Chapter 5 of Looping
bloodwritesChapter 5
"I guess we should probably talk."
"You were a demon," Sam says. "You're not to blame for what you did."
Dean smiles, but there's no humor in it. "Well, yeah," he says. "But that's not what I'm talking about, Sammy.
"See, Chuck yanked your soul. I was a demon. When morality doesn't matter, when our sense of right and wrong isn't there... Seems an awful lot like we want to bone each other."
Sam stiffens. "Cabin fever," he says. "It doesn't mean anything."
"Yeah," Dean says. "Yeah, that's probably it." Dean's not convinced. He remembers what he was thinking, what he was feeling, and it's still there. Less of the violence and more of the desire to touch Sam, to be close to Sam, to be more intimate with Sam than they've ever been before.
But neither of them have seen another living person in, jesus, it's probably been years now. And they're facing eternity of the same, and they'll go crazy in here, and that morality, that sense of wrong, will just disappear, fade away. It'll be gone.
Dean knows, deep down, that the only thing that'll stop him wanting it is getting out of here.
"So," Dean says, and then clears his throat because there's something thick stuck in there. "That angel spell still on the table?"
While Dean spent weeks cuffed to his bed, Sam was working. He's got the entire spell committed to memory, and he darts around the bunker, collecting obscure ingredients–and makeshift ones, where necessary–for the spell to summon an angel, and, hopefully, entreat it to kick them out of the loop.
All Dean can do is watch.
"That's not Enochian," Dean says, when Sam starts speaking a language Dean doesn't recognize.
"It's Babylonian," Sam says, and then starts again from the beginning.
"When did you learn Babylonian?"
Sam gives Dean a sharp look for interrupting him again. "Do you have any idea how many years we've been stuck here?"
Dean shuts up, and waves his hand to give Sam the space to carry on.
Sam starts again, from the beginning, and this time, Dean doesn't interrupt.
Sam throws the last ingredient into the bowl as the final words of the spell fade away, and flames burst upward, silver and blue, and both of them look back at the sigil painted in white on the floor behind them.
There's a burst of fire that mirrors the one in the bowl, and it dies down, leaving a figure standing there.
The angel looks like a regular Joe, no one they've seen before–at least not in this vessel. Jeans and white t-shirt and a crisp black ball cap.
"Hi," Sam says as he approaches, palms exposed in the universal sign for 'I'm unarmed'. "We need your help."
The angel sneers. "Winchesters," he says, and pulls an angel blade. "How dare you–"
"We're stuck in a time loop," Sam says, taking another step forward. "We need you to break us out of it."
"Oh, yeah, sure," the angel says, moving toward Sam. "Call an angel to fix all your mistakes." He takes one more step, and Dean sees his intent a split second before he strikes, but too late for him to do anything about it.
The blade sinks into Sam's belly, and Sam gasps in shock, and Dean looks on in horror as the blade slides upward.
He sees the moment when the blade pierces Sam's heart and the light goes out in his brother's eyes.
"Sam," Dean cries, and moves forward without thinking, catching Sam's body before he falls, wrenching the blade out of the angel's hand, falling to the ground with Sam's body in his arms. He looks up. "Why?" he accuses. "He asked for your help."
The angel's hand comes down on Dean's forehead, and he screams as he burns from the inside.
For the first time in as long as he can remember, when Dean wakes he's not restrained in any way.
The first thing he becomes aware of, is his brother.
Sam's on the floor beside the bed. Sitting up, with his back against the edge of the mattress, and his knees drawn up. He hugs his legs to himself.
"It's over," Sam says. "We're never getting out of here."
Dean pulls himself up. "We'll do it again," he says. "One thing we got going for us is unlimited do-overs."
Sam shakes his head. Dean can't see Sam's face, but he can feel it in the air. Sam's given up.
"It won't work," Sam mutters. "The definition of insanity–"
"Is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Dean sighs. "But that's what we're doing here. Slowly going nuts. If that's Chuck's endgame–"
"That's not what he wants," Sam says. "He wants Cain and Abel."
"He wants us to kill each other. Right. Well, he's not getting it. If he couldn't make us do it when I was a demon, or when you had no soul, he sure won't be getting it when we're ourselves."
Sam is suspiciously silent for long moments. Then, finally, he speaks. "I can't do it," he says. "I can't keep waking up every morning–"
"Sammy, shut up." Dean climbs off the bed, and he sinks down to his knees beside his brother. "You'll do it. Because there's no other option. Can you shoot me? Can you watch me die? Cos I figure, if you could have, you would have done it already. Jesus, Sam. I was a demon. I tried to kill you, and I would have. But you never gave up, even though you should have."
"I can't do it," Sam says. His eyes are bloodshot, red-rimmed. He's always been an ugly crier, poor kid. "I can't watch you die."
"Then it's settled," Dean says, and rises to his feet. He grabs Sam by the hand and pulls him up.
"You have to kill me," Sam says.
Sam won't get out of bed. Loop after loop, there's nothing Dean can do to make him. Pleading, bargaining, threatening, nothing works.
Dean drags him out of bed, damn near naked and filthy, and Sam lies where he fell.
If this is Chuck's endgame, the bastard likes to relive it, because day after day after day after day, it repeats.
"I'll do it," Dean says, finally, because he can't bear it any longer. "If it's what you want, if it'll end your suffering, I'll do it."
For the first time in countless loops, Dean sees just a little light in Sam's eyes.
With the promise of oblivion, Dean gets Sam up and into the shower.
Sam's almost catatonic. Dean has to strip him, push him under the spray, and Dean's clothes get soaked as he washes Sam down, removing all the evidence of what he was doing Monday night.
The last time Dean did this, Sam was dead. They weren't in the shower, they were in a ghost town in South Dakota, and Dean stripped Sam down and washed him before running off to do something very very stupid, but which he'll never regret.
Dean takes his time. He's grieving just as hard, even though Sam's not dead yet. Dean doesn't want to do what he has to do, but the endless march of days has broken Sam, and this is humane.
"Thank you," Sam rasps, as Dean dries him off and dresses him in clean clothes, and they are the first words Sam's spoken in weeks.
"Not here," Sam says, as Dean guides him into his own room.
"Yes," Dean says. "Here." It doesn't matter where in the bunker they do it, because however this goes, Dean's never coming back here.
Dean's things don't matter. His collections, his space, his memory foam mattress. If he does what Sam wants him to do, he never wants to see any of it, ever again.
Dean pushes Sam down onto the bed. Sam sits, with his hands folded in his lap, staring down at the floor. Dean retrieves his gun from the weapons bag under the bed, same place it was on Monday night.
He loads it. Two bullets.
Sam comes alive. "No," he cries, grabbing for the gun, wrenching it out of Dean's hands. "It won't work. We'll come back. He'll bring us back."
Dean fights Sam for the gun. "You think I'm gonna stick around without you, Sammy?" He jerks the gun from Sam's grip, and he tucks it into the back of his jeans as he sits down beside his brother. He holds both of Sam's hands in his, and Sam continues to struggle.
"I got a plan," Dean says. "I want this over as much as you do. When you're gone, I'll wait. Long enough that I know we've stopped looping. Then I'm coming with, and wherever we end up, I'll find you. I'll find you, Sammy."
Sam stops struggling. He looks up, into Dean's eyes, and there's a kind of calm there. Peace. Relief.
Dean reaches back for the gun. He grips it in his hand, and he flicks off the safety. His eyes are still locked to Sam's.
"Thank you," Sam says, and he leans forward.
Dean knows Sam's going to kiss him. He sees it, and he does nothing to avoid it. And that's gotta say something about him, that he wants it, it wasn't just something the demon version of him said to fuck with Sam's head.
Sam closes his eyes, and he presses his mouth to Dean's lips. It's dry, and chaste, and Sam sobs and parts his lips on a sigh.
It wasn't just something Sam without a soul said, either.
Dean cups the back of Sam's head with his left hand, and he kisses Sam back. And it's not chaste, and it's wet, as Dean dips his tongue in to taste, to get as much of Sam as he can get before it's over.
They want this. Here, at the end, past caring about right or wrong, they can finally admit it.
Sam's the one to end it. "I'm ready," he says as he pulls away.
Dean pushes him down onto the pillow. "I love you, Sammy," he says, and then he blows his brother's brains out.
Before, when one of them checked out, or tried to leave the bunker, the loop was almost immediate.
Dean expects it, at first. He sits there on his bed beside his brother's body, the pillow stained with blood, the wall covered in Sam's brains, for hours.
Hours.
Sam's phone rings. Dean answers it, because if this is the last Tuesday, Jody needs the information they have.
Time ticks away. Past midnight, past the early hours of the morning, past dawn.
Then Dean puts the gun to his head and pulls the trigger.
Dean wakes to noise. He leaps out of bed and follows the sound of crashing and cries of pain and when he reaches Sam's room, he understands.
Sam presents like a wounded animal. His teeth are bared and he's almost naked and he picks up his desk and throws it across the room as he cries out in pain and frustration.
Dean ducks as bits of broken wood hit the doorframe, then he runs through, and he wraps his arms around his brother, because Sam's alive. Dean sat beside his dead body for hours and hours, but Sam's alive.
This is never going to end. "I'm sorry," Dean says, holding on as Sam struggles and sobs in his arms. "I'm so sorry."
Chuck wants a fight. Chuck wants them to hate each other, and he wants them to fight, and he wants to watch one brother kill the other.
"I won't," Sam says.
"I know."
"I can't."
"I know, Sammy," Dean says. "It's okay."
"You have a reason," Sam says.
After Dean calmed Sam down, got him to stop throwing furniture, he got Sam into the shower. And if there's one good thing that's come out of this, it's that Sam's talking. He's making decisions. He's showering his own damn self because after that last loop, Dean didn't want to know where his mind was going to go if he had to get in there with his brother again.
"No, I don't," Dean says.
"Yeah." Sam stares down at his slowly cooling cup of coffee. It's all Dean could convince him to take after he pulled him into the kitchen, offered to cook him an omelet, toast, anything he wanted. Even his cardboard cereal couldn't tempt him. "You do."
"I don't hate you, Sammy."
"You should. I'm sick."
"Anyone would be, after all these loops. Hell, I'm barely hanging on by my fingernails."
Sam's head jerks up. "I kissed you, Dean. You're my brother. That should make you want to hunt me down and–"
Dean sighs and rolls his eyes. "You fucking idiot," he says, and immediately regrets it. "I mean, shut up." He remembers that kiss. Vividly. And he knows that if it hadn't been for Sam's desperate need for this all to be over, and Dean's promise to him, he would have taken it further. Let it go further. "Don't know if you noticed, but I kissed you back."
Sam looks uncertain, hesitant. He shakes his head. "No."
"Yes," Dean says. "We talked about this, remember? You propositioned me when Chuck took your soul. He turned me into a demon and I absolutely would have boned my brother. Take away the morality issues and we're into each other."
Sam shakes his head, but there's no hesitation now. "It's wrong. It's sick. We were monsters. I'm still a monster."
"Then so am I," Dean says. "But what good is right or wrong when we're facing an eternity of Tuesdays?"
Later that same day, Sam finds Dean in his room.
"Heya, Sammy," Dean says. "Jody call?"
Sam doesn't answer. Instead, he pulls a gun and points it at Dean. "Get your gun." Sam's hand is shaking. "Get your goddamn gun, Dean."
Dean shows the palms of his hands, and he swings his legs over the edge of the bed and stands. "Give me the gun, Sammy."
"Get your own," Sam growls.
Dean gets closer. "You can't make me shoot you."
"Then I'll kill you, Dean. Either way, this ends."
"You think that's gonna work? You think that'll be good enough for Chuck? Then shoot me." Dean takes a final step, until the barrel of Sam's gun is pressed against Dean's forehead. "Shoot me, Sam."
Dean closes his eyes. The gun in Sam's hand is shaking, and Dean expects it to go off at any moment, and he almost welcomes it. Oblivion. The end. Hope flares in his chest.
Then the gun is gone. Dean opens his eyes.
The gun is pressed against Sam's temple, and as Dean reaches for it, Sam pulls the trigger.
The last thing Dean sees is his brother's body falling and his brains splattered across the walls.