![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
put your arms around me like a ring around the sun, SPN, Sam/Dean, NC-17, 1/2
Title: put your arms around me like a ring around the sun
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
topaz119
Artist:sarahtoga
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/Dean/OFC
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~15,700 words
Notes: General spoilers for Supernatural through the end of Season 6; nothing about Season 7. Written for the 2011 Sam/Dean MiniBang.
Summary: When something gets hold of Dean, Sam is determined to find a way to save his brother. The quest leads the Winchesters to the top of a mountain in North Carolina and a last-ditch plan to get Dean free before it's too late.
Links: AO3 || Art || Podfic || Podbook
The first time Dean comes in Sam's arms, it's hazy dawn outside and the light that falls across them is soft gray, almost silvered from the mist.
Holding Dean--feeling him shudder and gasp--hadn't been any part of the plan... but then, neither had watching Dean be eaten up from the inside, the cold and dark spreading slow poison through his body.
Sam spreads his hands wide across his brother's fever-hot chest and belly and whispers his name, deandeandean, against his skin.
* * *
They're finishing up a routine salt-and-burn in Pennsylvania when Sam first notices that something's wrong. The local sheriff nearly catches them in the cemetery because Dean's just standing there warming his hands over the flames of what had once been a farmer and his wife. Sam grabs Dean by the arm and hauls him off toward the car, and yes, he might have been bitching about it a little too much, but Dean only shrugs and grumbles about how spring used to mean weather that wasn't freezing.
Since it really is a miserable spring, cold and rainy and gray, Sam just rolls his eyes and makes sure to bring Dean an extra-large coffee every time they stop. That helps a bit, and they both attribute his general crankiness and manic chatter to the extra jolts of caffeine. The nonstop talking wears Sam right the fuck out, so when Dean gradually quiets down it takes a couple of days before Sam's anything but grateful. It finally pings, though, and alarm bells start going off when he asks and it takes Dean a good five minutes to answer."I dunno, man," Dean says, after Sam literally shakes him to get him to focus. "I don't feel bad, just… not there all the time. Like there's a hole or something and it's sucking me down into it."
They're a day-and-a-half drive from Bobby's; Sam makes it in a little over eight hours.He and Bobby hit the books while Dean sleeps, but they come up with jack. When Dean starts having what they take to calling "gray-outs"--spells when he says everything's shadowed and it feels like he's fighting for control of his body--Bobby stares at them soberly and says, "Boys, we don't have the first goddamn clue what we're dealing with here."Sam's used to Dean pacing while they do research, but this new Dean sits quietly at the kitchen table and nods, letting Sam and Bobby volley ideas back and forth. Given all the times Sam's wished for Dean to just shut up already, it's the height of irony that he's willing Dean to say something, anything, as Sam and Bobby decide maybe a psychic can pick up enough of whatever it is that's got Dean to give them a clue of what they're fighting.
When Bobby goes to try and figure out who might be able to help, Dean finally rouses. "Missouri," he says, firm and sure for all that Sam is watching him to make sure he's not going to keel over where he sits.
"The last time we saw her she threatened to hit you with a spoon," Sam says, more to check Dean's memories than out of any real objection.
"Think I'll risk it, Sammy," Dean says. "Give her a chance to upgrade to a shotgun."
* * *
Missouri can't feel anything wrong with Dean, but she listens to Sam's halting explanation--and maybe it was for the best that he'd left Stanford before he started racking up law school debt if he can't do any better than, "I know he looks fine, but it's killing him, I can feel it"--and shows Sam a hand-drawn map to a property high on a mountain in North Carolina.
"There's a woman there, outside of town. I hear she's a powerful healer." Missouri adds a name to the map, not taking a breath before she glares at Dean. "Don't you be looking at me like that, Dean Winchester. I'm not one of your daddy's damn-fool contacts, sending you to ask help from something you're better off killing."
"Okay," Dean says, dragging himself to his feet with that stubborn will Sam's known all his life. "Let's get this freak show on the road, then."
Missouri stands at the edge of her front walk, waving them away, and Sam doesn't call attention to the tears he sees on her face. It takes fifteen hours to get to the mountain from Missouri's place; Dean lets Sam do most of the driving--and the talking, too, once they reach the town.
People eye them, not quite suspicious, but wary of strangers in their midst. Protective, without being crazy. Normal, like the neighbors of a woman who lives alone when two strange men are asking about her. Sam's tired enough--and scared enough--that he doesn't give them any story but the truth. His brother is sick, and they hope she can help. No one gives them any trouble, but Sam knows they'll be checking.
It's easier than Sam thinks it might be to find her. She's small and serene, and far younger than Sam expects, long blondish hair twisted up on the back of her head, hands strong and capable-looking, marked by the earth and her plants. She meets them at the foot of the mountain, and when Sam asks, "Did you know we were coming?" she smiles and answers, "No, I just came to get my mail."
* * *
Inside her house, tucked in a notch at the top of the mountain, she touches Dean lightly--temples, wrists, heart--and her eyes are serious when she looks up.
"It's so old," she murmurs, and Sam sags in relief. "I don't know--"
"Please," Sam says. "No one else has even been able to feel it."
She nods absently, her fingers stroking over the rapid pulse Sam can see under the skin of Dean's wrists. Dean stays perfectly still under her touch; when Sam lays his hands on Dean's shoulders, he can feel the tension in his muscles, but Dean never moves. "It hides so well," she says. "But not well enough."
* * *
It's late when they manage even the outline of the complicated history of the Winchesters and all the angels and demons, the prophecies and fates, the deals made and unmade; too late to start researching. Alina moves around the kitchen as they talk, asking questions and putting food on the table--cheese and fresh, warm bread and the first harvest of sugar snap peas, so lightly steamed they're barely warmed through. Sam expects Dean to make a face at the lack of anything battered or fried or vaguely meat-like, but Dean just eats and it's been long enough since Sam has seen that happen that he isn't going to jinx it even for easy points in their never-ending game.
After dessert--strawberries dipped first in yogurt and then in brown sugar--Alina shows them where they can sleep: a small room tucked under the eaves, with twin beds so close Sam knows he could lie in one and touch Dean in the other without stretching. A shower would have been nice, but even Sam is tired enough that brushing his teeth is as much as he gets done.
Sam leaves the curtains open so they'll get a breeze, and when he turns the light off the moonlight spills in.
In the quiet darkness, Dean rolls over and punches his pillow. "Sam, I swear to God, if I start buying Indigo Girls CDs after this I will kick your ass."
Sam doesn't laugh, but for the first time in a long time he falls asleep with a smile on his face.
* * *
There are more strawberries in the morning, this time folded into crepes along with rich, sweetened cheese and accompanied by coffee strong enough that Sam's a little awed the spoons haven't dissolved yet. Alina won't let Sam rush her, even though he and Dean slept well into the morning, but she does accept his help with the dishes and tidying up the compact kitchen.
Dean wanders around while they finish up, making friends with Alina's dog, a white-and-black Akita she calls Sasha.
"Of course they get along," Alina says to Sam, as Dean pulls stuff out of the car with the dog close by his heels. "They're both hunters." The cats, hunters or not, are another story, and after exchanging mutually skeptical looks, they agree to not engage.
She shows Sam her library, in yet another small, snug room, this one formerly a side porch, still with a brick floor and wide windows where the screens used to be. She pokes at the fire in a clay chimney pot, smiling and motioning him toward the table at the other end. "It's stays cool here all the time, which is great in the summer, but not so much the rest of the year."
Sam looks out the window, at the ground dropping away toward the end of the yard, endless green rolling into the distance, and then back at the shelves that line the walls, floor-to-ceiling against the one interior wall and under the windows the rest of the way around the room. A long, feathery fern spills out of a hanging basket; outside, he can almost smell the herbs that line the beds below the windows. A heavy canvas bag sits next to a comfortable chair, yarn and needles not quite tucked away.
"Maybe it's good it's not too warm," he says, digging around in his messenger bag for the old pair of gloves with the fingers cut out. "Otherwise, you might not ever--"
"Leave," she finishes for him, laughing. "That would be true, though I forget sometimes anyway."
Dean wanders in, eying the books with studied indifference. "You've got a couple of boards loose on the steps up to the front porch. You want me to take care of them while you and Sam do the research thing?"
It's probably the most Sam's heard Dean say in close to a month; when he looks more closely, he thinks the fine lines etched around Dean's mouth and eyes aren't as deep as they've been, just since the night before. He doesn't say anything, but Dean's eyes flicker over him like Dean's expecting him to object. It's a valid point, Sam realizes. He's spent the last two months watching Dean fight this and trying to get him to save his strength. Today, though, everything feels a little less hopeless.
Alina goes to fetch her toolbox--with a wickedly delighted smile at the surprise on Dean's face when she announces that she has one--and Dean keeps looking at Sam, waiting.
Sam shrugs. "You actually ate, and then you slept and you ate again. You want to bang around and be manly with tools instead of sitting there and staring at me while I read, I'm not gonna stop you."
"Just making sure you got that all figured out, Sammy." Dean isn't exactly smirking, but it's close enough that Sam has to keep himself from rolling his eyes. "You do your thing and I'll do mine."
And I'll read with one eye and keep the other one on you, Sam thinks. Just like you'll be watching us so close you'll know the second we find what we need, before we even say anything, but he figures Dean probably knows that already, no matter how much he's pretending not to have thought of it.
Dean takes the toolbox and heads back around to the front, purposeful and focused, and Sam turns to the stack of books in front of him, feeling the same.
* * *
Most of Alina's books and notes have to do with healing, but she has plenty about identifying supernatural creatures, too. She says she needs to know what something is before she can make it go away. If Dean weren't dying inch by inch in front of him, Sam would be fascinated by how much information she has that he's never seen before. The healing angle--versus killing--exposes all kinds of new details, even about creatures he knows and has fought, like a black dog or a wendigo. He makes a mental note to come back and look into it more once they take care of this, of Dean.
"It's so old," Alina murmurs, flipping through a small cloth-bound journal. The pages are full of sketches and notes in a shaky hand; the book looks as though it's at least a hundred years old. "It wants him; it came for him, but why? He's special, somehow."
They'd touched on the angels the night before, but now Sam says, "He was supposed to be the Michael Sword, but he wouldn't let it happen. Maybe that?"
"No." Alina draws the word out and shakes her head doubtfully. "It feels older. Less constrained, maybe."
Sam sighs out a breath. "What about Death?"
"One of the Horsemen?"
Alina considers for a second, and Sam adds, "Dean's talked to him, made a couple of deals with him." She looks startled, and he shrugs. "Yeah, I know. My brother--Death's pizza buddy."
Alina thinks about it, then nods even as she's reaching for a different notebook. This one is a pile of photocopied pages from what looks like an even older journal. "My great-great grandmother's," she says. "And most of what's here came from her grandmother, who was writing everything she could find down because she was the only woman around who could read and write." She flips through the pages and makes a few notes, then reaches for another book and repeats the process, clearly on the trail of something and just as clearly not quite ready to share. Sam hates it when people--Dean--nag him for the answers before he's worked things through, so he forces himself to stay quiet while Alina reads even though every inch of his skin is crawling with the need to know now.
"If Death had time for him--if he dealt with Dean--then it could be that other incarnations might find him acceptable. Hel, maybe; or Veles. Shiva--"
"We've, uh, met Kali," Sam says, wincing.
Alina looks up with a question in her eyes, but only says, "Well, you're still here, so..."
"It was close," Sam says, but he thinks she might be on the right track. He starts a list of the different incarnations of Death while she goes to talk to Dean to see if she can pin down anything specific about how it feels when he grays out. Sam watches the two of them outside the window, and while Dean never stops working on the steps, he's still talking to her, answering her questions. It doesn't help much, though. Alina comes back with not much more than they already knew, and in the twenty minutes she was out with Dean, Sam made a list of almost fifty possibilities. He can probably hit a hundred in another twenty minutes; give him another day and he'll be at two hundred, and he's not sure how they might be able to narrow it down.
"It's more than we had," he says, only a little helplessly, but Alina still looks grim. They press on, though, Sam roughing in quick sketches of as many possibilities as he can--like jury selection bios, he thinks with a trace of surreality--while Alina adds banes or charms or lore about warding them off. Sam checks on Dean as unobtrusively as possible, and Dean lets him get away with it, ignoring him in favor of one household chore after another, broken up by a little wrestling and stick-throwing with Sasha. Sam works straight through the day, only getting up when Alina's closest neighbor, a lean, tall older man, dark-skinned and white-haired, comes by with some trout and a careful eye for Dean and Sam. He makes sure they know he's not all that far away, just a mile or so, on the other side of the mountain. Dean gives the guy his best sincere voice and Sam hears him say he's glad to know Alina has someone watching out for her. Alina rolls her eyes, but makes a point of asking about the guy's family and passing along greetings from a mutual friend. She fixes dinner after he leaves, pan-frying the trout and steaming some greens. Sam's not exactly sure how she does it, but by the time they're clearing the table the bones on Dean's plate say she's managed to get him to eat more than he has in weeks. Sam looks at his own plate and notices the same thing. When he cocks an eyebrow at Alina she blinks at him innocently.
"You have a terrible poker face," he tells her, and Dean snorts before heading back outside to start cleaning out the car. Even from the kitchen, Sam can hear him apologizing to her for letting her get into such a state.
Sam keeps working until he nearly falls asleep at the table and Dean closes the laptop on him. He barely gets his fingers out of the way.
"You're getting that freaky look," Dean says. "The one that leads to all kinds of crazy shit." Sam would take offense, but Dean's voice is calm and matter-of-fact, not accusing, and Sam can read the concern in Dean's eyes. So he leans back and stretches, wincing as his back and shoulders pop, and then lets Dean herd him upstairs to bed. Neither one of them falls asleep for a long time, but it's peaceful there on top of the mountain, and Sam thinks they're getting some rest just from listening to the wind in the trees.
In the morning, Dean looks over Sam's notes while they work their way through another carafe of industrial-strength coffee. When he looks up, he nods thoughtfully. "That--I dunno. It feels like it could be something like that. Maybe?" he says, and then lets Sam and Alina get back to it. He looks stronger, more healthy than he's been in weeks, but Sam doesn't miss how the lines around his eyes are getting deeper again, or how the ones around his mouth that mark the low-level tension and stress look like they're settling into permanence. Dean's got his game face on, but it's still there, still eating at him, and Sam doesn't know how much longer Dean can hold out. At the end of the day, when they have at least as many possibilities as they started with and Sam can't see any way to narrow them down, he wants to scream and yell and throw things.
"I'm sorry," Alina says. "My library isn't really focused on this kind of--"
"No, of course not," Sam says, and then feels like an idiot for not realizing sooner, "but I know whose is." He gets Bobby on the phone and asks if he can check Samuel's books for anything about Death, in any culture. Bobby's been going through the boxes they'd taken out of Samuel's hideout, and though they hadn't come up with anything earlier, this new angle might put a different spin on things.
"I'll see what I can find," Bobby says. He doesn't tell Sam to ease off--he knows better, Sam supposes--but a few minutes after they hang up Dean comes in with a pack of cards he's unearthed from the trunk of the car. Sam gets the feeling he's being hustled, but since he can barely make his eyes focus, he lets Dean talk him into a couple hands of five-card draw. It turns out that Alina actually has an outstanding poker face, at least when actual poker is involved.
Bobby calls early the next morning. Sam can tell he spent the night researching, and he'd feel guilty except he knows Bobby would sacrifice a lot more than a couple of hours of sleep for Dean. The early call isn't to report good news, though: he hasn't found anything either. But when Sam asks him straight up if he thinks they're deluding themselves, Bobby answers, "Y'know, it takes a hell of a lot to deal with Death. Most things out there, human or not, don't take kindly to the thought. Mostly because they're not lunatics like your brother. I don't know for sure, but that could maybe make Dean like catnip to something else that's similar."
It's meant to be heartening, but it still doesn't mean they're any closer to a solution. Sam thinks he's dealing with the frustration until Dean suggests that they send him off to talk to Death again and Sam finds himself across the room and in Dean's face at full volume before he even knows it. Dean just leans against the door frame and watches Sam with a steady gaze. Sam practically bites his tongue to shut himself down, and in the sudden silence Alina says, "The only way I know to approach Death is to--"
"Kill yourself," Sam snaps. "Or let someone else do it and trust they'll bring you back."
"Yeah, but we know it works," Dean says, and Sam turns around and walks out before he punches a wall. Or Dean. This high up on the mountain, the sun is still throwing low, golden rays that slant shadows from the trees across the ground. Sam makes it to where the ground drops off; the valley below is already deep in shadow. It's not quite sunset when Dean comes and crosses over to where Sam's standing, watching the darkness slowly climb the hill. It's so metaphoric Sam wants to gag.
"You practically died for real the last time you tried that stunt," Sam says, not looking at Dean. "You might not make it back this time."
"Maybe not," Dean says. "But it's better than standing around waiting for whatever this is to take me."
"Dean--"
"Listen, Sam," Dean says. "This isn't me looking to check out. I--you wouldn't have been wrong about it before, but--not now." Sam looks up at that, and Dean meets his eyes easily. After a bit, Sam nods and sighs.
"That doesn't change the fact that you could very easily end up dead."
"Yeah, well, better to go down fighting than just sitting around letting it hollow me out."
"Better you not go down at all," Sam says, and Dean makes a noise that could be a laugh.
"Not gonna argue with you about that, little brother." Dean doesn't spell out that they might not have a choice, for which Sam is grateful.
The sun has sunk down below the mountains before Sam feels his head is clear enough to go back to the research and not risk missing something important. Dean stayed out with him, shoulders braced against an oak that has to be a hundred years old. Sam wouldn't blame him if he's a little cranky at the delay, but Dean only falls into step with him as he heads for the house.
Alina looks up from a book as they walk back into her study, eying them critically. Whatever she sees must satisfy her, because without asking if they're okay, she says, "What if we're going at this the wrong way? What if it doesn't matter exactly who or what this is?"
"How can that not matter?" Sam answers. "You said it yourself: you have to know what something is before you can take care of it."
Alina nods. "The more specifics I have, the better I know how to counter the effects," she says. "But what if just knowing that it's Death is enough?"
Sam looks at Dean, who shrugs and says, "It's not like we're drowning in options here."
"We could work with that, I guess," Sam answers slowly. "Go with that and keep trying to narrow things down, fine-tune it as we go."
He's not particularly comfortable with the idea, but like Dean says, they don't have much of a choice.
* * *
Even with no choice, trying to put something together using the scattershot theory--Sam can't get past all the unknowns to figure out how they're going to make it work. The only approach Sam can see that might not blow up--and it's a might--is to just overwhelm it, throw enough at it to smother any subtle strengths they might be missing. That takes a hell of a lot of energy, and power, and Sam can only think of a couple of ways to get what they'll need. He's almost afraid to ask which one they're going for, because none of them are even remotely a good idea.
In the end, when Alina lays down her pen and comes out with with what she's thinking, he's not terribly surprised. Not particularly happy, but not surprised. He'd argue the opposing side regardless--it's what he's good at, after all--but in this case, he hammers every angle he can think of. He's desperate for an answer, but he's been burned by one that's too-good-to-be-true before, and he's sworn not to let it happen again. Alina has answers for him, for everything, and when he calls Bobby and doesn't get chewed out much for being a desperate idiot, Sam starts to think it might work.
Bobby says he'll keep looking for something a little less insane, but they both know he's not expecting to find much.
"Thanks, Bobby," Sam says. "I'll keep you posted."
Bobby hangs up with a "You have fun tellin' all that to your brother," which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, but it's not a "no-way, no how, you idjit," so Sam feels like maybe they have a chance at taking down the son of a bitch after all.
It's late in the day by the time they've got all the details worked out, and the light is slanting low and golden through the trees again when Sam goes to find Dean. The rocks at the edge of the clearing are warm from the day's sun. Dean knows something's up, of course. Looking at Dean's clenched jaw, Sam knows Dean's patience--limited at the best of times--is stretched thin enough that Sam's got maybe two minutes of dithering before Dean up and decks him.
He still uses every last second though.
"Out. With. It," Dean snaps, as Sam fumbles through yet another round-about sentence of non-specifics. "Seriously, Sam, I am not in the fucking mood--"
"Sex magic," Sam says, in a rush. Dean closes his mouth with an almost audible click of teeth and hauls himself off the rock, walking a few steps away. Not leaving--Sam knows he won't do that--but not staying still either. "Alina says she can get it that way, no matter what it is."
Dean laces his fingers together behind his head and turns slowly to face Sam. His face is shuttered, blank, a too-familiar expression that settles heavily in Sam's gut. Dean hasn't worn that look in the last few days; Sam shouldn't be surprised to see it again, but it hits him hard and low. It's worse now, somehow, as though the grooves of carrying it had started to heal and it coming back has ripped off all the scabs.
"You're sure?" Dean asks. Sam shrugs helplessly, because no, they're nowhere close to sure, and sex magic--it's hard-core stuff, not bad in and of itself, just volatile and unpredictable and generally way out of control, but this is the best they've got and they're running out of time. Dean sets off toward the house calling for Alina, his voice worn and jagged.
"You--," Dean says, when she steps into the doorway, Sasha and the cats twining around her legs. "Sex magic will do it?"
"It will," she answers, firm and calm. Sam can almost see an aura around her. "It will."
Dean sits down right there, his legs giving out on the steps he fixed earlier. When Sam reaches out to touch him, Dean doesn't bat his hand away.
"I thought you were going to say blood magic," he whispers, and Sam can feel him shaking. It's not until later--after they eat; after Alina and Sam give him the highlights and he calls Bobby just to hear him growl at them for waking an old man up to repeat himself; after Dean lets Sam steer him up the narrow staircase to the bedroom--that he adds, "I thought you were going to tell me it had to be blood magic, the really bad shit, and I didn't think I was going to be able to make myself stop you."
* * *
In the morning, Dean asks to see everything--all the research, all the spellwork--and goes through it with a frown of concentration. Alina doesn't so much as blink, just settles in next to the fire, the biggest of her cats on her lap, and waits for Dean's questions. Sam gives in to the restless energy surging through his blood and paces the small room, four steps down and four steps back, until Dean picks up a pen and nails him with it.
"Go take the dog for a run, or something," Dean says, but Sam can't bear not being there when Dean finishes. He makes himself sit quietly, but when Dean finally looks up with the expression that means he's ready to talk, the pen is a pretzel in Sam's hands, though he doesn't remember touching it.
Dean arches an eyebrow, and Sam shrugs and puts the twisted plastic down on the table. Dean hesitates another few seconds before he gestures at the papers in front of him and says, "Okay, so if I've got this right, we don't give a shit who's doing this--it's Death in some form, and we're taking him on with life."
"Right," Alina says, calmly stroking the big tortoiseshell cat. "Whatever it is that has you--life is what it wants in this world. That's what fascinates it, what draws it out. Life is the antithesis to everything it already has. And it's what can neutralize it."
"Like a moth to a flame, " Sam says, a little too eagerly, a little too desperate for Dean to be okay with this, because Sam's got nothing else.
"Gotcha, Sammy," Dean says, but not impatiently. He turns back to Alina. "Okay," he says. "And sex is life, I'm with you on that. It just... "
"It's pretty hard to do it right?" Alina suggests.
"Yeah, that," Dean says, and Sam nods. Sex magic is incredibly powerful stuff, but also incredibly difficult to control. "But--even if you've got that taken care of, this--" Dean gestures towards her notes and references--"it doesn't seem like it's gonna be enough. It's--broad. Not specific enough."
Alina nods. "We don't know enough to really focus on any one particular culture. If we guess wrong, it would throw everything off. But... the sun. That's also life, and the solstice is coming." She picks the cat up off her lap and puts him gently on the ground, sending him on his way with one last stroke. "Even better, this year the full moon is just a day or so later--that's more light, reflected from the sun. Not quite perfect but almost. If you can hold it off until the solstice, I'll have a little bit more to draw on. You've been fighting it; it didn't expect that, I don't think. It's weaker than it thinks it is. But I know it's hard." She leans forward and touches Dean's face lightly, reaching unerringly for the lines carved deep around his mouth and eyes. "Can you hold on a little while longer?"
"Yeah." Dean breathes deep; Sam can see the effort it takes him. "I can do that."
* * *
"This is going to knock us both flat," Alina says to Dean the next morning. "And I mean that in a sleep-for-three-days way."
"Yippee," Dean says, with a careful flippancy that Sam knows masks his frustration at not being able to fix this himself. "Can't wait for more of that."
"It'll be the good kind of sleep," Alina assures him. Sam bites back a grin at the way she blows right by every wall Dean's thrown up, even the ones Sam knows have been there all his life, so Dean can't help but accept what she's offering. It's pretty impressive. She turns to Sam and adds, "Will you be all right taking care of things--the house and the animals? While we're out of it?"
"Of course," Sam says, nodding.
"Oh, man, I dunno," Dean drawls, leaning back in the kitchen chair. "I mean, I've seen the guy's domestic talents and they're pretty bare on the ground."
"Oh," Alina says. "I can--there's another healer I work with sometimes, she can come and help out if you--"
"Really," Sam says, kicking Dean under the table, definitely harder than he means to, harder than he should under the circumstances, but Dean just smirks at him. "I'll be fine. He's just showing off a little of the jerk that's his true personality."
"Whatever, bitch," Dean says, sounding more cheerful than Sam's heard him in a month. He puts his coffee mug on the side of the sink and goes out into the fresh morning air, whistling for Sasha and heading off to do whatever it is that they do in the mornings.
"It is a little more complicated than what you're probably used to," Alina says. "And you might be pretty much on your own for a few days, really, while we get back up to speed."
As long as they both do get back up to speed in the end, Sam will be glad to deal with the details. "Show me everything I'll need to do," Sam says.
Alina takes him through the peculiarities of life off the grid, the pumps and the solar water heater and the storage batteries in the shed. There's a fair amount to keep track of, even before she gets to the animals and their particular eating habits and requirements. Dean wanders back in as she's making a list of things to stock up on, murmuring to herself, and checking things in her pantry. He keeps out of her way, but when she starts lacing on her hiking boots like she's getting set to walk down the mountain, he reaches for his, too.
"Sam," he says, his voice pulling Sam out of the book he'd fallen back into reading just in time to catch Dean's keys as they come flying across the room. The look on Dean's face says there's no way Dean's letting Alina walk three miles into town and he can't believe Sam was going to let it happen either. Sam flushes a little at not having thought about it, but then, Dean's always been the one who took care of day-to-day life. Sam is perfectly capable, but old habits die hard, he guesses.
"We can drive you," Sam says.
"I walk all the time," she answers absently, assembling a collection of bags and folding them into neat squares. "It's summer; the weather's beautiful. They'll send stuff up in a couple of days if I can't carry it all."
"No, really," Sam says, shoving his feet into the boots Dean's pulled out from the under the bench by the back door.
"You're someone I'm trying to help," she insists. "Guests."
"Uninvited and unexpected," Dean shoots back, and Sam has to bite back a grin at how very much Alina doesn't like people not listening to her. Dean just crosses his arms and meets her glare head-on. He's back to not talking as much, but Sam thinks it's more because he's used to it now than because he can't. At least, he hopes that's the case.
"You should rest," she says, not backing down for a second. Sam could tell her that was probably the worst thing she could have said, but he's kind of enjoying watching the two of them slug it out.
Dean snorts and rolls his eyes. "I'm not that far gone. We can drive you."
"Fine," she snaps, snatching paper and pencil off her small desk and ostentatiously ignoring them both all the way into town.
There's a small market, not much bigger than a gas station on a highway, but packed to the ceiling with everything from fertilizer to baby food. Dean wordlessly insists on driving the cart, even after one or two pointed remarks about how Alina's perfectly capable of doing her own shopping.
"He'll get whatever he thinks you need anyway," Sam says, when Alina turns to him for support. "You might as well let him."
Dean grins and hops on the back of the cart, pushing off with one foot and balancing easily as the cart rolls down the first aisle. Sam has a sudden flash of being five or six again, riding there with Dean, pressed between the cold metal of the cart and Dean's warmth behind him.
Dean jumps off halfway down the aisle and snags shaving cream and razors from the shelf, tossing them in the cart. Sam would have thought the mundane details of their life would have been lost in the mess of this thing that's hollowing Dean out, but some things are just ingrained, he guesses.
Alina thaws three aisles in, when Dean drags his foot to stop the cart and points to a 20-pound bag of dog food, before elbowing Sam to handle the pick-up.
"Can't carry that home," he says, to no one in particular, but Sam catches his satisfied smirk. He's pretty sure Alina catches it, too, especially when she adds a can of Turtle Wax to the cart not a minute later.
"We still good on cash?" Dean asks, after slowing down enough to put a couple yards between them and Alina.
"Yeah," Sam answers. "Haven't even touched the last bit from Bobby." There's an account out there somewhere, with the money Bobby'd gotten from selling Dad's truck. Bobby swore he'd taken out the cost of the parts Dean had needed when he'd rebuilt the Impala, but every time they see him they end up with an envelope of twenties hidden away somewhere it takes them a week to stumble across. "Got a couple hundred in my wallet now."
"Good," Dean says, holding his hand out. No bogus credit for now, obviously. Sam's just looking forward to watching the battle it's going to take to get Alina to let them pay.
"Okay," Alina says, dropping an armful of bags from the bulk bins in the cart. "I just need some quinoa and I'm good to go."
"Keen-what?" Dean says to Sam as she walks off. "Is that something for the...you know...like an herb or something? For spells?"
"Um, no?" Sam answers, visions of Jess's p-chem lab partner, vegan and proud of it, sliding into his head. "You eat it. It's like a grain? Or something."
"You know what?" Dean aims the cart toward the front of the store and takes off in a long, fast glide. "I don't even want to know."
"Yeah," Sam says to his carnivorous brother's back. "That's probably best."
There's an older woman behind the checkout counter; by the time Sam makes his way up there, Dean's got her charmed into not taking Alina's money for the order. As far as Sam can tell, Dean's not running any scams on her, not saying anything that's not pretty damn close to the truth. For all that Dean can work a con without thinking, he's always known when not to as well. By the time Alina gets there, it's all over but the shouting, and even that's more like some tight lips and a little hissing, and entirely one-sided, because Dean--already victorious--just smiles.
When they get out to the car, though, Dean heads straight for the back seat, quickly enough that Sam knows he's hit the wall, and Sam's taken a little by surprise at the pure, perfect fury that boils through him at seeing Dean like this. Alina helps Sam get everything into the trunk and Dean's eyes meet Sam's in the rear-view mirror, so Sam just focuses on getting them all home to where Dean can sleep comfortably while he and Alina start getting ready to drag the son of a bitch that's killing Dean into the real world where they can blow it to pieces.
* * *
It's six days until the solstice; they make it through four before Sam, sitting on the front porch steps, looks up from the book he's reading to see Dean, playing with Sasha out near the car, fold down on himself in a slow-motion collapse that ends in a sprawl graceless enough to send pure ice through Sam's veins.
He's never seen Dean go down like that, not even when the hellhounds had him, and in the endless seconds it takes Sam to get across the clearing he imagines more bad outcomes than he'd have thought possible, up to and including rolling Dean over and finding something else in control. When he gets there, though, Dean's still breathing and he reacts when Sam shakes him.
"No slapping," Dean mumbles. "I'm still your big brother, can kick your ass, Sammy."
Alina arrives just then, out of breath from running up from the lower half of the property. She soothes Sasha with a few firm pats and then reaches for Dean.
"'m okay," he says, but he lets her check him over, quick light touches like on the first night. "Didn't get me."
"Yeah," she says, and Sam breathes out a quick, shaky sigh. "Whatever it tried didn't work, but... I don't think this is the end."
She doesn't have to spell out that it's only the beginning; Sam knows it, and he can see Dean knows it, too. The big question is how much longer Dean can keep winning these battles. The more Sam learns about whatever it is they're up against, the more he realizes they're already way past anything anyone would have expected, even knowing Dean and knowing the strength of purpose he can bring to bear.
"We need to get this thing out of him--" Sam starts, but Alina is shaking her head. "He can't wait..."
"I'm sorry," Alina says. "This is...I could have called another healer I know, worked out a way to have done this together and been ready to go after it right now, but...I wanted to take it out on my own--and I know that I can do that, with the right timing, the solstice and the moon, but..."
"But that's still another two days," Sam finishes for her.
"Yes," she whispers. "I'm sorry, I--"
"Sittin' right here," Dean slurs. "Quit talkin' like I'm already toast." He pulls himself a little bit more upright, still leaning heavily on Sam. "Your notes, the stuff you worked out--the timing's important. The solstice."
"I can still try to contact someone--" Alina says, at the same time Sam starts, "Dean--"
"'s my call," Dean says, still not much more than whispering, but sure and in control. His jaw is set with that stubborn determination that Sam used to think was just one more way Dean was trying to be Dad, but that he now thinks is actually something he got from Mom, something bone-deep and fierce. "If you think you need somebody else, okay, but I can hold this fucker off until there's the best chance to take it out."
Sam wants to overrule Dean, wants this fucker gone. Judging by Dean's expression, Dean knows exactly what's going on in Sam's head and he also knows he's too tired to win in a fight with Sam... and Sam can see how much it's costing Dean, who's always, always just figured out how to fix things, to not be in control here.
"Yeah," Sam says, after a couple of seconds, nodding at Dean. "You're right. It is your call, as long as you can make it." He gets Dean to his feet and reaches a hand down to Alina. "I'm sure as hell not the one to be calling you out over anything." It's easier to say that now, admit where he's screwed up in the past. Maybe he's growing up, finally learning some life lessons. He doesn't really guess it matters why, just that he is.
They take their time getting back to the house, Alina and Sasha going on ahead after Dean starts bitching about not seeing the need for an actual entourage. As they get close, Sam can see Alina through the windows, moving purposefully in the tiny kitchen while Sasha waits for them at the top of the steps.
"Five minutes," Alina says as they come through the door. They've been here long enough that Sam recognizes the soup pot, and he smells bread, too; the aromas are delicious, but he's honestly not sure he's going to be able to choke down dinner. Dean doesn't look all that excited about it either, but he doesn't need any reminders about staying strong physically. That's always been pounded into their heads, and not just by Dad. Pastor Jim, Bobby, random doctors...they've all had plenty of opportunities to drive that point home. Sam's been there with Dean throwing up after a concussion one minute and forcing down the Special of the Day the next.
He thinks Dean remembers that truly special occasion, too; there's a hint of a smile in his eyes when Sam puts the giant bowl of soup down in front of him.
"Dunno, Sammy..." Dean slides his spoon through the vegetables and barley. "You think there's enough grease here to do any good?"
"His body's rigged for diner food," Sam explains to Alina. "Bacon cheeseburgers cure his colds, not chicken soup."
"I have olive oil," Alina says, with a completely straight face. "Would that help?"
"Only if it's extra-virgin," Sam replies. "We have standards, you know."
As jokes go, it's pathetic, certainly not worth the laughter it provokes, but then again, they're all really close to the edge anyway, and laughing is a thousand times better than screaming.
* * *
Link to Part 2
Author:
topaz119Artist:
sarahtogaPairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/Dean/OFC
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~15,700 words
Notes: General spoilers for Supernatural through the end of Season 6; nothing about Season 7. Written for the 2011 Sam/Dean MiniBang.
Summary: When something gets hold of Dean, Sam is determined to find a way to save his brother. The quest leads the Winchesters to the top of a mountain in North Carolina and a last-ditch plan to get Dean free before it's too late.
Links: AO3 || Art || Podfic || Podbook
The first time Dean comes in Sam's arms, it's hazy dawn outside and the light that falls across them is soft gray, almost silvered from the mist.
Holding Dean--feeling him shudder and gasp--hadn't been any part of the plan... but then, neither had watching Dean be eaten up from the inside, the cold and dark spreading slow poison through his body.
Sam spreads his hands wide across his brother's fever-hot chest and belly and whispers his name, deandeandean, against his skin.
They're finishing up a routine salt-and-burn in Pennsylvania when Sam first notices that something's wrong. The local sheriff nearly catches them in the cemetery because Dean's just standing there warming his hands over the flames of what had once been a farmer and his wife. Sam grabs Dean by the arm and hauls him off toward the car, and yes, he might have been bitching about it a little too much, but Dean only shrugs and grumbles about how spring used to mean weather that wasn't freezing.
Since it really is a miserable spring, cold and rainy and gray, Sam just rolls his eyes and makes sure to bring Dean an extra-large coffee every time they stop. That helps a bit, and they both attribute his general crankiness and manic chatter to the extra jolts of caffeine. The nonstop talking wears Sam right the fuck out, so when Dean gradually quiets down it takes a couple of days before Sam's anything but grateful. It finally pings, though, and alarm bells start going off when he asks and it takes Dean a good five minutes to answer."I dunno, man," Dean says, after Sam literally shakes him to get him to focus. "I don't feel bad, just… not there all the time. Like there's a hole or something and it's sucking me down into it."
They're a day-and-a-half drive from Bobby's; Sam makes it in a little over eight hours.He and Bobby hit the books while Dean sleeps, but they come up with jack. When Dean starts having what they take to calling "gray-outs"--spells when he says everything's shadowed and it feels like he's fighting for control of his body--Bobby stares at them soberly and says, "Boys, we don't have the first goddamn clue what we're dealing with here."Sam's used to Dean pacing while they do research, but this new Dean sits quietly at the kitchen table and nods, letting Sam and Bobby volley ideas back and forth. Given all the times Sam's wished for Dean to just shut up already, it's the height of irony that he's willing Dean to say something, anything, as Sam and Bobby decide maybe a psychic can pick up enough of whatever it is that's got Dean to give them a clue of what they're fighting.
When Bobby goes to try and figure out who might be able to help, Dean finally rouses. "Missouri," he says, firm and sure for all that Sam is watching him to make sure he's not going to keel over where he sits.
"The last time we saw her she threatened to hit you with a spoon," Sam says, more to check Dean's memories than out of any real objection.
"Think I'll risk it, Sammy," Dean says. "Give her a chance to upgrade to a shotgun."
Missouri can't feel anything wrong with Dean, but she listens to Sam's halting explanation--and maybe it was for the best that he'd left Stanford before he started racking up law school debt if he can't do any better than, "I know he looks fine, but it's killing him, I can feel it"--and shows Sam a hand-drawn map to a property high on a mountain in North Carolina.
"There's a woman there, outside of town. I hear she's a powerful healer." Missouri adds a name to the map, not taking a breath before she glares at Dean. "Don't you be looking at me like that, Dean Winchester. I'm not one of your daddy's damn-fool contacts, sending you to ask help from something you're better off killing."
"Okay," Dean says, dragging himself to his feet with that stubborn will Sam's known all his life. "Let's get this freak show on the road, then."
Missouri stands at the edge of her front walk, waving them away, and Sam doesn't call attention to the tears he sees on her face. It takes fifteen hours to get to the mountain from Missouri's place; Dean lets Sam do most of the driving--and the talking, too, once they reach the town.
People eye them, not quite suspicious, but wary of strangers in their midst. Protective, without being crazy. Normal, like the neighbors of a woman who lives alone when two strange men are asking about her. Sam's tired enough--and scared enough--that he doesn't give them any story but the truth. His brother is sick, and they hope she can help. No one gives them any trouble, but Sam knows they'll be checking.
It's easier than Sam thinks it might be to find her. She's small and serene, and far younger than Sam expects, long blondish hair twisted up on the back of her head, hands strong and capable-looking, marked by the earth and her plants. She meets them at the foot of the mountain, and when Sam asks, "Did you know we were coming?" she smiles and answers, "No, I just came to get my mail."
Inside her house, tucked in a notch at the top of the mountain, she touches Dean lightly--temples, wrists, heart--and her eyes are serious when she looks up.
"It's so old," she murmurs, and Sam sags in relief. "I don't know--"
"Please," Sam says. "No one else has even been able to feel it."
She nods absently, her fingers stroking over the rapid pulse Sam can see under the skin of Dean's wrists. Dean stays perfectly still under her touch; when Sam lays his hands on Dean's shoulders, he can feel the tension in his muscles, but Dean never moves. "It hides so well," she says. "But not well enough."
It's late when they manage even the outline of the complicated history of the Winchesters and all the angels and demons, the prophecies and fates, the deals made and unmade; too late to start researching. Alina moves around the kitchen as they talk, asking questions and putting food on the table--cheese and fresh, warm bread and the first harvest of sugar snap peas, so lightly steamed they're barely warmed through. Sam expects Dean to make a face at the lack of anything battered or fried or vaguely meat-like, but Dean just eats and it's been long enough since Sam has seen that happen that he isn't going to jinx it even for easy points in their never-ending game.
After dessert--strawberries dipped first in yogurt and then in brown sugar--Alina shows them where they can sleep: a small room tucked under the eaves, with twin beds so close Sam knows he could lie in one and touch Dean in the other without stretching. A shower would have been nice, but even Sam is tired enough that brushing his teeth is as much as he gets done.
Sam leaves the curtains open so they'll get a breeze, and when he turns the light off the moonlight spills in.
In the quiet darkness, Dean rolls over and punches his pillow. "Sam, I swear to God, if I start buying Indigo Girls CDs after this I will kick your ass."
Sam doesn't laugh, but for the first time in a long time he falls asleep with a smile on his face.
There are more strawberries in the morning, this time folded into crepes along with rich, sweetened cheese and accompanied by coffee strong enough that Sam's a little awed the spoons haven't dissolved yet. Alina won't let Sam rush her, even though he and Dean slept well into the morning, but she does accept his help with the dishes and tidying up the compact kitchen.
Dean wanders around while they finish up, making friends with Alina's dog, a white-and-black Akita she calls Sasha.
"Of course they get along," Alina says to Sam, as Dean pulls stuff out of the car with the dog close by his heels. "They're both hunters." The cats, hunters or not, are another story, and after exchanging mutually skeptical looks, they agree to not engage.
She shows Sam her library, in yet another small, snug room, this one formerly a side porch, still with a brick floor and wide windows where the screens used to be. She pokes at the fire in a clay chimney pot, smiling and motioning him toward the table at the other end. "It's stays cool here all the time, which is great in the summer, but not so much the rest of the year."
Sam looks out the window, at the ground dropping away toward the end of the yard, endless green rolling into the distance, and then back at the shelves that line the walls, floor-to-ceiling against the one interior wall and under the windows the rest of the way around the room. A long, feathery fern spills out of a hanging basket; outside, he can almost smell the herbs that line the beds below the windows. A heavy canvas bag sits next to a comfortable chair, yarn and needles not quite tucked away.
"Maybe it's good it's not too warm," he says, digging around in his messenger bag for the old pair of gloves with the fingers cut out. "Otherwise, you might not ever--"
"Leave," she finishes for him, laughing. "That would be true, though I forget sometimes anyway."
Dean wanders in, eying the books with studied indifference. "You've got a couple of boards loose on the steps up to the front porch. You want me to take care of them while you and Sam do the research thing?"
It's probably the most Sam's heard Dean say in close to a month; when he looks more closely, he thinks the fine lines etched around Dean's mouth and eyes aren't as deep as they've been, just since the night before. He doesn't say anything, but Dean's eyes flicker over him like Dean's expecting him to object. It's a valid point, Sam realizes. He's spent the last two months watching Dean fight this and trying to get him to save his strength. Today, though, everything feels a little less hopeless.
Alina goes to fetch her toolbox--with a wickedly delighted smile at the surprise on Dean's face when she announces that she has one--and Dean keeps looking at Sam, waiting.
Sam shrugs. "You actually ate, and then you slept and you ate again. You want to bang around and be manly with tools instead of sitting there and staring at me while I read, I'm not gonna stop you."
"Just making sure you got that all figured out, Sammy." Dean isn't exactly smirking, but it's close enough that Sam has to keep himself from rolling his eyes. "You do your thing and I'll do mine."
And I'll read with one eye and keep the other one on you, Sam thinks. Just like you'll be watching us so close you'll know the second we find what we need, before we even say anything, but he figures Dean probably knows that already, no matter how much he's pretending not to have thought of it.
Dean takes the toolbox and heads back around to the front, purposeful and focused, and Sam turns to the stack of books in front of him, feeling the same.
Most of Alina's books and notes have to do with healing, but she has plenty about identifying supernatural creatures, too. She says she needs to know what something is before she can make it go away. If Dean weren't dying inch by inch in front of him, Sam would be fascinated by how much information she has that he's never seen before. The healing angle--versus killing--exposes all kinds of new details, even about creatures he knows and has fought, like a black dog or a wendigo. He makes a mental note to come back and look into it more once they take care of this, of Dean.
"It's so old," Alina murmurs, flipping through a small cloth-bound journal. The pages are full of sketches and notes in a shaky hand; the book looks as though it's at least a hundred years old. "It wants him; it came for him, but why? He's special, somehow."
They'd touched on the angels the night before, but now Sam says, "He was supposed to be the Michael Sword, but he wouldn't let it happen. Maybe that?"
"No." Alina draws the word out and shakes her head doubtfully. "It feels older. Less constrained, maybe."
Sam sighs out a breath. "What about Death?"
"One of the Horsemen?"
Alina considers for a second, and Sam adds, "Dean's talked to him, made a couple of deals with him." She looks startled, and he shrugs. "Yeah, I know. My brother--Death's pizza buddy."
Alina thinks about it, then nods even as she's reaching for a different notebook. This one is a pile of photocopied pages from what looks like an even older journal. "My great-great grandmother's," she says. "And most of what's here came from her grandmother, who was writing everything she could find down because she was the only woman around who could read and write." She flips through the pages and makes a few notes, then reaches for another book and repeats the process, clearly on the trail of something and just as clearly not quite ready to share. Sam hates it when people--Dean--nag him for the answers before he's worked things through, so he forces himself to stay quiet while Alina reads even though every inch of his skin is crawling with the need to know now.
"If Death had time for him--if he dealt with Dean--then it could be that other incarnations might find him acceptable. Hel, maybe; or Veles. Shiva--"
"We've, uh, met Kali," Sam says, wincing.
Alina looks up with a question in her eyes, but only says, "Well, you're still here, so..."
"It was close," Sam says, but he thinks she might be on the right track. He starts a list of the different incarnations of Death while she goes to talk to Dean to see if she can pin down anything specific about how it feels when he grays out. Sam watches the two of them outside the window, and while Dean never stops working on the steps, he's still talking to her, answering her questions. It doesn't help much, though. Alina comes back with not much more than they already knew, and in the twenty minutes she was out with Dean, Sam made a list of almost fifty possibilities. He can probably hit a hundred in another twenty minutes; give him another day and he'll be at two hundred, and he's not sure how they might be able to narrow it down.
"It's more than we had," he says, only a little helplessly, but Alina still looks grim. They press on, though, Sam roughing in quick sketches of as many possibilities as he can--like jury selection bios, he thinks with a trace of surreality--while Alina adds banes or charms or lore about warding them off. Sam checks on Dean as unobtrusively as possible, and Dean lets him get away with it, ignoring him in favor of one household chore after another, broken up by a little wrestling and stick-throwing with Sasha. Sam works straight through the day, only getting up when Alina's closest neighbor, a lean, tall older man, dark-skinned and white-haired, comes by with some trout and a careful eye for Dean and Sam. He makes sure they know he's not all that far away, just a mile or so, on the other side of the mountain. Dean gives the guy his best sincere voice and Sam hears him say he's glad to know Alina has someone watching out for her. Alina rolls her eyes, but makes a point of asking about the guy's family and passing along greetings from a mutual friend. She fixes dinner after he leaves, pan-frying the trout and steaming some greens. Sam's not exactly sure how she does it, but by the time they're clearing the table the bones on Dean's plate say she's managed to get him to eat more than he has in weeks. Sam looks at his own plate and notices the same thing. When he cocks an eyebrow at Alina she blinks at him innocently.
"You have a terrible poker face," he tells her, and Dean snorts before heading back outside to start cleaning out the car. Even from the kitchen, Sam can hear him apologizing to her for letting her get into such a state.
Sam keeps working until he nearly falls asleep at the table and Dean closes the laptop on him. He barely gets his fingers out of the way.
"You're getting that freaky look," Dean says. "The one that leads to all kinds of crazy shit." Sam would take offense, but Dean's voice is calm and matter-of-fact, not accusing, and Sam can read the concern in Dean's eyes. So he leans back and stretches, wincing as his back and shoulders pop, and then lets Dean herd him upstairs to bed. Neither one of them falls asleep for a long time, but it's peaceful there on top of the mountain, and Sam thinks they're getting some rest just from listening to the wind in the trees.
In the morning, Dean looks over Sam's notes while they work their way through another carafe of industrial-strength coffee. When he looks up, he nods thoughtfully. "That--I dunno. It feels like it could be something like that. Maybe?" he says, and then lets Sam and Alina get back to it. He looks stronger, more healthy than he's been in weeks, but Sam doesn't miss how the lines around his eyes are getting deeper again, or how the ones around his mouth that mark the low-level tension and stress look like they're settling into permanence. Dean's got his game face on, but it's still there, still eating at him, and Sam doesn't know how much longer Dean can hold out. At the end of the day, when they have at least as many possibilities as they started with and Sam can't see any way to narrow them down, he wants to scream and yell and throw things.
"I'm sorry," Alina says. "My library isn't really focused on this kind of--"
"No, of course not," Sam says, and then feels like an idiot for not realizing sooner, "but I know whose is." He gets Bobby on the phone and asks if he can check Samuel's books for anything about Death, in any culture. Bobby's been going through the boxes they'd taken out of Samuel's hideout, and though they hadn't come up with anything earlier, this new angle might put a different spin on things.
"I'll see what I can find," Bobby says. He doesn't tell Sam to ease off--he knows better, Sam supposes--but a few minutes after they hang up Dean comes in with a pack of cards he's unearthed from the trunk of the car. Sam gets the feeling he's being hustled, but since he can barely make his eyes focus, he lets Dean talk him into a couple hands of five-card draw. It turns out that Alina actually has an outstanding poker face, at least when actual poker is involved.
Bobby calls early the next morning. Sam can tell he spent the night researching, and he'd feel guilty except he knows Bobby would sacrifice a lot more than a couple of hours of sleep for Dean. The early call isn't to report good news, though: he hasn't found anything either. But when Sam asks him straight up if he thinks they're deluding themselves, Bobby answers, "Y'know, it takes a hell of a lot to deal with Death. Most things out there, human or not, don't take kindly to the thought. Mostly because they're not lunatics like your brother. I don't know for sure, but that could maybe make Dean like catnip to something else that's similar."
It's meant to be heartening, but it still doesn't mean they're any closer to a solution. Sam thinks he's dealing with the frustration until Dean suggests that they send him off to talk to Death again and Sam finds himself across the room and in Dean's face at full volume before he even knows it. Dean just leans against the door frame and watches Sam with a steady gaze. Sam practically bites his tongue to shut himself down, and in the sudden silence Alina says, "The only way I know to approach Death is to--"
"Kill yourself," Sam snaps. "Or let someone else do it and trust they'll bring you back."
"Yeah, but we know it works," Dean says, and Sam turns around and walks out before he punches a wall. Or Dean. This high up on the mountain, the sun is still throwing low, golden rays that slant shadows from the trees across the ground. Sam makes it to where the ground drops off; the valley below is already deep in shadow. It's not quite sunset when Dean comes and crosses over to where Sam's standing, watching the darkness slowly climb the hill. It's so metaphoric Sam wants to gag.
"You practically died for real the last time you tried that stunt," Sam says, not looking at Dean. "You might not make it back this time."
"Maybe not," Dean says. "But it's better than standing around waiting for whatever this is to take me."
"Dean--"
"Listen, Sam," Dean says. "This isn't me looking to check out. I--you wouldn't have been wrong about it before, but--not now." Sam looks up at that, and Dean meets his eyes easily. After a bit, Sam nods and sighs.
"That doesn't change the fact that you could very easily end up dead."
"Yeah, well, better to go down fighting than just sitting around letting it hollow me out."
"Better you not go down at all," Sam says, and Dean makes a noise that could be a laugh.
"Not gonna argue with you about that, little brother." Dean doesn't spell out that they might not have a choice, for which Sam is grateful.
The sun has sunk down below the mountains before Sam feels his head is clear enough to go back to the research and not risk missing something important. Dean stayed out with him, shoulders braced against an oak that has to be a hundred years old. Sam wouldn't blame him if he's a little cranky at the delay, but Dean only falls into step with him as he heads for the house.
Alina looks up from a book as they walk back into her study, eying them critically. Whatever she sees must satisfy her, because without asking if they're okay, she says, "What if we're going at this the wrong way? What if it doesn't matter exactly who or what this is?"
"How can that not matter?" Sam answers. "You said it yourself: you have to know what something is before you can take care of it."
Alina nods. "The more specifics I have, the better I know how to counter the effects," she says. "But what if just knowing that it's Death is enough?"
Sam looks at Dean, who shrugs and says, "It's not like we're drowning in options here."
"We could work with that, I guess," Sam answers slowly. "Go with that and keep trying to narrow things down, fine-tune it as we go."
He's not particularly comfortable with the idea, but like Dean says, they don't have much of a choice.
Even with no choice, trying to put something together using the scattershot theory--Sam can't get past all the unknowns to figure out how they're going to make it work. The only approach Sam can see that might not blow up--and it's a might--is to just overwhelm it, throw enough at it to smother any subtle strengths they might be missing. That takes a hell of a lot of energy, and power, and Sam can only think of a couple of ways to get what they'll need. He's almost afraid to ask which one they're going for, because none of them are even remotely a good idea.
In the end, when Alina lays down her pen and comes out with with what she's thinking, he's not terribly surprised. Not particularly happy, but not surprised. He'd argue the opposing side regardless--it's what he's good at, after all--but in this case, he hammers every angle he can think of. He's desperate for an answer, but he's been burned by one that's too-good-to-be-true before, and he's sworn not to let it happen again. Alina has answers for him, for everything, and when he calls Bobby and doesn't get chewed out much for being a desperate idiot, Sam starts to think it might work.
Bobby says he'll keep looking for something a little less insane, but they both know he's not expecting to find much.
"Thanks, Bobby," Sam says. "I'll keep you posted."
Bobby hangs up with a "You have fun tellin' all that to your brother," which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, but it's not a "no-way, no how, you idjit," so Sam feels like maybe they have a chance at taking down the son of a bitch after all.
It's late in the day by the time they've got all the details worked out, and the light is slanting low and golden through the trees again when Sam goes to find Dean. The rocks at the edge of the clearing are warm from the day's sun. Dean knows something's up, of course. Looking at Dean's clenched jaw, Sam knows Dean's patience--limited at the best of times--is stretched thin enough that Sam's got maybe two minutes of dithering before Dean up and decks him.
He still uses every last second though.
"Out. With. It," Dean snaps, as Sam fumbles through yet another round-about sentence of non-specifics. "Seriously, Sam, I am not in the fucking mood--"
"Sex magic," Sam says, in a rush. Dean closes his mouth with an almost audible click of teeth and hauls himself off the rock, walking a few steps away. Not leaving--Sam knows he won't do that--but not staying still either. "Alina says she can get it that way, no matter what it is."
Dean laces his fingers together behind his head and turns slowly to face Sam. His face is shuttered, blank, a too-familiar expression that settles heavily in Sam's gut. Dean hasn't worn that look in the last few days; Sam shouldn't be surprised to see it again, but it hits him hard and low. It's worse now, somehow, as though the grooves of carrying it had started to heal and it coming back has ripped off all the scabs.
"You're sure?" Dean asks. Sam shrugs helplessly, because no, they're nowhere close to sure, and sex magic--it's hard-core stuff, not bad in and of itself, just volatile and unpredictable and generally way out of control, but this is the best they've got and they're running out of time. Dean sets off toward the house calling for Alina, his voice worn and jagged.
"You--," Dean says, when she steps into the doorway, Sasha and the cats twining around her legs. "Sex magic will do it?"
"It will," she answers, firm and calm. Sam can almost see an aura around her. "It will."
Dean sits down right there, his legs giving out on the steps he fixed earlier. When Sam reaches out to touch him, Dean doesn't bat his hand away.
"I thought you were going to say blood magic," he whispers, and Sam can feel him shaking. It's not until later--after they eat; after Alina and Sam give him the highlights and he calls Bobby just to hear him growl at them for waking an old man up to repeat himself; after Dean lets Sam steer him up the narrow staircase to the bedroom--that he adds, "I thought you were going to tell me it had to be blood magic, the really bad shit, and I didn't think I was going to be able to make myself stop you."
In the morning, Dean asks to see everything--all the research, all the spellwork--and goes through it with a frown of concentration. Alina doesn't so much as blink, just settles in next to the fire, the biggest of her cats on her lap, and waits for Dean's questions. Sam gives in to the restless energy surging through his blood and paces the small room, four steps down and four steps back, until Dean picks up a pen and nails him with it.
"Go take the dog for a run, or something," Dean says, but Sam can't bear not being there when Dean finishes. He makes himself sit quietly, but when Dean finally looks up with the expression that means he's ready to talk, the pen is a pretzel in Sam's hands, though he doesn't remember touching it.
Dean arches an eyebrow, and Sam shrugs and puts the twisted plastic down on the table. Dean hesitates another few seconds before he gestures at the papers in front of him and says, "Okay, so if I've got this right, we don't give a shit who's doing this--it's Death in some form, and we're taking him on with life."
"Right," Alina says, calmly stroking the big tortoiseshell cat. "Whatever it is that has you--life is what it wants in this world. That's what fascinates it, what draws it out. Life is the antithesis to everything it already has. And it's what can neutralize it."
"Like a moth to a flame, " Sam says, a little too eagerly, a little too desperate for Dean to be okay with this, because Sam's got nothing else.
"Gotcha, Sammy," Dean says, but not impatiently. He turns back to Alina. "Okay," he says. "And sex is life, I'm with you on that. It just... "
"It's pretty hard to do it right?" Alina suggests.
"Yeah, that," Dean says, and Sam nods. Sex magic is incredibly powerful stuff, but also incredibly difficult to control. "But--even if you've got that taken care of, this--" Dean gestures towards her notes and references--"it doesn't seem like it's gonna be enough. It's--broad. Not specific enough."
Alina nods. "We don't know enough to really focus on any one particular culture. If we guess wrong, it would throw everything off. But... the sun. That's also life, and the solstice is coming." She picks the cat up off her lap and puts him gently on the ground, sending him on his way with one last stroke. "Even better, this year the full moon is just a day or so later--that's more light, reflected from the sun. Not quite perfect but almost. If you can hold it off until the solstice, I'll have a little bit more to draw on. You've been fighting it; it didn't expect that, I don't think. It's weaker than it thinks it is. But I know it's hard." She leans forward and touches Dean's face lightly, reaching unerringly for the lines carved deep around his mouth and eyes. "Can you hold on a little while longer?"
"Yeah." Dean breathes deep; Sam can see the effort it takes him. "I can do that."
"This is going to knock us both flat," Alina says to Dean the next morning. "And I mean that in a sleep-for-three-days way."
"Yippee," Dean says, with a careful flippancy that Sam knows masks his frustration at not being able to fix this himself. "Can't wait for more of that."
"It'll be the good kind of sleep," Alina assures him. Sam bites back a grin at the way she blows right by every wall Dean's thrown up, even the ones Sam knows have been there all his life, so Dean can't help but accept what she's offering. It's pretty impressive. She turns to Sam and adds, "Will you be all right taking care of things--the house and the animals? While we're out of it?"
"Of course," Sam says, nodding.
"Oh, man, I dunno," Dean drawls, leaning back in the kitchen chair. "I mean, I've seen the guy's domestic talents and they're pretty bare on the ground."
"Oh," Alina says. "I can--there's another healer I work with sometimes, she can come and help out if you--"
"Really," Sam says, kicking Dean under the table, definitely harder than he means to, harder than he should under the circumstances, but Dean just smirks at him. "I'll be fine. He's just showing off a little of the jerk that's his true personality."
"Whatever, bitch," Dean says, sounding more cheerful than Sam's heard him in a month. He puts his coffee mug on the side of the sink and goes out into the fresh morning air, whistling for Sasha and heading off to do whatever it is that they do in the mornings.
"It is a little more complicated than what you're probably used to," Alina says. "And you might be pretty much on your own for a few days, really, while we get back up to speed."
As long as they both do get back up to speed in the end, Sam will be glad to deal with the details. "Show me everything I'll need to do," Sam says.
Alina takes him through the peculiarities of life off the grid, the pumps and the solar water heater and the storage batteries in the shed. There's a fair amount to keep track of, even before she gets to the animals and their particular eating habits and requirements. Dean wanders back in as she's making a list of things to stock up on, murmuring to herself, and checking things in her pantry. He keeps out of her way, but when she starts lacing on her hiking boots like she's getting set to walk down the mountain, he reaches for his, too.
"Sam," he says, his voice pulling Sam out of the book he'd fallen back into reading just in time to catch Dean's keys as they come flying across the room. The look on Dean's face says there's no way Dean's letting Alina walk three miles into town and he can't believe Sam was going to let it happen either. Sam flushes a little at not having thought about it, but then, Dean's always been the one who took care of day-to-day life. Sam is perfectly capable, but old habits die hard, he guesses.
"We can drive you," Sam says.
"I walk all the time," she answers absently, assembling a collection of bags and folding them into neat squares. "It's summer; the weather's beautiful. They'll send stuff up in a couple of days if I can't carry it all."
"No, really," Sam says, shoving his feet into the boots Dean's pulled out from the under the bench by the back door.
"You're someone I'm trying to help," she insists. "Guests."
"Uninvited and unexpected," Dean shoots back, and Sam has to bite back a grin at how very much Alina doesn't like people not listening to her. Dean just crosses his arms and meets her glare head-on. He's back to not talking as much, but Sam thinks it's more because he's used to it now than because he can't. At least, he hopes that's the case.
"You should rest," she says, not backing down for a second. Sam could tell her that was probably the worst thing she could have said, but he's kind of enjoying watching the two of them slug it out.
Dean snorts and rolls his eyes. "I'm not that far gone. We can drive you."
"Fine," she snaps, snatching paper and pencil off her small desk and ostentatiously ignoring them both all the way into town.
There's a small market, not much bigger than a gas station on a highway, but packed to the ceiling with everything from fertilizer to baby food. Dean wordlessly insists on driving the cart, even after one or two pointed remarks about how Alina's perfectly capable of doing her own shopping.
"He'll get whatever he thinks you need anyway," Sam says, when Alina turns to him for support. "You might as well let him."
Dean grins and hops on the back of the cart, pushing off with one foot and balancing easily as the cart rolls down the first aisle. Sam has a sudden flash of being five or six again, riding there with Dean, pressed between the cold metal of the cart and Dean's warmth behind him.
Dean jumps off halfway down the aisle and snags shaving cream and razors from the shelf, tossing them in the cart. Sam would have thought the mundane details of their life would have been lost in the mess of this thing that's hollowing Dean out, but some things are just ingrained, he guesses.
Alina thaws three aisles in, when Dean drags his foot to stop the cart and points to a 20-pound bag of dog food, before elbowing Sam to handle the pick-up.
"Can't carry that home," he says, to no one in particular, but Sam catches his satisfied smirk. He's pretty sure Alina catches it, too, especially when she adds a can of Turtle Wax to the cart not a minute later.
"We still good on cash?" Dean asks, after slowing down enough to put a couple yards between them and Alina.
"Yeah," Sam answers. "Haven't even touched the last bit from Bobby." There's an account out there somewhere, with the money Bobby'd gotten from selling Dad's truck. Bobby swore he'd taken out the cost of the parts Dean had needed when he'd rebuilt the Impala, but every time they see him they end up with an envelope of twenties hidden away somewhere it takes them a week to stumble across. "Got a couple hundred in my wallet now."
"Good," Dean says, holding his hand out. No bogus credit for now, obviously. Sam's just looking forward to watching the battle it's going to take to get Alina to let them pay.
"Okay," Alina says, dropping an armful of bags from the bulk bins in the cart. "I just need some quinoa and I'm good to go."
"Keen-what?" Dean says to Sam as she walks off. "Is that something for the...you know...like an herb or something? For spells?"
"Um, no?" Sam answers, visions of Jess's p-chem lab partner, vegan and proud of it, sliding into his head. "You eat it. It's like a grain? Or something."
"You know what?" Dean aims the cart toward the front of the store and takes off in a long, fast glide. "I don't even want to know."
"Yeah," Sam says to his carnivorous brother's back. "That's probably best."
There's an older woman behind the checkout counter; by the time Sam makes his way up there, Dean's got her charmed into not taking Alina's money for the order. As far as Sam can tell, Dean's not running any scams on her, not saying anything that's not pretty damn close to the truth. For all that Dean can work a con without thinking, he's always known when not to as well. By the time Alina gets there, it's all over but the shouting, and even that's more like some tight lips and a little hissing, and entirely one-sided, because Dean--already victorious--just smiles.
When they get out to the car, though, Dean heads straight for the back seat, quickly enough that Sam knows he's hit the wall, and Sam's taken a little by surprise at the pure, perfect fury that boils through him at seeing Dean like this. Alina helps Sam get everything into the trunk and Dean's eyes meet Sam's in the rear-view mirror, so Sam just focuses on getting them all home to where Dean can sleep comfortably while he and Alina start getting ready to drag the son of a bitch that's killing Dean into the real world where they can blow it to pieces.
It's six days until the solstice; they make it through four before Sam, sitting on the front porch steps, looks up from the book he's reading to see Dean, playing with Sasha out near the car, fold down on himself in a slow-motion collapse that ends in a sprawl graceless enough to send pure ice through Sam's veins.
He's never seen Dean go down like that, not even when the hellhounds had him, and in the endless seconds it takes Sam to get across the clearing he imagines more bad outcomes than he'd have thought possible, up to and including rolling Dean over and finding something else in control. When he gets there, though, Dean's still breathing and he reacts when Sam shakes him.
"No slapping," Dean mumbles. "I'm still your big brother, can kick your ass, Sammy."
Alina arrives just then, out of breath from running up from the lower half of the property. She soothes Sasha with a few firm pats and then reaches for Dean.
"'m okay," he says, but he lets her check him over, quick light touches like on the first night. "Didn't get me."
"Yeah," she says, and Sam breathes out a quick, shaky sigh. "Whatever it tried didn't work, but... I don't think this is the end."
She doesn't have to spell out that it's only the beginning; Sam knows it, and he can see Dean knows it, too. The big question is how much longer Dean can keep winning these battles. The more Sam learns about whatever it is they're up against, the more he realizes they're already way past anything anyone would have expected, even knowing Dean and knowing the strength of purpose he can bring to bear.
"We need to get this thing out of him--" Sam starts, but Alina is shaking her head. "He can't wait..."
"I'm sorry," Alina says. "This is...I could have called another healer I know, worked out a way to have done this together and been ready to go after it right now, but...I wanted to take it out on my own--and I know that I can do that, with the right timing, the solstice and the moon, but..."
"But that's still another two days," Sam finishes for her.
"Yes," she whispers. "I'm sorry, I--"
"Sittin' right here," Dean slurs. "Quit talkin' like I'm already toast." He pulls himself a little bit more upright, still leaning heavily on Sam. "Your notes, the stuff you worked out--the timing's important. The solstice."
"I can still try to contact someone--" Alina says, at the same time Sam starts, "Dean--"
"'s my call," Dean says, still not much more than whispering, but sure and in control. His jaw is set with that stubborn determination that Sam used to think was just one more way Dean was trying to be Dad, but that he now thinks is actually something he got from Mom, something bone-deep and fierce. "If you think you need somebody else, okay, but I can hold this fucker off until there's the best chance to take it out."
Sam wants to overrule Dean, wants this fucker gone. Judging by Dean's expression, Dean knows exactly what's going on in Sam's head and he also knows he's too tired to win in a fight with Sam... and Sam can see how much it's costing Dean, who's always, always just figured out how to fix things, to not be in control here.
"Yeah," Sam says, after a couple of seconds, nodding at Dean. "You're right. It is your call, as long as you can make it." He gets Dean to his feet and reaches a hand down to Alina. "I'm sure as hell not the one to be calling you out over anything." It's easier to say that now, admit where he's screwed up in the past. Maybe he's growing up, finally learning some life lessons. He doesn't really guess it matters why, just that he is.
They take their time getting back to the house, Alina and Sasha going on ahead after Dean starts bitching about not seeing the need for an actual entourage. As they get close, Sam can see Alina through the windows, moving purposefully in the tiny kitchen while Sasha waits for them at the top of the steps.
"Five minutes," Alina says as they come through the door. They've been here long enough that Sam recognizes the soup pot, and he smells bread, too; the aromas are delicious, but he's honestly not sure he's going to be able to choke down dinner. Dean doesn't look all that excited about it either, but he doesn't need any reminders about staying strong physically. That's always been pounded into their heads, and not just by Dad. Pastor Jim, Bobby, random doctors...they've all had plenty of opportunities to drive that point home. Sam's been there with Dean throwing up after a concussion one minute and forcing down the Special of the Day the next.
He thinks Dean remembers that truly special occasion, too; there's a hint of a smile in his eyes when Sam puts the giant bowl of soup down in front of him.
"Dunno, Sammy..." Dean slides his spoon through the vegetables and barley. "You think there's enough grease here to do any good?"
"His body's rigged for diner food," Sam explains to Alina. "Bacon cheeseburgers cure his colds, not chicken soup."
"I have olive oil," Alina says, with a completely straight face. "Would that help?"
"Only if it's extra-virgin," Sam replies. "We have standards, you know."
As jokes go, it's pathetic, certainly not worth the laughter it provokes, but then again, they're all really close to the edge anyway, and laughing is a thousand times better than screaming.
Link to Part 2