glasslogic

Chapter Ten:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
~Anthem, Leonard Cohen

Sam wasn’t sure where they were when he first saw the hunter. Maybe Kansas, maybe Oklahoma, maybe even northern Texas; somewhere in that general region. He was in the car outside a convenience store attached to a Chinese grocery while the demon did who-knows-what inside. He had slept most of the morning and was watching leaves scorched by the summer sun flutter in the afternoon breeze, when movement caught his eye. He glanced over, and froze. Jace Wilkins was standing not even twenty feet away, rummaging in the trunk of his car.

Jace was a young hunter; his family had been victims of a werewolf attack of which Jace had been the only survivor. With the help of a more experienced Hunter, he had stalked and killed all of them, then ended up on Bobby Singer’s doorstep while researching an obscure legend for his next hunt. Bobby had put him in contact with Sam, and Sam had ended up helping him on several different projects. Sam’s general paranoia led him to thoroughly research anyone he worked with, regardless of where the recommendation came from, so he was well aware of what Jace looked like. Sam knew there were pictures of him at Bobby’s house, so it was reasonable that Jace might recognize him too. Hell, Bobby might have sent Jace to find him after he disappeared.

Jace was a bit of a wild card, even more so than most hunters. He was willing to discuss matters while he was in the research phase of his hunts, but once the actual hunt started, he went completely off the map for weeks at a time until one day he would just show up somewhere, a little more banged up and crazed around the eyes, but ready for the next case.

The hunter walked casually by the Impala, stopping near Sam’s door and making a show of patting his pockets as if checking for his wallet. Sam pulled his wrist out from the door so the metal of the handcuffs glinted in the blaze of the afternoon sun. Jace glanced over, then moved on into the grocery.

Sam waited tensely for... well, he wasn’t sure what. He hoped Jace would have the sense not to try and take the demon on in a public setting, if he even recognized it.

A few minutes later, the door banged open and the demon stalked out, face cloudy with annoyance and clutching a small white bakery bag with grease stains starting to form near the bottom. It slid into the car and fished around in the bag, pulled out a round, golden cake of some sort and proceeded to practically inhale it. It went through about four of them this way and had its mouth stuffed, still chewing and glaring at the building, when it glanced over and saw Sam watching it. It raised a brow and mumbled something through its full mouth that might have been, “Want some?”

Sam just closed his eyes and leaned back into his seat, expression set, mind whirling with possibilities.

Why was Jace here? Was it some freakish coincidence? Was he hunting for Sam? For the demon? Best yet -- had Bobby sent him, or maybe was even with him somewhere? Had he seen the cuffs? Sam remembered the demon’s threats -- but none of that would matter if it was dead or banished. Sam knew that would sign his own death warrant, but he hardly cared about that.

Over the next several days of travel, Sam thought he might have caught a glimpse of Jace or his car a few more times. The demon didn’t seem to think anything was at all amiss. It chattered or held its silence in the same manner as before. Making nonsensical stops and decisions that wound an unpredictable trail through the central states. Sam found himself paying more attention to the world than he had in months, and knew the demon noticed from the speculative looks it was giving him. Sam still ignored it, but now there was a buzz of anticipation under his skin, a sense of hope that he couldn’t quite stifle.

~~~~~~~

About three weeks after Sam had first seen Jace at the grocery, something changed. Sam’s skin was itchy with the early stages of withdrawal and he had half expected to see the knife on the bedside table after his shower the night before, but the demon had been on the laptop, and had remained there for the entire night, as best as Sam could determine. He was handcuffed and alone when he woke up, and stayed that way until it sailed back in with coffee and bagels shortly after dawn and released him.

Sam started the routine repacking of his things; at this point, something he hardly had to think about. He had just started to slip his toothbrush into the bag when a hand closed firmly around his forearm. The contact against his skin made his body tense in involuntary anticipation. Sam swore silently; god -- he was getting close. He looked up.

The demon’s expression was unreadable in the mirror. “I think we’ll stay another day.”

Sam blinked. They hadn’t spent more than one night in any place since this insane nightmare had started. But asking would show interest, and frankly he didn’t care. He nodded and put the toothbrush back down. The demon let him go, ghosting one finger up the inside of his forearm before turning and walking back to the laptop on the small table. Sam shivered at the caress, then decided that if they weren’t moving today, he was going to take another shower before he curled back up on the bed to spend more hours in aimless drifting.

~~~~~~~

The demon was gone and it was after dark when Sam woke back up hours later. He’d learned not to move after waking until he determined how he was anchored. In a lot of ways, the handcuff wasn’t anything but an insulting reminder of the demon’s threats. While some of the things the demon found to bind him to would be fairly difficult to break the cuffs free from, others were of a less permanent nature and could have been broken with a little work and a few good blows. So all it really did was prevent Sam from fleeing on impulse, or getting into trouble while the demon was away, and made sure that he would have time to think about all the death and damage his escaping would cause. And to what end? So he could kill himself? Same result. So he could try to kill the demon? Whatever it was now, it had been Dean, and not only had Dean been one of the best hunters Sam had ever seen, he had known Sam like his own reflection.

Sam was ruminating over the possibilities when the door banged open and the demon walked in, kicking the door shut again behind itself. It was dressed all in dark clothes and over its shoulder carried a weakly-struggling and blood-smeared Jace Wilkins.

“No!” Sam shouted.

“Shut the fuck up, Sam.”

“No, you son of a bitch. Let him go!”

“Keep yelling, Sammy. Let’s see how many of our friendly neighborhood cops and unhappy tourists you can drag onto the killing field. Jace here has already offered to provide me some entertainment; want to see how much more meat you can bring in for the slaughter?”

Someone banged on the wall next door.

Sam’s next shout strangled in his throat.

The demon flashed him a smirk, then carried Jace into the bathroom and slammed the door.

Sam didn’t hear anything after that but the dull sound of what sounded like blows, muffled cries and the hiss of water.

He tried to bury his face under the pillows so he couldn’t hear even that much, and pulled mindlessly on the handcuff, a subconscious effort to escape to anywhere but there.

Hours or minutes later, he roused to gentle hands tugging at his arm. Sam’s eyes felt swollen and his head full of fuzz. He felt like he could still hear the sounds of those muffled thuds, even though it was deathly quiet in the room. The demon was crouched by the bed, examining his arm. Sam also eyed the limb dully; it looked like it should hurt a lot more than it did. The cuff had cut so deep into his flesh that blood had stained the mattress and pillow and left heavy red streaks down to his elbow. It was still oozing slowly. The cuff itself lay grimed with blood on the bedside table, beside the silver knife. Every muscle in Sam’s body tensed, though he couldn’t say if it was fear, rage or anticipation.

“No,” he said harshly, trying to pull his arm back.

The demon’s grip tightened. “Stop it,” it ordered flatly. “You knew this was coming soon; you decided to speed the necessity of it up by sawing halfway through your wrist. That was your call.”

Sam noted with horror the streaks of blood on the demon’s face, spatters on its throat and smeared around the neckline of its t-shirt.

“Please,” he whispered, “please don’t touch me.”

Its expression hardened. “You knew how this was going to end. You knew almost a month ago when you decided that letting some pup trail along after us was a better idea than just telling me. Did you think I didn’t know? Seriously, Sam?”

Sam didn’t say anything.

“You know the best part?” it breathed, pushing him down and leaning over him, so close Sam could literally taste the heat of its breath. “I probably would have picked him up on my own --he really doesn’t have the stalking thing down very well-- but I didn’t have to. You told me. With the song of your blood and the swirl of your emotions. I would have to be, well, a lot deader than this--” it smiled coldly, “--to have missed that. Like a neon sign screaming that something was different. There aren’t a lot of things I could come up with that would have caused that kind of change in you, so it wasn’t exactly hard to figure it out.”

“He was just a kid,” Sam whispered, closing his eyes again and turning his face away. “And you would have killed him anyways.”

“Maybe so, maybe no. Guess we won’t get to find out.”

Sam swallowed and waited. The demon straightened and turned back to the table. For the first time since this entire thing started, Sam was almost grateful for the taste of blood brushing over his lips, and opened his mouth, willing in both mind and body for once. It guaranteed he wouldn’t have to think about anything again for the rest of the night. Wouldn’t have to hear those muffled thuds in his mind and remember what Jace had looked like when the demon dragged him in to kill.

~~~~~~~

When Sam woke up the next morning, the demon was lying unresponsive beside him on the bed. It was unusual, but Sam certainly wasn’t going to disturb it. He slid out from beneath the sheet numbly, able to think only of taking a shower to scrub the memory of its touch and the aftermath of sex off his skin. He was reaching for the handle of the closed bathroom door when he saw the bloody smears on the cheap, white paint. He turned and threw up in the wastebasket.

When he finished heaving his guts up, a plastic glass of water was being offered to him. He took it and rinsed his mouth out, then blindly turned to find his toothbrush. There wasn’t anything that was going to drag him into that bathroom. No matter how much he needed to shower and pee. Sam pulled his clothes on and was giving serious consideration to the sink-as-urinal when the demon made an impatient sound from the door and Sam turned to find all of their things packed and ready.

“Let’s go.”

Sam started to grab his pillow off the bed, one of the things the demon had pulled from the Impala’s trunk for him, but it was the one that his blood had soaked into, and he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. He let his arms, the damaged one healed good as new, fall back to his sides and followed the demon from the room instead.

Outside, a maid service cart was two doors down. Sam was puzzled when instead of heading for the car, the demon thrust a duffle bag into Sam’s hand and strode meaningfully into the room where the maid was working. Sam heard some furious, indecipherable Spanish, then Dean emerged, looking victorious.

An irritated-looking maid followed him out, and after giving Sam a good look over, huffed annoyed and used a key from her belt to unlock a room that smelled freshly cleaned. She made a grand ‘enter’ sort of gesture and waited impatiently while the demon prodded Sam into the room. The door slammed behind them, and the demon promptly pulled the laptop out and settled back in at the table. Sam was confused.

After a moment, the demon looked up and raised an eyebrow. “Bathroom’s free, Sam. Rosalita says we have about thirty minutes before she’s out of sympathy for our sad plight and kicks us the hell out anyways. Get scrubbing.”

“Sad plight?” Sam echoed, the words not making any sense.

“Yeah, she’s such a lousy maid, the room we stayed in last night looked like someone had been murdered in the shower. Couldn’t bring your delicate self to bathe in it.” The demon looked proud of itself.

Sam felt his stomach heave again, and fled into the bathroom, just to get out from under its gaze.

~~~~~~~

Another week or so passed. Sam wasn’t feeling much of anything anymore. The demon had seemed to give up even any pretense of talking to him, and lived in a permanent state of annoyance. It didn’t drag Sam out much either. Where before, Sam had been treated to the parking lots of a wide variety of weird stores and shady-looking restaurants, now generally the first thing it did was find a place to stash him, and then take off. Sometimes, it would toss a battered paperback from the lobby onto the bed with him; sometimes, it would just watch him for a few minutes, then storm out for hours.

Sam thought they were in South Carolina when the routine changed.

He had taken care of what personal business he had to in preparation for a few hours of being chained up, and was lying on the bed, starting his traditional count of ceiling popcorn, when a clatter on the table beside him redirected his attention.

“This is for you.”

Sam stared, baffled, at the small red phone lying on the nightstand. He recognized it as his, though he had thought it lost in the fire all those months ago.

“It only dials one number.” The demon held up his own phone to underlay the point. “I had it modified. So don’t mess with it; you’re just going to piss me off. I’m going to be gone longer than usual; use it if you need me. For emergencies,” it said pointedly, then looked around and kicked the plastic trashcan from the bathroom over beside the bed. “For more personal emergencies,” it smirked.

Sam rolled onto his back again and resumed his count until he fell asleep.

A persistent music woke him up a few hours later. It would start, intrude on his sleep enough to bring him close to consciousness, then vanish. Only to start up again just as soon as he began drifting back down. It was annoying, but not annoying enough to bother actually waking up for.

A sudden series of loud beeps made him almost jump out of his skin. He pulled his wrist hard, startled, then cursed and wriggled into a sitting position, rubbing at it. Nothing had changed in the room, except the display on the phone was illuminated and showed missed calls and a voicemail. Sam wasn’t particularly inclined to listen to any messages the demon left him, but it tended towards creativity when annoyed, and Sam reluctantly decided not to risk it.

He punched through the menu and froze. The missed calls were Bobby, the message was... well, it didn’t say, but the time showed it had been left right after the last missed call.

Jace’s bloody, battered face as he fought with futile strength against the demon’s hold when it dragged him through the motel room that night flashed in Sam’s mind, and he dropped the phone with a clatter of plastic back to the table.

~~~~~~~

He stared at the phone for a few hours, uncertain what he would do it if rang again. But the phone remained silent. The sun was going down and a storm was picking up outside; finally, he called himself a coward and reached out for it again. There wasn’t anything a message could do to hurt him or change anything. Even the demon couldn’t really object; Sam hadn’t called anyone. His listening to a message hardly counted as an escape attempt.

There were the normal background sorts of noises, and then Bobby’s gruff voice cut through the interference.

“Damn it all, Sam -- where the hell are you?! I thought you were dead, boy. Spent a week poking through the ruins of that damn house of yours, and that was no picnic, not with the freaking disaster teams combing everywhere and not wanting to let people into the area at all. I put out every feeler I had for months looking for your ass.

“I get nothing and raise a couple of bottles to your memory, then out of nowhere yesterday, Jace Wilkins, of all crazy people, staggers up to my door, fresh out of the hospital, and starts giving me some rambling, barely-coherent story about seeing you out in Oklahoma.

“He doesn’t remember a damn thing except that. Had a massive concussion and lost about a month of time. Apparently, whatever happened to him, he just walked into an emergency room right outside of Kansas City, completely cool and calm as you please, then as soon as someone asked if he needed help, collapsed and started having seizures.”

Bobby snorted.

“But he remembers you. Said he saw you handcuffed in a car just south of Amarillo while he was finishing up looking into another sighting of the Borego Phantom -- because that’s never a waste of time,” his voice dripped sarcasm.

After a moment, Sam could hear the sound of Bobby swallowing nervously on the recording.

“Honestly, Sam. I wouldn’t have paid it much mind, the boy’s practically raving, and I had to haul him back to a hospital this morning. Apparently, they wouldn’t let him have a phone wherever he was, so he pretty much just snuck out and made his way here, a lot prematurely. But, uh, from the way he described the car... I did some calling, Sam, and the Impala’s missing. The guy’s not sure when it vanished, but it sure as hell ain’t there now, and he says it looks like it hasn’t been in some time. I need to know if you’re alive, Sam; I need to know if you’re okay. So if you are, call me, write me, send me a freaking pigeon if that’s all you can get your hands on, but let me know.

“That’s all I’ve got, and I’m probably screaming into the wind, but if it’s true -- yeah, call me.”

Sam hit delete and carefully laid the phone back down on the nightstand.

~~~~~~~~

Sam was still awake when the demon walked back in hours later. He lay still and kept his eyes slitted, trying not to draw its attention.

It stalked in with an air of a man for whom the world is just not a satisfactory place. Dean’s angry stride, Dean’s annoyed fiddling with things, Dean’s dissatisfaction muttered under its breath. It flipped the lights on and grabbed a phone book, then glanced sharply at Sam.

Sam thought it had realized he was awake, but after a moment, it flipped the lights back off and walked to the end of the bed. Sam couldn’t see it, but a moment later, the comforter was draped over his body. The handcuff was unfastened and careful hands turned his wrist over as if inspecting it, then laid it down flat on the bed. Then the sense of presence glided away and the bathroom light flicked on; Sam could hear the quiet turning of pages.

Sam was confused. He didn’t understand why a demon would inconvenience itself to try not to wake him up; it wasn’t like it should care if he was disturbed. He never looked at or spoke to it unless he had no choice. It hadn’t killed Jace, but it had kidnapped Sam. It didn’t seem to want to hurt him, but it dragged him around the country like a pet. He shied away from thinking about the curse too deeply; that one was all Lilith and Ruby. But it had taken the curse away from Ruby because it needed Sam for something, then had gone weeks without saying two words in his direction while wandering aimlessly around the country. Which couldn’t actually be true; despite the seemingly random shift in direction and weird collection of stops, it had to be looking for something. The muttering over the phonebook in the bathroom supported that if nothing else.

It had all of Dean’s mannerisms but none of his caring, but even that now... Sam’s recently inspected wrist, bruised from a long afternoon and evening fastened to the bed frame, throbbed faintly like a warning. It wasn’t his brother, it wasn’t his brother, it wasn’t his brother... That shouldn’t be hard to remember; it hadn’t been hard to remember, but now he felt like everything he had understood was in question.

Why hadn’t it killed Jace?

Sam had assumed that it was engaging in the normal demonic sorts of activities during their travels, screwing with people and leaving misery in its wake. But as he struggled to bring into focus some of the last few months of his apathy, he couldn’t really point to any incident that supported that. Granted, he wasn’t in public with the demon very often. But sometimes they went into shops together, or diners. The demon was an avid observer, and had offered some fairly brutal observations on the people around them, but it hadn’t actually done anything that Sam could point to as particularly evil or objectionable. Not outside of the things it had done to Sam himself, and to Jace Wilkins.

But Jace was a hunter, and had clearly been stalking them. Even in his current mindset, Sam couldn’t classify self-defense as evil. And whatever had happened in that motel bathroom, Jace had apparently survived. Sam had been around too many demons in his life to believe that was an accident. Demons didn’t make mistakes of life or death.

Hearing Bobby’s voice had been like a slap in the face in some regards. No matter how awful it seemed or what was happening, he wasn’t really alone. He had already survived events no human should have to, and had emerged sane and whole. Being dragged around shackled to things barely even scored a rating on the ‘suffering I have endured’ scale. The emotional upheaval was horrific and ongoing, but maybe he was finally approaching a place where he could try and cope with the situation instead of just hiding from it.

The mutterings in the bathroom turned into a sort of off-key humming. Sam thought he recognized AC/DC and felt tears burn the backs of his eyes all over again. Maybe.

Chapter Eleven:

Jonas and Ezekiel, hear me now
Steady now I feel your ghost about
I’m not ready for the dead to show its face
Whose angel are you anyway?
~Jonas and Ezekiel, Indigo Girls

Texas was a truly miserable place in the summer, and the heat and glare of reflective light everywhere was making Sam irritable. He was also tired of fighting the demon over every issue, even if just through his continuing apathy. Being handcuffed in the car was getting old. The ebb and rise of the gnawing ache in his body from not getting enough of its blood was exhausting. Even resisting the sex was just not something he felt like doing anymore. His head felt fuzzy all the time, and he was starting to forget what exactly he was struggling for. Dean --the demon that looked like Dean-- wasn’t murdering its way across the country. In fact, with the sole exceptions of what it was doing to Sam himself, and the incident with Jace, he still couldn’t see that the demon was doing much to bother anyone.

Not any more than Dean had done when alive.

Sam sighed and leaned more heavily against the Impala door. The demon was still inside the rest-stop lobby while Sam sweltered in the car. Sam was hot and annoyed enough to even briefly consider picking the handcuffs --sure, they were spelled, but they also had a keyhole and he hadn’t actually tried it before-- but he was wary about what Dean’s promised ‘next step’ would be. And what was he going to do? Was he going to flee into the woods? Beg a trucker to take him on?

That probably would send the demon off on a killing spree.

Maybe just go inside where it was air conditioned.

Sam shifted again, trying to get comfortable. He had no idea why the hell it was dragging him along, anyways. So far, the only thing he had added to the trip was to give it something to play with. Which, really, for a demon might be enough right there. He turned his face to the window and jerked against the handcuff, startled. Dean was standing right there, watching him with a frown. The demon walked around and slid into the driver’s seat without speaking. He dropped a handful of Welcome To Texas! brochures onto the seat between them and pulled back onto the Interstate.

It caught Sam looking at the brochures and gave a half shrug. “Lady at the counter seemed insistent I take them. Easier not to argue with her.”

Sam turned away and stared out the window until restless sleep took him under again.

When he woke up, it was dark and the Impala was parked in front of some anonymous motel. Dean was shaking his shoulder. “C’mon, Sam. Time to get out.”

Sam shook his head groggily. His hand was uncuffed and he stared at it for a moment. Then Dean was opening his door and pulling him out into the parking lot. Sam leaned against the car while Dean hauled their bags from the trunk. He stood there until Dean grabbed his arm again, pulling him towards the building, and then into their room.

The A/C was blasting cold air heavy with the odor of cleaning products. Sam sank gratefully down onto the edge of one of the queen-sized beds and rested his head in his hands. He desperately needed a shower, but he wasn’t sure he would be able to get back on his feet. Then Dean’s hands were on him.

“Lie back. I’m gonna go find us something to eat.”

He let the hands guide him down and watched blankly as Dean shackled his wrist to the bed frame. He closed his eyes against the flare of the handcuffs spell-set and fell back asleep.

~~~~~~~

“You need to eat.”

Sam made a disgruntled sound and tried to turn his face back into the pillow. Dean hauled him up and Sam squinted against the lights. Both of his hands were free and the demon stuffed a wrapped sandwich into one. The idea of food made Sam feel nauseous and he dropped the sandwich on the bed to rub at his eyes again.

Dean smiled pleasantly and handed the sandwich back. “You can eat on your own or I can go raid a clinic and you can eat through a tube. Your call.”

Sam glared at him but peeled back the wrapper and gamely took a few bites. It tasted like ashes. Dean was humming as he laid down the runes that sealed them in for the night. It felt strange not to see the thick salt lines beneath the window and in front of the door, but he imagined that might be a little more locked-in than the demon wanted. His stomach rolled alarmingly and he bolted for the bathroom.

~~~~~~~

Dean, for his part, watched Sam carefully. He bided his time and observed Sam through the afternoon and evening as his stability eroded. As he fidgeted and shivered and tucked his shaking hands beneath his thighs to hide them. As he stuffed most of the sandwich into the trashcan, crumpled into a ball inside its wrapper as though that would hide from Dean that he had only eaten those first supervised bites. Dean could feel the desperation coiling through Sam’s body, and he was determined that, one day, Sam would goddamned well ask for what he needed.

It wouldn’t be today, though. Dean watched his brother strip down to his boxers, apparently dissatisfied with the rattling A/C unit’s ability to cool the room, watched the sweat bead up on his skin and roll down to his waistband as he fought the deep pull of what his body needed against what his mind could accept. Dean waited until Sam dropped the glass he was drinking from and clung to the sink counter with his head lowered before he interfered.

He rose from the chair by the window and removed his clothes. He tugged the comforter down to the foot of the bed farthest from the window and turned off the lamps so the room was lit only by the vanity and what filtered in through the cheap curtains. Sam didn’t move, except to flinch when Dean laid his silver knife down on the bedside table with a deliberate clink.

“Come to bed, Sam.” Dean sat on the made bed and waited, watching the play of muscles in his brother’s back as he clenched and unclenched his fists on the counter’s edge. Sam straightened and turned to the room. Dean met his eyes steadily until Sam lowered his gaze and swallowed hard. He stumbled to the bed and climbed onto the clean sheets, turning his back towards the demon.

Dean dropped the lube on the table and snagged the knife before sliding in behind his brother, curling against his back so that the hand with the knife pressed against Sam’s belly. With his other arm, he moved so Sam’s head rested on his bicep like a pillow. He dropped the knife onto the sheets in front on Sam and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. Dean closed his eyes and concentrated on the tremors running through Sam’s body. On the pounding of his heart and the shakiness of his breath, the play of muscle as he reached hesitantly for the blade.

Dean smiled at the sharp sting as Sam cut into the wrist of the arm he was pillowed on. “That’s not deep enough. You need more than that.”

Sam took a deep breath and sliced harder into Dean’s arm before covering the wound with his mouth. Dean breathed in sharply and dragged Sam’s body tighter against his own as Sam drank. The pain of the wound barely even registered, but the soft, wet sounds Sam made as he nursed at the cut made Dean groan and nuzzle into Sam’s neck. He knew Sam was already deep into the thrall when the press of Dean’s erection against his brother’s lower back didn’t even cause Sam to flinch.

Dean eased Sam’s boxers down, exposing the curve of his ass as his brother continued to feed from the wound. Reaching behind one-handed to find the lube from the table, then fumbling the cap off, was awkward, but better than moving Sam. He ran his fingers slowly down the crease, then pressed a slick digit inside. The hitch in his brother’s breathing told him it was felt, but the steady suction against his arm continued. He wiggled a second one in and hooked them to find… Sam sucked in a sharp breath and tensed with pleasure. After a moment, Dean felt a more tentative swipe of tongue across the quickly mending wound. Dean had trained himself to heal his flesh reflexively, it was hard to concentrate on keeping the wound open while being seduced by the sensations of Sam’s body.

“That’s it, Sam; you’re doing good,” Dean spoke gently, as he eased a third finger in. He kissed the back of his shoulder and brushed his brother’s face with the fingers of his free hand, now that Sam was concentrating on breathing and not on feeding. Sam never spoke during sex. He made the most interesting little involuntary sounds, but never words.

He slipped his fingers free and moved his arm from beneath Sam’s head. Dean rolled his brother onto his belly with a pillow tucked under his hips; Sam was pliant to the direction of his hands, lazy with the blood-thrall now sated, and more than willing. Every inch of his skin was craving Dean’s touch, responsive and eager.

Dean finished dragging off Sam’s boxers, then knelt between the legs Sam slid obediently apart for him. His own cock was rigid against his belly. He could see Sam’s fingers clenched white-knuckled on the sheets as the inner battle between mind and body played out in the muscles of his back. Dean hadn’t let the need go far enough this time that Sam was completely subsumed by desire; he liked it better this way. Even if Sam didn’t want this, knowing his brother was aware in there somewhere made it feel more like having sex than using a toy. A different sort of fulfillment began to seep into Dean’s spirit as he touched his brother and prepared him. They were both chained to this act, but he doubted Sam would be in a place to hear that for awhile yet, if ever. He pressed more lube into Sam, and slicked what was left on his hand over his cock.

“So sweet, Sammy,” Dean groaned, as he pressed the head in, giving Sam a moment to relax a bit more. He could have used more stretching, but with Dean’s blood running fresh through his body, the only way Sam would still be feeling it tomorrow was if Dean was a little harsher than necessary tonight. And Dean really wanted Sam to be feeling it, even if only a little. Sam’s irritation over the constant reminder while he endured the ache in the Impala was one of the few things Dean had found that distracted Sam from his apathetic depression. An angry, glaring Sam was better than the empty slate his brother had been for the most part since Dean recovered him.

As soon as he felt Sam relax a bit, Dean pressed himself in to the root. Sam hissed in pain as he was forced open around Dean, but it turned into a gasp of pleasure as the hand Dean wasn’t bracing himself with found Sam’s swollen cock. Dean took a moment to collect himself before starting an easy rocking he could maintain for awhile. The clench of Sam’s muscles around him, sheathed in the silky heat of his channel, was pretty much what Dean imagined Heaven would be like, before he had been sent to Hell and found out how things actually stood in the afterlife. The pounding of Sam’s pulse and the sheer pleasure of having him stretched out and submissive came even closer. The whole package might have been enough to tempt Dean away from even his revenge, if he could have guaranteed an eternity of just that room, at just that moment. But sexual pleasure is fleeting, and Dean only waited until Sam’s orgasm rolled through him, leaving his brother limp and panting, before giving a few last hard, dragging thrusts and spilling himself deep.

He breathed hard against the back of Sam’s sweaty neck while they both came down, before slipping free of Sam’s body and flopping on his back beside him. His control over his own body might have allowed him to ride Sam all night, but the goal was to sate Sam’s blood-brought lust and see to his own needs, not to cause serious pain and damage.

Sam kept his face turned away from Dean, but made no effort to move from the bed as an intense drowsiness pervaded him. Dean stroked his back, starting from his shoulder blades and trailing his hand down as far as he could reach over warm, soft skin. He traced all the scars and imperfections from the hard life his brother had led by touch, idly wondering what Sam could have made of himself had he been called to another life.

Knowing it would never have been allowed.

Sam was special. The demon blood Azazel had infected him with was part of it, but the part that had drawn him to Sam in the first place was innate. Sam was just special, and Dean intended to use him to make all of the demons arrayed against them very, very sorry they had ever heard the name Winchester.

Dean went to get a damp washcloth from the sink. He cleaned Sam off, his brother still pliant to touch. “Do you want your boxers?”

Sam rolled over and nodded without opening his eyes, so Dean dropped them on his chest. Sam dragged them back on while Dean tossed the cloth back into the sink. He didn’t protest when Dean curled back around him in the bed, and he slept while Dean sank his own mind into scouring unseen pathways for hints of their enemies’ movements.

~~~~~~~

“Up and at ‘em, Sam,” Dean said, as he dragged the sheets off his brother. “Grab a shower, then we need to talk.”

Sam sat up, blinking. The aches and misery of the day before had been erased like a fever dream. Well, he ached in some places still. He looked up to see Dean eyeing him knowingly and felt his face flush.

“Up, Sam,” Dean said firmly. “A hot shower will cure all sorts of stuff. I’m gonna go find breakfast. We will probably hang out for a while, then hit the road around noon.”

Sam swallowed and spoke haltingly, for the first time in days. “What… what are we waiting for?”

“I told you, bro; we have to talk.”

Chapter Twelve:

I look at this lifeline stretched way out across my hand
I look at the burned out empty like a plague across the land
~It’s Alright, Indigo Girl

Dean was hitting a wall trying to deal with the stupid spell.

He had dragged Sam around like sulking deadweight for long enough. Dean figured his brother had hit enough of a bottom that it was time to start trying to get him interested in life again. Besides, they would probably find the spell faster if Sam would call up some of his contacts and poke around. Dean sure as hell wasn’t going to get anywhere if he started asking around the hunter community. So far, he had only been able to consult sources that for some reason or another were isolated. If Sam would just get on board, things would go much faster. He would have a better selling point if he could promise to leave Sam alone afterwards, but he honestly didn’t think the spell could be undone. Maybe he could just take his threats back and tell Sam his life would be his to do what he wanted with. He thought if Sam would just pay attention for a little bit, he wouldn’t be so eager to kill himself. Maybe. Hopefully.

He was back with biscuits and hot coffee by the time the water in the bathroom shut off and Sam emerged.

Sam looked pretty good, all things considered. A little skinny, but still a fit and impressive presence. There was no visible sign of the bruises Dean knew he had left on him the night before.

He gave Dean a wary look as he fished clean clothes out of his duffle bag and pulled them on over damp skin.

Dean slid two of the biscuits and a coffee cup meaningfully towards the other chair at the table and sat across from it.

Sam sat, with a furious glare at Dean, but said nothing. He slowly unwrapped the first biscuit and seemed prepared to lose himself once more in the aimless depression that had been his residence for most of the last half-year.

“Not today, Sam,” Dean said firmly.

His brother blinked at him. Dean was used to the silence at this point, but something had to give.

“I need your help to stop Lilith and screw her and her party pals over.”

The instant hostility that the mention of Lilith’s name had evoked last time flared again in the recently renewed bond between them, but after a moment, there was a slight waver in resolve and maybe a flicker of interest. Dean took it as encouragement, but he was still surprised when Sam spoke.

“I told you, I don’t help demons.”

“C’mon, Sam! Enough is enough. It’s been six months now! Does it look like I’m out to wage war and atrocity across the land? I haven’t even gotten a parking ticket; where’s your faith?”

“What about Jace?” Sam asked coolly.

Dean’s expression immediately went flat and his eyes narrowed. “Your little friend Jace was a fucking hunter who was stalking my back-trail. He jumped me with a rosary and a freaking bucket of holy water and tried to force me into a trap. I don’t like traps, Sam, not of any sort when I’m the prey. And I didn’t give him half of what he deserved for it.”

“You didn’t have to kill him.”

Dean frowned, the link between them was humming, but he wasn’t sure with what. The hatred and rage he had expected the topic to bring up were... muted. Sam’s dominant emotion felt more like curiosity than anything else, and the expression in his brother’s hazel eyes seemed more searching than condemning.

“Uh, well... I don’t expect you to believe this, but in point of fact, I didn’t.” There was surprise, but none of the instant denial he had expected ghosting over his brother’s face. “Something you want to share with the class?”

Sam’s face shuttered and he turned his attention back to breakfast. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Dean’s hand whipped out snake-fast and his fingers locked around his brother’s forearm, hard enough to sink a whole new set of bruises. Even if only for a little while.

“Oh, I think you do, Sam. You knew the little bastard wasn’t dead, and I think you had better come clean with me pretty damn fast, because if I have to find out on my own what’s going on, I don’t think you’re gonna like my methods much.”

Sam glared at him, but Dean could feel that the anger and irritation was only on the surface. Beneath it was still the curiosity, and maybe-- confusion? And definitely pain. He released Sam abruptly and watched his brother rub at the reddened skin of his arm with a grimace.

“Well?” Dean asked pointedly.

“Bobby called,” Sam muttered.

“Fuck, Sam! You’ve been talking to Bobby?!”

“No!” Sam said with a desperate edge to his voice.

The desperation was confusing for a moment, until Dean flashed on how dark Sam’s eyes had gotten all those months ago when Dean had threatened their old family friend. He waited for his brother to provide more detail.

“He just left a message. That night when you were gone so long and left the phone. I didn’t talk to him; he doesn’t know anything! He just... Jace had showed up and told him I was alive. He wanted to know if that was true. I didn’t talk to him,” Sam repeated.

Dean knew he was telling the truth, but he still cursed and flicked a wrapper away across the table to bounce onto the floor.

Sam seemed to take his agitation for a bad sign. “That’s all, I swear.”

“I knew I should have done a better job on the stupid kid,” Dean snarled at nothing in particular. A wave of bafflement across the table caught his attention. Sam was frowning at him.

Dean waved the coffee cup in disgust. “When I walked him to the hospital, after you were passed out, I tried to smother or uproot all his memories of us. I didn’t want half the freaking hunters in the region coming to find us. But I thought it would be even weirder if his memories of his last hunt just cut off abruptly, so I... must have left too much. Damnit.”

“Walked him to the hospital?”

“What -- you think he took himself?” Dean snorted. “By the time he was done fighting me over just staunching the wounds he got from jumping a demon in an alley, he wasn’t in shape to string two sentences together, much less walk. It was way easier just to slip inside and walk him myself, with the added bonus of the memory riffling.”

Sam remembered how unnaturally still and unresponsive the demon had been, lying beside him when he had woken up that morning.

“Why didn’t you just kill him?”

“Why would I? He was just a stupid kid. I mean, yeah, sure, now with the possible involvement of a hunter like Bobby Singer, thanks to the idiot, I can really understand the appeal, but at the time--” Dean shrugged.

“You let me think you had!”

“I’ve let you think whatever the fuck you’ve wanted all along on this trip, Sam. If you want to bury your head in the sand and let me use your own blindness to manipulate the hell out of you, that’s your call. I mean, that does seem to be kinda a trend with you and demons, but I can’t make you believe a damn thing.”

Sam’s jaw clenched and his nostrils flared at Dean’s reference to Ruby and the events that had led to the blood-curse in the first place, but after a moment, he relaxed, and picked at the biscuit some more.

“That’s nice art you’re working on, Sam. Full points for creativity. Now try eating it.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Remember what I said about the optionality of food?”

Sam looked rebellious, but started eating at least half of what he was tearing off.

Dean watched him thoughtfully. Sam was focused on something inside himself, but the apathetic tinge and sense of absence was gone. He was thinking quite furiously about something. Dean figured that was a good start and pulled the laptop out of his bag to get back to work.

~~~~~~~

The next morning, Dean kept casting looks at his brother, but Sam seemed as oblivious as usual.

Dean broke the normal routine of eating in the car and found a diner for lunch. He was comfortable with Sam’s silence when he could clearly feel the apathy beneath it; he was more disturbed when Sam was clearly preoccupied with something. Pleased that he was taking an interest in life, but concerned about whatever he was still thinking over.

Something to break up the headache Sam was giving them both was definitely called for.

Inside, Sam more or less maintained his silence until the food arrived. He had placed his order in as few words as possible, and watched Dean appraisingly.

Finally, right before Dean broke and demanded an explanation, Sam spoke up. “Bobby said some other things in his message.”

Dean groaned. “Not this again.”

“He said he went through the ruins of my house. What ruins would those be, exactly?”

“That’s what you get when something burns down,” Dean shrugged.

“You burned my house down?!”

“It was full of stuff I didn’t think needed to be left on its own for anyone to just riffle through,” Dean snapped.

“Bobby or another hunter would have found it eventually; some of that stuff was irreplaceable!”

“They wouldn’t have found it soon enough,” Dean muttered.

“Soon enough for what?”

Dean busied himself with his cheeseburger and didn’t answer. Sam ignored his food in favor of fuming.

“You’re leaving something out of the story,” Sam surmised.

“I’m glad you’re feeling communicative and all, Sam, but I’m starting to think I preferred you sulking and silent.”

“Bobby said there were disaster teams in the area. You get firefighters when a house burns down, not disaster response.”

“Maybe they were bored.”

“What was the disaster, Dean?”

Dean raised an eyebrow when Sam addressed him by name, but didn’t comment on it. “There may have been an earthquake in the same general area about the time we blew town.”

“That’s not a seismically active area.”

“Well then, I guess the violent shaking of the earth and widespread property damage just confused the crap out of people.”

“What the hell is going on?!”

“Hey,” Dean snapped back, “I tried to have this conversation with you about six months ago, and you wanted to feel sorry for yourself and put your hands over your ears. Don’t bitch at me because you don’t know what’s going on in the world now!”

“Feel sorry for myself?!” Sam hissed, sounding like he would rather be yelling, but wary of the attention their heated discussion was already drawing. “I’m being hunted by demons, who want to use me to kick off the Apocalypse. I finally get some safe ground, and then another demon, who looks like my dead brother, shows up at my house, assaults me, then drags me off claiming he wants my help to stop Lilith. Ironically, the same thing the last demon who wanted my help claimed, and look what an exciting souvenir I got from that experiment.”

“Yeah,” Dean said casually between bites of his burger, “but she was a lying bitch, and I’m your brother. And I didn’t assault you, Sam. You were a totally willing participant. Damn near tore your own clothes off trying to help me out.” It wasn’t a fair attack, but Dean was more interested in keeping Sam animated than in being nice at the moment. Sam’s eyes were so wide, Dean wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to pull a muscle, and his face was turning what was probably an unhealthy shade of red. “Are you going to eat those?” Dean pointed to Sam’s fries.

Sam didn’t reply, just clenched and unclenched his fists a few times, staring back out the window in anger.

It was a few minutes before he spoke again. “I want to use the laptop.”

“Yeah, how about ‘no’. Does ‘no’ work for you?”

Another frustrated look. “I’m not going to contact anyone, I just want to... do some research.”

Dean sighed and pushed his plate away. “What is it you want to know, Sam?”

“The earthquake. I specifically considered that possibility when I picked that place to build because I didn’t want perimeter breaches. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“You underestimated Lilith’s determination.”

Sam seemed to consider that for a moment, then paled. “She’s powerful enough to target me with an earthquake?!”

“Nope. But with enough time and determination, she was able to get enough allies who could work together to bring one off. Even then, it took a few years to set the pressure up.” Dean grinned. “Must have cost her a lot of political kudos when she still wasn’t able to get her hands on you. I wouldn’t want to be in your pal Ruby’s place. If she’s got a brain in her head, she’s laying so low right now, she makes earthworms look like eagles.”

“You knew there was going to be an earthquake?”

“Like I said, it took her time and focus to bring it together. Anyone paying attention knew something big was in the works; I got a tip and managed to get you out before it went off.”

“How much before it went off?”

“Um... a few hours.”

“And if I had been there when it happened?”

“Let’s just say you would have been moving to a new address anyways, and in something probably a lot less comfortable than the Impala.” Dean paused to eat some more of the fries. “Certainly less stylish.”

Sam ignored that. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Dean snorted. “I thought we covered this already. You wouldn’t have believed me anyways; why waste my time?”

Sam glared.

“Is there something else you wanted to eat instead?” Dean asked pointedly, nodding towards the untouched sandwich on his brother’s plate.

Sam shook his head and picked it up, thoughts turning inward again.

“Great,” Dean declared. “Now, let’s see if I can get our waitress and find out what this place has for pie.”

~~~~~~~

Sam had stayed relatively quiet for the rest of the day. He answered questions in monosyllables, but he did answer, which was a stunning change. A few days into a new cycle, the crispness of the emotional link was fading, but Dean could still tell that Sam was actively thinking about things

instead of just passively existing.

On the morning of the third day, when Dean walked back into the room from his usual raid on the office muffins and juice --when the office had muffins and juice-- Sam was sitting on the bed, waiting for him. It was unusual, because nothing was packed or ready to go.

“You have plans for today you haven’t told me about, Sam?”

“I want to know what’s going on.”

Dean pursed his lips and set the food down on the table. “Kind of an odd statement from you.”

“Look, I’m not going to pretend to be happy or promise to do anything... I just want to know why you’re doing this. You tried to tell me before, and I... Well, I wasn’t ready to hear it. I am now.”

“So now that you’re ready, I’m supposed to be all excited about it and spill my guts to you?”

“Honestly, I don’t give a rat’s ass how you feel about it. But there has to be some kind of reason, and you need to tell me, or I honestly might just go insane.”

Dean shrugged and pointed at the other chair. “You eat, I’ll talk."

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