Chapter 19

Dean keeps checking the time. They get back to the bunker exactly fifty three minutes to midnight. At forty five minutes to midnight, they're on Dean's bed and Sam is kissing him desperately.

Dean starts to tug at Sam's clothes, the buttons of his shirt, the fly of his jeans. "There's time," he says, when Sam grabs hold of both of his hands, stills them. "We've got time."

Sam pulls away, shakes his head. Tears streak his cheeks, but he's calm, and his voice is even. "Did you bring the gun?"

"The bag under the bed," Dean says. "Not yet, Sammy. Please. We've got time. Not yet."

Sam leans over the edge of the bed. "I just want to be ready," he says, and then drags the bag out from under the bed.

It gives a familiar rattle, guns and blades and boxes of ammo, knocking against one another. Then it settles, goes silent, but there's another sound. A ringing, like metal rolling on wooden floor boards. Sam freezes, his hand in the bag.

"What the hell is that?" Dean says. He compulsively checks his watch. Thirty nine minutes.

Sam reaches beneath the bed, the ringing turns into a scraping, and then Sam sets whatever it is square down on the floor.

Dean leans over. "Sam?"

"It's a cup," Sam says. His voice is flat, almost emotionless. "Dean, there's a cup under your bed."

It is a cup. A grubby looking metal goblet thing, wide, squat, and it's not immediately clear what kind of metal it's made from. It's a kind of dirty brown, a little greenish around the edge of the base. "It's not—"

"What's the time, Dean?"

Dean glances at his watch. "Almost half eleven."

Sam grabs the cup and springs to his feet. "Where did you find it?" His eyes are wide, almost manic as he drops his head and sniffs. "Jesus, Dean. If you were drinking whiskey out of the Holy Grail I'm going to hit you over the head with it." His head jerks up. "Where did you find it?"

Dean almost falls off the bed in his haste. "No, you're not," he says. "Because if that's Jesus' juice cup, I don't have to shoot my brother." He meets Sam's eyes. "I was drunk. The kitchen. Maybe under the sink? I was really drunk."

Sam flies for the door, and Dean follows behind him. The interference has somehow replaced Dean's pulse, his heartbeat, in that it's faster, more intense, when he's excited. If he ditched the meat suit, he wouldn't have to lug it around while he's glitching constantly, but he needs it right now, needs to— "How does it even work? Do we even know what to do?"

Sam shrugs, no mean feat while he's almost running to the kitchen. "I ditched the research when we didn't find it. I don't know if there's enough time, Dean."

"Something about blood, right?" Dean sinks to his knees beside Sam as Sam pulls open the cupboard beneath the kitchen counter. "I can't bleed in that thing, Sammy."

From behind fallen bottles and jars of decades old cleaning products, Sam drags out a wooden box. It's a small crate, dusty, dirty. There's a cloth, not much more than a rag, bunched up and stuffed in a corner, and Dean has a vague recollection of tugging it from around the cup, screwing it up in his fist and shoving it in the corner of the box. It's stained red in places, red, not the dark brown of old blood.

Sam tips the box upside down on the floor. There are dusty worn notebooks, and, wrapped in another piece of cloth, something that clunks when it hits the floor.

Sam unwraps it. It's a bottle of wine, the glass a green so dark it's almost black. Sam gapes at it and then turns it to show Dean the label.

In a swirling script, beneath the brand name and logo, is the word: SACRAMENTAL

Dean shrugs. "Okay?"

Sam shakes the bottle. "This is the Blood of Christ, Dean." He pushes to his feet, runs the water and shoves the cup under the faucet, scrubs out the traces of whiskey from Dean's binge weeks before.

Dean scoops up one of the notebooks for a closer look. The cover is blank, but when he flicks it open, the pages are filled with a familiar script. "Terence," he breathes. "Oh my god, Sam. He found it. Somehow, he found it."

Sam looks as though he's about to pop a blood vessel when he pulls the cork free. He sloshes a generous amount into the cup, and then shoves it in Dean's face. "Drink," he says. "We don't have time to be more specific about the method. Just drink it."

Dean holds it in both hands, stares down into swirling red liquid. There's a film shimmering on the surface, a few specks of dust. It smells old, earthy. Then he lifts his eyes, and stares at Sam over the rim. "Here goes nothing," he whispers, and throws it back.

It's cool going down, but tastes of nothing. Dean slams the cup down on the counter like he's doing shots, then looks at Sam.

Sam stares back at him expectantly. Long moments pass.

Dean looks at his watch. "I don't feel any different, Sammy. Still dead, and about to get deader in twenty three minutes. I don't think this is the right cup."

Sam scoops up the notebooks, spreads them out on the counter. He flicks through them, one at a time. "This is the end," he says, when he finds one that is only half full. He starts to read. "The Blood of Christ is the only answer, but the wine does not work. My mind is still muddled, confused. I can only conclude that the vessel is not the Holy Grail. Years of work for nothing, and I will soon lose my reason. My work is over." Sam looks up. "That's it." He puts the book down, attempts a smile. "I'm sorry, Dean."

Dean wipes a drop of wine off his lower lip with the back of his hand. "Back to plan A, then." He drops his eyes and turns to walk away.

"Wait."

Sam's hand is warm on his shoulder. Dean turns and forces a smile. "Hey, it's okay. Yeah, I got my hopes up, but—" He shrugs and grins. "So I wasn't drinking whiskey out of the holy cup after all. We can't win 'em all, right?"

"I should never have brought you back," Sam says. "I'm sorry, Dean. I should have ended it right then and there."

Dean flickers, watches Sam breathe in jerky, stop motion fashion. He shakes his head. "No. If it keeps you alive, Sammy. You just keep bringing me back."

"It's too late."

Dean nods. "I know." Then he wraps his hand around the back of Sam's neck, tips his head up, and brushes his lips over Sam's mouth. "But at least we got this, right? This never would have happened if we hadn't had the last month together."

"If we hadn't been desperate," Sam says, and kisses Dean harder.

"If I hadn't been so fucking cold—"

"How much time do we have?"

Dean pulls his watch up so he can see it. "Seventeen minutes." His eyes flick up to Sam. "I can totally—"

Sam doesn't waste any time. He gets his jeans open, tugging the zip down and then pulling Dean close. He freezes with his hand in Dean's pants, mid stroke to get him hard. "Where's the gun?"

Dean jerks his head. "Still in the bag, Sammy."

They run.

---

There's not enough time to get their clothes off. They kneel on the bed, Dean's hand wrapped around both their cocks, Sam's wrapped around his, and they stroke together for the last time. Their kisses are desperate, wet and messy, breaking off just long enough to let a few words tumble out.

"—love you, Sammy," Dean says, and his heart might not be beating, but it hurts. It hurts, bad. His eyes fall on the gun on the mattress beside them, one bullet in the clip, and it's all they'll need. Dean knows just where to put it to make sure it's quick and final.

Dean's name keeps tumbling out of Sam's mouth, over and over again, the tone higher pitched, more desperate with every passing moment. He comes first, hot and wet over Dean's fist, and Dean follows close behind. They keep kissing, slow and wet as the shudders subside, and then they both sink down onto their heels.

"Time," Sam eventually says, when he's caught his breath.

"Three minutes," Dean says.

"Now's good," Sam says, and he lies down on his back, head on the pillow. "Dean."

Dean stares at the gun. He picks it up. It feels heavier than it should in his hand. He flickers, almost drops it, then focuses himself. "Yeah, Sam." Then he lies down, puts his head on Sam's shoulder. He takes a deep breath, slides the gun up beneath Sam's chin, and lets his breath out slow. "You wait for me, Sammy," he says. "That reaper turns up, you tell him to wait for me, all right?"

"Yeah." Sam sucks in air, pushes it out of his lungs in shallow huffs. "Yeah, Dean."

"We should have spent the whole month in bed," Dean whispers. "Instead you drag me to England, force me to drink some dirty water bubbling up out of the ground—" His finger tightens on the trigger. "But I forgive you." He leans over, presses one last kiss to Sam's lips, and then pulls back. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Dean," Sam says, and gives Dean a small nod.

Dean takes another deep breath, sucks warm air right down into his lungs. Then he lets it out slow, and he never takes his eyes from Sam's. He starts to pull the trigger.

Sam's eyes fly open wide, and he simultaneously shoves the gun away from his head and sits bolt upright. "Water."

Dean just stares up at him, blinking, flickering. The gun is still in his hand, his finger still tight on the trigger. "What the hell?"

Sam turns and looks down at him, eyes still wide, unblinking. "The water, Dean. The water from the Lion's Head."

Dean's eyes flick toward the bag he brought back from England, still sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, just as it was when they arrived home. He didn't bother unpacking. "The flask." He looks back up at Sam. "What the hell, Sammy? I almost shot you. We've got like, a minute and a half, what the hell are you doing?"

Sam talks fast as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed and heads for the door. "When the Holy Grail was hidden beneath the well, Dean, the water ran red with the blood of Christ. It's not the wine, it's the water. Get the flask, Dean, I'll get the cup. We don't have much time."

Dean tears open the bag, pulls out dirty clothes, finds the flask in the bottom of the bag. It's still about half full. He yanks it out as Sam bursts back in through the door.

"Get it open," Sam says, holding out the cup as he sinks to his knees on the floor.

Dean's hands shake as he screws off the top. "Glitching hard here, Sammy," he manages to get out, feeling the magic holding him inside his body loosening already. "Cutting it too close."

Sam takes the flask off him, empties the contents into the cup, and then holds it up, holds Dean with an arm wrapped around his waist. He presses the cup to Dean's lips. "Drink," he says. "Goddammit, Dean. Drink."

Dean chokes it back, feels it spill over the sides of his lips, eyes on Sam as he jumps around in flickers, like static images flashing in front of his eyes. Then those flashes come with pain, increasing in rapid, extreme jumps.

His skin feels like it's on fire, the flesh of his thigh feels like it's been torn open all over again. His heart burns, and the rest of him burns along with it until it's all too much and he's just gone.

---

"Mmm, pie," Dean murmurs.

That's what wakes him. The sound of his own voice, and the memory of taste. The realization that he's been sleeping. Not just out, but actually sleeping.

And he's warm, but there's none of the damp sweat sensation of Sam's body pressed against him.

Dean opens his eyes, stares up at the familiar ceiling of his room in the bunker. Turns his head, blinks away the blurriness of waking, focuses on Sam's face.

"Hey," Sam says, and there's a soft, genuine, relaxed smile on his face.

"Hey," Dean says, and pushes himself up into a sitting position.

He's not wearing much. A pair of clean boxer shorts, and no shirt, and there's no bandage over his heart, no wound, no scar, no mark at all. He runs his fingers over it, then slides a hand beneath the sheet and it's as if he never caught that fateful fire iron through his femoral artery in the first place. "Whoa," he says, and then looks up at Sam. "It worked." He blinks, because he can feel his heart beating in his chest, can feel the pulse in his wrists, can see the color in the flesh on his arms. "Either that or I just had the weirdest dream."

Sam smiles wider and nods. "It worked."

"Whoa," Dean repeats. "Dude. We found the Holy Grail."

Sam grins. "Terence found the Grail, Dean. I've been reading."

"How long was I out?"

"Hours. I watched you for the first hour, your wounds healing, all your blood coming back. I felt your heart start to beat, heard you start breathing. Then you were just asleep. I figured you had a bit to catch up on."

"I was dreaming," Dean said. "About pie."

"I heard." Sam pushes himself up out of the chair he's sitting in. "You want to go get some?"

Dean's eyes go wide and he nods emphatically. "Oh, yeah." He swings his legs over the edge of the bed, catches the pair of jeans Sam throws him. "You're having some, too, right, Sammy?"

Sam grins and nods. "Yeah, Dean."