Chapter 9

Morning is coming by the time they leave town, but when they get out of the car outside the house it feels like night again. The sky lightens over the corn, but it could be the moon. Sam and Dean stand at the bottom of the steps up to the porch, and together, they go inside.

Though he's still got control of his own body, Dean can feel Alex pushing him. He figures Hayden's doing the same to Sam when he fetches the knife, the noose, then drops to his knees and lays them out on the floor of the upstairs bedroom like it's some kind of ritual.

"This feels wrong," Sam says, toying with the knife, arranging it just so. He looks up at Dean. "What's going to happen to them?"

Dean drops into a crouch, and he lays his hand on the end of the rope. He shrugs. "Once the house comes down, there'll be nowhere for them to haunt." He lets the rope slide through his fist, watches it fall into coils. "You know, we should probably burn these once—"

"Do you want me to leave, or not?" There's disbelief in Alex's thoughts, and Dean smiles at the quizzical look Sam gives him at the abrupt end to his words. "Okay, kid. We won't burn your stuff. But be good, you hear me? Or we'll be back to finish the job."

Alex falls silent, sinking back into the recesses of Dean's mind. Sam frowns, but his lips curl into a smile as his eyes lose focus. Perhaps there's a conversation going on in his head, as well.

Sam's expression changes as Hayden takes over. He reaches out for Dean, and by the time their lips meet, Alex is in control. Hayden kisses him, slow and deep. It feels like goodbye. "I love you," he whispers. "Now it's time to let them go."

He picks up the knife, and Alex grips the noose in Dean's hand. Dean's heart almost explodes with Alex's emotion, with the love, and grief, and joy.

His sob is suddenly audible. It starts abruptly and stops just as soon, as Dean, shocked at the sound coming from his own mouth, cuts it off and dumps the heavy rope onto the floor. Tears stream down his face.

Sam, likewise, drops the knife like it's burning his hands. "They're gone?"

Dean searches, but he can't find Alex inside him. "Yeah," he says, and wipes the tears off his cheeks. He looks for them, gaze moving around the room, searching for movement, a flicker, anything that would indicate their spirits are still here. "They're really gone."

Sam reaches out, slides his hand onto the back of Dean's neck, pulls him close. "Let's get out of here."

Dean watches Sam's lips move. His own tingle as his breath comes quicker. "Yeah," he says, wondering when the messed up way he wants his brother will start to fade, wondering how long they've got before it happens, or how far they'll have to drive. He wonders how much kissing they can get in before it happens.

A faint roar drifts through the open window, the sound of an engine, a vehicle coming up the road. It gets louder, and tires skid to a stop on gravel before the engine dies.

Sam jumps up off the floor, and he looks out as a car door slams shut. "It's Jim," he says.

Dean joins him at the window. The sky is lighter, just light enough to make Graeme out, to see the handgun he carries, to see him lift a coil of rope from the deck of his truck.

"He's armed," Dean says. "And we got nothing."

"Why is he here?"

"He knows we're onto him. He must have followed us from the motel."

A moment later, Graeme's feet ring out on the stairs. "Come on." Dean grabs the knife from the floor because it might be their only weapon. He takes Sam's hand and drags him toward the door.

They leave the noose behind on the floor, coiled within the taped outline of a body.

---

Jim's already in the hall when they get downstairs.

Sam and Dean turn tail and run toward the back of the house. Jim's boots thump against the floorboards behind them, moving far too fast. Dean palms the knife, and he's about to turn when Jim's gun goes off.

A bullet whistles past Dean's shoulder, and tears into Sam's shirt. Sam grunts and goes down.

Dean tries to haul him back up, the madman with the gun almost forgotten. But Sam's moving. There's blood on his shirt, but he's still alive and he's moving. Dean turns back to the threat, and finds himself looking down the barrel of a gun.

"Down on your knees," Jim spits.

Dean puts his hands out, palm forward. "What do you want, Jim? We can work this out. How do you think this is going to end?"

Jim steps forward, the gun shaking in his hand, still pointed right between Dean's eyes. "I said, get the hell down."

"Get down, Dean. He's not worth dying for."

Dean's eyes flick to Sam, down to the wound on his side. Blood isn't welling, he won't bleed to death, but it's hurting him. "You okay, Sammy?" His knees hit the floor, and he's got one hand on Sam to make sure that he's still warm, still breathing, but his eyes are on Jim and his gun.

Sam puts his hand over Dean's, gives it a reassuring squeeze. "I'll live."

"Just tell us what you want," Dean growls.

"You, outta my business." Jim swings the gun away from Dean to press the barrel against Sam's head. "You come here, dig things up that've been buried ten years? You should've let things lie."

"You're gonna shoot a couple of feds?" Dean hisses. "That's not going to go away like it did when you killed your sons."

Jim's eyes flick to Dean, and his pupils are tiny points filled with rage. He pulls his arm back, and then jerks it down at Sam's head.

The grip of the gun hits Sam's temple with a sickening thwack and Sam crumples to the floor. Dean reaches for him, calls his name, but something hits him, too, and everything goes black.

---

Dean comes to with his arms and legs bound, his face pressed against bare wooden floors, and a pounding inside his head that almost eclipses the sounds of heavy machinery outside. There's a glow beyond his eyelids that tells him it's going to hurt when he opens them.

He cracks one open.

They're in the upstairs bedroom. Sam's on the floor, still out, on his back within the taped outline. There's blood trickling from his head, and his arms are arranged at his sides. He's breathing, though, and the only blood on his shirt is the stain on his side where Jim's bullet grazed him.

"Sam," Dean hisses. "Sammy, wake up."

A boot scuffs the floor, and Jim squats beside Dean's head. "He already did," he says. "I had to hit him again."

Dean growls and struggles against his bonds. "I'm gonna kill you, you hear me?"

"I don't think so. See, you're tied up right now and the bulldozer is already outside. They're knocking the place down, and you'll both be dead before then. When they find you, you'll be the last in a long line of idiots who killed each other in this house."

"We don't fit the profile," Dean says. "It's always kids. You'll get caught, Jim. It's not worth it."

Jim rises to his feet. "The sheriff in this town is incredibly stupid. You would have figured that out for yourself if you'd really been FBI." He slides a knife out of his pocket. It's the twin of the one that killed Hayden. "My oldest was a pervert. He was touching his brother. I had to stop it. Alex killed himself, and that's on his own head. If he wasn't such a coward—"

"You killed him all the same."

Jim turns away. He steps over Sam's body, one foot either side of Sam's hips, then he crouches. "You, I'll have to hang myself. First you get to watch me carve up your boyfriend." He looks back over his shoulder. "That's right. I know what you are. It's filth like you that turned my boys to sin. No man wants to see his children committing acts that'll get them sent straight to Hell." He turns back to Sam, lifts his arm. Sunlight glints off the blade.

Dean struggles against the rope binding him. One hand slips free, almost dislocating the thumb as it pulls through. "You're the one going to Hell, Jim," he says, as he gets his other hand free, twists to start on the rope binding his legs together. "Kill your own kids, that's got to be the worst kind of murder."

Jim growls, lifts the knife higher, muscles in his forearm bunching. When it comes down, the knife will punch right through Sam's chest, and there'll be no saving him. Panic clouds Dean's mind, adrenaline floods his body, and as soon as the rope binding his legs loosens, he launches himself across the room with an almighty roar.

Jim looks up a split second before Dean hits him, carrying them both away from Sam and into the wall. Jim's head hits with a sickening thwack, and he slumps to one side.

Dean scrambles back across the floor. "Sammy, you gotta wake up. We gotta get out of here before the house comes down."

There's a groan from the side of the room as Jim starts to rouse. The sound of heavy machinery outside gets louder, there's a grinding crunch, and the whole house shakes. Sam opens his eyes, Dean pulls him to his feet, and they both lurch to the side as the house moves beneath them.

A gust of wind howls in through the window and swirls around the room. Jim is prone, but moving, as flickering forms converge over his body. Hayden and Alex are bruised, covered in blood, like they were when they died. Their ghosts are visible, solid but glitching, and Jim stares up at them in shock as engines rev below the window.

"You won't touch him again," Alex intones, as the knife in his hand comes down. It tears open Jim's shirt, slashes across his chest. Alex strikes again, and blood spurts. A voice drifts up from outside, an indistinct command.

"The car's gone," Sam says, staring out the window. "Where's the car?"

Dean curses, grabs Sam by the hand, pulls him toward the door. Hayden goes the other way, leaves Alex with his dripping knife and drags Jim toward the attic, the noose trailing behind in his free hand.

At the bottom of the stairs, their way is blocked. The front porch has fallen, the front door a pile of rubble and the shifting steel of the dozer. Sam stumbles to his knees, and Dean pulls him back up. "We'll have to go out the back."

He yanks Sam in the other direction, through the kitchen where dust rises into the air and the windows rattle. Dean kicks open the back door and shoves Sam out onto the porch.

The porch roof here was already listing, already in danger of falling in on itself before someone started shaking the house to pieces. "Go," he shouts, gives Sam another push. He watches Sam stumble down the steps and fall to the ground as the roof caves in.

A sheet of iron, a heavy beam attached, comes down across the back of Dean's shoulders. It knocks him to the floor, and the porch starts to cave beneath him, rotting boards giving way as he disappears into the foundations.

Sam screams his name in panic, barely a whisper over the roar of machinery.

"Go," Dean rasps, because it's too late, and Sam will only die with him if he tries to get him out now. "Just go."

Dean tries to lift the section of roof, but his knees buckle beneath him and bits of house keep raining down on top until he can't shift it. The whole porch starts to cave in, until Dean is pressed between layers of rubble, unable to even crawl as he fights for every breath.

A patch of light flickers through the debris. Old iron nails scream as they're torn from wood, and the patch of light gets brighter.

"Dean, I'm coming. Just hold on." Sam peels skirting boards away with his bare hands, until there's a space big enough to admit his head and shoulders. He reaches in, drags broken planks and lumps of concrete out of the hole, until there's a space big enough that he can wriggle inside.

"Get outta here, Sammy." Dean's voice is just a rasp. His lungs are squeezed tight, and he can barely breathe enough to make sound. More of the house rains down from above, and it's just getting worse. "The whole thing's coming down. You gotta leave me here. Save yourself."

Sam digs more of the rubble out, inches closer. The machinery gets louder, and now it's almost deafening. The house shakes and groans above them. "I am not leaving you, Dean."

Dean lifts his head, focuses on the fierce intent in Sam's eyes as he fights his way through the dust and debris. His throat is full of grit, and everything hurts, but he reaches out to push obstacles out of the way, to clear a path.

Sam grabs his hand, squeezes it tight. "You can do this. You can get yourself out. You have to, because I'm not leaving without you."

Dean coughs, and it tastes like dust and mildew and dry rot. He spits into the hard-packed earth, and then he pushes.

He roars as he presses against the ground beneath him, and something shifts above.

"That's it, Dean. Keep going." Hope sparks in Sam's eyes, like he wasn't sure Dean could do it until that moment.

Dean chokes as he wriggles out onto bare dirt and a clear space. Then he collapses to the ground and whimpers as his muscles burn white hot and his bruises flare into pain.

Sam grabs Dean by the shirt, crawls backward as he drags him across the hard-packed earth. The house rumbles above them. Beams fall, punching through what's left of the porch. Dean pulls his legs up as Sam squeezes through the hole, and everything crunches behind him as Sam pulls him out into the light. Dean gets clear as the roof falls, flattening the porch beneath.

Dean has a moment to catch his breath, to feel the morning sun on his face, then Sam is dragging him again, tugging him toward the back of the property and the gap in the fence where they slip through into a corn field.

Finally, they stop, their knees collapsing beneath them as they fall to the ground. "You're so stupid, Sammy," Dean whispers, his throat rough and raw. "We could've both died under there. You were out. You should've stayed out."

Sam pulls Dean against him, hands moving over Dean's body like he's checking for injuries. "I'd rather die with you than walk away, and you know it. Don't try and tell me you wouldn't have done the same thing."

Dean doesn't. He leans back against Sam, safe, but hurting all over, and he looks up at what's left. The attic window is broken, and that part of the building lists badly. Visible through the window, Jim Graeme swings with the movement of the house.

The attic falls. Dust swirls high into the air as the house crumbles.

There's a flicker at the edge of Dean's vision. He jerks his head to follow it, and finds Alex and Hayden standing a few feet away, holding hands.

Dean nudges Sam with his elbow. "Look."

The brothers look like they must have when they were alive, if not completely solid. There's no blood, no bruising. Alex nods at Dean and smiles. They begin to glow, as if there's a spotlight on them, brighter and brighter until it hurts to look.

When the light fades, they're gone.

---

They find the car off a side road, parked beside Jim's truck. Dean wants to sleep for a week, but they drive, out of town, away from the ghosts, away from that house.

They barely speak. They're exhausted, battered and bruised, and there's too much in Dean's head. Noise, bits and pieces of the last few days flashing through his mind. Too many questions, and not enough energy to figure out what he's supposed to say.

Sam, in the driver's seat because he's the least fucked up right now, is putting out heat. The air is thick with it, the kind of tension that's gotta break eventually, and Dean knows it'll be messy when it does.

Sam pulls the car into a motel just after dark. He turns off the ignition and they both stare straight ahead as the engine ticks.

"We could make it home, you know," Dean says, when the silence gets too much. "If we drive all night."

Sam turns his head, and even in the dim light of the neon sign, he looks like shit. "Sure. If you want us to wrap the car around the next tree we pass."

Dean chews the inside of his cheek, but nods. Sam goes into the office, and comes out a few minutes later with a key.

They grab their gear. A change of clothes, a bottle of Jack, a sewing kit. As bruised and battered as they are, it's like a well-practiced dance, natural and rhythmic as they do what they've done so many times before.

Then Sam opens the door, and Dean chokes at what he sees inside.

Past the kitchenette and the tiny table, past the battered couch and the vintage TV, there's a single queen size bed.

"Ahh, Sammy?"

Sam shoves past, his shoulder pushing Dean in through the narrow doorway, and he dumps his gear on the scuffed linoleum. "Only clean room they had."

"Bullshit." Dean pulls the door shut behind him. "It's over, remember? They're gone."

Sam collapses into a chair. It creaks under his weight. He looks up at Dean, strands of hair in his eyes. "Do you feel any different?"

Dean doesn't. There's the same pull that urges him to reach out, to touch Sam so he knows he's there, alive and safe. More, if he's honest. He wants to bury his nose in Sam's hair, inhale the warmth of him, and feel safe himself.

If he wasn't so beat up, he'd want to taste him, feel Sam's bare skin against his, Sam's muscular thighs between his legs.

Dean's cock gives a twitch, despite his exhaustion. He jerks his eyes away, turns his head so he doesn't have to look Sam in the eye. He says nothing, because there's no point denying it. "I just want to sleep. For like, a week."

"Yeah." Sam starts to unbutton his shirt. He pulls the fabric aside and twists as he examines his side, where Jim Graeme's bullet grazed him. It looks like it hurts, when he moves, and Dean's fingers twitch with the urge to reach out and ease Sam's pain.

They were lucky. Again, it could have been them cut up and hanged. Instead, Jim's lying somewhere in that pile of rubble. "He got what he deserved," Dean says.

"He did."

"Where do you think they went?" Dean asks. "They killed their dad. Where do you go after something like that?"

Sam shrugs. He pulls his shirt closed again, but doesn't button it. "I think we helped them, Dean. To move on. And now they get to be together."

"So they can screw their brains out for all eternity?"

"Yeah." Sam offers Dean a weak smile, then he pulls himself to his feet. "Gonna take a shower."

"You okay?" Dean nods at the bullet wound.

Another smile, this time tight, a little forced, and it's obvious that Sam favors that side when he walks. "I'm good."

---

Dean sucks air into his lungs. It's warm and laden with the same moisture that clings to the bathroom mirror. He looks down at his cock, tenting the narrow towel wrapped around his waist, because it hasn't gotten the memo that he's a walking bruise and can barely move without screaming. "Fuck you," he says out loud.

There's a tap on the bathroom door. "You okay in there, Dean?"

"Fine," Dean squeaks. "Just, ahh..." He grabs for his clean pair of boxers and tries to pull them on, but as he bends, the muscles in his shoulders burn. "Ow. Fuck."

The door creaks open. "I'm coming in."

Dean's pulse pounds as he has a brief argument with himself. Hide his arousal, or the cuts and scrapes and bruises across his shoulders? Then it's too late, Sam's already in the room. Dean drops his boxers, and, with the towel barely clinging to his hips, leans forward against the bathroom counter.

"Oh my god, Dean." Sam reaches out, but doesn't quite touch. "How are you even moving?"

Dean can feel the warmth of Sam's hands as they hover over his back. "I'm fine, Sammy. It's nothing."

"You're black and blue."

Dean stares at the blurry shape in the fogged up mirror. "You got shot. Don't worry about me."

"It nicked me, that's all," Sam says, and then carefully lays his hands on Dean's shoulders. His touch is so light Dean can barely feel it, but it sears his skin all the same. "You had a house fall on you."

"Just the porch."

"We get home, we're going to take some time off."

Dean wants to argue. He's going to be off his game for a while, but a week or more hanging out in the bunker alone with Sam? The way he feels right now, they'll be boinking like bunnies as soon as Dean can comfortably lie on his back. Maybe sooner, because his knees are fine.

He won't be able to help himself. Won't be able to say no. He doesn't want to.

He shivers thinking about it, a full body shudder that raises goosebumps that have nothing to do with the fact that his skin is still wet from the shower. He drops his chin into his chest when he realizes that Sam will be able to feel it.

Sam takes it as an invitation, of course, lowering his head, pressing his lips to the back of Dean's neck. "Dean," he murmurs. "When that roof came down—"

"No, Sammy."

"I thought I'd lost you." Sam gently turns Dean to face him, puts a hand on the side of Dean's neck, a thumb beneath his jaw. He tips Dean's head up. "That's when I knew this wouldn't just go away. Not for me."

He doesn't want to, but when Sam kisses him, Dean forces himself to turn away. "This isn't right."

Sam drops his forehead to Dean's temple, breathes out, slow and heavy. "I know." He shakes his head, and his breath catches on a sob. "But I don't think we have a choice."

The sound that comes out of Dean's mouth is pure disbelief. "Sammy, we always—"

"No, Dean. We can try to resist, try to pretend it never happened. We'll succeed at that, or we'll fail. I know I'm gonna fail, Dean. I know that right now. So I quit. It'll hurt us more if we lie to ourselves. To each other. This isn't something we'd choose. It'll be hard, and it'll be scary, but it'll happen because—"

"Because we can't not." Dean's lungs tighten, and he can't get enough air. Sucking in quick, shallow breaths, he lifts his head. This time, when Sam kisses him, he doesn't turn away.

fin