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Pace was overrated.
People would stress over how fast or how slow things went for them, but it didn’t really matter, did it? Right now, right here in what could’ve easily been Sam’s thousandth hospital visit in the last fifteen years alone, pace was not important. Pace was not an indicator—a slow response could mean a steady recovery.
It could also mean a dead-end.
Dean was trying; Sam knew he was. As silly as it sounded, the kale and the egg-whites and the club soda—they were something. Maybe they weren’t as effective as Dean hoped they might be and maybe nothing of that sort would ever be but the fact that he was even considering those things—those desperate solutions—was enough to convince Sam that there was hope for him. He was recovering, right? Baby steps—and, hey, relapse was part of the process. Recovery was never a straight line, was it?
But it wasn’t a downhill either.
Two more minutes with Dark Charlie and Dean could’ve snapped her neck like he did her arm. It wasn’t that Sam was in any way feeling remorse towards her, but Dean knew. He knew she was connected to Charlie—their Charlie—directly. He knew that the moment he hurt her, he hurt Charlie, and he could’ve avoided this whole thing—he could’ve knocked her out somehow without having to hurt her. He could’ve ran. He could’ve warned them. He could’ve—
“Pink would be great, thanks!”
Sam glanced into Charlie’s room, arms crossed over his chest, leaning on the doorframe to try to give her space while the doctors fixed her up. She was still shaky and it echoed through her voice, no matter how perky she wanted to sound. If Dark Charlie being back inside of her was anywhere near the days when his other side was clawing at the wall inside his head, she was lucky to be sitting straight right now.
“Hey, uh, I’mma head out,” Dean said, looking anywhere but Sam’s eyes.
Sam frowned. “What? Where?”
“Out,” he repeated, “I gotta clear my head. I’ll take Baby and meet you guys later at the bunker.”
Sam sighed. “No, Dean,” he said, “You can’t just up and go—you did this, you have to—”
“I know what I did,” he said through clenched teeth, catching his little brother’s gaze, “I’m not gonna run away from it, I just need to—” He threw a quick glance Charlie’s way. She was still getting her cast finished up. “I need to leave.”
“Wait—”
“Later, Sammy.” He slapped him on the shoulder and turned to head out. Just as simply as that, as if he didn’t need anyone, as if it was all fine and normal, as if it was just a normal hunt gone wrong.
No. Sam grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. “The hell is your problem?” He shoved him a little to the side so they were out of Charlie’s view. “You think you can just stroll out? Look, I know this is hard—believe me, I get it—but this is Charlie here—I mean, you have to feel something—mark or not—”
Dean frowned and clenched his jaw, glancing around him to make sure no one was following their conversation. “Charlie is like a sister to me,” he said, pointing a finger at him, “Don’t you dare even imply that I don’t care about her.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Ha. Yeah,” he said, “And what are you gonna do, Dean? Just—” He rested a hand on his hip. “—Drown yourself in whiskey until you’re too drunk to remember?”
“Fuck off,” Dean grumbled and turned on his heel, ignoring his brother’s frustrated calls. Sam was wrong; Dean wasn’t rolling downhill—
He was hanging to the edge of a cliff.
--
“You’re grumpy.”
Sam plastered the best smile he could muster and shook his head as he drove Charlie’s—ridiculously tiny—car. They probably should’ve just taken the other one Dean snatched from the bar since both of them were hot-wired anyway instead of having to hit the ceiling whenever the road got a little bumpy. “I’m fine. How are you feeling?” he asked, “Any pain? Tiredness?”
She shrugged. “It’s not that bad—” Sure. “—Could’ve been worse, y’know? Knowing her…me…she might’ve—”
“Charlie, how many times do I have to tell you this?” He reached out and patted the back of her head. “This isn’t on you, alright? Not the shooting and especially not what happened out there with Dean—that’s on him, completely.”
“Is it?” She crossed her legs, stuffing her good hand between her knees. “You saw his face—it wasn’t exactly a one-way deal.”
He shook his head. “It’s not the same.”
She scoffed. “Why? Because he’s a guy so it’s on him just because? Please.”
“No, no, it’s not that—” Sigh “—it’s just—you haven’t seen him lately, the mark’s been…claiming him more often than not,” he explained, “I just—maybe if that had happened before I’d say they were both equally responsible,” he reasoned, “But after what happened the other day…”
“What did happen the other day?” she asked, “He got the mark, killed Abaddon, then Metatron killed him and he became a demon—then you guys found him and cured him but he’s stuck with the mark which is making him more violent apparently—and yeah, sure, that sounds pretty bad but you guys have had similar stuff down the line—what makes this time so different? What happened?”
He snapped, that’s what happened. In minutes, he had slain everyone in the room in cold blood—he didn’t even have the first blade, just a knife. One knife and a little bit of anger—that was all it took. It didn’t matter that he’d been aware of the way the mark affected him. It didn’t matter that he was afraid—so afraid he actually voiced his concerns to Cas earlier. It didn’t matter that he did see it as the massacre it was—it still got the best of him. The man who’d spent his whole life trying to save people, telling Sam the only way he slept at night was because his numbers weren’t “that bad”—the same man who was so freaked about the concept of exorcising demons using psychic powers a few years ago had a knight of hell inside of him, waiting, raging, scratching at his mind and driving him insane—putting everyone around him at risk, putting him at risk of becoming the kind of monster he hunted, permanently.
But he couldn’t tell her that, could he?
No matter how much he cared for and trusted Charlie, Dean was still his brother and, in a way, hers, too. She looked up to him, he could see that, and even if she could understand, he didn’t want her to see him, as a person, beyond the circumstances she knew he was in, differently. He didn’t want her not to trust him anymore—he didn’t want to break that bond. Sam could see a way out for Dean—he believed in him—but she might not, and he couldn’t betray him like that. He couldn’t take away one more person he considered family when he needed support the most.
Even if he was being a dick.
“It’s nothing,” he said, shrugging dismissively, “He’s just—he’s out of control, Charlie. This needs to end somehow, and fast.”
“And it will,” she said, “He’s a tough guy. And we’ll find a way out for him, won’t we?”
We.
He let out a breathy laugh. “We will.” Somehow. “Hey, do you wanna grab some—” He was cut off by his phone ringing in his pocket. She reached out inside his jacket and handed it to him. Cas? “Hey, what’s up?”
“Inky’s Bar—Saint Madison and Saint Jackson streets in Junction City, Kansas,” he said, barely audible through the static, “It’s Dean, he prayed to me. I can’t—you have to find him before he does something drastic.”
“Wait, what? What—”
He stared at the phone in his hand, swerving right and hitting the brakes. They were still in Junction City, just a few blocks away from the hospital—minutes away from the bar. He could be there in no time, but what about Charlie? Should he just leave her in the car, expect her not to come in and see him doing whatever the hell Cas was afraid he would? “What? What is it?”
She wouldn’t just stay in the car. She wouldn’t be Charlie if she did. “Something’s come up,” he said, “Would you be okay if I called you a cab? Here—” He slipped out the key to the bunker “—you know your way around, just—give me an hour, I’ll be right behind you.”
“Is it Dean? Is he okay?”
“I—” Should he lie? “—no, not really. I dunno. I just need to see him and, uh, you’re tired, it’s been a long day…”
She shot him an understanding smile and grabbed the key. “I’ll make myself at home.”
Before she could step out, though, he stopped her. “No, wait,” he said, “It’s late—sorry, I didn’t think this through—you shouldn’t take some cab alone. There’s, uh, a motel around the corner—I think I saw one—just, rest up a bit? I’ll pick you up—you know what? We could all spend the night here, go back to the bunker in the morning, what do you think?”
She glanced down at her cast and nodded. “Yeah, okay, why not?”
--
If Sam was good at one thing, it was expectations.
He expected his dad would never show up when he was supposed to. He expected that Dean wouldn’t be the least bit supportive of his decision to leave for Stanford. He expected to break bad, to lose his battle to the demonic claim on his head since he was 6 months old. He expected a lot of things—nothing really surprised him. He was more than often shocked, maybe, but it wasn’t for lack of expectation, but rather for his tendency to hope to God he was wrong.
So on his way to Inky’s he did what he’d always done best—he expected.
He pictured it in his head—Dean, drunk and disoriented, bashing someone’s head into a wall, or kicking the living shit out of someone else. Maybe he’d regret it after, maybe he’d be pained to do it, or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he’d have a malicious, victorious grin on his face—the kind of grin that haunted Sam’s dreams lately, made him double-check every reaction he made around his brother. Maybe he’d give in. Maybe today would be it—maybe he’d just decide it wasn’t worth it, that he wasn’t strong enough to keep fighting, that he’d rather embrace the mark than pretend it wasn’t affecting him—pretend it was going to be okay. He pictured it and hoped to God he was wrong.
Be careful what you wish for.
Sam stood, frozen in his tracks, panting, partly because he’d just run across the street from the bar looking for Dean but mainly at the sight—Dean was drunk and disoriented, but he wasn’t hurting anybody. He was standing in an alley, his face scrunched in pain, doubled over, his back to the damp wall. He had one hand supporting his weight, the other shakenly holding his gun to his head, every heave of his chest making his bruised knuckles tighten around it more.
No. No, no, no, no—“Dean!”
His head snapped towards the source of the sound, his arm only slightly lowering. “Sam?”
“Drop the gun.” It was taking every thread of strength in him to utter the words without yelling them, to walk towards him without running. “Drop it, Dean.”
“But why?” His voice was almost a whine. “I don’t—I can’t—” He drew a shaky breath. “Maybe this time I won’t wake up a demon—I mean, I don’t have the blade, right? Maybe if—if I shoot just right…”
“No, no, no,” Sam mumbled, kneeling in front of him and dragging him down to the ground carefully, gripping his wrist and pointing it away, so even if his finger slipped…“Listen to me—hey, hey—”
“What’s the point, Sammy?” he asked, his tongue heavy, “I—I’ve—Have you seen what I’ve done to her? And—and them—and—do you—do you even know what I’ve done when I was a demon, Sammy? Do you?”
He rubbed his wrist with the tips of his fingers. “Let go of the gun, Dean,” he repeated, “Just drop it and we’ll talk, I promise, okay, buddy? C’mon.”
He shook his head vigorously, almost like a child. “I don’t wanna talk,” he muttered, eyes fixed on the gun. “I want this to end. I want all of it to end.”
“And it will, it will,” he assured him, “We’ll figure it out, I promise—we’ll find a way.”
Dean clenched his jaw and kicked the air, slumping all the way to the ground. “You know we won’t,” he said, “You’re just saying this because you—you don’t want me to shoot—you should let me shoot.” His lips quivered. “I’ve crossed so many lines, Sammy. We’ve—we’ve killed for much less. I—” He turned to face his little brother, his face pale and eyes bloodshot. “I’ve killed for nothing at all.”
Sam nodded. “I know, I know,” he said, his voice soft. He brought his hand up to caress the side of his face carefully. “But it’s not you—it’s the mark—you would never do that on your own, Dean, not in a million years. I know it. I know you.”
He swayed his head to the side and Sam could feel his muscles tense under his finger. “You—you don’t know what it’s like inside my head,” he said, his voice restrained, “When—when I hit her, I didn’t—I didn’t care. I knew—I knew I was hurting Charlie but I kept going and going and going…”
He wanted to lie. He wanted to tell Dean that he was on defense, that Dark Charlie left him no choice and it wasn’t his fault, but he knew the truth and he knew Dean knew and the last thing he needed right now was another lie. It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t innocent and it wasn’t something he could just wipe away or put to sleep and pretend it was part of the job like they always did. But it still wasn’t him and even if it was, this—this wasn’t the answer. Mark or not. Demon or not. Even if this bullet could kill him, which it couldn’t, this wasn’t the way out of this. No—he wouldn’t let him.
He doesn’t get to give up.
“Dean, I need you to listen to me,” Sam said, his voice low and steady. “What happened today—it’s just part of the process—it’s awful, I know it is, but hey, she’s alright now, isn’t she?”
He snickered. “Yeah,” he breathed, “Let’s look at the up side—the kid I beat up half to death isn’t dead all the way.”
That came out wrong. “You held back—you stopped, didn’t you? You fought it, even if it wasn’t enough this time, next time—”
“Next time?” He frowned. “Next time when, what? When it’s you? Or Cas?” Sam opened his mouth to speak but Dean cut him off. “You know what got me through the last one? I kept telling myself it didn’t matter, that—” His eyes welled with tears. “That they were scum and—and it was a massacre I knew it was but—but they weren’t all that innocent either, so maybe on some level they deserved it,” he said, “I kept reasoning and trying to silence the guilt—throwing the blame on the mark—the mark I chose to get and—telling myself it was partly Crowley’s fault as well, that he got me into this but—but today—God, she—she didn’t—she trusted me—you trusted me!”
“I forgive you,” Sam said, sincere. He didn’t think Dean could do anything he couldn’t eventually forget; Dean was a good brother, a good man—he’d gone through hell and purgatory, he’d done questionable things but all of them, every single one of them, wasn’t for himself. He’d get frustrated with him—angry, even—but he couldn’t hold it against him. Dean was one of the strongest men he knew; even when Sam quit along the road, he never did, not on his own accord anyway. “I’m sure she will, too.”
“Well you shouldn’t,” he said, his voice hoarse, “I don’t deserve it.”
“Thirty years, Dean.”
“What?”
“Thirty years, you’ve been at this for roughly thirty years, haven’t you? Ever since you held your first gun—you’ve been saving people, protecting them, protecting me and Dad and everyone, no matter what, even if they didn’t deserve it, right? You always said that everyone no matter what they’d done deserved a second shot—that it wasn’t for us to judge, that we don’t know everyone’s whole story.” Dean let a sob escape his throat and Sam wiped his cold sweat off his face. “Well, I know yours and I know you and, fuck, Dean, if you don’t deserve another chance, I don’t know who does.”
“Thirty years, huh?” Sam nodded. “It took me thirty years to break in hell, too—and then I was given another chance and here I am, again. Guess it’s my lucky number, huh?”
He was still holding onto the gun and Sam found it hard to even try to breathe. “Think of me, think of Charlie—think of everyone you’re leaving behind. What would we do without you, huh?” He couldn’t believe he was even having this conversation. Dean? Let-your-depression-out-in-spurts-of-violence-and-alcoholism Dean? I’ll-die-swinging Dean?
His brother Dean?
“You’d be alive for one.” He sniffed. “You’ll have each other, and I won’t be there to fuck your lives up anymore.”
How long has this been playing in the back of his head, just waiting to be triggered onto the surface? How many times had he thought of this before? “I need you, Dean,” he said, “I can’t—”
He laughed through the heaves, void of all humor. “Need me? You don’t need me, Sam,” he said, “You’re all grown up now—overgrown if you ask me, but hey, no judging.”
Even now he was making jokes. “Just—let’s take it one step at a time, alright? This isn’t the way out—this isn’t you.” He moved his hand down Dean’s palm. “Give me the gun.” Dean’s breathing quickened and he shot Sam a questioning look—you really think I should? “C’mon, buddy. Just drop it.”
And he did. He did and Sam breathed.
--
Once they were all back at the motel for the night and Sam made sure both of them were asleep in their rooms, he gathered all the weapons and put them in the trunk of Charlie’s car instead of the Impala, just in case he fell asleep and couldn’t look after him; even though he let go of the gun and didn’t bring it up all the way back to the motel, Sam knew he was still shaken, that he hadn’t calmed down completely yet and he wasn’t going to take any chances—even if this got added to the long list of stuff they never mention starting the following morning and just pretend they never happened.
After he put the weapons away, he hurried back up and glanced at Dean’s sleeping form again before heading out to the hallway and dialing Cas’ number. “Sam.”
“Hey, Cas,” he said, “Sorry, I just got your voicemail—”
“How is he?”
Sam sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s bad, man,” he said, “Something happened with Charlie earlier—long story—but it almost pushed him over the edge.”
“You mean he almost contacted Crowley again?”
What? “Is that what he told you when he prayed? That he was going to go back to hanging out with Crowley?”
“He said he was going to give up, that resisting the mark wasn’t working the way he hoped,” Cas said, “I assumed that was what he meant. Was it not?”
“I caught him with a gun to his head, Cas.”
“I…I don’t understand, was someone trying to kill him?” he said, then connected the pieces, “Why would he – Oh.” He exhaled sharply. “He had to know that would be ineffective—what was he trying to do?”
“Give up, I suppose.” In whatever way he could think of drunk. “We have to do something about the mark, Cas—anything. At this point, I don’t even care if it’s permanent. I just want him to get better.”
If he could just see, for a little while, what it was like to live free of the mark, free of the risk of becoming a knight of hell again looming over his head, without anything else holding him at knife-point, figuratively or literally, maybe—maybe—he’d have hope. Maybe he’d know it wasn’t him. Maybe he’d recover. Maybe it wouldn’t be a slope, a downhill.
Maybe he’ll pull himself back up. Like he always did. Like he always made sure Sam did.
“I’m doing everything I can,” Cas said, “We’ll find a way.”
“Yeah,” he breathed, “I hope so.”