It was a hard pill to swallow, knowing that your time would be up in less than a year. Of course, it wasn’t unheard of; thousands of people suffered the same fate every day. He wasn’t special or anything, and everyone was going to die at some point. He just happened to know how and when. Dean left Sasha’s and headed back to the bunker, hoping that Sam was home and alone. He was quiet as he came in, and he went straight to the kitchen to fix himself a whiskey sour sunrise, figuring it would be acceptable enough to have in the morning, given it had orange juice.
The part that hurt the most was that he didn’t know how much time he had left with Sam, though maybe it didn’t matter. He just needed to take the opportunity for what it was. If he weren’t in Vallo, he’d be on his way to certain death in a few months. Instead, he was in Vallo, a place he now hoped he would never leave, and that Sam would stay just as long. He finished up his drink and then made his way to Sam’s bedroom. He knocked at the door softly and called out his name, “Sammy, you awake in there?”
Usually being a pretty light sleeper, Sam was surprised when he heard Dean’s soft knock at his door and not the footfalls that had come before. He rolled his shoulders out in a small stretch and came into contact with a warm back next to him, and remembered that he wasn’t alone. He remembered thinking at some point before he had dozed off that he would wake up and find himself alone and manage to avoid the awkward morning after farewells, but it turned out that wasn’t going to be the case. Quickly and quietly, he pulled his covers off of him and donned his pajama bottoms and a shirt before he shuffled to his door to open it.
“Hey, dude, what’s up?” he asked Dean as he slipped out of the door and closed it behind him. “I thought you were staying at Sasha’s last night. Is something wrong?”
“Oh, I guess your guest is still here.” Dean replied with a crooked grin and took a step back from the door. “It’s like, nine in the morning dude, she left on an errand, and I didn’t feel like staying. Plus-” he was quiet for a moment, and then he suddenly threw his arms around Sam in a fierce embrace, hugging him tightly. “I just really fucking missed you. I didn’t mean to cramp your style or anything. If I had known she was still here, I wouldn’t have knocked.” Or, maybe he would have anyway, who knew.
“I had this incredibly shitty nightmare, and then I didn’t want to go back to bed.” He continued to speak, not releasing his grip on Sam. “We can talk later, though, like when your guest is gone.”
Sam rolled his eyes a little and shook his head to wave off what Dean was saying about his guest. “I think she stole my alarm clock while I was sleeping. I had no idea it was so late.” He was surprised when Dean hugged him, not in a bad way either, and he threw his arms back around his brother and hugged him back just as tight. They hugged, but it was a rare treat when one of them initiated it outside of returning from the dead. The embrace felt a little - like Dean needed it, and Sam wasn’t letting go until he did. That must have been one fucked up nightmare.
“It’s okay, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere, and you’re not cramping anything. You’re my brother and way more important than a chick. We can talk now.”
Son of a bitch, that hurt. Dean hissed through his teeth, completely having forgotten about the wound on his back. Which, he wondered if Cas would be able to heal it, but he’d ask about that later. He grinned through it and slowly released the other, only because he wanted it to stop hurting and he worried that Sam would get upset if he knew.
“Thanks, I appreciate it. It’s just- I don’t know-” He groaned in frustration and considered his words carefully. “I’m pretty sure that something not-” Did he tell Sam everything, or just enough to let him know they won the war against Chuck? No, Sam didn’t need to know he was going to die. He didn’t want his brother carrying that around. “It was about back home, Cas died and, well...Jack sort of becomes God?”
“What’s up with your back?” Sam asked as they parted, touching him gingerly as he had heard the hiss that indicated pain. He only knew a part of their lives where Dean had come from, but he knew enough to know who Jack was. “Cas dies. Really dies,” he repeated dumbly, narrowing his eyes slightly in confusion. “And… Lucifer’s son becomes God. Sort of God. I mean, that’s better than Chuck. Still scary, but he sounded okay. Good thing it was just a dream, right?”
Even touching Cas dying, even in a nightmare, was something Sam couldn’t get his head around yet, but the dream Dean had sounded disturbing so far all the way around. He was missing parts of it, big parts, and he didn’t completely understand without them, namely which part had disturbed Dean so much that he came home to tell him about it. “So what about us? Why did you miss me so much?” he paused. “Maybe we should sit down. This dream obviously did something to you, and you don’t need to rush through telling it, standing in the hall.”
"Yeah, you're right. I guess we should go sit down." Dean had once again completely forgotten that Sam wasn't aware of many things, and in his rush to explain his dream, Sam might have missed out. "That's the thing, Sammy. It wasn't just a dream." He turned to head over to the library so they could sit down at one of the tables and still be within earshot of Sam's room, in case his guest woke up. "Okay, well…" Dean took a seat and sat down carefully, sitting up so as not to lean against his back.
"When Jack was born, he was born pretty damn powerful, and I'm pretty sure the kid could have wiped us all off the map if he wanted to. Though, I'm not really sure how Chuck would have handled that, but-" he trailed off, brows furrowed in thought as he found himself momentarily distracted. "Anyway, Jack came out full-sized from the get-go, there was no baby phase, and-" fuck, his mind was going all over the place. Sam barely knew much about anything. How could he sum it up so easily? "Let me rewind a little. Lucifer got someone pregnant, and she died giving birth to Jack, the Nephilim. Did I mention mom comes back to life?" He realized that it was a lot of information at once, and he didn't want to overload Sam at once.
"Sorry, I just- there was a really close call there, and as I said, we lost Cas, maybe, I mean, I thought we did, but Jack might have pulled him from the Empty, Chuck did it with Lucifer, so, I don't know really, but I do know I just...it was close, Sammy, that's all."
“Not just a dream? Like - this really happened?”
Sam followed Dean to the library and pulled out a chair opposite him to take a seat in. He was a little -lot- surprised to hear about Jack, how powerful he was, and given whose son he was, that they were all as close to him as they were. He also knew that Dean and Cas weren’t idiots when it came to stuff like that, and though he didn’t really know the how’s or why’s or exact reasons behind things like that, he still trusted. He knew Dean wasn’t going to do anything as supid as allow Lucifer’s son into their lives unless the kid had really proven himself. But that was a different story for a different day. He understood enough to get what Dean was telling him, he knew enough about that part of their lives to understand what had happened.
Wait, mom? Did he just say mom came back?
“Okay. Yeah, I saw Jack, I didn’t see how he was born or anything, but I saw enough to know who he was and that he was a good guy - is a good guy. You don’t have to slow down to explain details like that to me. Ijust want to hear about your dream… your not dream. So, Jack becomes God, Cas might die, but Cas might be pulled from the Empty by Jack, so we’re not sure. Okay. So Cas might have been a close call.” He could understand why Dean was so upset by that, of course, Cas was their friend, if he had seen these things he would be upset too.
“So us, Dean. You and me. Tell me about us.”
Shit. Sam was too smart for his own good. Dean had tried to gloss over certain details, but of course, Sam went right back to square one. "I died, Sam. I woke up just as I was abou-" it was still hard to talk about for him, but he couldn't just half-ass it now. "It's really not as important right now because here, I'm safe. This happens back home, when we're on a case and... well, I'm not much older than I am right now."
He whispered thinly and dropped his gaze to his hands momentarily. "There's a fight, and in the process, I get thrown back right onto a piece of rebar that was maybe like eight inches long, and…" his voice fell soft, and a single tear spilled onto his hand. He really hoped that his brother wouldn't go through the same thing, that he wouldn't have the same dream somehow. He didn't want Sam to know that sorrow, even though it was inevitable. At least he could hold it off for as long as possible.
Dean lifted his gaze to meet Sam's face, and he offered him a weak smile. "On the plus side, we get a dog.
Sam was silent the entire time that he listened to Dean. He had started that second telling off with words that got his attention and held it, and then stunned him into silence. He could feel tears spring up that went with the hollow and empty aching he felt in the rest of his body, and he wasn’t sure how long had passed that he had just sat there and watched Dean, trying to find even a single word to make this feel okay. Dean was sitting right there in front of him, and only one of them was older - did he say both of them? - but that one word that would make this better in his head, he couldn’t find it, he couldn’t comfort. He couldn’t do a damn thing, and when the tears did start to fall, he just let them go unchecked. “Dean, there’s no plus side,” he wiped at his nose with his knuckles and his eyes with his forearm.
Rebar. An eight inch piece of rebar. An eight inch piece of rebar will end the best person he’s ever known. Rebar. He fought the devil and God, and that’s what does it?
Not happening. He leaned forward and put his hand on Dean’s neck, and the same with his other hand. “That’s - if we go home, you’re retired,” his voice was raw and full of emotion. “You’re done, Dean. You have to be. I’m not letting this happen. This is wrong.”
"Sam, Sammy, c'mon, how realistic is that?" He questioned with a sigh, hoping he hadn't made a mistake by telling his brother. "First of all, if we go back home, we won't be together. You'll be with another Dean, and I’ll be with another Sam. Neither of them will have a clue, and who's to say that when we leave, we'll even remember being here?" He hated being a debbie downer, but they had to be realistic about things.
"I don't like it any more than you do, but that's just the way it is." His brother had already been through so much as it were. He had arrived soulless, then his wall broke, and the hallucinations started right back up, and Dean hadn't been too patient with him either. He had gone to alternate universes before, but this was different from anything that they had experienced. There was no telling what it would be like if and when they went home. "There's a good chance we could be here for years and years, and it won't even matter."
“So just accept that? Accept that you’re going to die and we can’t do anything to stop it? We have all these friends - Dean, you’re friends with Death or - or at least on okayish terms with Death right? Can’t we just -,” What could they do? What kind of deal could they make with him? Her. Death was female, now. From the things he had seen, Death was a woman, now and he didn’t know whether this one wanted to deal with them beyond getting rid of God.
But Dean was right, as much as he couldn’t stand to admit it in this circumstance. If they went home, they wouldn’t be together. He’d be with a Sam that was the right age, and he’d be with a Dean that hadn’t seen this far into their future. “Then we just have to figure out how to stay.” Sam didn’t believe what he was saying, he wanted to ask Dean how he knew that this was something more than a dream, but he could feel the certainty in Dean’s tone. He wouldn’t have said anything to him if he’d believed differently. He sounded resigned to this, like he had been expecting something like this all along.
Elbows on his knees, he put his face in his palms and sat here for a second without looking at anything, his shoulders shaking very softly.
"No, Sam, we can't make a deal with Death because I killed her. Billie hated me, and she threatened to throw me into the Empty upon my death. It really pissed her off that I would die and come back to life, repeatedly." Both hands moved to rub briskly over his face and he slumped down in his chair a little bit. "Chuck is human; all of the angels are gone, Chuck wiped every single being off the map. Well, aside from you, me, and Jack. We were the last three left standing, and we did it, we finally won the damn war and all that celestial bullshit, it's fucking over, Sam. You get to live a life away from all of that, okay? You probably get married to Eileen and have about half a dozen kids, and you get it all, Sammy."
,
Dean was reaching now, and he wasn't even sure why he was trying so hard. He knew that Sam wouldn't be the same with him gone, that his brother would rather forever have Chuck and Lucifer on his back than live without him. But, Dean never expected to live past a certain age. He knew that a family was never going to be a possibility, and he had come to terms with that long ago. But, his brother was a completely different story.
"Sam, are you okay?"
“No, I’m not okay. If you leave here, you’re going back to die. Not in a few years, but when you leave here you’re leaving to die. And I can’t do anything about it. I can’t even go with you. Do you think I’m okay?” Sam scrubbed at his eyes again as he stood up and paced a few feet and came back. No, he wasn’t going to do that. He would pace later, work out all of his nervous energy later when Dean wasn’t looking at him. Dean was being strong in front of him, and he was going to do the same for Dean.
“I don’t know Eileen, Dean. I’m sure she’s a nice girl and all, but I can’t look forward to that or to having kids when my brother has to die so I can have that kind of life. Do you think I want that? Do you think I want to lose you, ever?”
Sam stood up again, and almost threw his arms around Dean in another hug, but stopped himself when he recalled the hiss he gave earlier. After Dean had avoided the question earlier Sam had assumed that maybe his night with Sasha had ventured a little on the wilder side, but now he realized how Dean knew that this wasn’t a dream. “Let me see your back.”
"No, of course not, Sam. I was just-" he closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. "I'm sorry, that was stupid of me to say, and I didn't mean it like that." There really was no bright side to him dying, but Dean had chosen to let go simply because he finally knew that somehow, someway, his brother would be okay. At least, that's what it felt like in the dream, but not a dream.
When his brother requested to see his back, there was a slight hesitation before he removed his flannel and then pulled his t-shirt up over his head. Though the wound had stopped bleeding, it was still a sore and sensitive area. "Sasha fixed me up, but it would probably be a good idea to change the bandage. If you don't mind?" He could probably do it, but it wouldn't be all that easy.
“Don’t be sorry for stuff you’re thinking Dean, you can feel like that, but I can feel like this, too. I know that I’m not your Sam - the one you know now, but you’re my Dean. You’re always going to be my Dean, and I don’t want to lose you. I’ll never be okay with that, I’ll never accept that. That’s just not how I work.” And that wasn’t how he worked. There had to be something, someone here that he could deal with, someone he could get to make sure they stayed. He’d work on that, find a way, without Dean knowing because he would try to stop him.
Who could he even pray to now?
Sam stepped around to Dean’s back to help him pull his shirt up. The bandage and its size - and placement - were enough to alarm Sam, but he kept calm and very gingerly pulled one side loose so he could take a look. He knew what he saw was going to be bad, but he still wasn’t prepared for what he saw. The shuddering breath that left him was quickly silenced by his hand covering his mouth, but the grim face he pulled couldn’t be stopped and Sam was just glad that Dean couldn’t see it.
“Oh yeah,” he said, clearing his throat and putting the side of the bandage back in place as easily as he had removed it. “Do you wanna stay here and ‘ll go get the stuff or you wanna go with?”
The way that Sam pulled back and then recovered his wound told him that the sight had definitely been alarming, and he wondered what it looked like. "I'll stay here, just in case your guest wakes up. This isn't the best place to wander around on your own." The last thing they needed was for someone to unleash the wicked witch again accidentally, or something even worse. Dean would have offered to get the stuff himself, given it was Sam's guest, but he was sure that Sam wanted to feel useful, and he didn't want to take that away from him.
"You're always my Sam, by the way. It doesn't matter if you're older or younger. You’re still my brother, and every bit as important to me." He stated firmly before Sam was out of earshot. It really didn't matter if the Sam in the room with him now wouldn't be the Sam clutching his hand when he died. He was still a Sam that was going to lose him, and Dean knew it wouldn't be easy for any version of his brother to handle. Well, unless Lucifer was in control, but even then, it still wouldn't really be Sam.
He pulled the chair forward and rested his elbows on the table, his head in his hands as he sat there, waiting for the other to return.
“Oh, she - damn, I forgot about her. I’ll hurry.” Sam started to walk away briskly to get the supplies he needed, but he heard Dean call after him, and he slowed down to hear him. He wondered if Dean knew how much it meant to him that Dean thought that, enough that he said that. He couldn’t even answer him verbally, he had to bit his lip but he made a noise to let Dean know that he heard him. He wasn’t going to handle this well, he would fake it, of course, he’d already had one breakdown in front of Dean today, and that was more than enough. He knew Dean wasn’t big on tears so that was enough of that, at least in front of his brother. But he couldn’t hold back anymore, and at his destination he stopped and leaned on the wall just inside and let go, sobbing quietly into his arm.
Once he got control of himself and cleaned his face, he got the things he would need to tend to Dean, grabbed the emergency medical kit in case he needed something else, and headed back. “Okay, shirt up again,” he said, dragging a chair around to his brother's backside. He again peeled back the tape that held the bandage in place and removed the whole thing this time, and tossed it in a container he’d brought just for that. “This is going to be cold.” Jesus, he hoped that Dean never got a look at this. He couldn’t believe that this was the wound that was going to take him away. He was looking at it, taking care of it, but it was something that should never exist. “So, I’m thinking. I’m going to go and wake her up, Ashley or whatever her name was, and,” he continued as he dabbed the peroxide on and started to finish up what he was doing. “And we should spend the afternoon together. Just us. Maybe order pizza if you don’t feel like going out. Whatever you wanna do, on me.”