Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dean’s arms strain with the weight in his grasp, but he doesn’t let go. Adrenaline makes him numb to it all. He feels soft hair brushing his chin, quickly cooling blood under the palm of his hand, but nothing else.

His vision registers Bobby sprinting toward him. He’s separate from his senses. Bobby’s saying something. Bobby takes Sammy from him. No. That’s when Dean wakes up.

“What…” Dean’s throat is sore from screaming. “What are you doing.”

“We gotta get him inside,” Bobby says, blunt and simple. “C’mon, now. Get his legs.”

Dean stands on wavering feet. The bloodrush makes him stumble, and his mouth fills with saliva. He wants to throw up, but he won’t. He does as Bobby orders and grabs Sam under the knees. Together, they walk toward the rusted up shack on the edge of the ghost town and place Sam on the squeaky bed frame in the corner.

Time passes in fragments after that. Bobby’s there for awhile, then he’s gone. Dean sits by Sam’s side. Sam’s face is completely white now. There’s no doubt that he’s dead. Dean can’t even pretend.

He talks to Sam for god knows how long, just to get it all out in the open. He apologizes. He asks Sam what he should do. He breaks.

When Bobby comes back- or he was there earlier, fuck time isn’t linear for Dean anymore, none of it makes sense without his brother- Dean is more alive, the grief and tears burning with an anguished tinge inside him. It’s cliche and stupid and it doesn’t really compare but it feels like he’s been gored. A vital piece of him has been removed, and he should’ve died with it, but the case of himself continues. It’s a fucking cosmic joke.

“Then let it end!” he finds himself screaming in Bobby’s face, spittle flying. Bobby’s face goes almost as white as Sam’s, and Dean wants to laugh mockingly at the horror found there. Of course Bobby could never understand the scope of what he and Sam had. If he knew what they did in the dark, he’d run and never look back. If he knew how many monsters Dean had enjoyed killing, had actually relished the destruction he wrought, all ‘cause they’d touched Sammy, well, Bobby might consider ganking Dean.

He ignores Bobby after that. He doesn’t know if Bobby leaves, if time passes, if he comes back. He doesn’t know if he talks to Sam more or not.

Emotions rise again within him. His throat is dry. He’d been screaming again. He looks down and finds his hands on the steering wheel of the Impala. The passenger seat is empty. Dean climbs out and finds himself at a crossroads.

He buries the little summoning capsule in the dirt and stands in the middle, waiting. He makes a few gripes he can’t recall a moment later.

It isn’t long before the air turns, and the crescent moon seems wary. He spins on his heel and finds himself looking at a maliciously beautiful woman with red eyes.

There’s no need to bullshit. “Bring him back,” he rasps.

She grins, slowly, the enjoyment sliding across her face like oil. “No.”

“Not ten years, I don’t care,” Dean says, without hesitation. “Five.”

“No.”

Dean nods. “Three. Three is where I end it.”

“You think you have any weight in this?”

She laughs, genuinely pleased and happy. Dean thought demons weren’t capable. “No, you can’t have three, or anything else. It’s so fun to finally watch the Winchesters suffer.”

Dean almost cracks right there, feels the pressure in his head threatening to fracture his skull. He wants to lay down and disappear and he wants to kill, destroy. “One year,” he says, and at this point, he’s just begging. “Please, I’m. One year with him. Then you can do what you want with me.”

She doesn’t speak at first, considering, and hope rises unabated in Dean’s chest. His breathing quickens. She takes a step forward, lips pursed slightly. Dean moves into her space. They’re close enough that her nose brushes against his. Her eyes are dark, with milky black corneas, a disgusting concoction.

“No,” she whispers, the syllable pressing her lips briefly against his.

He rears back to throw a bunch and stumbles forward when he hits nothing. She’s gone.

Dean unearths and re-buries the capsule seven more times, each time daftly waiting for another demon to appear, someone more desperate, or maybe even someone more perversely curious.

No one shows up.

At dawn, Dean returns to the Impala. He shouts once, quickly, a quick burst of steam released and pain. He rubs at his eyes. His entire face is soaked with tears and he doesn’t know when it happened. He can hardly breathe.

Halfway back to Cold Oak, his emotions leach away. No. This isn’t the end. It simply isn’t logical to live without Sam. There’s another way. There’s got to be. Dean nods to himself, jaw tight. Even if it takes the end of the world, the murder of twenty different ancient gods, including Sam’s own, he’ll fucking do it.

He’ll do it without a second thought.

When he gets back to the shack, he wastes no time in lifting Sam up in a fireman’s carry and depositing him in the back seat of the Impala with the tender care of a mother laying a sleeping infant in its crib. He tears out of there, gravel clinking against the Impala’s bumper. He doesn’t want to see Bobby right now, doesn’t want to hear it.

Motels won’t do, that much is obvious. He doesn’t want anyone to see them. No one deserves to look at Sam’s visage anymore. He recalls a hunting cabin a friend of Bobby’s keeps over in Montana, and drives in that direction. He never stops. He forgets to sleep.

Once inside, Sam is cleaned, stitched, and dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. He’s placed under the covers. In the crisp moonlight, the paleness of his face can be attributed to the night sky. He’s just sleeping.

Dean sits on the bed beside Sam. “Just a moment,” he whispers. “Then I’ll get to work, I’ll save you, I promise.” As an afterthought, he adds, “I love you,” but it sounds weak and sacrilegious, and he’s immediately embarrassed for having said it. It’s not good enough for his Sam.

Dean watches the moonlight move across the bedroom floor and crawl up the walls. He watches the sun rise again, for the third day. None of it happened at all, he thinks desperately, it’s so much like a dream.

Dean wakes with a jolt, heart pounding hard enough to be felt through his chest. He sits up, panting, looking left and right. To his left is Sam. To his right is the sun, high above the horizon, shining into the room. The sky is a happy blue, and the land outside the cabin is thickly forested and lush. He can see a distant, overgrown path weaving like an emaciated snake through the woods, ending at a pond. He thinks he can spy a quiet dock resting on the waters.

Sam would love it here. He will. They’ll spend some time here, no thought of the world, only of each other. Dean will re-learn Sam’s body and give Sam his everything. He only hopes it will be enough.

Dean stretches, and forces himself to get out of bed. In the kitchen, there isn’t much. He’s no use to Sam starved to death, so he makes himself a sandwich and eats it mechanically, sitting alone at the kitchen table. The moment he’s swallowed the last bite, he gets up and wipes his hands on the seat of his pants.

He heads into the bedroom to check on Sam. “You’ll be okay,” he tells him. “I always patch you up, don’t I? I’m gonna fix you up, I promise.”

Dean sniffs. He nods to himself. He leaves the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. The cabin is small, made only of a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and living room. In the living room are shelves upon shelves of books on lore, religion, and spells.

Dean picks up piles of books at random from every section. He drops them onto the coffee table and sits on the couch, letting out a heavy grunt. After scanning the titles, he chooses a heavy grimoire of ancient witchcraft and pages through it. It’s written in Middle English. He wishes he had Sam to help him decipher the puzzling parts.

He pauses to himself to ask himself how far, morally, he’ll go. Would he become a witch? Make a pact with a demon, worship Hell?

Sure, why not?

He keeps reading.

He’s nose deep in a book on the Pagan gods when something causes him to look up and shake off the cobwebs. His hunter instincts click into place, hackles rising. He looks around the room, sweeping the perimeter. There’s nothing inside or outside. But the itch persists.

He can’t help but check on Sam again, just to make sure. He finds himself running down the hallway, bursting through the door. Sam’s where he was before, peaceful and unmoving. “I shouldn’t have slammed the door,” Dean says, though he doesn’t know who he’s saying it to or who he’s saying it for.

He leaves the door open when he exits the room, walking slowly down the hall, shoulders hunched.

Angry tears bead at the corners of his eyes. He feels useless, hopeless. When he was dying, Sam had him back to normal- albeit at the hands of a chained reaper- in days. By now, Dean should have a lead, should have something, anything, but they’ve got no internet and he can’t get himself to go into town. Why? Is he selfish? Protective? Stupid? Insane? Fearful?

All of them, he thinks dully, but his thoughts are obliterated when he enters the living room again. His joints lock up and all he can do is stare, disbelieving.

Sam’s sitting on the couch, eyes wide and dark and wet, looking at Dean with that damned, beautiful, earnest expression of his, something so Sam that Dean stops breathing.

Dean hears himself hyperventilating, but he can’t feel it. He blinks, rapidly, expecting his vision to blur and distort with alcohol he didn’t remember consuming, but nothing changes. Sam is still there. Still pale.

“Sammy?” he asks, not even daring to hope.

Sam stands up. His bottom lip wobbles and he bites it, creeping over to Dean. Dean stays stone-still. “I’m sorry,” Sam says, and his voice is distant and thin, like a burst of wind streaming into the Impala at ninety miles an hour, gone half a second later.

Dean’s brain turns back on, and he nods, swallowing past the blockage in his throat. “You’re--” he coughs. “You’re not actually here.”

“I’m here,” Sam says, “but I’m there, too.” He inclines his head toward the hall and the bedroom.

“A ghost.” Dean states the obvious. “Sammy, you’re.”

“I know,” Sam sighs. “I know, I just, please--I couldn’t leave you.”

It shouldn’t, Dean knows it shouldn’t, but hearing him say that unlocks something from Dean’s chest. After days of doing just about as much existing as his corpse of a baby brother, Dean feels a tendril of life slip into him. “It’s okay, Sammy,” he says. “You don’t have to leave.”

“The moment anything happens,” Sam starts, and Dean doesn’t have to ask what he’s talking about. He refuses to think about it. “I’ll go, but not yet, I. I couldn’t. I needed to say goodbye.”

“No,” Dean gets out in a rush. “No, no goodbyes, Sammy, you can stay.” He steps into the room. “Stay.”

Doubt flickers across Sam’s face. Sam’s entire body flickers. “Okay,” he says, half the syllable mute. Sam’s weakening, he’s going off to wherever the hell ghosts go when this shit happens.

Dean sits on the couch and Sam sits next to him. He can’t help but reach out, just to see, just to be disappointed. Sure enough, his hand goes straight through Sam’s thigh, no warmth or solid body to be found.

“Dean,” Sam says, and there’s something careful in his tone. “Thank you.”

Dean resists the urge to tell Sam to shut up. Sam does this every time they’re in danger, and Dean always shuts it down, ‘cause he knows they’ll make it through.

This time, it’s different. This time, Dean can’t refuse Sam anything. He stays silent.

Dean can feel it when Sam leaves him. He doesn’t have to look.

He’s alone again.

Dean gets off the couch, spinning around slowly. “You still here somehow?” he asks. “How about showing up, Sammy? Please tell me you’re still here.”

Dean waits. When nothing happens, his legs go out from under him and he collapses to the floor, elbows banging against the coffee table. He lists, not caring where his body falls. He lets out a small cry. The thank you. Sam just needed to say goodbye before he left, but Dean needs more. He doesn’t want a goodbye. He wants Sam. He’s not ready. He’s not fucking ready.

“Sammy,” Dean says, to no one in particular, his face mashed against the floor. “Fuck.”

He hears a rattle noise, like a snake or a bee, and hauls himself upright, sniffling and wiping his face on his sleeve. He doesn’t want to see how wrecked and red his face is right now.

He hears the noise again and looks around the room. Something on one of the shelves moves, catching his eye, he turns to face it. Something small shakes off of the shelf and clatters onto the floor.

Dean moves without thinking, bending down and picking up the item.

It’s a planchette.

A laugh startles its way out of him. The relief he feels makes him lightheaded, the permanent smile etched into his cheeks starting to ache. Thank god. Thank god.

He waves the planchette in the air. “Loud and clear, Sammy, loud and clear,” he says. He bends down to shelf-level and sees the box shoved into it, worn and scratched. He tugs it out of its place and it seems like the bookshelf sighs in relief at the loss of pressure.

Dean flips the box over and looks at the label. “Elijah Bond’s Original Spirit Board,” reads the Oujia board box. Good christ. He wonders how much this thing would go for at an auction. He wonders how old it is. Probably almost 150 years old.

He sets the box onto the table. He flips open the lid and pulls out the wooden board. He shoves some of his books out of the way, not caring if they fall onto the floor. He sets the planchette on the board.

“Okay. You still here?” he asks, looking up and around the room.

He waits. The planchette stays where it is.

“Probably all puttered out from all that tricky ghost crap,” Dean says to himself. “Hell, I should sleep, too. Talk to you tomorrow, Sammy.”

He steps out of the room. Once he passes the threshold into the hallway, he pauses, looking back. “I, uh.” He clears his throat. This is not a difficult thing to do, he chides himself. “I missed you, kid.”

He keeps walking. He steps into the bedroom and wrinkles his nose. It smells foul. He looks toward the window, wondering if somehow a skunk got in…

The truth stops him cold. He wonders why it wasn’t his first thought.

It takes him a couple of minutes to dump all the ice from the freezer into the bathroom tub. He fills it up with frigidly cold water. He’ll check the freezer again in a few more hours, and continue adding ice to the tub as needed.

He ignores the bloat on Sam’s face, the green and blue tinge of his skin. He ignores the stiffness of Sam’s body, and carries him into the bathroom. He sets him down in the bathtub, ice crunching under him. He shifts Sam so his neck is propped above the water, makes Sam comfortable.

“There,” he says aloud, “that’ll keep you safe for now.”

Dean goes back to the bedroom and yanks off the sheets. He opens the window a crack and climbs into bed, pulling the scratchy comforter up over his head.

He sleeps.

***

Dean doesn’t even eat before he goes to the Ouija board. It’s the first thing on his mind, a bright little nugget of hope and determination that propels his aching body up and out of bed.

He sits on the couch, hunched over. He leans over the coffee table and sets the planchette in the middle of the Ouija board. “‘Kay, Sammy, rise and shine,” he calls out. “You here?”

He sits back, fingers twisting anxiously in his lap.

He waits. Nothing happens.

“C’mon,” Dean says, knowing what he sounds like all too well, “I could really use something here, just to know. Hell, stir up a light breeze. I could use it.”

He gnaws at the inside of his cheek. He’s never been good at waiting. His leg begins to jiggle without his permission.

Sam wouldn’t get out the Ouija board just to leave, would he? He might not have control over it, though, might have gone away anyway. He could be too weak after appearing to Dean yesterday. Dean has no idea how baby ghosts work, how steep the learning curve is. Sammy’s a smart kid, though. However it all works, he’s pretty confident Sam’ll figure it out, maybe even bust open a cool loophole or two.

A sliver of Dean, closest to his heart, is still cold with fear. Each moment without Sam is lined with doubt. He doesn’t want his brief moment with Sam to have been the last. He never wants to be without Sam ever again.

He sits on the couch motionlessly for over an hour, just waiting, mind kept as blank as possible. He ignores the paranoid thoughts that continue to wander to the front of his mind with a vicious concentration.

After another half hour, he can’t stand sitting still any longer. He grabs the witchy tome from the floor and opens it up to a page he’d dog-eared. He reads the same passages over and over again, trying to make sense of the flowery, riddle-like prose. There are several mentions of life after death, and Dean tries to chase the outcome of the vague spells held within the dusty pages.

The words blur and jumble together. He reads entire paragraphs without processing a single word. His jittery leg jiggles at a pace rivaled only by the caffeine addicted.

Another noise startles him out of his muddled thoughts. His head whips over the Ouija board. The planchette trembles, vibrating in place. He can just imagine Sam staring at it, facial muscles twitching in intense concentration as he tries to will the little block of wood to go where he wants it to. The image is kinda funny, and Dean’s mood lightens, earlier darkness forgotten.

“You’re doin’ great, Sammy,” he encourages, trying not to sound too dry. “Keep at it.”

The planchette stills. Dean can almost hear the “bite me” implied.

A moment later, it shakes again, slowly moving across the board in an awkward, juddery start-stop motion. It moves like an agonized spider, half-squished and desperate to escape the fly swatter.

It stops on the E. Okay. Dean keeps a big, glowing E in his head.

Dean thinks of himself as a relatively patient person, but watching the planchette make progress slower than a snail traversing the tallest mountain is nothing short of torture. Sam’s trying to tell him something but there’s such a buffer between them.

The planchette stops again, finally. A.

Dean supposes ghostly abilities work like a muscle. The next time the planchette moves is not fast by any interpretation of the word, but it’s definitely an improvement.

1. It rests on a T. Dean waits for it to move again. It doesn’t.

E A T.

“Okay, kiddo,” Dean says, throat suddenly full. He scrubs at his eyes. “I’m going, alright? I’m going right now.”

Dean gets up and steps over to the cramped little kitchen. An internal micro-windfall leaves him sapped, hands gripping the edge of the counter tightly enough to leave his knuckles white. He ducks his head, hiding his face between his arms, giving himself a moment.

He doesn’t deserve Sam. Sam deserves peace. And yet. Dean can tell this dance will become familiar.

He stands up straight, clearing his throat. He starts a pot of water boiling, gets out a box of pasta. It’s the first food he actually tastes in awhile, the first food he enjoys in much longer.

Once he’s satisfied, he falls back onto the couch. The planchette immediately lifts up, jumping up and down with a rapid burst of energy. Dean grins immediately, fuzzy warmth hitting him from head to toe.

The planchette moves, slowly, but with more force behind it than before. S. U. P. P. L. Y.

It heads to the R, but Dean shakes his head before Sam can spell out R U N. “No,” Dean says. “I’ve got everything I need here. Don’t worry about me.”

The planchette shakes the pointer back and forth, like Sam’s waving a finger at him. F. O. O. D. A. M. M. O.

Dean sighs, leaning back and running a hand through his hair. “It can wait. We’ve gotta figure you out first.”

The room is paused for a moment, dust motes framed in stillness, and Dean only resumes breathing, the clock only resumes ticking, when the planchette slides again.

1. K.

Dean can hear Sam’s tone. He isn’t happy. Sam’s got a point, but Dean does, too. He doesn’t need to hit the ground running just yet, not when the whole world had been ripped out from under him and replaced with a far more tenuous equilibrium, like a thin disc of glass balancing on the head of a needle.

***

Sam’s progress makes leaps and bounds after that. The planchette whisks around the board, sometimes spelling out long, rambling sentences faster than Dean can read them. They argue frequently, but Dean never feels true anger rise within him.

The best moments are when Sam summons up the energy to manifest physically. Each time he does it, he’s closer to being fully opaque, his voice louder, his movements realized instead of staticy and glitchy.

Days pass by, seemingly shorter and shorter as Sam grows and develops as a spirit. It becomes the new normal. Ghost Sam is no less Sam than Alive Sam was. Dean doesn’t grieve any longer. When he adds ice to the tub, he concentrates on the minutia of the task and nothing else. He doesn’t look at the contents of the tub.

Their most frequent dispute is over the next thing to do. Dean’s got his heart set on finding a way to harness Sam’s spirit to his body and reanimate him, though he can’t bear to leave Sam’s body and the cabin to find more reliable information. He doesn’t even call Bobby, doesn’t use his phone, ignoring the twenty voicemails waiting for him.

Sam is against any attempts to bring him back to life. He’s convinced it only ends in pain or other horrible outcomes, and most definitely the death of others. He writes out “NOT WORTH IT” on a daily basis. When he physically manifests, Dean bargains with him: leave the arguments to the board. He wants his brief and fleeting moments with Sam’s voice and appearance to be light. He has a feeling Sam’s patience is wearing thin, though.

They never make any concrete progress, reaching a testy stalemate each day. On the outside, Dean pretends the war is ongoing, but on the inside, he’s almost relieved. He wouldn’t protest to living out the rest of his days in this cabin with his baby brother. It isn’t the worst outcome. He’s still got Sammy, in various shapes and forms. That’s Dean’s bottom line, his most important thing.

It only takes a week and a half for Sam to be able to keep a physical form for several hours on end. The recovery period gets shorter and shorter, and soon enough, Dean and Sam talk each and every day, the Ouija board seeing more and more disuse.

Sam discovers Dean’s phone on some shitty Saturday. He can move things with more ease, and frowns when he flips open the phone and sees the voicemails lining the bottom of the screen.

Dean snatches the phone away from him, face burning as he tucks it into his pocket. “Privacy, Sammy,” he says.

Sam’s eyebrows push together. “Those are all from Bobby,” he states.

“I’ll call him back soon,” Dean says, shrugging.

Sam bites back something and looks to the floor. He takes a deep breath. When he looks back up, his gaze is intense, something great and urgent. “You can’t ignore the world forever, Dean,” he says, words blunt and tone curt. “You can’t just… exist here, talking to a ghost, for the rest of your life. You have other people who love you. You have to-”

“Save it,” Dean snaps. “I’m struggling, sue me, my brother just fucking died. The only person I’ve ever--just gone. When you get stronger, I’ll leave, I’ll find away to make you okay again. Then we’ll both call Bobby back, huh? It’ll be nice.”

“Don’t go looking for solutions where they don’t exist,” Sam growls, storming toward Dean and getting into his space. The lack of huffy breath pushing against his face, the lack of dangerous heat that usually emanates from Sam during spats like this makes Dean wilt. “There’s nothing out there, Dean, only reapers and demons. We both know how that ends.”

“We don’t know everything,” Dean persists. “Christ, do you even want to be with me?”

He regrets it the moment it slips past his gritted teeth. Sam stops short, blinking.

Dean loses all heat immediately. “Sammy, I just meant. There’s got to be a way.”

“Any way you find, any solution you bargain for, will have a price,” Sam says, all ice, all white and empty. “The price for life is always another. I won’t let you sacrifice yourself for me. I won’t. Please, just don’t shut yourself away. I want to be with you, Dean, it’s why I’m here at all. You’re my unfinished business. I need you to be okay or I’ll be stuck here forever. I’ll go mad.

“You know the truth. Stop being a fucking coward. It doesn’t suit you.”

Dean rears back, flinching. “Just… just stop, okay? Please, I don’t want to fight. Don’t you see it, Sammy? If I do what you say, if I don’t bring you back… then the clock’s running out. I can’t. I just can’t.”

Sam softens, only slightly, keeping up the frigid exterior. Dean can’t really blame him. “I know that, Dean. It’s not just you, man. I wanna be with you for as long as I can. I’m selfish. But staying cooped up here isn’t good for you. Not telling Bobby is gonna bite you in the ass.”

“I know,” Dean says. “I will, I just-”

He’s cut off by his phone chirping in his pocket. Sam gives him a look.

Dean swallows. He lets it ring.

Sam’s jaw ticks. “Dean, answer it.”

“Just this once,” Dean croaks. “I just want it to stay like this.”

Sam shakes his head. “It won’t last forever.”

He disappears.

Dean whirls around, eyes searching wildly for his brother. “Sam, that’s not funny,” he says. “I know you’re still here. Come back.”

He bites his lip. “Please,” he adds.

The room stays quiet.

Dean goes back to the couch, which now has a dent where he’s made his semi-permanent residence when he’s not sleeping or eating. He grabs the planchette and sets it in the center of the board. “I know you’re pissed, and you got a right to be,” he starts, “but please… a sign.”

The planchette board slides over to the “GOODBYE” written in the corner.

Dean’s heart leaps to his throat. He knows Sam wouldn’t leave him, not like this, but. “Sam, buddy, please,” Dean says. He moves the planchette back to the center. It immediately drags away and back to “GOODBYE.”

Dean calls Bobby then, revealing nothing, only assuring Bobby he’s fine. Bobby begs to see him. Dean refuses to give him any information, promising Bobby they’ll talk again soon. He hangs up, feeling completely drained.

When he goes back to the the Ouija board, the planchette is on “YES.”

Dean lets out a sigh of relief.

***

Things are still tender after that, and Dean treads carefully around every conversation they share, fearing Sam’s anger. He doesn’t want Sam to go vengeful, of course, but he also just wants Sam to be okay. Sammy doesn’t deserve to feel mad or sad or anxious, only happy. Dean’s… well, he’s not sure he can say he’s doing his best, but he’s trying. Honest.

Dean can’t help but worry about Sam when he’s not around. Sam wants Dean to be okay, to cope, to move on, sure, but he isn’t planning on leaving, either. Sam’s a hypocrite, but Dean can’t get pissed at him. Sam wants to stay. He wants to be with Dean.

And Dean’s just a plain old sack a shit, ‘cause that’s the thought that leads him to masturbating for the first time in weeks. When he comes out of the shower, Sam’s there, looking all dark eyed and heavy-lidded, but frustrated, too, so clearly frustrated.

Sam gets a second wind of sorts after that incident, working harder to stay physically manifested for longer stretches of time. He always leaves when Dean sleeps, but now, he’s there while Dean’s awake more often than not. His voice is strong and even. If Dean doesn’t look at him, it’s easy to act like nothing’s changed at all.

At one point, Sam disappears for about two days and Dean’s heart would have given out if it weren’t for the periodic Ouija board movements.

Sam moves the planchette to “YES” three times a day, presumably to let Dean know he’s still around. Near the end of the second day, Dean stands up, pacing around the living room, eyes glued to the board. “Sammy, c’mon,” he says, “tell me what’s up.”

The planchette stirs, slowly, like a fat cat from a nap. R. E. S.

Sam takes a break. Dean watches the planchette gain strength. E. A. R. C. H.

Dean lets out a laugh. “Typical,” he says, shaking his head. “Don’t be out too long, though, I mean it.”

The planchette moves again. “YES.”

***

Dean moves from the kitchen to the living room the next morning, still mostly asleep, clutching a cup of steaming coffee in his hand. Sam’s there, standing and smiling at him, a wild grin of reckless abandon, lopsided and goofy.

Dean grunts, taking a long sip from his coffee. He sighs, feeling slightly more alive. “Ngh,” he says. “What?”

“Look at me,” Sam says, a note of urgency pulling Dean out of lethargy faster than the caffeine.

Dean looks. He looks Sam up and down, raises an eyebrow. “I’m not lookin’ away,” he says.

Sam scoffs. “No, I-” he stops, ducking his head, lips curving up. The little bastard’s too satisfied at Dean’s remark. “See where I’m standing?”

Sam indicates the long pool of sunlight streaming in from the window. The dustmotes, finally shaken free after building up in the unused cabin for years, make the air shimmer and sparkle around Sam.

But Sam doesn’t shimmer. He doesn’t waver. The sunlight hits his skin. His actually-really-there solid skin.

“Holy fuck!” Dean cries out, unable to resist himself. “You’re--you’re okay? You did it? How? Sammy, Sammy. Oh jeezus.”

Sam’s face falls. He shakes his head, falling into his face. “No, no, I’m. I’m still so cold. I’ve never been colder. I… don’t have a pulse. I’m still, uh, dead.”

Dean stays quiet, the energy leaving him in short bursts, like the lancing pain of electrocution.

“I just. I’ve been working on this for awhile,” Sam gestures at himself, “I think it has to do with my powers.”

“Powers?” Dean echoes.

Sam nods. “I think I could move things so easily with my mind ‘cause of my powers, you know? I’m stronger than any ghost we’ve ever seen. That’s not random. It’s because of my abilities. So I just started focusing. Meditating. I got a finger to show up at first, then patches of my arms and legs. It was kind of weird, actually. This is the first time I’ve got all the pieces together.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Dean asks.

Sam ducks his head again, wincing. “I was practicing in the bathroom,” he admits. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“Oh, kid,” Dean says, smiling softly at him. “You’re lucky I don’t want to kiss a dead guy.”

Oh. Dean braces himself, waiting for Sam’s grin to fall. It never does. Clearly Sam is a bit more okay than Dean is with all of this. It’s the first time Dean’s said it like that. It isn’t world ending.

“Yeah, well, you’re lucky I’m not into breathing guys,” Sam says, but the look on his face says he regrets it immediately.

Dean cackles, wrapping an arm around his stomach when he struggles to catch his breath. “Oh, dude,” he manages breathlessly, “I am never letting that one go. You fucking necrophiliac.”

“Shut up,” Sam groans, dimples out in full force and blessedly solid. “I just… argh. I was trying to make a joke about non-ghosts,” he explains feebly.

“Sure, of course,” Dean nods. “Bitch.”

Sam’s face absolutely melts, and Dean’s heart catches at the love framed there. “Jerk,” Sam says, reaching forward to tentatively entwine his fingers with Dean’s.

Sam’s fingers are cold, sure, but they’re real. They’re real and solid beneath Dean’s and it’s the best feeling in the entire fucking world.

He squeezes Sam’s hand. Sam squeezes back.

***

Sam spends more and more time with a physical body-manifestation-copy thing. He gets stronger, using nights to rest and reserve his powers.

Sam quickly becomes obsessed with Dean’s skin. Dean’s body warmth is addicting to Sam. He curls into Dean’s side, holding him, nuzzling him, burying his face in Dean’s neck. Dean tries not to recoil or shiver when Sam shuffles closer without warning.

Much less concerting is Sam’s fixation with Dean’s pulse. They sit silently for over an hour, Sam turning Dean’s hand over and over in his grasp, fingers pressed tightly to the underside of Dean’s pulse, like Sam’s trying to get his body to get with the program and start pulsing in the same way, summoning back life into him.

Dean fucking wishes.

He can’t deny Sam anything, so they cuddle together for hours on end, Sam wrapping around Dean and doing his best to touch skin-to-skin in as many places as possible.

Sam strips them both naked and curls his arms around Dean’s waist, sighing and wiggling around to get comfortable.

Dean’s only human, and Sam’s body is as gorgeously sculpted as it was when he was alive. He’s just as familiar, down to each scar and mole, the beautiful curve of his hips and his ass, and well.

Dean gets hard.

He tries to lean his hips back, but Sam reaches his hand lower, grabbing Dean’s ass and pushing them back together. He looks up at Dean, eyes all boyish and innocent, eyelashes batting away. “It’s okay,” he says, biting his lip, and fuck.

Sam curls a hand around Dean’s shaft and Dean jumps, breath quickening.

“Is it too cold?” Sam whispers, voice heavy and dark.

“No,” Dean says, and develops a temperature kink at the speed of light. “No, it’s fine.”

Sam gives him a slow, rough tug, sending a burning line of pleasure spiking up Dean’s back.

Sam strokes him with ease and familiarity, squeezing him in just the right way and giving special attention to the underside of Dean’s cockhead, causing his toes to curl up.

Even after Sam’s been pulling and tugging at his cock for several minutes, drawing Dean closer to orgasm, his hand doesn’t warm. It’s like ice against Dean’s shaft and balls, but Dean enjoys how it contrasts the rising heat inside him, twitching and dripping precome on Sam’s pale hand.

It’s not long before Dean can’t hold back the moans. He can feel the orgasm building in the base of his spine. Sam catches on, smiling like a predator, jerking Dean faster and faster, twisting his wrist just like that and oh god oh god oh god.

Dean bites his tongue, whining as he comes, cock pulsing and shooting out ropes of come like his life depends on it. The pearly drops are pretty against Sammy’s skin, and Sam never stops smiling, even when he brings his sticky hand up to Dean’s mouth and makes Dean lick his own spunk off of it.

Dean takes a risk and draws Sam closer, capturing him a kiss. It’s cold and quick and leaves Dean feeling slightly unsatisfied, but Sam looks happy, so it doesn’t matter.

“You like how it tastes?” Dean asks.

Sam’s smile wavers like his body used to. “Can’t taste it,” he says, “but I liked it.”

***

The pattern of their lives gets established, marked only by Sam’s progress and Dean’s restlessness. He tries to hide it as best he can, but Sam’s right. He can’t stay here forever. He loves Sam, obviously, doesn’t want to leave him, that much has been established, but Dean is a creature of the road, of the journey. He’s a nomad.

And he’s missing the hell out of his baby and her blacktop. The woods are pretty sure, but interstate ninety-five is prettier, and they’re miles away. Dean gets withdrawal if he’s away from the second largest ball of twine in the Midwest for too long.

Sam encourages him to go out and get some fresh air, and sometimes Dean walks around the perimeter of the house, but it’s not the same. Going for a short drive wouldn’t quench the need the stirring uncomfortably in the recesses of Dean’s stomach.

The empty passenger seat would say too much. He hasn’t really gotten out the smell of dirt and death, either, and he’s pretty sure the back seat is sticky and stained with blood.

It doesn’t take long before he can’t put it off any longer. Sam may not need to eat, but Dean does, and the food is running out. Dean’s barely been eating it. On a normal diet, with a lanky kid brother, the food here would’ve lasted four days, maybe five. Dean’s stretched to several weeks.

Sam opens the cabinet for him, gesturing at the cobwebs inside. “Dean,” he says, and the one syllable says it all.

“I know, I know,” Dean gripes, walking over and closing the cabinet. “I’ll go later today.”

Sam’s eyes widen. “Really?”

Dean waves a hand, feigning nonchalance. “Yeah, sure. I’ll buy fifty boxes of Hamburger Helper and I’ll be set for life.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Thanks, Dean.”

The words rub Dean the wrong way. “Sure, Sammy,” he says. “Sure.”

Dean leaves not long after that, if not just to avoid any weird conversations. Sometimes it feels like every casual conversation with Sam is a frickin’ minefield. He knows over half of what they both think of is death. Dean would rather not mention it, y’know, ever.

The Impala isn’t too musty, but he opens the window nonetheless. He turns the key in the ignition and feels his anxieties dissipate at the therapeutic rumble of the car underneath him. He looks at the cabin in the rear view mirror, frowning.

He’ll be fast. The cabin isn’t too far from the nearest town. It’ll take him an hour, tops. Sam would probably appreciate some time alone, anyway.

Dean turns down the gravel drive, letting out a breath. He gropes around for the glove box without looking, picking a tape at random and stuffing it into the deck. Creedence Clearwater Revival starts up, and his shoulders loosen up, tension slowly oozing out of him.

He can do this.

***

The trip to the grocery store is made over the speed limit, and once inside, Dean jogs around, grabbing non perishables at random, ignoring the looks he gets from locals.

Thank god for self checkouts, he thinks. He’s in and out in a moment, though he has to sprint back in to grab some toilet paper he’d forgotten.

He fills up Baby at the gas station and buys some cans of cheap beer. On the way home, he stops at a taco place. He almost cries while eating it. He’d forgotten some of the smaller joys of life while Sam was gone.

He hates to admit it, but it feels good to be out and about, to be able to go anywhere he wants and stuff himself full of awful food. It feels really damn great to be out in the sunshine, hair blowing and mussing about in the wind.

Still, there’s one fact that will always remain true, no matter where Dean goes in life: Sammy feels better.

He’s whistling as he completes the final leg of the drive, but he stops mid-tune when he pulls into the gravelly driveway. Bobby’s Chevelle is sitting in front of the cabin, engine off.

Dean throws the car into park and hops out, running over to Bobby’s car. He runs his hand along the rusty hood. It’s barely warm. For all Dean knows, Bobby could have been lying in wait for Dean to leave.

Dean shoves his way into the house, breathing heavily. He looks around the kitchen and the living room. “Sammy?” he calls. He receives no response. “Bobby, you here?”

The place is empty, the echoes of his strained voice mocking him. “Sammy,” he calls again, louder.

Ice cold fear grips Dean’s heart like it’s Sammy’s own hand. He stumbles his way over to the bathroom, tearing the shower curtain away from the tub. It’s fucking empty. It’s empty. There’s no ice left, only some pink-tinted water circling the drain.

“God damn it,” Dean growls aloud, stomping out of the bathroom. He grabs his coat on his way to the front door. He doesn’t have time to feel scared or nervous. The only feeling coursing through him is a blindingly white rage, singular and all-encompassing, driving him forward. He runs around the back of the cabin and freezes when he sees a plume of black smoke rising from the trees, somewhere a couple dozen yards behind the house.

He trips and stumbles his way down the hill, falling on his ass more times than he’d like to admit. He pushes through the undergrowth and sees a clearing further ahead, with a hunched-over man standing over a burning pyre, hands shoved into his pockets.

“No!” Dean roars, leaping at Bobby, grabbing at whatever part of him is closest. They both go down. Bobby grunts, hands twisting in Dean’s collar. They grapple inelegantly for a while, Dean swearing and spitting up a storm, vision blinded in anger. He can’t hear what Bobby’s trying to say.

Bobby gets in a solid hit to the back of Dean’s head and Dean goes down hard, falling onto his back, vision swimming. Bobby comes into his field of view, looking down at him with tears beading at the corner of his eyes. “You stupid boys,” Bobby rasps. “Sam was so angry, Dean, I wasn’t gonna let you die here at your own damn brother’s hands. You know what happens to spirits like that. Sam needed to make his peace.”

Dean closes his eyes, gasping. “No,” he moans, staying down, unable to get up. He chokes on nothing, feeling like the ground is falling out from beneath him.“No, you didn’t. Fuck you, Bobby, goddamn you.”

Bobby’s silent. Dean can only hear panting breaths from both of them and the crackle of the fire.

After several minutes, Bobby helps Dean up, but Dean collapses again. Bobby drags him back until he’s leaning against a tree. Dean keeps his eyes closed. The pyre’s directly in front of him and he can’t bear to see the silhouette of Sam’s body in the flames. It’s too soon after his dad, and it’s the love of his life. It’s a representation of his personal hell.

Dean has no more energy for rage. He looks over at Bobby with bleak eyes. “You didn’t know,” he says. “Sam was powerful. He was psychic. He was corporeal, Bobby. He wouldn’t go vengeful. Not with me. And you took him away from me.”

Bobby shakes his head and Dean wants to throttle him, but he’s also so calm. He wants to kill Bobby. “You boys,” Bobby says, sounding like it’s something horrible, something damnable.

“You’d never understand us,” Dean spits. “You couldn’t understand. And you killed him.”

“Dean, son, my god-”

“Leave,” Dean says, quietly.

“You know damn well-”

“Leave before I shoot you in your face and toss you on that pyre myself,” Dean manages, his voice rattling out of his throat with barely-contained emotion. Bobby must know how serious he is, because he steps back, hands out, and leaves the clearing, dead leaves crunching underfoot.

When Dean hears the distant hum of Bobby’s car pulling away, he stands on wobbly feet. The numbness is familiar now.

It isn’t fair how many times he’s been here, how many times he’s faced this loss.

He stays until the fire simmers down to low, red embers, the sun on the horizon a perfect match.

Once all the light is gone in the world, Dean turns and leaves.

***

Time doesn’t really mean anything to Dean after that. His thoughts come and go without stopping to let him know they were there. He feels half awake at all times. Bobby leaves another voicemail. Dean tosses his phone out the window.

He has know idea what day it is or what time it is when he collapses onto the bed face-first, heaving uncontrollably, pillow rapidly growing wet under his eyes. His entire body shakes like an ancient motor.

A pinprick of pain stabs him in the center of his forehead. It’s the only thing he feels besides a scoping, immeasurably large grief, so sticky within him, clogging up his throat and making his stomach tight and irritable.

“Sammy,” he moans, and lets out a single cry. It’s enough to sap him dry of energy.

He sleeps, dreamlessly, and not even the empty black can serve as a comfort.

***

Dean’s hunter instincts toss him into consciousness far sooner than he’d like. Something had woken him, his body telling him to be on alert, but he just can’t manage to give a damn.

Something stirs against his face. He flinches, but it happens again, and he realizes. Wind. It’s just wind. The window must be open. He doesn’t remember opening it, but he wouldn’t put it past his past self.

He sits up and slides off the bed, rubbing at his eyes with the bases of his palms. He grunts, trying to clear his throat. His mouth tastes like ass. He hobbles sightlessly over to the window, eyes glued to the warped floorboards beneath his feet.

He wanders into a pool of sunlight, and the warmth he feels is so damn cruel. He wishes he couldn’t feel it at all. He misses the chill.

He looks to the window and finds it closed.

He looks out the window and down at the valley below. He can just barely see the clearing from his vantage point, and he steps back before his eyes can pinpoint the charred contents of that grassy sweep.

The breeze stirs again and breaks away any warmth the liquid sunlight had afforded him. He shivers involuntarily, hugging his arms to his chest. He should probably go and pinpoint where the draft is coming from. It’s not like he has anything else to do.

He steps into the hallway. He peers into the bathroom. The window above the sink is closed.

He walks to the living room and finds himself feeling incredibly powerful deja vu.

He stops where he’d stopped just a few weeks ago, struck dumb. Standing in front of the window is Sam, lit a fiery gold by the midmorning sun. He’s not corporeal, and the sunlight and glinting dust motes shine through him. Instead of making him look eerie or phantasmagorical, it makes him look decadent, even angelic, glowing with grace.

Sam’s a wreck. Dean didn’t know ghosts could cry.

“I…” Dean swallows. He doesn’t need to ask “how;” this is their entire job. “What’s keeping you?” he asks instead.

“You,” Sam says, voice cracking and rising over the single syllable. His voice sounds pressed and spread thin with unshed tears. “I can never leave you,” Sam adds after a beat, more softly, tremulously.

Dean moves forward without thought until he’s standing directly before his spectral soulmate. Sam smiles at him, a thin, new-moon crescent curling up, but it cuts a few painful pieces of grief away from Dean’s chest and he smiles back, wider and wider, Sam mirroring him.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Dean says, voice rough. “Think you can do all the cool shit from before? Or did Bobby--did that do something to you?”

“It hurt,” Sam whispers. “And Dean, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to get mad at him. But it wasn’t vengeance, I swear. He yelled at me for staying, for not taking care of you, and things got heated. Next thing I knew, he was throwing salt at me. It burned my skin. Then I burned up.”

Dean swallows back bile, blinking at Sam’s story. Sam looks around the cabin. “Where is Bobby?” he asks.

Dean shrugs, feeling nothing. “Fuck if I know,” he says. “When I saw what he’d done to you… I told him that I’d kill him. Doubt we’ll see him any time soon.”

Sam doesn’t respond to that. “I’ll try again,” he says instead, answering Dean’s earlier question. “I think I can get my strength back. I think I’m okay.”

Dean lets out a breath. “You better be,” he grumbles, but the softness of his tone betrays him. “This has been hell, Sammy. I’m not losing you again. Fuck, I’d everyone we love if they tried to come between us.”

Sam doesn’t look disturbed by Dean’s confession; if anything, his eyes get shinier, the connection between them solidifying ever further.

“So, I kept pressuring you to leave,” Sam says, lips quirking in a lopsided, sardonic smile. “I guess you could’ve, this whole time. And I could’ve come with you.”

“Figures,” Dean says. “So, where to next?”

Sam shrugs, stepping closer and closer, until the tip of his nose disappears into Dean’s. Dean can almost feel Sam’s soul slipping into his. It’s the most complete he’s ever felt. He wonders how he lived his entire life before with that little piece of Sam missing from inside him.

They’re probably fucked, Dean muses, screwed beyond all hell, but he can’t get himself to give a damn. He’s got Sam. Sam’s got him. And Sam has the same need within him, the same burning ache that Dean’s been carefully fostering all his life, and well. Maybe Dean shouldn’t take pleasure in that, shouldn’t take pleasure in the thought of the sins Sam would commit in his name, but he does, oh god, he does.

“I don’t know,” Sam answers. “Anywhere, I guess.”

“That’s decided, then,” Dean says, laughing at the confusion etching Sam’s features. “The Grand Canyon, obviously.”

Sam’s smile widens, showing his teeth. He scoffs, shaking his head, looking up at Dean through his hair. “I don’t think the brochure includes ghost accommodations.”

“Eh, we’ll just tell people you’re corporeally challenged.”

Sam laughs. He sobers, and Dean’s heart skips a beat. “I can’t wait to touch you again,” Sam says, mood changing abruptly, eyes darker and more heated than before. “I hate not touching you.”

“Trust me, I know,” Dean says. “We’ll get there, Sammy. We’ll get there in the end.”

Sam steps closer until they’re enmeshed, and Dean can feel him everywhere. It’s indescribable. Dean won’t even bother. It’s everything to him. “I know we will,” Sam says, and Dean can’t tell if it was out loud or just in his head.

Sam slips into his amulet and Dean gathers up his things. He packs up the Impala with speedy efficiency, and they’re off within minutes, speeding across dusty side roads until they’re back onto the highway, Baby’s engine roaring all around them.

For years after that, locals of each of the continental forty-eight swear they see a lonely black car burst across the road, across their vision, like a flashbulb or a bullet. If they get a glimpse of the passengers, well, they can’t tell if it’s two men or just one--it seems to be both answers at once, with one man behind the wheel, accompanied by the cobweb-mist of something else, of something else, the two of them clasped closely together.

Dean never does recall when he loses his own warmth, or if Sam ever gets any back. The world spins past them, around them, but never with them. They’re left to their own world, and Dean knows it was always supposed to be this way. The principle mistake the universe made was separating their souls in the first place.

For the first time in his life, and for the rest of his existence, Dean is complete.

fin