sam,” Dean said flatly when Sam was done talking.

“No, it isn’t.”

“Horrible. Didn’t we talk about the angels in Heaven, Sam? I’m pretty sure we talked about them being a no-no, what with their persistent and unreasonable desire to turn you into a smoking grease spot and all.”

“That was only the one,” Sam insisted. “And I want to summon a specific angel. It helped us before.”

“You know how sometimes you can just see the train wreck coming?”

“You mean like the countdown to destruction going on in your head? That train wreck?” Sam glared.

Dean dumped all the dirty dishes in the sink with an air that long familiarity let Sam correctly interpret as an expectation that he would do the washing up.

“If you have a better plan, I am all ears, Dean. We need answers and we need them fast.”

“How fast do you think this is going to be, Sam?! Do you know how to summon an angel? Because I must have missed that lesson somewhere in my education.”

“You let me worry about that. You... concentrate on not leaking your aura on anything I need.” Sam followed Dean’s gaze. “Like my laptop!” Sam snatched it up before Dean could touch it, giving his brother a warning look.

Dean rolled his eyes. “If you’re trying to keep my cooties off of it, you’re already too late. I was on it this morning checking the news.”

“Find anything interesting?” Sam was almost afraid to ask.

“Chicago’s burning.”

“What?”

“Burning. Chicago. It’s a big city kinda off to the--”

“I know what Chicago is, Dean! What do you mean burning?”

Sam could see the flippant answer on the tip of Dean’s tongue, but after a second, he kind of shrugged instead.

“They think it started with a lightning strike. It just... won’t go out.”

Sam tightened his grip on the laptop. “I have work to do.”

Next Section

Masterpost

 

Comments

[angeblond.livejournal.com]

Humm yes, Lilith's friends are quiet active.

But they should know better than to mess with Winchesters.