dime_liora | Where Do We Begin (The Rubble or Our Sins?) Epilogue

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He goes to bed that night with Sam sitting in a chair beside him. There’s a variety of ingredients and pieces that Sam has pulled out of the Impala’s trunk, and Dean gives them the briefest of glances before leaning in to press a gentle kiss against Sam’s broken lips.

Probably should have called Zoe to say goodbye. Asked her to tell Amy how much he loves her, how much it meant to give her away, but the time for that has passed. Dean Hunt is about to die, and if he survives the spell Dean Winchester will get up in the morning and have his brother back.

Sam’s voice starts, gentle and lulling, Latin tripping off his lips like water flowing in a stream. Dean’s eyes grow heavy, his body sinks into the mattress, and he dreams.

“You can call me Pamela. Would you like to come back to my place?”

He shouldn’t, but why shouldn’t he? What he wants he can’t have, and simply sitting around in the disgusting motel room with Sam and burning with need isn’t getting him anywhere but Hell.

Pamela’s hand is small, but her grip is firm as she leads Dean out to her car and takes him miles away from the bar and into a neighborhood where acres lie between each plantation style house. The one she stops at is beautiful, but it looks empty on the inside. There’s too much space and not enough life.

Dean runs his fingers though her soft brown hair, tilts her head up to study her eyes, and then leans down and tastes her lips. They’re whiskey and cinnamon, and Dean likes it. Likes to imagine she’s a little taller and less curvy.

Fingers thread into his belt loops and her husky voice brings him back to the present.

“Get settled on the couch Dean. I’m gonna fix us both a drink before the main event.”

Then the world shifts and twists. He drank from it, he knows that, but he honestly can’t remember the main event. When he wakes up he knows that he is Dean Hunt, and that his sister loves him more than anything. That she would do anything for him.

A man comes, big and confusing, and he tries to take Dean away from his sister. His eyes are sad, and he keeps touching Dean and pleading. Pamela comes home and the man attacks her, but Dean manages to get his gun away from him and hold him off.

Running, a car chase, and the big black vehicle behind them roars as Pamela speeds along the road and babbles, assuring Dean that the man won’t take him and he’ll be alright.

She misses the turn, hits the high curb and cuts the wheel too hard, and then everything is upside down and right side up. Humid air kisses him, the night explodes with colors and then red settles in his vision before his leg is on fire and his body is screaming at him.

Tilted eyes swim into view and giant hands roughly pass over his face as a voice screams over and over again, “Dean? Dean? Stay with me! You gotta stay with me!”

Wailing sirens, people talking, someone cutting his pants off and beeping machines. “My brother! Please that’s my brother!”

But he’s not, he’s not his brother. He’s no one’s brother, he’s no one, he’s pain and suffering. He’s spread out and cut open under the hands of demons and everything drips blood and screams as the world stutter stops in and out before his eyes.

Darkness is a blessing, and he only hopes for death.

---

When Dean wakes up Sam is sitting beside him on the bed. His leg is propped up on a pillow, and his hand is resting on Dean’s thigh.

He feels different. The lingering headache is gone, and there’s a taste in his mouth that he can’t place. Distantly he knows that he had a nightmare, but what it was he can’t say.

More importantly, the earliest memory he has of Sam is the lanky skeleton Amy dragged behind her through the snow.

Dean shakes Sam awake, too rough for his healing bones but unable to gentle himself.

“You didn’t do it. Why didn’t you do it?”

Sam’s eyes are bleary with sleep and pain, but he knuckles them one at a time before leaning in to kiss Dean.

“Because I love you more than I love having the memory. I can happily be with this Dean. He’s not that different.”

Everything else goes unsaid, but Dean sees it in Sam’s gaze. Which is when the last part hits him. The thing that slipped free on the rush of fleeing Savannah.

“I killed the thing that killed mom.”

Dean probably deserves how pissed off Sam gets.

-----
Sam gives him the cold shoulder for several days until he seems to grasp the idea that Dean just couldn’t care as much about finishing their quest for vengeance as he did taking care of Sam. After all, it wasn’t his quest as far as he knew.

And now, now they have to deal with the difference between knowing and knowing. Academically Dean knows that he is Sam’s brother, but emotionally that knowledge means little to nothing. It’s got the same logical but theoretical feel as the distance between the Earth and Jupiter or how every person he sees has a life and world separate from his own.

Some days it’s obvious Sam needs his brother instead of whatever it is Dean is now. Those are the hardest days, because Dean slips on the character from his book and sees every time he fails at properly playing it.

But he can do it. He can be what Sam needs, because Sam gave up everything for him. They don’t touch unless they have to; helping each other out when something is outside of their current physical capabilities. More roommates than anything else at this point, and secretly Dean hates that undefined quality even as he forces smiles and tries to get along just fine.

Then one night Dean jerks awake to warm flesh pressing against him. He turns to peer through the dark and sees the shine of Sam’s eyes even as one big hand slides gently over his hair.

“Is this okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Your book – you wanted this before everything changed?”

Dean swallows and turns his face into Sam’s hand as he considers possible answers.

“I can’t give you that Sam. I wish I could. That’s how I read it, but this Dean doesn’t know for sure if it’s that Dean’s truth.”

Sam makes a low noise and then kisses him, lips desperate and wet, and Dean settles into it. He’s not sure what Sam wants here, but he’s willing to give it. The kid is still messed up, not healed physically or emotionally, but Dean’s not able to turn away from this offer.

He lets Sam open him up, tongue wet and hot along his cock as lubed fingers slide in and out of him. Stretch him wide and slow while Dean’s thighs tremble and he digs his heel into the bed hard. His fingers tangle in Sam’s hair and he’s begging before Sam is even rubbing his prostate.

“Oh god, please Sam, even if it’s – just please.”

Maybe the connection isn’t totally lost. Even if Dean can only conceptually understand it he’s hard-wired on Sam’s frequency. Muscle memory appears to go a little bit further than Dean could have ever imagined.

“No.” Sam laps at the head of Dean’s cock and then slides up his body before nudging against his entrance. Dean angles up as best he can and feels Sam slide inside, burn and stretch better than he remembered. “It’s gotta be both. As much as it can be, but always. Promise me.”

He wraps one arm around Sam’s neck and pulls him down to lick into his mouth. To make the promise as best he can, to try at being Sam’s brother and Sam’s partner all at once. Shifting with the days and weeks until they’re both dead and in the ground.

Because being Sam’s brother assured that, being his partner only hopes at it. Dean got a reboot, got to forget all the abandonment issues that their life embedded in them. Sam doesn’t have any of that hope and belief.

Dean bows backwards, Sam’s arm helping to give him more leverage as he pounds into Dean and murmurs promises and love into his skin. It’s sweet, it’s violent, it’s them, and Dean reaches climax first and shudders as Sam keeps thrusting into him deep and hard while Dean returns the endearments he received.

They fall asleep tangled together, and Dean makes sure it stays that way every night afterwards.

------

They’re in the driveway when the truck pulls up. Sam’s so still beside him he could be made of stone. Zoe gets out of the driver’s seat and then walks around to the passenger side and opens the door. Dean would like to say he’s ready, because Zoe’s spent enough time preparing him, but his reaction prompts Sam to grab his arm and hold tight.

She looks smaller somehow, thick white bandages swathing the left side of her face, and her movements are stiff and slow. Zoe shoots him a desperate look and Dean realizes they’re waiting for one of them to make a move.

It’s Sam that takes the lead, pulls gently before releasing and heading to Amy’s side. She tilts her head oddly, eye landing on Sam’s still slightly puffy and bruised face, and then she wraps one careful arm around his waist and buries her face in his chest.

Minutes pass in silence as Amy shakes in Sam’s arms, and then he pulls back and tucks her hair behind her ears.

“I’m so sorry Amy. You don’t know how-“

“You know, broken ribs aside, I’m still crotch level to hit you right?”

Dean’s laughing before anyone else, hand clutching his side before he moves in and gently takes a hold of her. Antiseptic covers her normal smells, but it’s her murmuring how happy she is to see him, and that’s good.

Very good.

----

One Year Later:

“Baby girl please don’t put that thing in. You know that creeps me right the hell out.”

Dean looks up from the gravestone he’s carving to see Amy dancing past Zoe’s outstretched hand with a glass ball in her grip. She practically crash lands in front of Dean and holds it up proudly.

It’s an eye, with a spider where the pupil and iris should go, and her eyebrows dance as she waves it back and forth.

“Zoe’s afraid of spiders, Zoe’s afraid of spiders!”

Sing-songing past him Amy slams into Sam as he balances grey paint in both hands. He just manages to fumble the paint down onto the ground and catch her before she falls.

“What the hell is-“

Dean tries to stop him but Amy’s already picked up on it.

“Zoe is afraid of spiders, Zoe is afraid of spiders, Zoe is-“

The woman in question swoops in and grabs the little blonde up before covering her mouth with her remaining hand.

“I’m sorry y’all I don’t know what gets into her when candy is involved. Some kind of dementia that obviously needs to be treated with instant sugar deprivation.”

Amy squeals sadly behind Zoe’s hand and Dean almost destroys the skull he’s been carefully crafting as he laughs. Zoe carries her struggling wife out and Sam puts both paint cans down and leans in to kiss Dean’s forehead.

“You’re getting better at that with every day.”

Dean looks up from the tombstone to see the way Sam is studying him, eyes bright and mouth curved into a smile.

“Yeah, well, I take my hobbies seriously. I thought you didn’t like Halloween?”

His boyfriend shrugs and looks away for a moment before popping one of the paint cans open. Sam’s gotten big again, filled out and relaxed. He managed to get his position at the diner back, and Dean reaps the benefits in leftover pies and the best home fries in existence.

Dean loves him more than words, and he’s not ashamed to admit it or to express it. Sam always reacts to this with a guarded optimism, and Dean can’t wait until the day that even that is gone. They shift titles seamlessly, brother to boyfriend, partner to everything, and Dean can’t imagine any other life than this one.

“I don’t. I like seeing you smile this much though.”

The doorbell interrupts Dean’s perfect response, and he waves a hand at Sam before plucking up the candy bowl and heading for the door. Feet slam the floorboards behind him and Amy comes skidding up to his side as she adjusts the glass eyeball in her socket.

When he finally wins the struggle for the doorknob the man on the other side is most certainly not trick-or-treating. Short black hair, a rugged face, and bright blue eyes study Dean carefully as Amy makes a noise beside him.

“Mr. Novak! What are you doing here?”

Dean glances Amy’s way before turning back to the stranger at the door.

“Hello Amy. I came to ask Dean if I could have my knife back, and to see how he is doing.”

There’s a slithering noise, and Dean tears his eyes away from the stranger to see that Amy is on the floor with the wall at her back and her chin resting on her chest.

“What the fuck-“

Except then he’s in the bedroom, and the man is reaching under Dean and Sam’s bed and pulling the knife that killed the demon out from its hiding place.

“Dean, are you well? Also, have you decided if you will return to hunting with your brother or not?”

“I don’t know who the fuck you are, but if you hurt her or-“

The blue eyes look surprised and hurt, and Dean swallows the rest of it down and finds he can lift his hands.

“Look, I don’t know what you want but-“

“I have said what I want twice already. Do you need me to repeat it a third time or are you using a colloquial phrase I am unfamiliar with?”

Not joking, not trying to be smart, he’s really asking Dean that.

“I’m- this is weird. You know that, right? Are you another monster?”

Blue tilts to the left in the direction Dean left Sam, and then lands back on him.

“No. I am not a monster. Yes, this is weird. I will leave after I know the answers though, so that may ease some of your tension.”

Dean swallows and thinks about his answer. “I’m fine. Happy. I’m never going to hunt again.”

The man’s mouth twitches as if it wants to smile but doesn’t quite know how.

“That is very good. May I ask why?”

“Because it’s an unending cycle that only leads to death and misery.”

Head nodding he tucks the sword into one sleeve and brushes past Dean into the hallway.

“Take care of yourself Dean. It has been a pleasure to see you grow so much.”

Dean breaks the paralysis and heads into the hallway, but other than Amy standing against the wall and blinking there’s no sign of their visitor. She turns her eye on him and blinks rapidly.

“Did I just black out? I swear I was coming here to do something.”

He wraps one arm around her and pulls her in tight as they make their way back to where he can hear Sam’s booming laughter and Zoe’s raucous response.

“No Ames. You were here to hear my secret.”

“Secret? Ohhh I love secrets!”

Dean presses his lips against her soft blonde hair before pulling the box out of his pocket.

“Think he’ll say yes?”

Master post

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: "Laughter Lines"-Bastille

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

whiskyboys.livejournal.com

Oh man, you had me worried with your notes. I do love your writing and some good hurt Dean so I carried on despite the dire warnings.

So glad I did!

I loved this story. I know it isn't the happiest in the world but I enjoyed the entire journey. Dean being Dean, even if he didn't know he was. Keeping his snark, distrust and his protective streak despite being so lost. And poor Sam! So torn between wanting his brother and not wanting to lose him forever. I just wanted to hug him for most of the story.

Amy and Zoe were fantastic, just loved their characters and relationship so much. Totally didn't expect the way the story played out (Dean shot Bobby! Dean shot Bobby!!!!) and I kind of squeed a bit when Dean's hand grasped a knife that it shouldn't have done (that's wasn't a euphemism) and the ending - Castiel - perfect!!!

This was amazing!!! Well done and thank you for sharing :D

xx

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These fragments I have shored against my ruins.

Where Do We Begin (The Rubble or Our Sins?) Epilogue

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