Archive of Our Own

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.

Sam stays close after that. He fully expects to be fighting Dean on it, to have Dean be snarling at him to back off already, Sam, but he doesn't give a flying fuck. He's not letting Dean out of arm's reach. Dean, of course, contrary to the end, doesn't so much as say "boo" about it. He shifts over to make room for Sam to sit next to him, waits for Sam to look up from whatever he's reading before reaching for boots and jacket to go wandering around at night, and generally behaves like it's entirely normal to have a Sam-shaped shadow.

It kind of weirds Sam out, at least until Dean admits that there are minutes here and there during the day when he's not entirely sure what's real and what's not. Then Sam's just plain freaked-out, again with every bad thing he's stuffed down in his brain crawling out and fighting for attention, but Dean brings him out of it with an elbow to the gut, as precisely placed as any surgical incision, waiting until Sam stops wheezing to say, "Nothing's real for sure except you, Sammy."

Dean's eyes are really fucking calm, considering what he just said, and Sam's suddenly, acutely aware of the warmth where Dean's touching him, light press along his leg from hip to knee.

"Okay," Sam says, swallowing hard. "Whatever works."

Dean sighs. "Yeah, well, I'm not seeing this getting any much better before D-Day, so maybe we should start asking the hard questions now, like just how with it do I have to be when things go down."

Alina's in the library; as soon as they come in, Sasha, who Sam wouldn't be surprised to find is telepathic, pads across the room and noses her head up under Dean's hand. Dean responds automatically, rubbing and scratching behind her ears, like worry beads.

"So just how bad would it be if I'm graying out in the middle of our little party?"

"Probably pretty bad," Alina says, straightforward as always. "With something like this, we both have to be present, really there. It's part of what makes this kind of magic so hard to control--you have to be able to keep the ritual on track and be fully present and involved in the sexual part or everything spirals out of control."

"Yeah," Dean sighs. "That's what I thought." He looks at Sam for a long moment before he turns back to Alina. "So, let's just cut to the chase, because I seriously doubt that's in the cards. What happens if the only way I'm sure what's for real is if Sammy's within a couple of inches."

Alina hmms thoughtfully. "I--don't know. I've never seen anything that talks about anyone else having to be a part of the ritual. When we do this, the focus is supposed to be between two people, and anyone else is generally going to be a distraction and a dilution, so, I wouldn't think that having to have Sam there to keep you present would work, but..."

"But what?" Sam asks for Dean.

"But unless I'm really concentrating, you two are almost impossible to separate anyway." Sasha whuffles a little and settles on Dean's feet, laying her muzzle down and closing her eyes, as though this is old news. Maybe it is. Dean doesn't look surprised, and Sam, while he might have hated the idea when he was a kid, doesn't mind it much now. "You both...feel the same, especially when you're together, so I don't think Sam being there for the ritual is going to be a deal-breaker." One of the cats picks that time to arrive with an offering and the conversation gets derailed while they identify the victim and deal with the aftermath.

"You all right, Sammy?" Dean asks, later, after they've taken Sasha out for a little friendly game of tug-of-war.

"Yeah," Sam says. "I'm good--I mean, other than the whole something's trying to hollow you out from the inside thing--"

"Yeah, yeah." Dean waves his hand, dismissing such concerns as negligible, Sam supposes. Sasha barks, eager for what comes next in the game, and Dean picks up a broken stick and slings it sidearm across the clearing. "We've had that going on for a while now." He takes a deep breath. "I mean, are you okay with sitting in on everything. Being there while we, whatever."

"You mean, am I okay being there while my brother engages in ritualistic sex with a healer so she can contain and nullify the thing that's so powerful, so ancient, we can't really even find a name for it?"

"Yeah." Dean keeps his eyes on where Sasha's gotten sidetracked with some new and exciting smells. "That."

"No problem," Sam answers, keeping his voice even and matter-of-fact, because freaking out isn't going to help anyone. He bumps shoulders with Dean and adds, "Happy to be your security blanket, man."

Sam jolts awake in the darkest part of the night to Sasha whining, low and off-key, enough to literally raise the hair on the back of his neck. He reaches out, flailing for Dean in an automatic, frantic reaction even before he realizes it's too quiet, that he can't hear the steady, deep breaths that had lulled him to sleep earlier. His legs tangle in the sheets as he feels his way along the other mattress, half-falling out of his own bed to reach farther, until he finally finds warm skin--smooth and solid, the muscles and tendons in Dean's back arching hard--and feels Dean shudder and start breathing again under his hand.

"Shit." Sam sags in relief, kneeling between the beds and putting his head down on Dean's. "Shit, shit, shit."

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Dean gasps.

Sasha barks once, then settles at the top of the stairs, still clearly on guard duty but willing to let Sam take care of things. Sam stays down for another couple of seconds, willing his heart to settle into something slower than heavy, adrenaline-fueled pounding.

The beds are narrow, to fit into the tiny space; separated only by the nightstand between them. Sam considers their options, but it's not really all that difficult a decision. It only takes one hand to drag the table down past the ends of the beds; once that's done, he lets go of Dean just long enough to shove his bed up against Dean's.

Sasha lifts her head and watches; as Sam settles back on his mattress, still able to keep in touch with Dean, he finds himself thanking her for watching out for them.

"Dude," Dean says. "You sure you're not losing it?"

"Fuck off," Sam answers, stretching out and trying to convince his mind that sleep really is okay. "You talk to the car all the time."

"Yeah," Dean says. "And I talk to my girl here, too." Sasha's tail thumps on the wooden floor. "The point is, you don't."

"I guess I never really had a good reason to."

Alina doesn't say anything the next morning, but from the way she watches them while she stirs the oatmeal, Sam figures she knows things are going downhill even before Dean fills her in on the middle-of-the-night excitement. She presses her lips together tightly as he finishes up, shaking her head and saying, "I should have called--"

Dean deliberately flicks some of his oatmeal at her. "Hey," he says. "We're still on for tomorrow morning. I'll take care of my end, but you need to be on top of your end, and bitching at yourself isn't going to help."

"You're right," Alina sighs, and Dean makes the pleased, of-course-I'm-right noise Sam remembers from when they were kids and Sam was freaking out over something and Dean talked him down. Of course, whether or not Sam got a good grade isn't exactly on the same scale as whether or not Dean's going to make it through the next 36 hours, but if Dean wants to play it like that Sam's going to go along with it. Then Dean says, "And hey, while I appreciate the thought of another of the ladies working me over along with you, we've already got Sammy in the mix. Toss in anyone else and your sacred ritual is gonna start looking like an orgy. Which I could also appreciate, but maybe later, when I'm a little less out of it?"

There's a brief moment of silence--Sam also remembering all the times Dean's opened his mouth and fucking horrified Sam with what came out--but then Alina sits down at the table and covers her face with both hands, and Sam sighs. "Yes," he says to Alina, who's laughing helplessly. "He really did just proposition you." Sam smacks Dean--lightly--on the back of the head. "Way to stay classy, man."

"Broke the tension, didn't it?" Dean says, smirking. "And if the answer's yes, I am way out in front of the curve." His smirk turns into a more relaxed smile as he adds in Alina's direction, "No rush on getting back to me on that, though. Take your time."

"We can see how we feel about it tomorrow night, after our little audition in the morning," Alina answers, giving Dean a wicked once-over that's so blatantly appraising he blushes, and it's Sam's turn to laugh. Alina smiles, too, but when she continues, her tone is brisk and straightforward. "We should start getting set up, though. There's not a lot, but there's a certain order to getting the site ready that helps focus all the energy."

She thinks--and Sam agrees--that Dean should rest as much as possible, but Dean vetoes that plan. "You don't need to be doing everything by yourself," he says. "Sam can help and I can be the good-looking addition to the scenery." Alina shrugs at Sam, and while he'd rather Dean saved whatever strength he has, Sam figures they're coming out ahead just from Dean not arguing about Sam having to be involved.

Alina wants to do it in her study, the converted side porch. "I came here because of the ley lines," she says, and Sam nods. He hadn't thought about it before, but he's felt the energy, and he's sure it's at least part of what's helped Dean hang on this long. "There's a convergence all along this ridge, so anywhere is good, but I spend most of my time out here or the kitchen so it's like I've got my own little groove."

"Here is definitely better than the kitchen," Dean says. "Me and you would have a hard time fitting in that corner, even before we add in Gigantor here. We're definitely gonna need more space."

Sam flips Dean off, because he knows Dean's waiting for it, and Dean might never win an award for subtlety but Sam has to give him credit for keeping things from getting too heavy. He reminds himself of that an hour later, after he's shifted tables and books and chairs and he's not even sure what else out of the study to a nonstop soundtrack of Dean's comments about his strength and coordination and endurance, or lack thereof. "Seriously," Sam says, dropping down on the floor next to where Dean's propped up against the wall, "remind me to kick your ass the next time we're sparring."

"Better get it in the first session, before I'm back in the groove," Dean cracks back, but Sam doesn't miss how he leans into Sam with an almost audible sigh of relief. "I might be out of it now, but that's not gonna last long."

Even with how Dean's practically curled into Sam, Sam has to listen hard to hear anything but confidence that there will be more sparring sessions in their future in Dean's voice. He doesn't quite trust his own voice, but he can't let Dean be the only one carrying the positive-thinking flag, so he summons up a snort and jabs his elbow--gently--into Dean's ribs. It's at about a tenth of his usual force, and he's not sure what's more worrisome: that Dean doesn't give him shit about pulling the jab or that it's still almost enough to flatten Dean.

The only time Dean's assurance slips is when Sam chivvies him upstairs to try to get a little sleep. Dean doesn't move from where he's sitting on the front steps for the longest time, and when he does, it's with a sigh. "I was hopin' the clouds would clear some," he says, looking up at the sky. "Enough to see a couple of stars."

It's been clear every other night. Sam steels his voice and manages a credibly casual, "Tomorrow, for sure," and Dean nods.

Their beds are still pushed together. Dean doesn't hesitate, just strips out of his jeans and T-shirt and lets himself fall onto the narrow mattress. Sasha plants herself at the door, watching Sam until he crawls onto the second bed, and rests her muzzle on her paws. It's quiet for a little while, and then Dean says, "If this doesn't work--"

"Yeah," Sam says, biting back all the denials that want to come out, because, yeah, he knows as well as Dean that this isn't a slam-dunk, not by a long shot, and the least he can do is listen to whatever Dean wants to say.

"There's no telling what exactly this is."

"Yeah," Sam says again. "I--I've got everything lined up. Salt, iron, silver, brass--everything. I'll take care of it if I have to." He doesn't add that Bobby's got half-a-dozen hunters on speed dial just in case Sam doesn't check in, but he doesn't really have to.

"Know you will," Dean says, and Sam swears to himself that he'll deal, no matter what. He's settled in for a sleepless night, but Dean's out in under five minutes, and the regular, comforting sound of his breath--the feel of it where Sam's got one arm slung over him--lulls Sam to sleep not long after. He doesn't sleep long, but he wakes up in the dark of the night feeling about a thousand times better than he'd expected to. Dean's breathing easily next to him. This has worn Dean almost to a shadow of himself, but he's still there and fighting, and Sam really doesn't know that anyone else he's ever met--including Dad, in all his stubborn, mule-headed glory--would have gotten this far.

Sam can hear Alina moving about downstairs. She'd said she would sleep a little, but that she'd mostly be preparing: meditating and pulling her focus inward. Sam's plan had been to let Dean sleep until they needed to get started, but Dean comes awake on his own about an hour before dawn. He doesn't say anything or move away, but he's definitely awake. Sam stays still, too, and they lie there, more or less breathing in sync until the sky outside the window starts to lighten ever so faintly.

"All right," Dean finally says. "Let's go deal with this thing." His voice is firm and sure, but watching him, Sam can tell it's taking everything he's got to get himself out of the bed. Sam stamps down hard on the reflex that wants to be grabbing for Dean, steadying him, because as clearly as it's a struggle, Dean just as clearly does not want help. They make it halfway down the stairs, Sam all but twitching from the stress of keeping his hands to himself, when Dean stops and leans hard on the banister. "Gimme a minute, Sammy."

"I can car--" Sam starts, but Dean cuts him off.

"No, you can't carry me," Dean says. "Not unless I'm gonna go face-first down the rest of these stairs." Sam nods and very carefully doesn't say that Dean's wavering on the edge of doing just that. Dean musters the energy to glare at him, as though he knows exactly what Sam's thinking, but doesn't say anything more. He makes it the rest of the way down to the first floor on his own, though it's touch and go on a couple of steps. The triumph of getting that far carries him the rest of the way into Alina's study, where he stops dead so quickly that Sam stumbles into him and grabs at him to keep him from going down. Sam can't blame him for the sudden stop, though, what with the fires dotting the edges of the room and the naked woman standing in front of them.

Dean recovers quickly, stepping into the room with a confidence Sam doesn't think is faked, though he doesn't shrug off the arm Sam's still got around him.

"Sammy," he says, as Alina turns toward them, unpinning her hair and letting it fall loose down her back, almost to her waist. It changes the look of her face, taking away the practical and familiar and adding an other-worldly cast. If Sam narrows his eyes, he can almost see the energy instead of just feeling it, the ley lines and the fires, all flowing to her. "We are definitely overdressed."

"Robes and fire don't mix," Alina says, gesturing to the half-dozen small firebowls around the perimeter of the windows. The flames crackle with the energy of well-dried tinder; from the few wisps of smoke that don't drift out of the open windows above, Sam can smell the sweet sharpness of cedar mixed with herbs. "We should probably get started--the less we have to rush, the better."

Sam had noticed the pallet-bed Alina had created during the night, sweet-smelling hay covered by cloths big enough to be sheets, but had been deliberately ignoring it. Dean nods, though, and starts pulling his shirt off over his head. Sam keeps one arm around his waist, steadying him, working hard not to think about what they're about to start doing. Dean hooks his thumbs in the waistband of his boxers and looks over his shoulder at Sam.

"You okay?" he asks, and when Sam nods, Dean flashes him that cocky grin, familiar even if it's a shadow of the real thing. "You sure you don't want to go get your notebook, so you don't forget any of the moves of a master?"

"You're such an ass," Sam tells him. "I should drop you right here." Dean just smirks and pushes his boxers down over his hips, letting them fall and stepping out of them before arching an eyebrow at Sam, waiting for him to follow. Technically speaking, Sam doesn't think he has to be naked, too, but the look in Dean's eyes is pretty freaking clear that Sam isn't getting out of it on a technicality. It's a little awkward, getting his T-shirt off without letting go of Dean, but he manages, and then Alina steps closer, tracing the back of her hand over Dean's face, across his cheekbones, along the bridge of his nose, whispering his name, and Dean's distracted enough that Sam can get his own boxers off without having to do it under Dean's full scrutiny.

Sam trusts Alina--he wouldn't have agreed to go through with this if he hadn't--but it's still a shock to feel the power building around them. Dean feels it, too, and from how he's shaking against Sam, so does his uninvited guest. Sam keeps hold of his brother and backs them toward the bed. Dean moves with him, no hesitation or doubt, like he does when they're hunting and Sam has a better sightline than Dean. Sam makes sure to keep a hand on Dean as he gets to the edge of the pallet and starts to sink down, as though they aren't pressed together from shoulders to hips, Dean's back to Sam's chest. As they fall back onto the pallet the hay is thick and soft under the cloths, and Sam can smell more of the herbs, light and fresh now, crushed under their weight. The pallet isn't all that big; Sam gets himself braced against the wall--the one made of river stone, the thrum of energy reflecting and magnifying off it--and settles Dean against him with hardly any conscious thought. Alina follows them down easily, brushing kisses along Dean's skin now, on his closed eyes and his mouth, the points on his shoulders over each artery. Dean's breathing speeds up, shallowing out into light, quick pants, but when he tips his head back and looks at Sam, it's still him behind the eyes.

"Oh, you've got its attention," he gasps to Alina, but then his eyes are back on Sam. Alina's voice stays low but she begins to speak more quickly, a quiet, confident murmur in languages Sam can't begin to sort out, not while Dean's eyes are locked on him like he's the only thing Dean can see. The energy in the room is almost visible now, flickering on the edges of Sam's vision, all of it centering on Alina, and more and more on Dean as Alina kisses carefully over the thin skin on the inside of Dean's wrists, over his heart, at the pulse under his jaw. She smooths her hands in light strokes down his arms and Sam can see the fine tremors that follow her touch, as though the energy she's pulling from the earth is rushing through Dean's veins.

"Almost there." Alina breathes the words into Dean's skin, and Sam feels them, too. Dean doesn't answer, but his hand tightens almost convulsively on Sam's arm. "Sam," she murmurs. "You can be more a part of this. I think--I think you need to be."

"I can," Sam answers, the words torn out of him like an oath, a vow.. "I will. Whatever you need." He finds himself wrapped even more tightly around Dean, as though his body is processing things on some primitive, basic level, without his conscious brain needing to be involved.

Alina bends down over Dean; presses her mouth to his in a soft kiss, like a benediction. She whispers his name against his mouth, and then leans up to Sam, meeting him halfway and sharing the kiss with him, opening her mouth and letting Sam taste Dean on her. Caught between them, Dean makes a low, rough noise; not quite a growl, but a challenge all the same, one that sparks through Sam's blood, through nerves he hadn't known he had. Alina smiles and brushes her mouth across Sam's again before dropping back down to Dean.

Dean takes her mouth eagerly, and Sam feels the energy flaring between them, between all of them. The need Sam's been trying to ignore, the aching want that's been eating at him since he first got his arms around Dean, sharpens and deepens and demands to be acknowledged.

"Yes," Alina hisses, crying out as Dean arches up into her. "You belong to this world. You're our gift, ours, ours."

They're tangled together now, each of them holding on to the other two with desperate hands, legs twined around legs, Alina's hair a veil hiding them all from the world. They're breathing the same air, drinking each other in with such all-consuming focus that Sam feels the first shiver of wrong, the subtle taint of something not of this world, even before Dean seizes in his arms, a guttural language ripping out of his throat.

"Dean!" Instinctively, Sam curves closer, pulling Dean to him, and if his shout is less that of an adult and more of a boy calling for his home, it doesn't seem to matter. The wrongness ebbs for a second, just enough for Dean to gasp, "Sam, Sammy--"

"That's it, yes," Alina whispers against Sam's skin. "Don't let him go."

The taint is back, like blood drifting through water, but Sam isn't afraid of it now, just calls to Dean as strong and steady as he can. Dean will never not answer Sam, never. Sam's always known that, even when he doubted it, but now he knows it as sure and deep as the mountain they're on, and if this thing that wants Dean missed that part of him, of them, then Sam is more than happy to lay out reality for everyone to see.

Alina laughs, a joyous, triumphant sound, and arches back so quickly her hair stings Sam as it flies out in an arc. "You can't have him," she challenges. "He is ours and he always will be."

Every time the darkness edges forward, Sam calls to Dean and Dean comes back a little stronger. "Get it," he gasps against Alina's mouth, his hands hard on Sam's forearm and Alina's hip. "Get the sonofabitch."

"So close," Alina whispers, the power arcing around her, around all of them, as she and Dean move together, Sam tangled so tightly with them that he's not sure where he ends and Dean begins. "So. Close."

She goes back to the incantation, words falling from her mouth more and more quickly, shifting from Latin to Greek to Aramaic to something Slavic. Each word echoes in Sam's ears as though it's spoken by a chorus of voices, each one adding another measure to the ascendancy Alina's building--one that's elemental and organic, fire, earth, water, sky, so that when she cries out one last time and lets it go, it pours over them all, life, pure and rich, no room for anything that's not of this world. Dean's right there with her, with them, so Sam lets himself be lost in the rush, the physical release of orgasm just one more note in the white-out around them. .

When he can see again, and breathe, and think, the sheets are cool and soft under his back; Dean's warmth blankets him, his weight a blessing against Sam's skin. He wraps himself more tightly around Dean; cradles him close.

Each time he says Dean's name, each time he names Dean to the rising sun, Dean's breath sighs in and his fingers tighten around Sam's wrists. After the seventh time, Dean arches his head back, twisting slightly so he can look at Sam, and it's terrifying how easy and right it feels to lean forward and kiss him.

Sam makes himself reach for his phone and give Bobby the heads up before he crashes, but then it's sunset before he can drag himself up properly and stagger through the checklist he and Alina had put together. Sasha pads alongside him as he makes the rounds of the small house, and the cats twine around his legs, coming close to tripping him up more than once. He makes sure everything is okay and barely manages to make it back to the pallet with a bottle of water before his legs give out on him. Dean isn't happy about Sam shaking him awake, but he gulps down the water Sam presses on him. Alina is much less aggravated; Sam gives her the rest and has just enough energy to drag a quilt up over the three of them before he crashes back out again.

The next day is better, at least for Sam. Alina's still worn out, but she's recharging and she waves Sam off after he carries her into her room. The cats converge upon her bed, but she sends Sasha back out to stay with Dean. Dean still can't manage to do much more than sit upright; there's no way he's getting up the stairs to their beds. Sam could carry him, too, but there's a limit to how much help Dean will accept and Sam's pretty sure they passed that a long time ago even if Dean's been too out of it to be able to complain. Sam doesn't press it, just resigns himself to another night on the floor. He halfway expects Dean to object to that, too, but Dean only shifts over and mumbles vague threats if Sam steals the covers.

By the third day, Dean manages a shower and actual food, though he and Sam are still sleeping on the hay. Alina's up and around, with enough strength to sit out in the sun and talk through everything with Sam. She knits as she talks, not pretending it's anything other than a way to focus on something other than the notes Sam's taking. He doesn't blame her; he's more than happy to have the writing itself to focus on, and he'd take all bets that Dean isn't quite as worn out as he appears but prefers to pretend to be sleeping while Sam sits outside and makes a written record of his sexual performance. Sam does let Dean be the one to call Bobby, though, so he can be the one to pass along the good news and answer the awkward questions.

"I'll take a copy of whatever it is you're writing," Bobby tells Sam, once Dean's gotten the important points covered. "But I ain't reading it."

"Thank you," Sam sighs. Dean snorts, but Sam doesn't see him being any more excited to talk about it than Sam is. Dean makes it up the stairs that night, and even manages decent sarcasm about how Sam's hovering behind him. The beds are still pushed together from how they'd been sleeping before all the fireworks; Dean crashes out on his, nearly asleep before Sam finishes brushing his teeth. It doesn't make sense to risk waking him by moving the beds, or so Sam tells himself as he crawls onto the other bed and lets Dean's breathing lull him to sleep again.

The rest of the week goes along the same way. Dean gets stronger; Alina takes over making notes about the process for her own journal; Sam takes care of the house and the animals and manages not to give anyone food poisoning. Nobody mentions that the beds in the small attic room are still pushed together, or how every morning Sam is easing out from under where Dean has an arm or a leg--or both--thrown casually over him. Dean doesn't seem to care, and Sam's too relieved at being able to watch Dean literally come back to life to be fussed about sleeping arrangements. They just... don't mention it.

Leaving is both easier and harder than Sam expected. Easier because it's like the exclamation point on the cure--Dean is Dean again, and life isn't bounded by what it's going to take to heal him. Harder because it really is beautiful up on the top of the mountain, no matter if it's sunny and clear or if there's mist rising up from the valley or rain falling steadily. There's more to it than that, of course, but Sam catches Dean sitting out on the flat rock at the edge of Alina's clearing, looking down over the valley at least once every day, and he thinks it goes without saying that if Dean's enamored of a view, it's a pretty spectacular one. On the morning that they leave, the weather can't make up its mind, starting off misty and cool until the sun burns off the last wisps only to be overtaken by a front, the clouds heavy and swollen with rain.

"We should probably get going," Dean says, one eye on the clouds and the other on the rope that he's using to play tug-of-war with Sasha. Sam doesn't think he's imagining her joy in having a proper opponent now, one that can really go at it with her. "Don't want to see if the car can float through those turns on the way down."

"Sure," Sam agrees. Their duffels are already packed and waiting for them upstairs, and if neither one of them says anything as they move the beds back to how they were when they first got there, well, what is there to say? Alina's waiting for them on the front porch. She goes up on her toes and draws Sam down to press a kiss to his forehead, and an unexpectedly sweet one on his mouth. Dean smirks at him--Sam will grant that he's probably looking kind of bemused--but then it's Dean's turn and the kiss Alina drops on him is anything but sweet. Sam will also grant that Dean recovers well, picking Alina up and giving as good as he's getting, but he does still look a little off-balance when they're through. He sets Alina carefully on her feet, bending close to say something quietly, before he kisses her again and leaves her the one looking flustered.

"Anything you need," Sam tells her, as Dean goes out for one last quick game with Sasha on the way to the car. "Anything."

"I don't leave the mountain often, but you don't have to be dying or possessed to come back," Alina says. "You can both be disgustingly healthy and you can still come see me."

"All this is assuming we can separate the two of them," Sam says, nodding at where Sasha's dancing around Dean, jumping at the ball he's innocently tossing from hand to hand.

"She's going to sulk for the rest of the week," Alina says.

"And Dean won't?" Sam asks. Dean flips him off, but gives Sasha one last pat and pops the trunk for the duffels.

There's nowhere they need to be; no job waiting for them. Bobby will put them up, of course, and they'll need to stop by there anyway, let him look Dean over and see for himself, but the timing's not set in stone. Given how long it's been since Dean's been behind the wheel, Sam halfway expects him to drive all night just for the joy of feeling the Impala under him, but when they stop for dinner--at a bar, with sticky floors and a grill that doesn't look like it's been cleaned since Reagan was in office, cheap beer on tap and a couple of pool tables out front, and Dean's eyes lit up at the sight of it all--Dean casually suggests they call it a night. The motor court across the road doesn't look horrific--still stuck in shag carpeting and paneling, but clean and reasonably well-kept for all that. Sam nods just as casually, and they pay for dinner and get a room like it's no big deal, like it's all still the same as it's been all their lives, like they haven't been sleeping together for a month.

That all ends when they walk into the room and Dean drops his duffel on the bed nearest the door, and then turns to Sam.

"One bed or two?" He says it like it really isn't a big deal, like he's asking if Sam wants first shower or would rather hang out and see what's on cable, and it takes Sam a couple of seconds to process. Dean waits him out, which is even more world-tilting.

"I--" Sam starts, and then stops, because no, he hasn't really worked this out. He's been holding his breath and going with the flow and now that it's out there, he's got no idea what to say. Except once he actually does start thinking about it, one thing keeps nudging its way up. Sam puts the duffel he's still holding (clutching, really, but who's counting?) down at his feet and takes a deep breath. "That'd be your call," he finally says.

"How d'you figure that, Sammy?" Dean's a little mocking, a little defensive, but Sam figures he's allowed. It's been a ridiculous couple of months.

"Because nothing else has been," Sam tells him. "Not lately. Everything's been done to you, so..." Sam shrugs. "This one's your call. We can say it's all because of whatever the hell Alina pulled out of the earth if you want." That's not entirely a cop-out; Sam thinks there was enough energy swirling around them to have taken out Lucifer and Michael both. It doesn't excuse the last week, not really, but it's a good enough cover story to let everything else slide. "Just... let it go and get back to whatever passes for normal." Sam manages to keep his voice steady when he says all that, though the idea makes it hard to breathe.

Dean tilts his head, considering. "And if I don't want to do that? You'll just, what? Lay back and think of whatever it is that really floats your boat?" He comes closer as he speaks, one step with every word, and all Sam can see or feel or hear is Dean coming in his arms, shaking helplessly, and whispering Sam's name.

"No," Sam chokes out. He opens his eyes and Dean's right there, so close Sam can see the flecks of gold in his eyes. "No, I--" Sam swallows hard, and says it again. "No, I wouldn't be wishing I was somewhere else."

For a second, Sam thinks Dean's going to kiss him; and then, in the next, he thinks Dean might turn and run. There's so much going on in Dean's eyes Sam feels like he's drowning in it, "And what if I said this can't be just my decision?" Dean finally says, in a voice that's so hoarse and low, Sam wouldn't have been surprised if someone told him Dean hadn't spoken at all, that Sam only imagined the words.

"I--" Sam starts, but then doesn't know how to go on, because he knows what he wants, but he still doesn't know what Dean wants, not really, and as soon as Sam puts something out there, that's it, one more thing decided for Dean. He hesitates too long, though, and Dean's eyes fade down to a flat green, more lifeless than when he'd been hollowed out from the inside. Sam can feel him gathering to move, to step away and let it all go, and Sam reaches out frantically. "Dean." Sam cups his hand around Dean's jaw, traces his thumb over the arch of Dean's cheekbone. Dean stays where he is, lets Sam rest his forehead against Dean's. For a few seconds, they breathe together, and then, very slowly, Dean turns his head into Sam's hand, until he can press an open-mouthed kiss to Sam's palm.

Sam makes an embarrassing noise at the touch of Dean's tongue on his skin; dimly, in the last, tiny, functioning part of his brain, he expects Dean to start giving him no end of shit about it, but Dean only takes Sam's hand in his, turning it so he can drop another kiss on the inside of Sam's wrist. It's the same lingering touch, same brush of his tongue, but this time he adds the faintest scrape of teeth, and Sam doesn't care what kind of noises he's making, as long as Dean keeps doing what he's doing.

"One bed," Dean says, and even with Sam shaking against him, he still manages to make it enough of a question that Sam pulls together enough brain power to stammer out, "Yeah, one--yeah."

That small, still-functioning part of his brain latches on to how it's important not to fuck up the answer this time, that he should say more, but Dean's steering him backward across the room, leaving a trail of tiny kisses and bites up the inside of Sam's forearm and Sam can't get enough air to breathe, let alone speak. He gets his hands on Dean, though, holds the back of his head where it's bent over Sam's arm, traces down through the short hair at the base of Dean's skull; along the strong, vulnerable column of his neck.

The back of Sam's legs hit the side of the bed; he wavers to a stop, holding on to Dean for balance, and they stare at each other for long seconds, but then Dean steps in closer, so he's pressed up against Sam, and slides his hands up under Sam's shirt, a long, slow glide up Sam's back. What little air there is shudders out of Sam's lungs; when Dean tilts his head back and finally kisses Sam's mouth, it takes no time for Sam to end up light-headed and unsteady. He thinks Dean's in pretty much the same state, though. Dean's hands are shaky where they're peeling Sam's shirt off and over his head, and when Sam gets his mouth on the pulse under Dean's jaw, it's pounding as fast and hard as it would be if Dean had just sprinted a mile.

Dean tips his head back a little farther; Sam takes his time finding all the spots along Dean's throat that make him whine. Dean holds on to him, his fingers digging into Sam's biceps hard enough to leave marks, and it's Sam's turn to whine.

"Sounds good, Sammy," Dean murmurs with a smile--not a smirk, but an actual honest smile and Sam was already gone, but seeing that smile is enough to break him into pieces and put him back together at the same time.

Dean's hands are on his belt, hesitating long enough that Sam nods and whispers, "Yeah, please." Dean nods back, serious and intent, and Sam reminds himself that active participation is needed here, even if the feel of Dean's hands on him, moving with purpose, is enough to make him forget how to work his arms and legs. He can still talk, though, enough to have Dean muttering about it not being much of a surprise that Sam can't ever shut his mouth. When Dean crouches down to deal with Sam's boots it's enough of a break that Sam manages to get his hands back combing through Dean's hair, and smiles with satisfaction when Dean shivers under him.

Once the boots are taken care of, it's not long before Dean has Sam naked, and it doesn't matter how many times Sam tells himself they've done this before--it's only been a week--this is different. This is Dean looking at Sam with a want that's palpable; it's the two of them getting Dean's shirt off and his jeans open; and the first incredible rush of skin-on-skin and not feeling like they have to ignore it.

Sam backs down onto the bed, not letting go of Dean for so much as an instant, dragging him down, too, so that Dean sprawls out on top of Sam, heavy and warm and electrifying. Sam runs his hands over Dean's back, his hips, the curve of his ass, greedy for as much of Dean as he can reach. Dean lets Sam have his way for a while, and then crawls up over Sam, his mouth mapping out every curve and plane of Sam's body, tasting and teasing Sam breathless.

"Turn over," Dean murmurs, his breath striking cool against the skin he's dampened over Sam's collarbone. He eases back until he's sitting back on his heels, and Sam drinks in the sight. "Sam, let me--"

Sam has no idea what Dean wants, but it doesn't matter; he'll give it to him regardless. He gets over on his belly, crossing his arms so he can rest his head on them, and before he can ask, Dean is back on top of him, hands and mouth tracing long, slow patterns over Sam's back. He starts off high, along Sam's shoulders, nosing aside his hair so he can get at Sam's neck without so much as a single princess comment. Sam closes his eyes and tries to remember to keep breathing as Dean's mouth moves lower, lips and tongue and teeth working over Sam's skin as though he can't bear to miss an inch.

"What do you want, Sam?" Dean licks a careful line the length of Sam's spine, stopping just at the top of Sam's ass, and Sam gasps at how his nerves are sparking. Dean does it again, and this time Sam whimpers. "Tell me," Dean insists. "I'll give it to you, whatever you want--"

"Fuck me," Sam finally grits out, and if he hadn't been sure before, the low wordless sound Dean growls against him and the way it ricochets through his brain would have convinced him immediately. He rocks back against Dean, arches up into the touch that's not stopping at the top of his ass this time. "Yes," he hisses. "Want that, want you. Now, now."

"Yeah," Dean breathes against him. "Yeah, Sam, I got you. I got you." He opens Sam up quickly, fingers slicked with spit and pre-come. Sam groans at the stretch, but pushes back to take Dean deeper; and when Dean hesitates, lifts his ass and tells Dean not to stop, that he wants more, that he wants Dean in him.

It's not his first time, and he's liked it before, but the hard, steady push of Dean taking him, the aching burn of his body opening around Dean's, giving way and staking a claim at the same time, is something close to exhilarating. Dean feels it, too; Sam knows it from how Dean moves inside him, how he fucks into Sam with no hesitation now, each stroke deep and rough and perfect. Sam digs his hands into the mattress and lets Dean hear every noise Dean wrings from him, every gasp, every groan, every whimper, until he's desperate to come and doesn't care that he's begging, because he wants it from Dean and Dean promised Sam he'd give him anything.

Dean draws it out until Sam's almost sobbing with need, but then finally relents and wraps his hand hard around Sam, dragging his nails in a single long spiral that twists up and over the too-sensitive head of Sam's cock. Just like that, Sam comes hard, staggering pleasure shot through with bright flashes so intense Sam isn't sure he can take them. Dean's there with him, though, equally as wrecked and helpless and caught up in Sam, and that's really all Sam's ever needed.

"Dude," Sam groans as Dean collapses on top of him. Dean mutters something incomprehensible, but shifts enough that Sam can breathe, and they lie there until everything evens out a little. Sam turns his head; there's just enough light that he can see Dean's eyes, enormous and dark and maybe a little nervous. Sam can relate.

"So, uh, I, uh, didn't really want to pretend it was all about the spell," Dean says after the silence stretches out into something close to awkward.

"I noticed," Sam says, and he can't help rolling his eyes. Dean reaches up--in slow motion, Sam notices, which is exactly how he feels he'd be moving, too--and smacks Sam lightly on the back of the head.

"It wasn't," Dean says, back to serious. "It wasn't--isn't--about that."

"What's it about, then?" Sam is equally serious. He wants to know where they are and how they got there, maybe more than he's wanted anything in his life, if only so that he has a chance of not screwing things up.

"It's--I--everything--I've thought about every single thing I've done or said the last couple of months, all of it, because I--wasn't sure it was really me, you know?" Dean takes a deep breath and lets it trickle out slowly. Sam waits patiently; it's already a long speech for Dean, especially recently, and Sam can see there's more to come. "But this--you--it's the one thing I never had to question and you were the one thing I still knew, even with everything Alina was throwing around, and... I don't know. The spell--that let it out, but it feels like it's always been there."

"Yeah," Sam agrees quietly. "Me too."

It's an awkward angle for a kiss, but Sam couldn’t care less. He doesn’t think Dean is bothered by it either, not from how he comes back twice for more, until Sam has to stop before his neck is permanently twisted. Dean lets Sam get comfortable, and then wraps himself around Sam, fitting his body to Sam's and draping an arm over him the same as they've been doing for the last few weeks. It's familiar; and now that Sam isn't waiting for the other shoe to drop, it's comforting in a way that Sam's not sure he's ever felt.

"Dibs on first shower in the morning," Dean mumbles. Sam's asleep before he can marshal an argument, but it doesn’t really matter because they can always share.