With Spit and a Prayer

Many thanks to Angel Jade, From Across the Pond and Starflow for their kind reviews.

Starflow: I'm sorry the timing isn't working for you :(. I do see your point, but I'm kind of stuck with it now, for the time being, anyway. Thanks for the concrit, though!

With Spit and a Prayer, Chapter Eleven

Ninety-two days
----
It wasn’t late yet, not even midday, but Sam felt wrung-out and used up, like every inch of him was stretched and twisted and threadbare, like even the air in his lungs with thick with filth. If anything, September was even hotter than July, and Sam reached out and touched the grimy wall of the motel room, feeling the way the grease clung to his fingers and mixed with his sweat to form an impenetrable barrier, something to keep the world out, something to protect him and suffocate him and bury him alive.

Dean was out. Sam didn’t know where he went, and he didn’t ask. He was grateful for it, grateful that he could be alone without going outside, and at the same time he was ashamed of his gratitude, because why should he want to hide from Dean? Dean was everything. Without Dean, there was just the darkness and confusion that pulled at him from all sides. Without Dean, Sam would have sunk below the surface years ago, but here he was, grateful. Sam knew he didn’t deserve Dean. He kept trying, but he didn’t seem to be able to make himself into a person who deserved Dean.

The mirror in the bathroom was spotted and stained with age, and Sam’s face looked old and thin, distorted by the warped back of the mirror, perhaps, or perhaps he just looked like that now. He didn’t really recognise the face. Sometimes he wasn’t sure he recognised the person, either. He reached out, touching the reflection of his eyes, pressing against the cool glass surface as if he could somehow reach through if only he pushed hard enough, submerge himself in the silvery surface and enter a world where everything was reversed, where maybe everything was better. The surface pushed back; there was no escaping that way.

Sam contemplated the shower. He stank; he knew it, Dean sure as hell knew it (Dean could smell him when they), but somehow, the idea of washing the dirt off just didn’t seem to. Fit. The room was coated in it, the walls, the door, the mirror; Sam was too. It was right. It was how it should be.

Two of the cuticles on his right hand were bleeding, and Sam watched the blood as it beaded and pooled on his fingertips. He reached out again to the mirror, carefully drawing a cross over each of his reflection’s eyes. The mixture of dirt and blood lay in a film on the filthy glass, and Sam’s reflection couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anything past it. Sam guessed that maybe there wasn’t such a difference between the mirror world and this one after all.

----

“Dean,” said Bobby, opening the door just enough to peer out. “I’m glad you came.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean waited, but Bobby didn’t seem keen to open the door any further. “You sounded freaked on the phone.” He shifted uncomfortably; he shouldn’t have come. Bobby had this weird thing where he could tell stuff about you just by looking at you. If he looked at Dean and saw what he had been doing, what he had been doing to Sam... “Are you gonna let me in or what?”

Bobby glanced round at the room behind him, then stepped out onto the porch and said, “Where’s Sam?”

Dean tried hard not to flinch, and he thought he did OK. The motel they were staying at was two towns over; Sam hadn’t said anything about dropping in on Bobby while they were there, but Dean suspected that was because he had no idea where they were. “He’s sick. He’s back at the motel.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bobby said, and then frowned. “You don’t look so hot yourself. Is it contagious?”

Jesus God I hope not. And then again, maybe it was. Sam was going crazy; Dean was going crazy. Who was to say it wasn’t contagious. “Uh... no. Just a stomach thing.”

“You sure?” Bobby narrowed his eyes, taking a step closer to Dean, and Dean resisted the urge to back away, shit shit shit, shouldn’t have come, shouldn’t have come, except the idea of getting away, of having a call for help to respond to, one that he might actually be able to answer, of having something to think about other than what his life had become over the last month. Now he was here, though, now he was actually talking to someone he knew for the first time since Biloxi (Jesus, had it really been that long, three months since he’d talked to anyone but Sam?) he thought that maybe he’d made a huge mistake.

“Look, just...” Dean swallowed his angry tone and sighed. “We’ve been having a rough time, is all. I’m fine.” I’m not fine. I’m going insane.

Bobby watched him for a moment longer, then nodded, but he didn’t look satisfied. “OK, well, I’m glad you were in the area. I’ve got this possession, and I would have dealt with it by now, but the damn things been saying some stuff I thought you would want to hear.”

He stepped back through the door, leaving it open for Dean this time, and Dean followed with a sudden weight of foreboding, a weight that increased until he felt like he was being crushed when the young woman tied to a chair in the centre of the floor raised her face and grinned and said, “Hey, Deano. Been a while. Thought you’d call after Biloxi, but I guess all men are bastards, right?”

Dean didn’t seem to hear the words; instead, it was like they flowed into him through the pores in his skin, through the holes that had been ripped in his life over the last three months, and sounded in his head in a voice that wasn’t really a voice at all, that was the noise of a tyre crunching over gravel or a shotgun hitting a metal surface. He tried to breathe, tried to see through the grey that was starting to obscure his vision, but there was nothing, nothing except him and the voice.

The demon in the chair smiled, and it was a smile of sheer joy. “Cat got your tongue? Oh, hey, how’s Sam?”

It happened before Dean even registered it, but if he had, maybe he would have done exactly the same thing. At any rate, it was over before either he or Bobby had a chance to do anything about it, and when the echoes of the gunshot cleared, the demon looked down at the hole in its perfect chest and said, “Well, now, that’s no way to treat an old friend.”

“Jesus, Dean!” Bobby was in front of him in a second, grabbing the gun and pushing him back, towards the door. “What the hell’s gotten into you! That’s a person! You just shot a person!”

But Dean wasn’t listening. He was staring past Bobby at the face of the woman he’d just killed, the eyes that weren’t clouded in death but alive with mockery, and the lips that still mouthed obscenities that burned themselves into Dean’s brain.

----

Bobby wouldn’t let Dean back in the house, not even after the exorcism was done. He sat heavily beside him on the porch, his cuffs damp with holy water and smelling slightly of sulphur and shook his head.

“What the hell were you thinking in there, Dean? You of all people know better than to shoot someone who’s possessed.”

Dean swallowed. Someone should have shot me. “She died?”

“Hell, yeah, she died,” Bobby said angrily, then sighed. “She was dead already. Someone got to her before you did. But that doesn’t change anything.”

Dean looked down at his hands. It doesn’t change anything. The demon was gone, back to hell. Did that change anything?

“You want to tell me what’s going on with you?” Bobby said, and Dean bit down hard on his tongue, because the last thing, the very last thing he wanted to do was tell Bobby what was going on with him.

“Dean?” Bobby said. “You know, that thing in there said some pretty sick stuff before I got rid of it. Stuff about... about you and Sam.”

Dean felt panic start to claw its way up his spine. Maybe it was over now, over at last, and wouldn’t it just be freakin perfect if that fucking demon managed to fuck everything up again as its parting shot. “Yeah, well, demons lie, right?” he said, and winced at how broken his voice sounded.

“Yeah,” Bobby said slowly. “But... Dean, you really look like hell. And Sam...”

Dean stood up sharply. “Look, we’re fine, OK? Sam’s sick, I’m tired, but we’re both OK. Could you just... leave it?”

Bobby frowned. “You’d tell me if you boys were in trouble, right?” he asked, and Dean almost burst out laughing, because they were so way past trouble it wasn’t even funny any more.

“Yeah. Look, Bobby, I’m sorry, I don’t know what got into me in there. But no harm no foul, right? Listen, I better get back to Sam, he’ll be wondering... I gotta go.” Dean knew he was babbling, but he didn’t care. He just had to get the hell away, before Bobby looked into his face and saw all the crap that was twisted up inside. He turned his head away deliberately, and left without saying goodbye.

Somewhere between Bobby’s junkyard and the town they were staying in, Dean pulled over to the side of the road and stared at the steering wheel under his fingers. The demon was gone, back to hell. It was gone. And this... all this... could it be over? Because maybe Dean wasn’t a sick bastard, maybe it had just been the goddamn demon all along, poisoning his dreams, yeah, that made sense, right? Dean had never wanted to touch Sam that way, never wanted to hurt him, before Biloxi, and the demon, the demon obviously wanted him to. Dean felt wild hope fluttering against his chest, and for the first time in over a month, the first time since he had finally given up fighting and let his body take what it wanted, he could see a way out.

----

Sam was sleeping when Dean got back. To be precise, he was having a nightmare, tangled up in the sheets and muttering to himself, his fingers clenched so tight on the blanket that they were white and bloodless. Dean knew better than to touch him, though; the only time Sam let him close enough to do that these days was when Dean lost his mind enough to let it happen again (it had only been four times, but sometimes Dean couldn’t even remember them, like they’d happened to someone else, because how could they have happened to him?). Dean couldn’t help Sam right now. But if it was over, if Dean’s mind, if his body were his once again, then he knew he could help Sam, somehow he would do it. He felt new strength, new conviction flowing into him, things he thought he’d lost forever. He’d fucked up, fucked up so bad, but he could fix it, he knew he could fix it.

Sam’s mutterings and thrashings quieted, like somehow he was responding to Dean’s thoughts, and Dean drew a breath. Even the heat didn’t feel so bad any more. He was suddenly hit with a certainty that it was going to be OK.

----
Ninety-three days
----

Sam sighed and turned on the faucet, letting the water cascade into the tub. He didn’t climb in; he wasn’t ready for it, not really, not ready to be clean and unprotected. All the same, he knew that if Dean woke up and found him gone, the sound of the shower would reassure him. The last thing he wanted to do was upset Dean.

He thought he’d made it, though. He’d been thinking about it all day, and he thought he’d managed to take that step towards being the brother he ought to be. OK, so he wasn’t totally comfortable with the things Dean wanted, but that didn’t matter, not really. Sam wasn’t a good person, so what he wanted didn’t matter, but Dean, Dean was a good man, and Sam could at least pretend to be good for Dean. It was difficult, though, because Sam knew that Dean still hadn’t realised that it was OK to want something for himself, that it was OK to take it from Sam, that Sam was OK with it, that he would give it freely. Sam kept trying to reassure him, but he knew from the way Dean looked at him that he wasn’t totally convinced.

So that was it, then. Sam just had to convince Dean that it was all OK. That was the last step, and then they would be free of all this doubt and over this rough patch. Sam would be able to give Dean what he needed, and Dean would stay, he would stay with Sam not because he was duty-bound, but because Sam could be the person Dean needed him to be. That was how it worked. It would work. It had to work, because Sam needed Dean to stay, needed it more than anything. Dean was the only thing left now.

----

Please, Dean, don’t.

Dean opened his eyes with the words still echoing in his mind and the sheets damp against his skin, and when he tried to breathe he felt like a wave of despair rolled into him, spreading out from his lungs through his stomach and brain, filling up every part of his body. He felt pinned to the bed, lost in it, like it was a huge wilderness of rumpled sheets that held nothing but accusation, but evidence that it was Dean that was wrong, that no-one had done this to him, that it was him.

Slowly, he became aware of the shower running. Sam wasn’t here to see. Sam wasn’t here. But Dean couldn’t stop the dreams, killing the demon hadn’t stopped them, and one day Sam would be here, and Dean was supposed to protect Sam, it was his freakin job, what was he doing, what was he doing?

He sat up, and it felt like a million memories tried to crowd themselves into his brain at once, all the horror and fear of the last few months, until he thought he would scream, until he couldn’t take it, all the evidence of his failure as a protector, as a brother, as a human being. He was crazy, he was going crazy, and he couldn’t. stop.

There was a gun by the bed, and Dean had it in his hand before he’d even really thought about it, was staring at it, feeling the weight. He knew how guns felt, he’d been around them all his life, but this one seemed particularly heavy, solid, like it could be a solution. Could it? He’d tried every other thing he could think of, and it had all just got worse. Sam was completely broken, Dean was pretty sure of that, and he was also pretty sure that he didn’t have the first clue how to put him back together, when even his very presence seemed to make things worse. But maybe. Maybe.

The door to the bathroom opened, and Dean realised he hadn’t even heard the shower shutting off. There was a long silence, and then Sam said Dean. What are you doing?

Dean looked up, looked round at Sam, and the look of shock on Sam’s face gave way to one of terror, and then anger. “Jesus Christ, Dean,” he said, and Dean was vaguely aware that people were saying that to him a lot these days. Then Sam was in front of him, crouched, pulling the gun away from his nerveless fingers. “You do that,” he said in a choked voice, “you ever do that, and I swear to God the next bullet has my name on it. Do you understand me?”

Dean blinked. Do you understand me? The question didn’t even make sense. Dean didn’t understand anything any more.

“Hey,” said Sam, and he sounded so much like Sam that Dean was fooled for a moment, just one brief moment of light. “I don’t understand, Dean. I’ve done everything I can. I’ve given you everything I can. Why...?” He stopped talking then, like he’d understood something, and stood up, climbing onto the bed beside Dean. “Hey,” he said, “it’s OK. It’s OK, Dean.”

It wasn’t OK. Dean didn’t think he even remembered what OK meant any more. But he didn’t have the strength, hadn’t even had the strength to pull the goddamn trigger, not when it counted, not when it could have helped, and now he had to pay the price. And Sam’s gentle hands on his, manoeuvring him into position, Jesus Christ facing each other this time, they were more than he could take, he didn’t even know what was wrong any more, didn’t know if maybe he’d been wrong all this time and maybe Sam was right, maybe this was how it was meant to be.

At some point, Sam put Dean’s hands around his neck and said it’s OK, Dean. It’s OK. I want this, and Dean pressed down because he didn’t know what else to do, felt the firmness of Sam’s throat, the warmth of his skin, and pressed down until Sam’s struggles weakened and his eyes rolled up in his head, and then Dean felt himself come, felt it like he wasn’t even there, like he was watching from a distance. His arms wouldn’t hold him up any more, and he let himself drop, because he’d been falling for months now and there wasn’t any further to go, there was nowhere left to fall to except here, on top of his brother’s unconscious body, and there was nothing left to do but break.

----

It was morning when Sam woke, and the first thing he saw was a note propped up beside the bed with his name written on it in Dean’s handwriting. His stomach lurched. No, he’d helped Dean, he’d helped him see that he could have what he needed and it was OK, right? He’d persuaded him, right? Shit, Dean hadn’t, he hadn’t.

There was no body, though, not in the room or the bathroom. In fact, there was no sign of Dean at all, none of his stuff, and Sam’s hands trembled as he grabbed the note and ripped it open, barely able to read the words through the blurring in his vision.

Sam. I’m OK. Don’t try to find me. Call me if you need me.

Underneath, in a different pen, as if it had been added as an afterthought, the note read None of this is your fault.

Sam sat and stared at the note for a long time. After a while, he got up and fetched his phone, dialling Dean’s number. The phone rang four times, then went to voicemail. Sam opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Dean was gone.