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vail_kagamiFandom: Supernatural
Beta:
minviendhaCharacters (overall): Dean, Castiel, Sam, plus a number of angels and demons
Rating (overall): NC-17
Warnings (overall): violence, torture, drug use, insanity, mentions of rape
Spoilers: Going AU during episode 5.18: Point of No Return. No spoilers for after season five.
Words (this chapter): 7,155
Summary: A man wakes up in a ruined wasteland, without memories, without a name, without knowing the strange guy who claims he used to be an angel, or that he once had a little brother. All he knows is that the world is dying, everyone is lying to him and that somehow, somewhere, something went terribly wrong. Because someone said Yes when they should have said No, and someone else paid the price.
Masterpost
For a while after Sam woke up, not much changes. Dean’s brother is still weak and sick. He sleeps a lot, and even when he’s awake he can’t do anything but lie on the bed and hold on to Dean’s hand as if he was afraid his brother would disappear again if he let go. He doesn’t speak much because speaking hurts and costs strength. Dean is happy to do the talking for both of them and rambles on about nothing important until Sammy falls asleep, after which Dean falls silent to listen to his breathing.
He never speaks about anything important. There will be time for that later, although Dean is aware that maybe he should make use of the opportunity while Sam can neither argue nor run away.
For now, they all continue to be stuck in the weird little building Dean isn’t even convinced is real in any sense of the word, and they will continue to be until Sam’s broken bones have mended and his infections have been defeated. Dean will stay here forever if it’ll keep Sammy safe, even though after having been locked in here for what feels like weeks he’s willing to murder someone (figuratively speaking, or at least someone other than Sam) just to get outside for five minutes and take a walk that’s longer than the length of the corridor. Even opening a window would help.
Sometimes he wonders if Jena created this place as some kind of sadistic but subtle torture.
If so, the torture is meant for him. Jena herself and Cas don’t seem to have a problem with being locked in and Sam doesn’t even know. He asks were they are once, but is still so weak that the answer “Somewhere safe” is enough for him. In a way he reminds Dean of the little boy he used to be; the child who needed his big brother’s protection and trusted him without question.
It’s one of the worst realisations he’s ever had.
Apart from the fact that Sam is awake every now and then, the only difference from before is that Dean is taking better care of himself now. He’s eating more, and when Sam is out he often ends up falling asleep beside him. His brother needs him, and Dean has been too close to his own point of collapse before. He needs to be strong and healthy to be of any use. Also, Sammy would worry. Because he is a stupid little fool who doesn’t realise that some people simply aren’t worth his concern.
Since Sam woke up, Jena air-freshens the room more often so the air isn’t stale and smelling of sickness anymore. It annoys Dean a little because it seems to prove that she didn’t care enough about him and Cas to regularly bother before, but it also makes him happy because it shows that she cares enough about Sam.
Well, she should. After all, she invested a lot of effort into saving him and keeping him alive. She still comes regularly to check on him and support his healing process, though it frustrates Dean that there seems to be so little effect.
“Can’t you fight it down?” he once asks when Sam is coming down with another fever and tossing around in the grip of nightmares that don’t even leave him air to scream. Jena only grimaces, a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead, and replies, “There’s something much worse I have to fight, if you don’t mind,” though she never explains what that would be.
She’s never around when Sam’s conscious, making Dean wonder if there is anything between them he doesn’t know about or if she simply doesn’t want to confuse the kid. Sam’s already dealing with a lot, and if they did not meet in the time of Dean’s… absence, then the last time Sam encountered this particular angel, it wasn’t exactly on the best terms.
Through all these days, Cas doesn’t show up all that often. Dean suspects he must come in when they are asleep because half-eaten food disappears, water bottles are refilled and once he woke up covered in a blanket he didn’t remember taking himself, and he just can’t see Jena doing that for him. Actually, he’s not sure how he feels about Cas doing it, because, seriously, that’s kind of creepy, in a stalker kind of way.
Except he’s pretty sure Cas doesn’t stay out of sight because he’s creepily obsessed with Dean. It’s more likely that can’t really stand to be in the same room with him. They have a lot to talk about and if Cas is as keen on that as Dean is, they never will and it will stand between them forever.
Who is Dean kidding? It will stand between them forever, no matter how often and how deeply they deal with it. What Dean did is not something a conversation can take care of.
Mostly, Dean doesn’t even think about Cas. When he does, he feels guilty – without Cas, he wouldn’t have made it this far and Sammy would have been lost long ago. Still, it takes a few days before he even notices he hardly sees the angel anymore.
A part of him is glad. It’s the part of him that shrivelled into something painful and ugly when Sam first woke up and panicked at his sight. Cas had Sam for centuries and Dean feels excused for wanting him for himself for a little while.
-
Without clocks or windows it’s hard to tell the passing of time, and Dean’s sleeping rhythm is shot to hell. He tends to sleep when Sam does, but Sam sleeps almost all the time and Dean only ever grabs a few hours in between. Or maybe he sleeps for days. He can’t tell the difference but he never feels like he just woke from a coma.
After what Dean somewhat randomly estimates to be about a week after Sam first woke up, he very carefully unwraps the bandages around Sam’s splinted legs to change them and check the state of healing. Fractures like Sam’s should take six weeks or more to heal and Dean is pretty sure that’s not how long they have been here, but the more he thinks about it, the less sure he is. Though it doesn’t really matter, in the end – Sam’s miserable state might be slowing the healing, Jena’s support might speed it up. Only one way to find out.
So Dean unwraps the bandages and finds the legs they covered discoloured in places, blue and purple in others. There are angry scars, but at least there are no bones sticking out through the skin.
Sam winces in his sleep whenever Dean touches his skin, no matter how careful he is. With a sigh he accepts that it will be another few weeks before Sam will walk on these legs again.
They are so thin Dean wonders how he ever walked on them in the first place.
Cas comes in when he is mostly finished and watches in silence until Dean has pulled the covers back over his brother’s shivering form. The fever is bad today, leaving Sam constantly trembling.
The fallen angel doesn’t seem to have any particular business with them today. He just watches, and then he turns to leave without a word, but Dean calls him back because this is his chance to figure out the time thing. “How long have we been here?” he asks.
Castiel actually has to think before he answers, and when he does, it’s with “I’m not sure. Time passes strangely here. Perhaps three weeks, maybe more.”
“Well, that’s useful,” Dean growls, disappointed.
Cas looks like he would like to glare but can’t be assed to make the effort. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more use for you.”
“Never mind. “ Dean turns away to reach for the damp cloth currently draped over the edge of the table and run it over Sam’s face again.
When he looks up after a minute, he finds that Cas is still there, staring at them.
“You’re still here,” he observes.
“Is that an inconvenience to you?” There’s something sharp and biting in the other’s voice that makes Dean frown.
“Be my guest.” He shrugs. “But it might help if you told me what you want.”
“What I want?” Cas echoes. “I can’t be here without a reason? Do you remember that I care for Sam, too? Or did you think that after I took care of him through all the suffering you put us through I should step out of the picture and leave him only to you now you had the grace to come back?”
Dean flinches. He didn’t see that coming. “Of course not,” he snaps back, though a tiny part of him wants Cas to do exactly that, if only for the moment. Just until Sam is well and aware enough to connect to Dean again and he no longer has to think at every moment that Sam spent so much more time with Cas than with him. “But you didn’t seem all that interested in his state until now, so I thought you didn’t care.”
“That’s because you are so focused on yourself that you are blind to everything else,” Cas lets him know. “I do care, and I will keep an eye on Sam until he is better and beyond.”
‘He doesn’t need you anymore,’ Dean very nearly tells him. But he would have regretted that as soon as he said it, so it works in his favour that Sam stirs in that moment, gasping softly for air. He coughs once and falls still again. Dean immediately runs a hand through his tangled, greasy hair, acting on instinct. He hears the door fall shut when Cas leaves but doesn’t look up.
-
Sam has to ask about Cas, of course. He does it basically the moment he opens his eyes and for the first time fully takes in his surroundings. “Where’s Cas?” he wants to know, with a fearful undertone as if he were no longer sure if seeing the guy before hadn’t been a dream. Well, at least there is some consolation in the fact that it’s only now he can focus on more than one thing at a time that he managed to think of anything but Dean.
“Cas is okay,” Dean assures him because he knows that’s what Sam needs to hear. “He’s next door, sleeping. Want me to wake him?”
For a second he fears that Sam might actually say yes, for more than one reason. Dean doesn’t even know if Cas is really asleep – he probably isn’t, but he kind of hopes that Sam doesn’t want to rob his friend of possibly much-needed rest.
He’s right. Sam shakes his head and Dean smiles and pats his hair. His fingers get tangled in overlong strands that haven’t been brushed, let alone washed, in ages.
“I think you need a haircut, Sasquatch.” Dean nearly flinches the moment he uses the old nickname, because yeah, Sasquatch was hairy, but he was also big and strong. But Sam only smiles in that vague, fond way Dean thought he’d never see again and keeps looking at him as if he still can’t believe what he’s seeing.
“How are you feeling, little brother?” Dean has to clear his throat so his voice sounds halfway normal.
“Okay,” Sam whispers. It probably means that he can move two fingers without screaming in pain, but it’s a start. Dean nods as if Sam being okay was the most natural thing in the world. (It will never stop breaking his heart that it isn’t.)
“Got something for you,” he tells his brother. “You’re gonna like it. It’s the kind of girly thing you’re into.”
Sam only looks at him with slightly raised eyebrows Dean decides to interpret as “Bring it, Bro!” What Dean has to bring, though, is Sam, and that’s where his brilliant plan has potential for failing.
But Sam doesn’t scream, or even flinch, when Dean carefully slides an arm under his splinted legs and another under his back. He even tries to hold on to Dean when his brother lifts him up, though the result is more symbolic than anything else. For Dean it’s enough (for now).
He had the tub in the bathroom prepared when Sam showed the first signs of waking. It’s not the first time he did that, but so far he never got around to actually using it. Now, finally, he can gently sit his brother down beside it and remove the oversized shirt he’s dressed in. Thankfully, Sam doesn’t freak out when Dean undresses him. Dean isn’t quite sure what he expected.
Sam actually sighs when Dean lowers him into the water. It’s lukewarm because Dean hopes it will help with the fever but he doesn’t want it to feel uncomfortable. Sam still shivers, but he also makes a small, content sound in the back of his throat that leads to a cough Dean can tell he’s trying to suppress.
He still doesn’t know how she does it, but Jena even provided shampoo for this place. It’s labelled in Chinese so Dean doesn’t know what it’s called, but it hardly matters if this is some kind of private joke she’s playing on them. Dean has been using it for weeks and he hasn’t lost his hair yet, though admittedly he didn’t shower all that often. Only when Cas or Jena basically locked him in the bathroom and only let him out after he cleaned up some did he waste time on that. (“If you keep this up, Sam will smell you before he sees you,” Jena told him at some point, and that did it.)
The bathtub, no doubt thanks to Jena, is a lot larger than the tubs of shitholes like this usually are. Sam fits in without having to twist in ways that would hurt him and once Dean made sure his face won’t slip under the surface, he takes the showerhead and starts to gently wash his brother’s hair.
He hasn’t done this since Sammy was five.
Sam’s eyes begin to slip shut when Dean rinses the shampoo out of his hair, but that’s okay. Dean knew he wouldn’t be able to stay awake for long, even though he set a new record today. Sam’s going to feel much better in his skin now he’s clean. He always hated feeling sticky and disgusting.
“What is this place?”
The half-slurred question takes Dean by surprise. He didn’t think Sam to be still awake, let alone aware enough to wonder about their surroundings – though the fact that it took him this long to ask tells Dean clear enough that he probably isn’t up for the full answer.
“Something shitty, but safe,” he just says. “Don’t worry about it. A friend made it.”
“Bobby?” Sam mutters and breaks his brother’s heart, but he is asleep before Dean can come up with anything to say.
Sam stirs a little when Dean lifts him out of the tub and onto the towels he has spread all over the floor, but doesn’t even wake up when Dean dries him off and carries him back to the bed.
The sheets have been changed, causing Dean to spare a guilty thought for Cas. But it is Jena who comes in when Dean is done arranging his brother’s limps in a comfortable position.
She places a hand on Sam’s forehead and briefly closes her eyes. “The worst is over,” she judges after a moment. “It will only get better now.”
“Awesome,” Dean says, and means it.
“Indeed.” Jena doesn’t look all that enthusiastic. “It’s about time, too. Couldn’t have taken much longer.” She doesn’t seem inclined to elaborate that, though.
“You getting stir-crazy?” Dean askes.
The angel raises a single eyebrow at him. “You’re not?”
“Sure.” Actually, Dean tries not to think about it too much. “But the thought of dragging Sam back out there where everything tries to torture him into submission doesn’t exactly make me happy either.”
“If we have to stay here much longer I’m going to torture every single one of you into submission,” Jena grumbles.
Dean snorts. “That the reason why you made yourself so scarce lately?”
Jena manages a mix between glare and grimace. “What? Is the room service not to your satisfaction? You want me to shine your shoes, perhaps?”
Dean looks down at his shoes: faded, torn in places, good material suffering from too many miles. “I couldn’t help but wonder,” he says. “You never show up here when Sammy is actually awake. Is that down to general annoyance or is there something I should know about?”
“You mean, beyond the fact that I killed you a lot back in the day and a couple of other things Sammy might hold a grudge for?“ Jena shrugs. “Nah, we haven’t met. Well, once, but Sammy was dead at the time so I don’t think that counts.”
“It’s Sam,” Dean said automatically, correcting the nickname the way Sam used to. “So, no particular reason for your prolonged absences?”
“Oh, don’t act like you miss me.” Jena smirks and turns to go again. “No,” she clarifies. “I just didn’t think that Sam needs the stress of wondering about me. He’s got enough to deal with in that addled brain of his.”
That makes sense, though Dean doesn’t think it’s good enough. Because if that was the full reason, it would mean Jena is acting out of consideration for others, and if he knows the archangel Gabriel at all, the word consideration appears in his vocabulary only in the context of “Taking into consideration that I am responsible for this mess, it’s better to fuck off now.”
Not that Dean can claim the moral high ground on this one. Also, Jena does help them right now. Perhaps there was some truth in her claim of having chosen a side.
Still, he has to ask the next time Sam wakes up, which happens a couple of hours later. His fever hasn’t gotten worse and he’s once again clear-minded enough to hold a conversation, much to Dean’s relief. It seems like his brother is really starting to get better now.
“Do you remember the dick of a trickster, also known as the archangel Gabriel we used to deal with a couple of times?” The question feels a little silly because that is hardly the kind of thing you forget about, but then Dean remembers that Sam is sixty-four now, even if he doesn’t look it. It’s hard to wrap his head around that, even if Dean continues to pointedly not think about all the years Sam spend in Hell.
Sam grimaces. “Hardly the kind of guy you’d forget,” he observes, nearly making Dean grin. “What about him?”
“Run into him lately?”
“Not that I’d know of.” Sam shakes his head. “Why?”
“We’re in his house.”
“What?” There has been a point to Jena’s worry about the effects the news would have on Sam’s health, because he tries to sit up and winches in pain when he thoughtlessly puts weight on his injured hand. Dean quickly supports him with a hand behind his back and pushes a few pillows between his brother and the headboard so he doesn’t fall over again.
“He’s a chick now, calls himself Jena and helped us save you from Lucifer.” Now he’s started, Dean might as well go on.
“What?” Sam says again. Poor boy looks confused and slightly disturbed and Dean begins to feel a little bad for doing this to him. Sam’s getting better, but that doesn’t mean he’s up he’s up for world-shattering revelations, not by a long shot. He’s probably not even up for discussions about the weather.
Especially since the weather has been nothing but depressing since Dean came back. It probably still is – somewhere behind the carpets that block the windows – if there even are windows behind them to be blocked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Dean therefore says. “She’s on our side. Just thought you should know in case you wondered about this place again.”
“You’re an idiot, Dean.”
Dean flinches – because the voice sounding behind him startled him, not because of the words. He kind of already knew that.
It’s Jena. Of course it is. She’s probably been spying on them all the fucking time – just waiting for the right moment to let Dean know in not so many words that she’s been standing behind the door listening in every time he thought he was alone with Sam. Probably together with Cas. She seems the type.
Except that subtlety of any kind really isn’t her style.
“He’s still breathing,” Dean defends his decision to tell Sam about her.
Just to make sure, he looks at his brother and finds him staring at the skinny girl in the doorway with this expression on his face that makes Dean suspect he’s trying to put two images together that just won’t fit. “Gabriel?” he croaks, hoarsely.
In the old days, Dean would totally have made fun of that look on his face.
Jens grins. “The one and only. Howdy.”
Sam blinks. And blinks again. “Your house sucks,” he says.
Not the expected greeting, but then, leave it to Sammy to state the obvious.
“I have a better one, but I didn’t want to let you in there,” Jena explains. “You’d just make a mess of the place.”
“Dean and Cas behave?” Sammy wants to know, his voice rough and weak like a whisper.
“Yes. They’re boring.”
“Where’s Cas?”
“Here.” Cas steps up behind Jena, in all his unshaven and rumpled glory. Dean sends an irritated glare his way. He never thought that his suspicion regarding the angels’ favorite way of spending their alone time was quite this accurate.
Sam’s smile, though tired and pained, still lights up the fucking room. Hell, Dean could swear that the fucking air smells better just because Sammy smiled.
At Cas. But that doesn’t matter now.
Cas smiles back, and Jena, who is much more likely responsible for the increase in air quality, grins nastily at Dean. “Touching, isn’t it?”
Sam starts to cough but manages to control it long enough to ask, “Why are you helping us?”
Jena shrugs. “It’s a gift horse. Don’t look for teeth.”
“Your gift horses have a habit of trampling their riders.” Sam seems to attempt a glare, but his eyes will only open halfway anymore and Dean can practically see the strength running out of him like water.
He can’t help but wonder if this is Jena’s doing; if she’s draining Sam’s strength just like she (somewhat) healed him before just so this discussion will end. But then, Sam’s pretty damn weak in general and it’s something of a miracle that he managed to stay awake this long and say this much.
Jena just waves his words away. “You don’t have that many friends, kid. Don’t be picky.”
Suddenly Cas steps forward. “I trust him,” he lets them know when Sam looks like he wants to say something else. And if that is enough for Sam then Dean will really have to kill someone.
“Dean doesn’t,” Sam whispers.
“I know. But even so, she’s the only one who can help us right now and she does. Let that be enough.” Cas speaks softly, and now he comes closer to sit on the edge of the bed, and he probably wants to do something girly like hug Sam, except Sam’s eyes have fallen fully shut and if Cas disturbs him now, Dean will cut off his arms, just because.
-
They leave Sam to sleep and retreat to the corridor, where they stand right behind the door so they’ll hear if Sam needs them. For a second, Dean marvels on the fact that they are all here – an archangel with powers he can’t begin to comprehend, a fallen angel without power but with determination and him – taking care of his little brother, the love for whom is the only thing at least two of them have in common. As for the third one…
“That was incredibly stupid,” Jena told him.
“You already said that.”
“It bears saying again. Stupid, Dean!”
“Why? Sam isn’t some delicate flower that will implode if you stare at it too hard. He took it pretty well, didn’t he?”
“He is a fucking delicate flower,” Jena snaps at him. “You have no idea! That could have gone very differently!”
“Yeah? You mean, he could have had some more issues with all the crap you put us through in the past? Or maybe mentioned some suspicions about your motives for helping us?”
Jena rolls her eyes. “I get that you felt you needed to get some confirmation here that I am not, in fact, planning to sell you out to the highest bidder, but perhaps you should have stopped for just one second and considered that Sam has had some bad experiences with archangels like me in his life – and by “bad” I mean he will never get over it. The fact that our first meetings weren’t as amusing to you two as they were to me doesn’t help, I admit. So next time you should maybe try some judgment of your own or trust that of your friends before you throw something at your brother that could trigger a flashback of mind blowing proportions, because believe me, you don’t want that.”
“Don’t know if you noticed, but my own judgment hasn’t won me any prizes lately,” Dean defends his decision. “And my circle of friends kind of, sort of consists of Cas here – and no offense, but I rather doubt he has my best interests in mind, not that I blame him.”
“Trust my good intentions for Sam, then,” Cas says darkly, instantly making the heavy lump in Dean’s stomach grow a little more heavy with something that might be shame. Cas has done a lot for Sam for much longer than Dean has even been around his brother. He certainly doesn’t deserve to be mistrusted for that.
“What about you, though?” he asks Jena to distract himself from the uncomfortable impression that he should perhaps start apologizing at some point. “I can hardly trust your good intentions with Sam.”
“Yes, you can. I’ve put a lot of effort into keeping that boy alive and more or less functional. If you break that, I’m going to be pissed.”
That’s hardly the romantic approach, but for Dean it’ll have to be enough, for the moment, to accept that Sam is some kind of pet project for this archangel-turned-trickster-turned-chick and that she cares for his life at least as much as a farmer cares for the shed he’s rebuilding.
Which might just have been the lamest comparison Dean ever came up with.
-
As if to confirm Jena’s evaluation of just how much he isn’t okay, Sam starts tossing in his sleep not an hour later, and his whimpers quickly turn to screams. Screams of terror but also of pain, and Dean almost hopes that’s just because his tossing, weak as it is, is aggravating his injuries. He tries to hold him still, but Sam only screams harder then, and no matter how often Dean assures him he’s here now, Sam never stops calling his name as if Dean could save him.
It takes hours for Sam to fall still again, and when he does, Dean gathers him in his arms and holds him as closely as he dares, quietly breaking down himself when he can no longer deny that his brother is broken and will never be as he was, back when Dean knew him.
The fact that it’s all his fault – yeah, that doesn’t make it any better.
It’s a good thing Cas has the sense not to show up, because Dean might have killed him for interrupting after all. Either that, or he would have handed Sam over to his friend and thrown himself out of the non-existent window.
-
It takes another two or three presumed weeks, but eventually Sam is able to sit up on his own and even start walking again. Someone always has to support him, though, and it’s obvious that every step hurts like a bitch. He never complains, though, but works with clenched teeth and wordless determination on getting his weak legs to carry his weight again. They are not only suffering from the healing bones, but also from weeks of disuse. It will be a while before he can walk normally again.
If ever.
In the beginning, it’s a success if he manages to stand beside his bed for a minute, but sooner than Dean expected, he’s limping down the corridor, hanging heavily off Cas’s shoulder. That first time, he makes it to the room at the end of the corridor but not back. Cas offers to carry him and so does Dean, but Sam insists on wanting to walk himself, and if he can’t make it, he’s going to take a break until he can. So that day he sleeps on the mattress Dean woke up on weeks ago and never used again, and the next day, they have to lift him off the ground, because getting up from ground level is one of the basic abilities that are very much beyond him right now.
All the time, Dean watches over him and everything going on even if he doesn’t participate himself. Only once does he get the idea that maybe Sam is growing sick of his presence and longing for some peace, but then Sam looks up, his eyes searching for Dean as they sometimes do as if he has to confirm for himself that his brother is still there, and Dean feels justified to stay a little longer.
Apparently, the only thing he had to do to bind Sammy to him forever was leaving him alone for a couple of centuries.
Only once does Sam ask for Dean to leave him alone, and that’s to talk to Jena of all people. Dean doesn’t like it, but it’s not like he has concrete reason to protest. Sam is an adult, after all, and he should be able to manage a couple of minutes without big brother watching over him – or so Sam’s glare tell him when he uses it to shut Dean up before his protests can even start.
And then Cas’ glare keeps him from eavesdropping at the door while Jena and Sam have their conversation in the room Cas uses to sleep in.
Sam sleeps there as well now, sometimes, though mercifully without Cas. He’s sleeping everywhere, anywhere – depending on where he happens to be when his strength runs out. It’s like he’s tired of staying in the same room all the fucking time, and there’s something Dean can sympathize with one hundred percent.
He’s sleeping curled up on Cas’ narrow bed when Jena leaves the room after their super-secret conversation, and as expected neither of them ever tells Dean what they were talking about.
-
It’s another week or so before Jena tells them all that it’s time to leave.
Dean is the first one who has something to say in response. “You’re kidding, right?”
“What, you wanted to stay here until your beard turns grey?”
Automatically, Dean runs a hand over the hair on his face that has left the definition of stubble behind a day or two ago and is maybe the only indicator that time moves in this place at all. “I thought the idea was to stay until Sam is well again.”
Even as he says the words, Dean fears that Jena’s reply will be ‘This is as good as it gets.’
Instead she says, “He’s well enough,” which isn’t that much better.
“He can hardly walk!”
“But he can walk. I’m calling that progress.”
“And what do you think will happen when we leave here? Have you forgotten that Lucifer, Michael and pretty much every angel and demon out there is looking for us? Think they will wait with their pursuit until he’s fit again? Postpone the hunt because it’s not enough of a challenge right now?”
“I can shield all of us from detection outside,” Jena reminds him impatiently. “The only difference is that we won’t have beds, and a roof, and we might have to hunt for food.”
“Then why won’t you just continue shielding us in here?”
“Because he can’t.”
Both Dean and Jena turn to look at Castiel in surprise. Castiel looks back at his older, but much smaller… sibling solemnly. “You’re running out of strength and have been for a while.”
“Well observed, Sherlock,” Jena grumbles.
“What do you mean, running out of strength?” For the first time in forever, Dean takes a close look at the girl Gabriel is wearing, but she looks the same as always to him. A little paler, perhaps, and maybe there’s a fine sheen of sweat on her face and her hands are trembling…
Well, shit.
“I could keep it up for another week or two, but if we stay until my strength has ran out completely, we’ll be entirely without protection for a long time after everything collapsed around us,” Jena explains. “If we go now, we’ll lose the comfort of electric light and running water, but otherwise we’ll be mostly safe. I can shield us from detection, so as long as we keep moving, we shouldn’t be at a much higher risk outside than we are here.”
Dean looks through the half-closed door into the room where Sam is sleeping fitfully on his bed and thinks that the moving part is going to be their biggest problem. “What exactly does ‘now’ mean in this context?”
“It means you should get your stuff together and try to get you brother ready. I’m giving you two days, three at the most.”
“I can’t even tell what a day is in here.”
“You’ll notice when they are over.”
Dean and Castiel share a look. It’s obvious that Cas doesn’t like the idea of leaving either, but he nods slowly. He probably understands a lot better than Dean how Gabriel’s powers work. “We’ll be ready,” he promises.
-
Dean and Cas may be ready, but that doesn’t mean Sam is. His fever gets worse before Dean can even tell him they’re going to leave. He has a terrible night, wakes up miserable and disoriented, flinching away whenever anyone tries to touch him. Dean very nearly tells Jena to go fuck herself, he’s going to take the risk of being without protection for a bit if it means Sammy can have a few more weeks to recover. But in the long run that’s not going to work to Sammy’s benefit – what’s the point of Sam being able to walk on his own if Lucifer can find him within a few days?
Sam gets better soon, though. He wakes from his nap more coherent, and his fever is down a little, though he is so weak Dean feels tired just looking at him, as if by preserving his own strength he can give some to his brother.
When Dean tells him they are going to leave, Sam isn’t surprised. He’s quiet, though, and Dean doesn’t know if that’s because he doesn’t have the strength to speak or if he’s worried about their prospects.
Either way, he doesn’t protest. He just works on getting his strength back, with the grim determination that is so typical for him. Mostly, he stays in bed – no more walking around for no reason, no unnecessary wasting of energy – but he gets up every now and then, when he feels up to it. Keeps moving, keeps working on getting his muscles to support him.
In all the time he’s hardly eaten anything at all. Dean is convinced that Jena somehow keeps him alive because otherwise he would have starved, plain and simple. Still, Sam keeps trying to eat, and sometimes he’s even able to keep the food down. It’s not enough, though – not for someone on the run, and somehow Dean doesn’t think whatever Jena’s doing to support Sam’s body is going to work as well outside of this place.
The morning of the third day (Dean measures time by counting how often Sammy sleeps and wakes up rested) Sam is sitting on his bed, for the first time fully clothed in jeans and a hoodie over a shirt over a t-shirt. Jena must have provided those clothes, and Dean really hopes they won’t evaporate into thin air the moment they leave. Holding a dark brown coat across his legs, Sam is a little pale, but he looks mostly okay.
He looks ready. Dean wishes he would feel ready himself.
Cas is dressed in clothes that look a lot like what he was wearing when Dean first met him in the wasteland, and Dean is dressed in what he was wearing when they came here – but it’s in better condition. The dirt has gone from his jeans and the holes in his shoes have been fixed. Jena, on the other hand, doesn’t wear any shoes at all, as usual. For some random reason, Gabriel doesn’t seem to like shoes in this incarnation.
There’s a door in the corridor that hasn’t been there before. They leave through it into a land that’s empty, just rocks and earth and wind. Dean has his arm around Sam who’s huddled in his coat, and tries to shield him from the cold breeze that smells vaguely of salt. For a moment, he closes his eyes, just enjoys the feeling of air on his face.
Their footsteps leave barely an imprint in the hard earth. After a few dozen steps Dean turns around to have a look at the house that has been their shelter for the past weeks and saved Sammy’s life. There’s nothing there.
-
The sky above them is grey when they leave and nothing looks familiar. For a long time Dean wonders if perhaps centuries have passed since they entered the house. Then the sun rises and the red and orange that he has come to know so well creeps across the sky like radioactive dirt through veins. It doesn’t mean anything, really, because the sky might have been like this for centuries and might remain this way forever. It doesn’t matter, because everyone they knew is already dead and the world doesn’t change.
If they have been gone for a millennium, Dean wouldn’t even notice.
Sam doesn’t make it for long. He leans on Dean more and more heavily, limping strongly from the moment they start their Journey of a Thousand Miles, and the careful blankness on his face more concerning than a grimace of pain would have been. He needs a break before the red has completely eaten the grey in the sky and leans heavily against Dean as they are resting, in the open, too far from the rocks to find shelter there. Dean already misses the house, the beds, the walls and the hot water. Sammy’s head hangs low and he’s struggling for breath after they have walked for barely even a mile.
Cas and Jena stand beside them like silent guards. Their eyes scan the area, but there’s nothing. Nothing. Dean doesn’t even know what continent they are on.
Despite the faint odor of salt, they don’t appear to be anywhere near the sea. The view isn’t well today, the world they are in limited in all directions by diffuse twilight, but no as far as Dean can see there’s just stone and stone and stone, almost flat, almost even. Rocks in the distance, and a thin layer of earth every now and then that doesn’t preserve their footprints and doesn’t house any plants.
Sam isn’t ready, but eventually, they have to move on. Sam leans on Dean more and more, and he’s done before afternoon. They are still too far from the rocks when he sits down, then lies, heaving painful breaths between agonizing coughs. Jena’s face is closed off and giving nothing away, but Castiel shares a dark look with Dean as the reality of what they are trying to do crashes down on them and kills all illusions.
They can’t stay in this spot – even without demons or angels around, it’s too open, offering no protection from the cold wind that has to be cutting into Sam’s struggling lungs like razorblades. Castiel picks him up in the end and carries him in his arms like a child. Sam barely manages to hold on to him, hanging more and more limply. When after an hour or two it looks like Cas is finally running out of strength, Dean takes Sam from him, but by then they are already between the rocks, just looking for a place to rest.
What they find in the end is not even a cave. It’s just a place that’s protected from all sides by rocks that are concave enough to form some sort of roof. The sky above is darkening quickly; the light has been poor all day, even for the new standards and Dean would think it looks like rain, like an oncoming storm, except it doesn’t. It just looks like the world is darker than before and won’t ever light up again.
Sam is placed on a bed made of half the blankets they took along and covered in the other half. His head rolls to the side as soon as Dean lays him on the ground and his coughs have long since been replaced by quiet wheezing. Once he is settled, Dean walks over to Jena who sits with her back to the opening and watches them without speaking.
“This isn’t going to work,” he hisses, but quietly so Sam won’t hear. “What the fuck are we going to do? Sam didn’t even make it through the first day!”
“We knew it wouldn’t be easy.” Jena sounds serious, but entirely unimpressed, though her eyes never leave Sam’s now still form. “Sam wouldn’t have been that much better if we had waited another week, but then we would have been forced to run a hell of a lot faster.”
“What’s the point of all this if Sam’s going to die within a day or two? Look at him! He can hardly even breathe.”
“He’ll make it.” Jena says it as if it was a decision she’s made, not a hope or at best a speculation. “Because he’ll have to.”
It’s all she has to say about it. Frustrated, Dean returns to his brother, and to Cas who is sitting beside him. When the sky loses the last remnants of light and color, they both lie left and right beside Sam and keep him warm as best they can.
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Date: 2012-02-17 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-24 09:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-18 05:43 am (UTC)I'm loving all the tension between Dean and Cas and Jena... And by loving, I mean it's killing me slowly and surely. I can't stop though. You write it so beautifully and compellingly and I just eat it up.
And I'm so glad Sam is on his feet again. I'm equally excited and terrified at what might happen next. Can't wait.
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Date: 2012-02-24 09:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-18 07:42 am (UTC)*dies of teh love*
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Date: 2012-02-25 12:08 pm (UTC)Thanks for the comment!
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Date: 2012-02-22 11:47 pm (UTC)I’m dying to know what Jena and Sam talked about as well as insights into Sam’s pov. He went from struggling to survive with Cas as his only ally and friend for 30 odd years (coincidence that it is the same number of years Dean spent being tortured in hell?) and being tortured for untold years in Hell (paralleling the show’s canon?) to suddenly having Dean back and taking care of him and two angels allies protecting him. Finally Sam could rest (somewhat) in spite of his broken sick body and still being hunted by heaven and hell to be tortured into submission.
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Date: 2012-02-25 12:10 pm (UTC)Thank you for your comment! Great to know you're still reading this.
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Date: 2012-02-25 03:25 pm (UTC)Of course I'm still reading, can't stop, ever.