faye_dartmouth | Apocalypse Now (Absoution Later) Epilogue

Apocalypse Now (Absolution Later)

Part One.....Part Two.....Part Three.....Part Four.....Epilogue

It was easy to talk big to Castiel. The thought of actually talking to Sam, however, made him feel like a coward. He didn’t know what to say.

No, he knew what to say. He just didn’t know how to make himself say it.

It went back to being weak, that fear of seeming like he didn’t have it in control. He wanted his brother back, but the notion of letting his own vulnerabilities come to the foreground to help bring about reconciliation scared the crap out of him. It had taken more than a little cajoling to get him back on board with hunting, and a whole hell of a lot more to make him believe that he could save the world--so the idea of approaching Sam and letting someone see his flaws again?

Not high on the list of things he wanted to do.

But he did want his brother back.

It was a question of which he wanted more. And if he’d learned anything over the last few days, it was that there was no question at all.

He found Sam sitting in the bed, looking clean, but still as weary as ever. Castiel’s apology had confused Sam, left him reeling, and Dean could see that the kid still wasn’t sure what it meant--for him and for them.

Clearing his throat, Dean eased himself into the chair, giving his brother a grin. “So,” Dean said. “Nice bath?”

“Very spongy,” Sam returned quietly.

Dean grinned. “Sounds kinky.”

Sam returned the smile half-heartedly. “If not for the stitches and bruises, maybe.”

“You have to work the injury angle,” Dean chided him lightly. “Haven’t I taught you anything?”

Sam’s smile faltered, and he looked down.

Dean cleared his throat, feeling awkward. “Well, there’s always tomorrow,” Dean said. “I haven’t talked to the doc yet, but I have a feeling you’re not going anywhere for awhile.”

“I can sign out AMA,” Sam offered. “I mean, I think I can probably get around on crutches. I’d just be slow for a little bit.”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean said. “You think?”

“I’m just saying--”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Dean said definitively. “Let’s just let the docs tell you when you’re ready to book it before we head back out there. It’s the apocalypse. It’s not going to go anywhere.”

It was supposed to be reassuring, but Dean could see it was having the wrong effect entirely. Sam looked positively droopy on the bed, like someone had just run over his dog. Of course, Sam didn’t have a dog; he just had a guilty conscience that simply would not quit.

Dean sighed. “We could use the break, anyway.”

Sam nodded at that. “Then, I don’t know. I thought, if it was okay, I’d get the laptop, maybe see if we can get a lead,” he said. Then he shrugged. “Unless, you know, you would rather find us a gig.”

It was more than Dean could take. He was trying to rebuild the connection, trying to work his way into some kind of apology, but Sam couldn’t stop with his own self-deprecating apologies. At this rate, they weren’t going to get anywhere. “You don’t have to do that,” Dean said suddenly.

Sam looked surprised, his face so blank that Dean swore the kid looked like he was five again. “Do what?”

Flushed, Dean wrinkled his nose, rubbing uncertainly at the back of his neck. “Ask me for permission.”

Sam still looked blank, but his eyebrows rose a little. “I just thought you would want me to clear it with you first,” Sam said.

Dean sighed. “Dude, I’m not Dad. You’re an adult. You can take a piss without clearing with me first. In fact, I’d rather you did.”

Sam just looked confused. “I don’t have to go the bathroom right now,” he said.

Dean rolled his eyes. Subtlety wasn’t his thing, apparently. He licked his lips, shifting in his seat. “I don’t just mean about the bathroom.”

Shaking his head, Sam’s brow creased deeper. “Okay, I’ll remember not to inform you about my bodily functions.”

Groaning, Dean put his head back. This wasn’t working. He didn’t want another guideline Sam thought he had to follow. He wanted Sam to understand that it was okay to just live, that Dean didn’t have to keep in check, because Sam could keep himself in check. That Dean trusted him again.

It was just kind of hard to, well, say.

“Look, I just--I mean--I know you’ve screwed up in the past, okay? You screwed up bad,” Dean began.

Sam’s body went rigid, his face tight. He blinked rapidly, nodding his head, quick and fast.

Dean had to keep going. This wasn’t how he wanted to say it, but it was the only way he knew how. “And I don’t know. Seeing you like that, seeing you drink the blood, seeing you go through hallucination after hallucination. Tying you down, watching you have a damn seizure--I just never thought you could get that low.”

Sam’s jaw quivered, and Dean could see that his brother wanted to look away, but true to Sam’s new self-flagellant nature, he refused to allow himself that much.

Collecting a deep breath, Dean continued. “And then you picked her,” Dean said, and his own voice wavered. “You picked her and you choked me. And then when I finally find you again, you’d just ended the whole damn world. Because you believed her and turned yourself into a monster. I told you, Sam. I told you all along, and you never listened. And you were wrong. You were so very wrong. In all of that, just having you around was as much as I could do. The thought of trusting you--it just wasn’t in me anymore. Not after what you’d done. Not after what I’d seen you become.”

A tear slipped down Sam’s cheek, and this time Sam did look away, his head dipped in shame.

“But people change,” Dean pressed on, and this was the important part. Important because Dean had spent a long time pushing Sam away, keeping his brother away. Sam wasn’t the only one who had something to atone for. It was time to understand Sam, to really know him.

“You aren’t the same kid who went to Stanford. But I’m not the same guy who went to Hell. And nothing makes what you did okay, but I should have seen it sooner. Not just that you were different, but why. I just didn’t want to think about those four months, you know? Your life without me. If I didn’t think about it, then maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe I didn’t die, maybe I didn’t break the first seal in Hell, maybe none of it happened.” He swallowed. “But it did happen. I did break the first seal, and you broke the last one. I don’t to get into a pissing contest about who screwed up worse, because it’s over now. And it’s time to put it behind us.”

Sam looked up at him, and his face was wet now. He just shook his head. “I don’t deserve that much,” he said, his voice taut. “I don’t deserve any of it.”

“Sam--”

Sam shook his head, vehemently now. “You had no choice,” Sam gritted out. “I did. I had every choice and you told me to stop, and I didn’t. You can never trust me again.”

“I had a choice, too, Sam. When I made that deal.”

“It’s not the same,” Sam insisted.

“Fine,” Dean said shortly. “You have to come to your own peace with yourself. But I need you to know, that for me, for us, I trust you.”

Sam looked at him, his eyes begging to understand. “But...how?” he asked.

“Because people make mistakes, Sammy,” Dean said, and he could recite his own list as easily as Sam could. “And because people change. But even when we forget it, we keep coming back to it. Family. Brothers. You and me, Sam. We make an awesome team. When we were out there together, working together, as a team--it’s the best I’ve felt in months. The best we’ve hunted in months. Never once, when it was on the line, did I think you would fail me. I trusted you subconsciously even before I had it in my mind that I could. I just figured it was time for the rest of me to catch up.”

It was obvious that Sam wanted to believe him. There was a desperate quality to Sam’s expression, but it was masked with fear. Fear to believe, fear of himself--Dean wasn’t sure. But they were close, now. Close to coming clean, close to making amends, close to getting back to the closest thing to good that they could ever hope to have at this point.

Bobby was right, though. Sam was strong-willed, in all the best and worst ways.

Stubbornly, Sam shook his head. “I’ll stay with you. I will stick by yourself until you tell me to go, but I will never make up for what I did. Ever.”

Dean sighed. “You really think you’re so special?” Dean asked. “You think you’re the only one who got us here? What about Cas, letting you out? What about me, breaking the first seal?”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Sam said again, stronger now. “And Cas unlocked the door. I chose to leave.”

Dean laughed incredulously, shaking his head. “So it’s not my fault that while in the pits of Hell, I couldn’t resist torturing souls, but it is your fault that in the depths of addiction, you couldn’t resist a chance to get a fix? Sam, I saw you. The blood had complete control over you. The detox was killing you.”

“And that was my mistake, too,” Sam shot back. “I drank the blood. I did it to myself. I’m the monster, me, and you said so.”

“And I can’t be wrong?” Dean yelled finally. Sam seemed taken aback, his face paling. Dean sighed, running a frustrated hand through his hair. “When are you going to get it, Sam? This isn’t about me forgiving you--because I already have. This is about you forgiving yourself. I know the mistakes I’ve made, and, trust me, there are a lot. And not just about Hell or even the deal. But in how I treated you. I assumed the worst, that entire year. I jumped down your throat and I never even thought to ask you. But I’m trying to own up to them so I can move on. That’s what Cas’ apology was all about. So, what about you, huh? Are you going to man up and get over this crap or am I going to be stuck without a hunting partner throughout the apocalypse?”

Sam’s eyes blazed with the vestiges of his defiance. “You can do this alone,” Sam said, his voice strained and soft.

“Yeah,” Dean said. “But I don’t want to.”

Sam’s breathing hitched, and a sob broke free. Even after all this time, they both remembered what started them on this journey together.

“It’s what makes you stronger, Sam,” Dean admitted, his throat feeling tight. “When you were gone, I couldn’t do anything. And you--you somehow managed to keep going. You didn’t do it all right, but you still did it. And even now, I don’t know how you do it. How you get up day after day.”

Especially knowing the burden Sam carried. The guilt he refused to give up.

“I do it for you,” Sam said. “I always did it for you. I let you down in so many ways, but I couldn’t fail at that.”

Dean just nodded, his eyes burning suspiciously. “Yeah,” he said, nodding a little. “I guess maybe it runs in the family. Bitch.”

Sam stared at him, incredulous, dumbfounded, and hopeful. “You think it’s that easy?” he asked. “After all of this, we can just be like it was?”

Dean scoffed. “How much harder do you want to make it? You already jumped off a cliff, got thrown over a waterfall, and buried in a rock slide. I think you’ve worked hard enough.”

Sam seemed to consider that, chuckling ruefully. “It has been quite an experience.”

“You’re telling me,” Dean said. “I’m the one who had to fend of the horde of angry wildlife.”

“Castiel did all the hard work,” Sam said with a shy grin.

“Well, that’s more than I can say for you, bitch.”

Sam scowled, but it was a good-natured turn. “I was looking for you, jerk.”

“Well,” Dean said, and he was smiling in earnest now. “Looks like we found each other, Sammy.”

Sam hesitated, his head inclining slightly. Then resolved settled over his face, and he nodded, brisk and decidedly. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe we did.”

End

A/N: And that is that! If only it were that simple.

Prompt: The brothers are hunting something (your choice) in and around a rocky mountain side. Sam saves both his brother and a civilian, but sadly falls in doing so. (can be into a raging river, steep incline, waterfall, your choice) He has to survive and get back to his brother. Show Sam's struggles to survive, but his awesomeness in being too stubborn to give up.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

geminigrl11.livejournal.com

DEMONIC BUNNIES!!!!!!!! And you worked a yak in there, too. I know it!!

Only you, ME, can take all these elements and make something so complete and true and heartwrenching. Make Sam AWESOME and bring the brothers back together in a way we PINE for the show to. Would that things really were this simple. And Dean is PROUD of Sam! MEEP!

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Apocalypse Now (Absoution Later) Epilogue

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