ht_murray | No Halo, A Story of Grace, Sam/Dean, NC-17, 1/1

Title: No Halo, A Story of Grace
Author:

tru_faith_lost
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sam/Dean for the most part, it's complicated.
Summary: He pulls Dean's head back by the hair. "Are you listening? I told you to save us. Isn’t that what you do?" Flinging him backward he sends Dean sprawling on the floor.
Warnings: Post 3.16, so contains spoilers. Dub-con, but not between the main pairing. Death of minor characters in more ways than one. This fic is dark. Everyone in the story except Ellen and Bobby are evil for at least part of the story, but it's a story of redemption, so, yeah...
Words Greater than 8000
Disclaimer: No money. No harm. No defamation. Just creative liberty.
A/N: I honestly wouldn't want any of this to happen on the show. There's no way it could, but you can't tell a story of redemption and keep them safe. Don't be afraid to tell me it offends you. I have a feeling parts of it definitely will. You can't be redeemed from puppies and kittens. But if you read to the end, I promise there's a payoff.

No Halo
A Story of Grace



     Someday I’ll sit down with my angel friends, up in Heaven. They’ll tell me about Creation. I’ll tell them a story of grace. Angels Wish, by Steven Curtis Chapman





Family doesn’t end with blood. No, blood hangs around a lot longer-- in the quicks of fingernails, clothes Sam’ll never wear again, coating the back of his throat no matter how many tears he swallows. So much of it, all in the wrong places and going nowhere. Sam’s got more than he needs, and the only thing it connects him to is Destiny. Most of the time, it sloshes, heavy in his feet.

     Or maybe that’s Dean still holding him back, barring the forbidden road.

     Dean’s somewhat less convincing, now that he’s dead.



     #



"I could've told you that wouldn't work." Ruby’s as much of a bitch as ever. "The gate’s an exit, not an entrance. Only way to get to Hell is to die... or, you know, turn into a demon and shed your human skin. You’re lucky you’ve still got an ass to kick, which I’m totally going to do as soon as you let me out of this thing."

     "I didn’t ask you."

     "Then why the fuck am I even here? You summoned me, remember?"

     "To teach me, not give me shit for thinking on my own."

     "Huh," Ruby pushes her tongue against the side of Dean’s cheek. "I thought that’s what big brothers did."

     Sam lunges to a stand, automatically regrets it when the room lunges at an entirely different speed. "You’re not him."

     "But you need me to be. Isn’t that why you picked this body? Locked me up in here?"

     "I need the body to still be here when Dean comes back."

     She cocks her head, an entirely Ruby gesture. Dean would’ve gone for just a brow. "He won’t need it, dumbass. He can take any one he wants."

     He shakes his head. "Dean’s strong. And there’s still time. If we act fast." Sam looks away when he says it. Just what he saw of Hell from the gate makes him question his own logic.

     "Keep telling yourself that. You keep wasting your energy on stupid plans like this one, and he’ll be meeting you at the door, meat hook in hand. Or through it."

     "Fuck you."

     "Mmm, brother!kink. I like it." She picks at the staples Sam fixed in place so meticulously, hasn’t stopped grousing since he called her. You’d think she’d be more grateful, what with him summoning her out of Hell and all. If only it were so easy to retrieve a soul.

     "Seriously, Sam, this is beyond fucked up." If Sam doesn’t look, he can pretend it’s really Dean speaking, not just his throat, his tongue, his lips.

     "How long do we have?" He only looks at her with a ducked glance, catches the edge of the entrapment sigil raised against the too-pale flesh of Dean’s forearm as she fidgets with his jeans in distaste.

     "Please tell me you at least put clean drawers on this thing before you shoved me in it. He pissed himself, you know."

     He lunges, stops one toe short of crossing the circle, seething. "How long?"

     She stands, casual, looks down at herself, and seems to take issue with Dean’s bowed legs. Tilts her head, she must roll her eyes, but it’s hard to tell with no white visible around the tar. At least they’re not Dean’s eyes, not like this. Makes it easier, if this could ever be easier.

     "Not long enough." She saunters over to the edge of the circle, cocks a hip and crosses her arms. Leaning back so her posture matches the tilt of her head, Sam can almost see her the way she looked before, imagines long hair draped over Dean’s shoulders, down Dean’s back. Her jaw works silently side to side. Dean’s taken enough hits on it, Sam’d be surprised if it didn’t have a touch of TMJ. "I could’ve helped you stop this, but now that it’s done..." Her hands slide into Dean’s front pockets, shoulders shrugging. "Well, we’re talking a lot more power, more precision. The sledge hammer technique isn’t going to cut it. I can help you get a handle on this thing, but time passes differently where Dean is. It’ll be too late for him."

     "But Dad..."

     "Was a demon, just like the rest of us who escaped that night. There was still some of him in there, enough to break through when you needed him, but believe me, that was just a flicker."

     Whatever blood was pumping a second ago, rushes to his feet, leaves him deflated. "Dean’s better."

     She snicks with her tongue behind her teeth. "Aww, that’s really cute. Your hero, eh, punkin’? You just hold onto that thought. I’m sure it’ll get you killed soon enough." She reaches out as if to pinch his cheek, flinches back when she hits the barrier. "Son of a bitch. I think I broke a... Great. No fingernails either. What’s next, jock itch? I swear, I don’t know how he lived in this thing." Moving to adjust the waistband on Dean’s jeans, she groans, flails with her hands. "You just had to lay on the little brother hero worship, didn’t you? I think he used to get off on that. Either that, or he was a real slut."

     Sam glances down for a second, snaps his jaw shut and looks away again, adjusting his own pants.

     "If he’s... if he’s different, I’ll fix him."

     "Sure you will, Slugger. You, and Lassie, and all your friends from the Hall of Justice, right? Cuz poor widdle Dean doesn’t deserve this, so there’s bound to be some cosmic equalizing force just waiting to push everything back into alignment."

     Sam swallows, slides another sidelong glance in her direction. He’s a little surprised how much she still knows about hope, knows his own desperate thoughts. He shouldn’t be. It’s a demon’s job to crush hope.

     "I hate to break it to you, Timmy, but that all went out the window when he made the deal. You see, the one thing the universe can’t fuck with is sacrifice."

     "Then I’ll make my own."

     "And what do you have that anyone wants?"

     "My..." He shrugs, mouth working around words he doesn’t like the taste of. "...whatever it is that stopped Lilith. Someone wants that."

     She laughs. Empty. Sam can’t pretend it’s Dean’s laugh, not even with Dean’s eyes crinkled around it. "But you don’t. You don’t want it. See, that’s not a sacrifice."

     "A trade then."

     "Not how it works."

     "Teach me, anyway. I have to do something. I can’t..."

     "You can’t live knowing he’s there because of you." She sizes him up, arms crossed again as though she could take him or leave him, no acknowledgement of her own current predicament. "You have no idea how pathetic that makes you. How dangerous. You’re a giant, walking blind side, Sam. I’m not sure helping you is a good idea."

     "I’m not sure you have a choice. After all, you’re a demon. Free will is kind of a human thing."

     She barely blinks. "Exactly. And you’ve got a little of both in you. Make the wrong choice, and you won’t get to choose again."

     "I can live with that."

     Raising her eyebrows, Dean’s most sincere face. "No, Sam, you can’t."

     He takes longer, doesn’t change his answer. "Well, then, that’s my sacrifice to make."

     Her expression doesn’t change, but her arms fall loose at Dean’s sides. "You’d do that? For him?"

     His nod’s exaggerated. He can almost feel Dean tugging at his hair in an effort to stop it.

     "Prove it."

     "How?"

     "You don’t know what you’re asking."

     "Try me."

     She can’t hide her flinch.



     #



She’s right when she says it’s all about sacrifice. Thing is, that can be given or made, depending on the need. Sam’s destiny’s written in blood. The kind he needs isn’t usually given, at least, not by the one who has it to give. Rebirth is tricky. Any born again Christian is washed in the blood. Every anti-Christian, too. Just less figuratively.

     Pure blood is hardest to find. It comes packaged in pretty young bodies with twinkling eyes and blush on their cheeks that doesn’t come from a jar. Boys with freckles and crew cuts who still only come in their dreams and in their sheets.

     He can’t do it at first, still feels Dean dragging him back. Somehow, he doesn’t think parking in front of school yards scoping out virgins is what Dean meant by taking care of his wheels. Maybe he’s moving too fast. Trying too hard.

     "Can we start smaller?" Even that small backpedal makes him cringe with guilt.

     "Okay. How ‘bout this?" She unrolls the pack of Kools from the sleeve of Dean’s t-shirt, taps one out. While Sam watches, the end flares and starts to glow red. "Firestarting 101."

     Sam nods, reaching for the pack. The laugh that stops him is nothing of Dean. "Oh, hell no. I ain’t standing here all day like Lucy holding the ball for Charlie Brown. We need an easier target. Something more like the broad side of a barn."

     "Fine."

     "I know just the place."



     #



It’s not the broad side of the barn. Instead, it’s the lot full of junk cars behind the barn. Sam never understood the way some people have a need to keep everything they’ve ever owned, especially when some of the junked cars in the lot look to be in better condition than bent-framed mobile home they apparently lived in. Had to be lived, past tense. No one could live there now behind the foil covered windows, sagging roof that must funnel rain water inside. The whole thing is grotesque, watching him like the cataract covered eyes of a leper, makes him feel like he’s hiding in plain sight standing in the field. It feels a little dirty and wrong, but makes his nerves buzz just the same.

     A part of him’s glad Dean’s not there to see. When the Ford Fairlane goes up, the unmistakable stench of horsehair from the bench seat rolling black into the sky, it’s a rush. Kinda like the first time he shot a can off a fencepost. Only this time it’s heat and the blast of ancient gasoline fumes exploding from the Torino next to that moving the hair on Sam’s head, not Dean’s hand and the familiar smack of praise. It’s still a rush, though, and a little like house cleaning. There’s probably a perfectly good pasture under this mess. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.

     He gets into it by the time the Road Runner catches, tingles all over and breathes deep something that feels better than ocean air and smells only a little like blood. It coils up and down his spine like the fingers of a lover, feels frantic and hard though he’s standing perfectly still, just the sweat-tipped strands of his hair blowing across his forehead. It feels good, good enough to forget all the reasons he kept this hidden, locked away tight inside his self-imposed vault-- good enough he convinces himself he will get Dean back, and Dean will see this for what it is; Salvation.

     It feels good enough, he forgets people who collect things often collect children, too.

     She’s just a movement in the corner of his eye, a flicker of pink with a sparkle from her plastic tiara as she runs out of the barn. Just a flicker. Only he hasn’t got a handle on this thing inside him, not a good one, and that one glance he gives her... is like missile lock.



     #



When it’s over, there’s a hand print on the back of his arm, less than half the size of his wrist. The rest of the little girl, save the charred stuffed rabbit that was no doubt doused in carcinogenic flame retardant of some sort, is stuck to the front of him. Little pieces of pink taffeta and singed flesh. Her screams are locked under his skin, high and keening. She wouldn’t stop screaming, not while flames shot from her mouth, sucked down her throat with each shuddering cry. Not when her face cracked around them. His hand, where the burned flesh isn’t fluttering away like dust, bears the imprint of three tiny, pointed neck bones. He knows they’re there, will never forget the vibration up his arm when they snapped, the eerie silence behind her last cry.

     He should be dead, too. The skin falls off his hand like ash as he picks the melted cloth off the front of his jacket where he’d cradled her against his chest to protect her, from him. Where the ash floats off in the breeze, new pink skin grows in behind, not even a scar.

     His skin’s not the only thing blowing away.

     Hope should have died with Dean in geysers of Winchester blood, gore, and splatter. Only now he realizes, there’s no coming back from this road. He’s not playing with fire. He’s the flame. It won’t burn out after he’s done with the game. And the game will never be done with him. This is forever, like the smell of little girl cloying in his sinuses. He should probably mourn this loss, but it’s a little late for that. A part of him always knew. It’s just the part of him he didn’t know himself.

     Ruby’s beside him on Dean’s crooked legs, hip cocked, but the cigarette between her fingers trembles. "You did say ssss---" the long exhale of smoke from her lungs has a shiver in it, "smaller."

     "I did." He takes the stuffed rabbit, stands and snakes around her toward the car, just their shoulders brushing. She deserves to be knocked on her ass. But it’s a little late for that, too.

     #



He can’t really feel Dean after that. The only thing holding him back is exhaustion from pushing too far, too fast, all his patience gone.

     He tries to kill himself, tired of waiting for Ruby to tell him he’s ready, afraid he’ll forget this all started as a means to get to Dean and start to be an end instead of a means.

     It doesn’t work. Knives don’t work. Bullets don’t work. Nothing enchanted, blessed, or cursed. He just closes up around the wounds a throb and a grunt, like coming. He thinks maybe decapitation might work, but he can’t quite figure the logistics, doesn’t want to imagine getting that wrong. It’s comforting in a way. He still has that one fear. It’s not the same as hope, but he’ll take what he can get, and cling to it with bloody fingernails if he has to.

     Of course, there are tithes to be paid for his indiscretions, a debt of blood for shedding his own. He pays it. Won’t ever back down again.

     The first one’s hard to find. He’s maybe not looking hard enough, a small kernel of doubt still threatening to sprout into conscience, but when she stops to admire the car on her way home from school, blushes and looks away as she catches him watching, he convinces himself he’s doing her a favor.

     He makes her stronger, wearing shame where her innocence used to be. It's not his fault she stops smiling. Innocence never saved anyone.

     After that, he doesn’t have to go looking.



     #



Nothing he does makes it through the bloody haze over his eyes and into any part of his brain that still cares.

      He keeps his head down, a slouch in his shoulders that has nothing to do with blending in. The world’s too bright for him. It hurts his eyes to look, makes him squint the way food makes his stomach churn acid. He doesn’t go out in the day if he can help it. Doesn’t have to go out at all. What he needs, they bring him, wearing sacrifices like Sunday dresses, twisted faces visible behind twinkling eyes. He doesn’t know when it stopped being just he and Ruby and became an entourage.

     He takes their offerings, lets the demons stay until he finishes, casts them out before they do.

     After awhile, he can’t look in the mirror anymore. He hardly eats, seldom keeps down what he does, but the dark twisting his features is more than starvation. He doesn’t dwell. Just doesn’t look.

     But they look. En masse. They come, either for leadership or to escape persecution, he doesn’t know, but they come to him, drawn in the void his humanity’s gone and left in its wake.



     #





"Shit, Sam. I don’t see why you’re being so pissy about this. It’s a good sign. It means you’re almost ready. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?" Ruby’s in front of the mirror, fixing Dean’s hair. As much as she professes to hate the body she’s in, she seems to stay preoccupied with grooming it. He doesn’t even want to know what she does with it when he’s not around.

     "We’re a fucking freak show! Everywhere we go, it’s like the Shriner’s convention with black eyes and carnage in place of the fez and tassels. They’re everywhere, and they just keep coming, like..."

     "Legion. We are Legion. You knew that going in." Sam knows she is not checking out Dean’s ass. The bitch.

     "Yeah. You are Legion. I am..."

     "The Grand Fucking Poobah. Don’t act so surprised. Lilith’s gathering her forces. No one’s stupid enough to stand up to her alone, so they need a team. And you, Prophecy Boy, are the Captain."

     Sam drops the blinds with a clank against the sill and jerks the drape hard enough to break some of the hangers and send the pieces against the side wall. "I don’t have time for this. I’m only doing it..."

     "To save Dean." She looks bored, presses her lips together, bemused. Her eyes say ‘broken fucking record’ when her mouth won’t. When her lips open again, its in the shape of a surprised ‘o’ as Sam barrels across the room, slams her against the wall with one hand to Dean’s sternum.

     "Stop doing that!"

     "Doing what?"

     "Finishing my sentences." He doesn’t say only one person’s allowed to know him well enough to guess what he’s thinking, doesn’t like to think he’s becoming someone she’s more familiar with than he is. "It’s..." He purses his lips so tight he leaves teeth marks on the backs. "...rude."

     "Oh, there’s a new one." She shoves Sam back off her, straightens Dean’s t-shirt, and offers her hand. "Rude demon bitch. Nice to meet you, General Unholier than Thou."

     "I am not your general. Yours or theirs. I only agreed to any of this for Dean."

     She huffs, as if realizing the effort of straightening her clothing was a waste, and slams Sam against the wall in reprisal. "Listen here. You whiny. Little. Shit. You wanted the power. You got it. Now, here’s a news flash for you." Her grip tightens on his shirt front, Dean’s chest close enough for Sam to feel it not rising. Somehow, that makes no difference, the eerie calm of it more solid than any of the writhing, squealing chests he’s been pressing against. "With power comes responsibility. They," she motions toward the window, the parking lot outside filled to capacity, a steady stream of vehicles exiting the highway behind it, "are your responsibility. Ignoring them won’t make them go away. Now you can pull your head out of your ass and do something with them or just wait for Lilith to come for all our asses. Ain’t like she’ll have a hard time finding us. Fucking probably got Russian spy satellites keeping tabs on us already."

     "Not now. I have to practice, and then I have to find Dean." He says it between panting breaths, trying hard to drag his eyes away from the shadow of Dean’s eyelashes made long by the slanting light from the window and the line of Dean’s lips close enough to...

     "Fuck!" Ruby backs away, legs apart as she reaches down to cup herself with a frustrated grunt. "How the hell did he ever function with this hyperactive little bastard in his goddamned shorts? I think you two spent way too much time in confined spaces. I swear, you so much as look sideways, and this puppy’s jumping up and drooling all over his nasty self. And he seems to really like this little wall slamming thing we got going on here," she looks up, but not fast enough to avoid a glance at Sam’s jeans, "...oh, shit."

     Sam’s not quick enough to close his jacket over his himself, can’t get his breathing under control fast enough to make what she sees anything other than what it is.

     Ruby looks shocked for less time than it takes for Sam to swallow his wasted denial. Then, she tips her head back, drops it to the side, and Dean’s whole body swirls around in a corkscrew as she laughs, a high squealing noise Dean only ever made...during really great sex. "You little horn dog. You’ve been keeping secrets."

     In a flash, her eyes go black and Sam’s shoved harder against the wall than before. He whimpers when she presses Dean’s groin into his thigh, rocks back and forth before raising a knee into his nuts. She leans back, enough for him to sag with the agony of ice clawing up his center, but holds him up at just below eye level, Dean’s mouth over the bridge of his nose as she hisses. "I hate secrets."

     Pressing closer again, she hisses inward, eyelids flutter, and Sam feels Dean’s cock hard in the groove of his hip, long slow friction that melts the icicle in his gut. He tries to look away, and she scrapes teeth under his jaw, licks a trail behind it, then steps away, lets him slump. He catches himself on the nightstand, panting as he slides to the bed, sits slouched over his knees, a hand to his stomach.

     "When were you going to tell me you were lovers, Sam? Ever?" She’s at the window, eyeing the circus in the parking lot with some new expression on her face he can’t read, a little like a cat watching a mouse when it’s not hungry enough to pounce.

     "Nnn," he huffs, "None of your fucking business."

     "No. Quite the opposite. It is my business. See, you asked me to help you, and I can’t do that if I don’t know all the facts. If you and he were lovers, not just brothers, that’s something I really needed to know."

     "Why? What difference does it make. I’m easier to turn if I’m already heading for Hell?"

     She actually stutters, a question over her face that’s more like Dean than anything she’s worn this far, bottom lip pouting out in thought. "What? The incest thing? You think that matters?" Adam’s apple jumping around a silent laugh, she shakes her head. "You know, it might come as a huge surprise to your religion-addled brain, Sam, but in the big scheme of things, love is just love. I don’t care if you were fucking your grandmother. The possibilities are just different for lovers than brothers. Both together, and we’re talking..." Her arms raise at her sides, obviously at a loss. "What would you say if I told you, we could not only stop Lilith and her puny minions but anything the universe could throw at us?"

     Straightening tentatively, a dull throb as the knot in his groin loosens, he stands, meets her gaze dead on, and steps into her space close enough to butt chests. "I’d say, what about Dean?"

     Her face drops, Dean’s eyelashes at half-mast and fluttering the way he used to look before he ralphed all over the carpet. "Honestly, Sam, your devotion?" A hand to the back of his neck, head exploding as his cheekbone collides with the window sill. "It sickens me."

     Blinking through haze, he’s half aware of a dozen pairs of eyes fixed on his through just the one slat in the blind he can see out of, all black and dead still, waiting for a ripple in the oil slick. He gasps as a hand reaches around, undoes his belt and the front of his jeans, slides in without pretense.

     "What...nngh...what are you doing?"

     "Just shortening the learning curve."

     "no." Even he can hear the lower case way he says it. He struggles, and she laughs the way she always does when he fights like a human, with his wasting human muscles. No way he can hide the way he hardens in Dean's hand, can't ignore the horde pressing closer to the window in response.

     "Don't waste your breath, kid. Just go with it."

     Squirming only succeeds in building the tension, gets him pressed closer to the wall and tighter into her fist. He chokes back the groan in his throat.

     "I can be him." Hot against his neck, scrape of stubble behind his ear, and the low rumble is all Dean, vibrates down through his chest and into his groin. Her hand works steadily faster, but she grows silent, the way she only ever does when she goes rummaging in Dean's head. Her wrist twists just-so, and if Sam closes his eyes, he can almost believe...

     "Nuh-uh," she growls, tugging his head back by the hair. "I want you to look at them."

     Outside the window, the throng has ceased to move, all stock-still, a battalion awaiting the command to charge, only their black eyes swimming with something like smoke on water.

     "See how they're attuned to you. You're the fingernails on the blackboard they can't ignore." Her fist works faster, his breath panting a cloud on the glass despite the warmth of the afternoon sun against it. He can't help the shallow thrusts up into her grasp. "They're yours, Sam. Your own army of genies without bottles. Your wish is their command." She bites along his jaw, sucks at his pulse point, pulls harder, more twist, more flick, more, more, more until his eyes droop, the sea of eyes just pinholes in a wall of white. "C'mon...Sammy," she rasps, and he comes, hard, a flash out from his center he feels like a sledgehammer. "Now!" She says. "Tell them what you want them to do!"

     "Leave!" It's a broken sob, ripped from his throat on the concussion of his orgasm, and he slumps against the wall, trying and failing to squint back tears as he breathes through the wave.

     "Shit!" He barely hears her through the ringing in his ears, feels himself flung to the side a second before the glass shatters inward, rains down out of the curtain and onto the carpet. Adrenaline surges strong enough to burn off the post-orgasmic haze, the slow ping of a tin roof cooling behind a setting sun. He drags himself up the wall far enough to see the parking lot through the gap in the blind.

     Whatever's been harnessed and just below the surface floods out in one giant swirling cloud, blue lightning roiling across the underbelly and sparking off the light poles, bulbs shattering and sprinkling to the ground. The mass gathers momentum and funnels up into the sky, gone before the bodies have collapsed to the ground.

     Ruby holds the curtain back, one hand on Dean's hip. "Not exactly what I had in mind, Lone Ranger, but they'll be back." She drops the curtain and saunters up to him, hands to his chest. "We'll just have to keep practicing til you get it right."



     #

Fever overtakes him,baptismal fire. He lets himself drown in it, lets the delusion overtake him. Dean still lives there. Dean’s fingers, gentle in the hair at his temples. Dean’s lips, reverent over the line of his jaw, the slope of his chest, jut of his hip bone. Dean’s mouth hot, suckling at his chest, his navel, his cock. Dean’s hands hold him tight against his chest while he presses in, tip his head back against Dean’s shoulder when they start to move...together after an eternity apart.

     When Dean comes inside him, it’s Sam that breaks, splits wide open with fire, Sam that sobs into the sheets until the fever breaks.

     When it does, he turns over, looks into Dean’s eyes as Ruby draws circles over his chest with Dean’s fingers. It’s like waking from a dream into a nightmare.

     He leaves a hand-shaped bruise around her throat, and a smear of black blood in the sheets when he takes her.

     "Sammy..." She begs, her tongue trembling behind Dean’s lips.

     "You’re not him. You’ll." Thrust. "Never." Grind. "Be him." He pulls out and fists himself until his semen mixes with he sweat and blood in a messy puddle in the small of Dean’s back. He thinks she cries. Like a girl.

     He laughs.



     #



She was right. They come back. This time he meets them, every one. Looks into their faces, searches behind their pasty human veils for things he can use. They kneel before him, go down on him, some of them in child suits all giggling deception without a flicker in their eyes. They let him take what he wants, and if they have nothing, he kills them. With his hands. They are Legion, after all.

     They keep coming until they’re forced to move, out into the world, the disciples of darkness. He builds a church, or he steals one. A third of the world’s burning with Holy War, but he takes a church in West Texas without any fight at all. The fence around the yard, he builds out of bones from the cemetery behind it, twisted wrought iron and rawhide stripped from the flesh of his followers, which they give like kisses on the feet of their lord.

     When it’s finished, he sits in the bell tower, bored, watches as Lilith’s forces gather on the horizon. The thing about war? To wage one, you really need to care about the outcome. He doesn’t. So, he waits. Doesn’t even know what he’s waiting for, but he does, Ruby at his side, though she’s nothing left to teach.

     Then, one day there’s a name, choked out in a language a human tongue wouldn't even be able to pronounce. It’s a pet’s name, like Fido or Rex, waggles on the tongue of one of Lilith’s spies before he rips it out of its human mouth. The name’s his trophy, his victory, and he knows it before the war’s even begun. Lucky for him, he's not human enough to stumble on something like pronunciation.



     #





There's no air in the room at all, what little comes through the vents is dank, musty, choked off by the horde outside in the sanctuary and in the courtyard beyond. The siege has gone on three weeks already, Sam too concerned with his own business to care. He half wishes they'll just fall on each other and end it, but knows they won't. They're waiting on him, and he's a stubborn bastard.

     "Please," Ruby sobs, "I'll do anything." She's a sight, Dean's body a mass of cuts and bruises, naked and tied to a chair. She shouldn’t have kept the name from him.

     Sam laughs, low and cold. "Funny you should say that. Cuz you know what? There's nothing you can do for me, nothing." Sweat drips in his eye off one greasy strand of hair, and he doesn't care enough about the burn to blink, draws one finger through the stream down his chest and flicks it into her eyes. "But you did what you said you'd do. Only some of it involved extortion, so I'm going to do you a favor."

     She stops struggling at her bonds for a second, meets his eyes. Panting so her whole body heaves beneath her glowering gaze, she asks, "What?"

     "I'll let you live." He steps behind her, and before she can see the blade, slices off the entrapment sigil in Dean's forearm. She goes still.

     "No. Sam, no." Her eyes are panicked, abrasions raising on her arms as she fights the ropes.

     "Get out, Ruby. Go as far and as fast as you can if you know what's good for you."

     "Sam...you can't send me out there. They'll smell you on me. They're starving for your attention. I won't make it out of the church." She smiles, Dean's prettiest smile. "Sammy..."

     "Get out." The effort it takes to rip her out of the body doesn't even stutter his breath.      She makes it as far as the knave. He shrugs as they descend. She doesn’t make it out of the church. Demons don’t always lie.

     It's harder than he imagined to turn around and face the corpse. Again. After a year, the wound is still so fresh. He takes greater care than he remembers possessing to untie the ropes, bandages over the cuts and abrasions before he lifts the body from the chair.

     It's only a few steps from the chair to the bed, but he stops once to readjust when Dean's head lolls back. He props it on his shoulder, leans his head to the side to hold it in place and finishes the short trek.

     The sheets are clean, fresh. Only the best.

     The ritual's been memorized in his head ever since he finally got the name. The name is almost as important as the blood. Still, he hesitates, the first flicker of fear he's felt in months shocks his system, paralyzing in its intensity.

     Between his shallow, rapid breaths and the slick of sweat on his bare torso, the waistband of his jeans starts to chafe the seething muscle of his lower abs while he tries to gather himself together.

     The ritual's simple. Any man can do it, any demon. He doesn't need any powers to raise the dead, just the name and some blood, doesn't know if he'd be able to find Dean wherever he is, if he went looking as anything other than Sam.

     Sam's far less patient than whatever it is walking around in his skin these days. Something about free will seems to make him think he can will things to existence before they're meant to be. It takes too long, goes on for hours, and there's not even a whisper from the other side. His restlessness is electric, and the walls seem to breathe with the energy thrumming between inside and outside.

     He's been standing in the same place half the night, at least five minutes since he last blinked, when the body moves. At first it's just a finger, then a slight arch in the back. Then nothing.

     Sam leans closer, over the bed, searching for any signs of... whatever this is... notLife.

     It happens so fast, Dean's forehead hits him on the bridge of the nose, sends him sprawling back across the room, a gush of warm blood down his chin.

     Sam can't see through the pain, presses the heel of his hand to his forehead and rocks back and forth, trying to massage out the spasm behind his eyes. When he finally blinks the tears away and looks up, Dean's looking back.

     NotDean.

     There's nothing more Dean-like about the thing sitting on the edge of the bed than the one Sam cast out. Nothing more to this than any of the monstrosities in the church outside or the field beyond that.

     "Dean..." He can't help but sob around it, hadn't even known there was still that little bit of hope left in him until it fled, left his chest filled with ice. And Sam's so tired. Been here too many times. He knows he has no right to be disappointed. He's not what he was a year ago, either. But he's greedy. He's stubborn, and he wants what he wants, gotten too used to having it.

     He stands, slow, his hands trembling and outstretched, open, but the thing on the bed cowers away, falls off the other side, and backs against the closet door.

     "No...," one long trembling protest and Sam's falling back too, leaning into the wall like his legs don't work anymore. His head falls into the wall with a thunk, tears choking in his throat, and he wonders if he can just let the horde have him, if he can just give up the destiny without a fight.

     He doesn't know how long he stands there before he hears the bed spring squeak, feels a thunk on the carpet beside his feet. Opening his eyes slowly, he tilts his chin down.

     Dean kneels at his feet, black eyes turned up to him, waiting. Waiting for Sam to give him an order, just another one of the Legion. And Sam... hits him. Hard.

     Dean's head snaps to the side and back without flinching, long, slow blink then up again, and waits.

     "You were supposed to be better." Sam's teeth grind through two more swings with the same result. "C'mon, big brother, where's your brilliant plan to save us?" He takes a hissing breath in, raises his hand again, stops himself. "I said save us! Do what I fucking tell you!" He pulls Dean's head back by the hair. "Are you listening? I told you to save us. Isn’t that what you do?" Flinging him backward he sends Dean sprawling on the floor.

     "Get up," he says and walks away, straight into the corner where he leans his head into the wall, the paneling marking a crooked track across his brow. "Why do you make me hurt you?" He chokes. "You were supposed to be better."

     Sliding down the wall, he grimaces at the way the thing cranes its head on Dean's neck to keep its eyes fixed on him, swaying in its kneeling position like a snake in a charmer’s basket. "Stop looking at me like that."

     It does.

     Sam laughs, long, and dry, and cold, head thumping against the wall. The ceiling's moldy and sagging, wouldn't dare fall on him, though, and if it did, whatever thing's boiling in his blood wouldn't let him die. "I think maybe I like you better this way," he lies. "You never listened to me before."

     He falls silent, because honestly, he hasn't thought past this moment since Dean died on that floor all those months ago. Doesn't know what he was expecting. Pretty sure it's not this. Taking a long breath, he beckons. "Come over here."

     Dean rises into a crouch, moves the few steps closer on all fours, squats down on his haunches at Sam's outstretched feet. Sam reaches a hand out. "Closer." Dean slides closer until Sam's hand closes around the back of his neck. Stroking with his thumb through the hairs at Dean's nape, Sam pulls him down, head in his lap. Dean's tense under his fingers, docile, but coiled and ready for anything except rest. Sam just wants him to rest.

     "I can kill a demon with my bare hands, you know. Probably would’ve come in handy when the hounds came for you, don’t you think?" He keeps his thumb moving, massages with the heel of his hand. Pointed neck bones press into his palm.

     The air’s heavy and damp, runs in cold streams down is cheeks. "You were right, though. This wasn’t the answer. I don’t think there is one. Not anymore."

     He cuts off suddenly as his zipper slides open, wants to protest, but doesn’t, only shifts his hips slightly to accommodate.

     "I can’t die, now. I tried. Tried to come in after you, but I was too human, couldn't cross the veil. So, I tried to..." He swallows against the rush of bile from his empty stomach. "tried to kill myself. But I can't die. It won't let me. So, I... I just wanted you to know, I tried to get there sooner. I did." Dean’s mouth slides over him, and he sighs, doesn’t think about it not being Dean anymore, focused on it being all that’s left and not taking that for granted. His head thunks back, and he hisses in as tongue swirls over him. "Kinda ironic, I guess. Too human to get into Hell, too demon to dream of Heaven." A slow, dry laugh. "But hey, the world’s all mine."

     Dean’s head starts to bob. Sam lets his eyes fall closed. "Remember that promise I made you make? The one where you promised to kill me before you let me become...well, what I am now?" His hand strokes over the back of Dean’s head, and he starts to thrust up into his throat. "I don’t suppose I could convince you to make good on that? I mean, I have this theory about decapitation. Probably watched too much Highlander... "There can be only one..."

     He takes a deep breath, trying to stave off the climax building in his gut. "You know, that promise wasn’t just about stopping me. It was for you, too. I know you never saw it that way..." He hisses in, pulls Dean’s head back, so he can look into his eyes. "I never wanted you to see me like this. I wanted you to be proud of me. Proud that I stared down a bullet instead of ending the world." His chest tightens, and he pulls Dean up into his lap, flexes his fingers around the nape of Dean’s neck. "I screwed that up, but I can still keep my promise to you. I swore I’d save you, and I did. You’re not in Hell, and you’re not going back. Not ever." His vision’s blurry, and he closes his eyes, lets his forehead fall against Dean’s. "Thing is, Hell’s about to come here. So, if I want to keep my promise, you can’t be here when it happens. You understand that, don’t you?"

     Dean only nods because Sam moves his head, slow with his hand spread out against bone, every familiar bump and curve mapped onto his palm.

     With a grunt, Sam turns, stands, and hauls Dean up, wraps his legs around him as they move to the bed. He lays Dean down, worships his chest with lips and teeth while his hands strip off his jeans.

     It’s slow, long strokes along arched ribs, sweet kisses in the valley of Dean’s chest. Deep breaths move some clot in his chest, pull it away like an old scab, and he goes with the hurt even as his touches grow more gentle and worship over broken flesh. When he can’t hold back anymore, he presses his nose behind Dean’s ear, whispers, "I love you," and presses in.

     He expects a moan, expect fingernails deep in the small of his back, contracted heels in the backs of his thighs.

     He doesn’t expect the scream. Dean convulses, arching away from him while his throat roars, head bent back so far his forehead’s nearly flat to the headboard. Fingers tighten into claws at the tops of Sam’s shoulders, hooked under tendons drawn tight in ecstasy. The force pushes him completely inside, his own groan muffled by Dean’s throat pressed over his mouth. Sam tries to pull himself away, but finds himself held tight. His hands work up between Dean’s head and the headboard, caress against his temples as he coaxes it forward, eases the strain.

     When he does, he nearly screams himself.

     He hasn't been able to look in a mirror for months, can't see anything beyond the mask of demon hate, the same thing he sees on every face outside the window, the same twisted features Ruby had worn beneath Dean's. What wasn't demon and too ugly to bear was too bright, not his to look upon. What looks down at him through Dean’s eyes, is... cracked. The demon's there, under Dean's face, but there's something on the edges, where the demon's started to fall away, a shimmer like the dark is only oil on water and not tar through and through.

     Sam can’t look away. Instead, he moves. With the first thrust, Dean’s eyes close. Sam, stops. "No. Look at me." His thumb smooths over the wrinkles at the corner of Dean’s eyes, presses a soft kiss to Dean’s sternum without breaking their gaze. He moves again. The shimmer grows brighter, and this time, it’s Sam who has to keep from closing his eyes.

     As their momentum builds, so does the width of the cracks in the demon veil and the light breaking through.

     It hurts, each ray like a dagger through Sam’s chest, but he doesn’t stop, has to see what’s on the other side.

     It’s when the keening starts, counterpoint between the two of them, that Sam knows they can’t survive whatever this is building between them. He’s okay with that. The universe understands sacrifice.

     Like looking into the sun, Sam watches the dark burn out of Dean’s eyes, feels himself coming apart in the glare, a burn more intense than fire. He stokes it with everything he’s seen or thought or done in the last year, starting with the spray of blood over Dean’s dead eyes and ending with melted taffeta and a plastic tiara. He comes with a scream, acrid smoke of death and carnage dissipating in the light. When Dean comes...supernova.

     Sacrifice is a tricky thing. Neither has a whole life to give or an untarnished soul, but between them...? Well, redemption is a tricky thing,too, and if you try sometimes, you get what you need.


#

Turns out, what they need is the light of grace, and a new beginning. The armies of Hell never see it coming.

     No one does.


#


It’s obvious, when they pull into the yard, the good fight’s long since gone bad, like the smell of leather steeped in gore and baked in the sun of a thousand open, empty roads.

     But this fight’s over, and Sam’s tired, unfolds himself from the driver door with a series of cracks and pops, the stretch of constricted ligaments painful, but familiar. He bets Superman doesn’t creak, can’t help but smile despite the foreign stretch of it, feel of his face and all its tired dirt cracking around it..

     "Bobby."

     "Sam."

     The shotgun’s loaded with consecrated iron these days and never more than an arm’s length away. Bobby’s arms look no less menacing crossed across his chest with the gun leaning against the rail. They’re no less open.

     "Good to see you." It is. A far cry better than anything he’s seen since leaving. Bar one. He’s lost weight since then, most of it muscle. Some of it care. Welcome or not, he’s home. He’s going to sleep for a week. God only took a day, but He had just Heaven and Earth to recover from. Sam’s been to Hell and back. "It’s been a wild ride," he smirks.

     "I’ll bet." Bobby squares up his shoulders, shifts over his heels, not budging.

     "You still got that spare room?" Sam leans back against the car, the door still swung wide. He’s the picture of aloof, perfect foil for the wall of Singer.

     "Always got room..." His lips barely move under his mustache, eyes squinted tight beneath the bill of his cap. "...for family."

     "Does that still include me?"

     "I don’t know, Sam, does it?" Bobby takes half a step closer to his shotgun, doesn’t uncross his arms, but his chin trembles enough that Sam knows it pains him to do it.

     Bobby forgets himself, looks ready to lunge off the porch. Sam doesn’t step away. Instead, he moves forward enough to close the door behind him, stands up straight, ready to face his judgment. Bobby’s chin tightens up so far his bottom lip disappears, and despite the resolved glare smoothed across his forehead, his eyes blink a little too rapidly.

     "Christo..."

     Bobby’s noticeably shaken when Sam doesn’t flinch. He flinched the last time. Hasn’t been home since.

     With a smile, Sam says, "Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison."

     "Kyrie eleison." Ellen steps out from behind the screen door, and for all her tough as nails armor painted over battle scars, her hands shake.

     "Ellen."

     "Sam. You look like Hell, boy." She laughs at her slip. Laughs to keep from crying in front of him. Sam’s pretty sure she’s been crying since he drove in the yard.

     He’s sorry for that. He maybe shouldn’t have come, but Sam’s tired, and Dean can’t drive. Sam just wants to cocoon somewhere safe. Somewhere safe and far away from the rest of the world. If he’s never part of something bigger than just SamandDean, he’s okay with that. The society he used to want to be a part of, all those people he used to want to belong with? They’re all someone else’s somebody. He doesn’t need them anymore. He doesn’t need to be the center of anyone’s attention but Dean’s.

     "I wish I could believe you, Sam. I really do, but it's been over a year."

      Raising his hands from his sides, Sam says, "I'm done apologizing for what I had to do." He glances back to the car, just through the back window enough to see Dean's starting to stir, and swings back around, a pleased grin on his face. "But it’s over now."

     Ellen's more inclined to listen than Bobby. She would be, losing Jo the way she did. Sam wishes he could've stopped that, too, but he wasn't ready. He can't fault Ellen for wanting her death to mean something. It does. Means she was on the winning team, just missed the end of the war. But not by much.

     "What are you talking about, Sam?" She asks the way you ask a child to explain what his imaginary friend has made him do, but she asks, and he answers.

     "Do you believe in redemption?"

     "I do," she says, even as her eyes fall away from his, her faith not as strong as her back. Not anymore.

     "Then, let me tell you a story of grace." He hears the car door creak behind him, knows he’s said the magic word. Without turning around, he holds a hand out behind him, feels Dean take it and lean his head against Sam’s hip, still tired.

     "Can I hear the story, too?"

     Ellen breaks, then, and Bobby pushes the shotgun behind the railing. Not safe to have such things around children.

     Sam kneels and scoops up his brother, his four year old big brother, smiles into eyes that have never seen fire, revenge, or Hell. With a giant smile, he pokes Dean on the nose, relishes in the giggle that elicits and says, "You are the story, silly."

     To Bobby, he says, "It’s over. All of it. No more Legion. No more war. Just me and my brother, if you’ll have us."

     Ellen’s already holding out her arms to take Dean, who goes with her willingly, the promise of cookies and milk too good to pass up. Bobby takes a second longer, watches them disappear through the screen door.

     "How do you know?"

     "I just do." And he does. Bobby pretends to straighten his cap on his forehead, and Sam relishes the knowledge he’s using as a barrier to wipe the tears. The hug that follows is better than any he remembers. Bobby keeps an arm over his shoulder and steers him toward the house. As they reach for the door, the sun breaks over the roof of the shed, painting the world golden.

     Sam pauses to take it in.

     Everything’s different. New. A second chance for Dean, and for Sam, the memory of what they’ve come through to get here. He wouldn’t trade any of it. The dark of the tunnel just makes the light at the end that much brighter, and now, he can honestly say, demon blood or none, he’s all human--fragile, imperfect, and mortal.

     And he knows things angels only wish they knew.



     The End

A/N: Yes, I am just sick enough to base a wincest story on a song by a Christian artist. The song is Angels Wish by Steven Curtis Chapman, and I do have it uploaded if you want a link. I also realize some of you hate me for not mentioning Ruby in the header, but if I had, the mods would have called it a het fic, which it is not. I hope you liked the ending.

Current Mood: anxious

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not-refined.livejournal.com

I am so not sure what made me say “Oh, I’ll read this” because I’ve instructed myself to write today, but yeah.... I clicked and dude, you have NOTHING to be worried about, everyone should read this. I mean, I’m sitting here open mouthed and thinking that I should have done a million things by now, but this kept me utterly gripped and I love you. I’m totally incoherent with love! But I guess it was pretty damn obvious I’d enjoy this kind of lovely, dark world... hehe.
You have THE MOST beautiful turn of phrase ever. Your writing is what my writing wants to be when it grows up :) And I can’t thank you enough for sharing your vision of Sam and his journey into the dark... and Dean. Oh Dean.
You made me cry, you made me have to get up and walk around to clear my head halfway through.... But basically I’ve just been stuck here glued, reading. I had no idea where you were going to go with this but it was brilliant. How you used Ruby, as well. I adored that. And how Sam saved Dean, how Dean has... has such a second chance. It makes me smile even though, yeah, I’m still kind of crying!
Like I said, incoherent. But my god. You are talented. And this? This is perfection.

EDIT: Also, just noticed while rereading that I was totally FIRST. I rarely first comment anything... so YAY ME!!! I win almost as much as this astounding fic.

Edited Date: 2008-05-29 10:33 am (UTC)

From:

Pressed in the Pages

No Halo, A Story of Grace, Sam/Dean, NC-17, 1/1

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