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It’s snowing outside.
Not too surprising, considering Dean’s in Barrow, Alaska in late October, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. He’s never cared for the cold—much prefers sunny skies and heat baking into his skin until he’s parched with it. Winter only ever makes things difficult (can’t run as well in snow, and townsfolk seem to look harder at drifters in the colder months), and it’s worse than usual here, in this town at the edge of the world. In this place where people are already boarding up homes and preparing for the coming months of night.
In the cold. In the dark.
It’s the last place Dean wants to be, so of course it’s where he’s come—been driving for weeks now, ever since New York City turned out to be too small to hide him. He drove here on back roads and byways, pushing on until his eyes went painfully dry and scratchy. Only then would he pull over (sometimes into a rest stop, sometimes just on a lonely stretch of shoulder), and curl up in the front seat to sleep. He was always reluctant to stop because he didn’t like what he jerked awake to—the scrambling of claws on the driver’s side door and the chiding howl of hounds all around.
No matter how fast he drives, he hasn’t been able to leave them behind any more than he can leave the faces behind—desk clerks who checked him into motels, waitresses who brought him coffee in the morning, gas station attendants who took his cash without so much as glancing up from their magazines. They’re all dead now. Dean watched each of them die in his dreams, saw each spurt of blood and heard each terrified scream.
It’s His doing. It’s Him keeping pace with Dean from behind—trailing him wherever he runs and destroying everyone Dean comes in contact with. Mocking his inability to do anything about it.
As Dean parks the Impala in the snow swept lot, he does his best not to think about the first nameless faces seared into his mind. They come unbidden anyway: a woman—pretty, with dark, sweeping hair—and a small boy with his hair gelled into spikes. Those two are safe, Dean thinks—safe because Dean bartered for their lives, because he traded ... fuck, he doesn’t remember what he traded anymore, which is the whole point.
A memory for a life, that’s been the deal, and Dean has made it over and over and over again until it feels like there are more sinkholes than there is solid ground left in his past. All those hollow, empty spaces hurt—they ache and burn like the memories they once held were all torn out mere moments before, rather than gradually over the course of the last six months.
It was a devil’s bargain Dean made, that first night when he was on the run and couldn’t sleep for the fear pounding through his veins. He couldn’t even bring himself to shut his eyes with the sound of his new, unwanted companions in the room with him—soft whuffling noises as the hounds made themselves comfortable around the bed. Kept making choked exclamations of his own at every accidental jolt of the mattress when a hound got up and knocked against it.
But He didn’t care that Dean was so awake he was practically coming out of his skin. He seized Dean’s mind in an unforgiving, burning grip and made Dean look through His eyes at a brightly lit kitchen. The dark haired woman was there, pacing worriedly with a phone clenched in her hand, and even now, when he can’t recall her name, Dean gets that she was missing someone. Missing Dean, probably, judging by the panic that the knowledge He was on her doorstep instilled in him.
Anything, Dean remembers promising. Whatever you want, just don’t hurt them.
And then came the arch, knowing reply: Anything?
That night Dean made his first bargain—the loss leaving him with momentary confusion and a lingering, raw ache—but it wasn’t his last. He’s spent the last six months bartering away his past piece by piece until all that remains is a fragmentary, disjointed mess strung together by a single name and all the memories that go with it.
Sam.
Sam at three with ice cream smeared across his face. Sam at six with a Thundercats lunchbox clutched in his hand. Sam at eleven playing License Plate tag with Dean in the back of the car while a shadowy, faceless figure handles the wheel. Sam at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. A whole series of memories where Sam is angry and yelling—someone missing from those moments, ripped away without the benefit of an anesthetic, but the rest of the memories remain crystal clear. Sam weeping. Sam laughing and slinging an arm around Dean’s shoulder. Sam passing him a beer before joining him where he’s perched on the Impala’s trunk.
Sam dying.
Again.
And again.
Sam falling into darkness, into the black, into a cage of negative energy and ice from which he isn’t ever coming back.
Dean has considered eating a bullet and following, but ... his promise. Exactly what he swore has degraded in his mind—bits of the vow flaked and fading, other pieces eaten away by one trade or another—but Dean’s painfully aware that suicide is off limits. Even if Sam never could have imagined His existence, never could have fathomed it would turn out like this.
The wind picks up as Dean gets out of the Impala and crosses the lot, and he moves toward the bar with his coat clutched close around his body. The cold nips at his exposed skin, pelting him with insubstantial gusts of snow, and the raw, empty places in his head pulse with sharper pain. The chorus of unhappy whines trailing Dean tells him that his companions aren’t any more comfortable in this environment than he is.
He doesn’t turn around to look at the paw prints left in the continuously shifting snow. He doesn’t have to look to know they’re there—doesn’t even have to hear the hounds, really. Not with the unseen, bristling fur that continuously brushes his knuckles where his left hand hangs by his side.
Dean bangs through the bar’s front door with more force than he means, making the inhabitants of the bar look up with startled expressions. The establishment is rough but clean, and filled with men and women wearing flannel and sheepskin. All of them dead now, even if Dean backs away without coming any closer.
“Close the damn door,” one of the nearer patrons—an Inupiat man with a lined, wind-roughened face—barks.
Dean tries, but one of the hounds is blocking his way. He’s jostled as two more push past—clings to the door to keep from running from that much contact (don’t run, never run, it just attracts their attention)—and then they’re inside and he can shut the snow out.
Up at the bar, Dean orders a burger and a beer, then sits and stares down at the counter while he waits for his food. He tries not to think about the fact that the people in here will be dead soon. Dead because He follows in Dean’s path like a plague and Dean doesn’t have anything left to offer in return for a reprieve.
Even if Dean were willing to give his memories of Sam up—which he isn’t, he doesn’t care how much blood he has to wade through—He doesn’t want any part of them. For better or worse, Sam is Dean’s to keep and carry.
The hounds are clustered around the stool behind Dean—he can sense them there, can hear the muted sounds of the creatures licking snow from their paws. Any normal dogs would be begging like crazy the moment the barkeep sets his burger down in front of him, but Dean’s invisible shadows don’t seem to care for that sort of food. If it’s already dead, then there’s no joy in the futile struggles. There’s no thrill of the chase.
That’s not to say that the hounds don’t eat, of course.
Dean’s lost count of the number of times he’s woken to find a pile of cooling entrails on the hood of the Impala. Or scraps of fur and broken bits of bone resting on the ground right next to the driver’s side door. Once, memorably, there was a human hand on the floor next to his bed. Dean still has no idea how the hounds got in and out of the locked room on their own, and he doesn’t know whether those leavings were meant as warnings or if the hounds think they’re bringing him gifts.
He doesn’t want to know.
“All done?” the bartender asks as Dean finishes his burger and pushes the empty plate away.
“Yeah,” Dean agrees. He doesn’t like the way his voice sounds—he’s too unused to speaking these days, and always has the unpleasant suspicion that he’s doing it wrong. Wrong words, wrong tone, wrong pitch.
Not enough memory left for him to guess what the right ones would be.
Instead of taking the plate and moving away, the bartender leans down on the bar and, in a too loud, hearty voice, asks, “So, what brings you up here this time of year?”
Sweat breaks out across Dean’s skin as he stares down at his hands where they’re gripping the edge of the bar. If he’s still and silent, maybe the man will lose interest and go away. Maybe he’ll stop paying so much attention to Dean, which is the safest thing for everyone concerned.
A hand clamps down on Dean’s shoulder.
“Hey, buddy, Carl asked you a question.”
The hounds are growling—too quietly to be heard by anyone else over the howl of the wind from outside, but Dean’s become attuned to the warning signs, and anyway he knows they don’t (He doesn’t) like anyone touching him.
“Don’t touch me,” he says, keeping his voice low and easy. No point in working the hounds up any more than they already are.
The hand on his shoulder tightens mulishly—goddamned idiot—and one of the hounds bumps Dean’s leg as it gets up.
“I’m sick,” Dean adds hurriedly. “It’s contagious.”
That gets Mr. Grabby to back off in a hurry. Moves the bartender back a few steps as well.
“Y-you can’t come in here, spreading diseases around,” the bartender chokes out.
In contrast to the man's initial question, his voice now is hushed, and Dean realizes belatedly that the attempted interrogation was for the benefit of all the patrons—Dean is a stranger, come late in the season to an isolated and insular town. He should have known he’d draw attention.
“It’s just spread by skin to skin contact,” he says now, trying to defuse the situation. “So long as no one touches me, we’ll all be fine.”
But the bartender apparently has some kind of germ phobia, because the man’s eyes haven’t gotten any less panicked or disgusted. “You’re not welcome here,” he says. “Don’t want any health hazards in my bar. Get out.”
Dean chances a glance over his shoulder at the rest of the room and finds everyone staring at him. Word about this encounter is going to spread through Barrow quicker than any actual plague, he realizes, and then he’s going to find every door closed against him. Every place of shelter barred.
This is it. No place left to run except the frozen shore of the sea.
Then one of a group of men seated by the wall stands up and makes his way over. He’s bearded and capped like everyone else in here, but there aren’t any lines of tension around his eyes, and Dean thinks he’s smiling.
“I think I can assess how much of a health risk he is, Carl,” the newcomer announces, and then nods genially at Dean. “Dr. Al Tanner at your service. If you want to step in the back room with me and tell me what you’ve got, I think I can lay a few concerns to rest. Maybe make your stay in Barrow a little more comfortable for everyone.”
Dean stares at the man and tries to remember if his cover stories have always fallen apart this quickly and horribly.
Dr. Tanner’s expression softens as he meets Dean’s stare, which only makes Dean’s heart beat faster. The man looks like he understands.
“Carl, Erik—can you give us a minute?”
As the bartender and Mr. Grabby back away without protest, Dr. Tanner pulls out the stool next to Dean’s and sits down. He folds his hands on the bar in front of him and then, in a low voice, murmurs, “You aren’t sick at all, are you?”
There’s no point in digging the hole any deeper—not when he’s talking to a doctor who can call bullshit as soon as Dean tries for anything specific (that’s if he could scrape together enough memories to remember the names of any diseases in the first place)—so Dean gives his head a tiny shake. Around his feet, he can tell the hounds are still on edge, but the growling has stopped now that there’s more space around Dean.
“I just don’t like people touching me,” Dean says. It’s another lie—months without human contact, he’d just about kill for the casual brush of another human’s hand—but he’s too aware of how his invisible companions would react to say anything else.
“Okay,” Dr. Tanner replies—still using that easy, soft voice, like Dean’s a spooked horse. “I’ll spread the word. But if you’re going to be staying here for a while, you’ve got to expect folks to be curious. We don’t get many visitors this time of year. Or ever, really.” He grins broadly, the expression visible even beneath the heavy beard cover. “Fort Lauderdale we’re not.”
“I just want be left alone,” Dean protests—and then, because he’s not used to talking to people and has forgotten how to keep his mouth shut, he adds, “It’s not safe.”
He realizes only when the doctor’s face creases with concern that he’s said more than he was supposed to, and he presses his mouth shut as his chest tightens with guilt and regret.
He should never have come here.
“Not safe for who?” Dr. Tanner presses.
When Dean doesn’t answer, the man asks, “Are you running from someone?”
Dean flinches—too close to the mark, the man is too damned knowing. He searches Dr. Tanner’s face for any trace of mocking awareness—searches for a flicker of black in his eyes. But there’s only concern there, and a tiny bit of apprehension that’s probably normal, considering how Dean’s acting.
And fuck, Dean’s gone months and months without anyone to talk to about what’s happening to him, even obliquely, and he can’t stop himself from whispering, “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask. This someone isn’t the police, is it?”
Dean laughs at that—softly but a little wildly—and answers, “I wish.”
“Then I want you to talk to the sheriff. Tom’s a good man, he can—”
“He can’t help me.”
Not unless he knows how to kill hellhounds. Not unless he has an incantation or a ward to keep Him from Dean’s mind and dreams.
Leaning in even closer, Dr. Tanner says, “Mister, I know it might feel like no one can—what is that?”
Dean swallows, holding himself very, very still. His stool is vibrating from the force of the hound’s growl. He can feel the creature’s stiff, bristling fur where it’s pressed up against one of his legs. He doesn’t bother following Dr. Tanner’s perplexed, slightly frightened gaze as the man looks toward the sound that’s coming from a pair of jaws he can’t see.
“Don’t move,” Dean advises. “Just. Sit there for a few minutes, okay? We’ll both sit here nice and quiet and then I’ll get up and leave and it’ll be like none of this ever happened. All right?”
But Dr. Tanner doesn’t seem to be listening to him. His face has gone even paler now, and he repeats, in a slightly louder voice, “What the hell is that?”
“Please,” Dean begs, but that’s when another hound decides to give a clearly audible howl.
Dr. Tanner stumbles up and backward off his stool, turning to—no, no, don’t run—and he hasn’t taken more than a single step before he’s knocked to the wood floor. He screams as the hound shreds his jeans and the flesh beneath, and then everyone is screaming and running around and Dean puts his head down on the bar and covers his ears with his hands.
The first time this happened, he tried to stop it. He tried to step in and save some people, anyway—tried shooting the hounds with his gun and then, when that didn’t work, running for the door himself, knowing the hounds would be compelled to abandon the carnage and follow.
But all that got him was knocked to the ground by something heavy. When he tried to scramble back to his feet, something else drove into his side and flipped him over onto his back. Dean couldn’t see the hound standing over him, but he sure as fuck felt its substantial jaws as they closed warningly over his throat.
He tried to tell himself that the hound wouldn’t actually hurt him, but the panic sapping his strength wouldn’t listen to reason, and he ended up lying still and watching the ceiling while the screaming crescendoed into a red smear.
Eventually, after the sounds of slaughter had died down to the softer, wetter noises of the hounds feeding, Dean realized that his vision was blurred, his cheeks wet. An unseen hand was smoothing through his hair while His voice echoed through Dean’s mind with reassuring shushes.
Dean tried twice after that, with similar lack of success, before resigning himself to the fact that once blood is spilt, he isn’t in control anymore. Since that realization, he’s concentrated his efforts on heading the massacres off before they begin—gotten pretty good at reading the warning signs and making himself scarce, too.
Still, this isn’t the first time he’s had to sit still and wait for his unwanted companions to finish their meal.
The bang of the front door slamming open is an unexpected interruption, and Dean’s head comes up despite his best intentions to remain as ignorant as possible. When he looks at the door, he sees a black cloud swirling in, lit here and there by jutting, purple lightning.
Demons.
There isn’t much point in carrying around a weapon anymore—not with the hounds ripping apart anything that comes near him—but Dean’s been clinging to the habit anyway. He’s pathetically grateful for the security offered by the heavy, reassuring weight of the gun in his hand as he pulls it out from the waistband of his pants where it was hidden.
Spinning on the stool, he grips the gun and watches as the demons funnel into the bar’s patrons. The blood doesn’t precisely stop flowing—not now that the hounds have opened people up—but the screaming comes to a sudden halt and there aren’t any new wounds forming. Dean feels warm bodies bump against his legs and knows that the hounds have come back to him. One or two tongues lick at his hands and leave bloodied streaks behind on his fingers. His skin crawls at the bumping, shifting sensation of the full-bodied tail wags the hounds are offering where they’re pushed up around his legs.
In the middle of the floor, Dr. Tanner’s body (thighs shredded, stomach ripped wide), is laboriously getting up, his black eyes glittering and fixed on Dean.
Dean can’t remember the words to any exorcisms.
Oh god.
“Dean.”
Dean didn’t think there was anything in the world that could make him take his eyes off the demonic threat, but his head whips around at the familiar voice. His eyes widen and the air freezes solid in his throat and lungs.
He’s standing in the doorway.
Twilight and whirling snow loom behind Him, both of them seeping into the room past His body and turning everything to shadowed winter.
“No,” Dean chokes out, staggering off the stool and tripping over the hounds at his feet. He catches himself on the bar with his left hand, barely staying upright, and then raises the gun threateningly in his right. “Get out,” he rasps, belatedly twisting his body so that he can see most of the demons as well.
Although of course they’re the lesser threat here—no threat at all, really, considering what’s standing in the doorway.
“You know,” He says, stepping forward into the bar and glancing around casually. “I think I’ve been pretty patient, waiting for you to figure out that this is going to happen regardless. I mean, you’re stubborn, but I figured that even you’d eventually realize there’s no point in running.” His head tilts, eyes coming to rest on Dean with a heavy, sinking weight. “But here we are, at the fuck end of nowhere, and you—” He laughs, sharp and humorless. “You aren’t actually planning on stopping, are you?”
“Stay back,” Dean threatens as He steps closer. The gun in his hand swings to the left a little, centering on His chest. Like bullets will do any good.
“I’ve taken everything from you—everyone—but you just take a licking and keep on ticking, don’t you, Dean?” He muses, ignoring the gun as He approaches with slow, even steps. “All alone, with nowhere to go, and you’re still squirming around like a worm on a hook.”
“I’m not alone,” Dean mumbles, fighting to keep the tremors wracking his chest from showing in his hands or voice. “I’ve got—plenty of people are looking for me.”
He makes a sad tsking noise. “Is that what you’ve been telling yourself? Hate to break it to you, Dean, but that posse you’re counting on? They’re dead.”
“You’re lying.”
He just stares at Dean for a long moment. Then He smirks, dimples showing. “Okay, you caught me. Bobby’s still kicking around somewhere. You remember him?”
Dean manages to keep the spasm of pain that rips through his chest at the unfamiliar name off his face. He backs up along the bar to keep some space between them.
“How about Cas?” He prods. “Danny? Ellen? Regina? Jo? John?”
The names drop into Dean, rippleless and empty. Strangers.
“Come to think of it, I might be making some of those up,” He continues with an insincere, considering tone. “Course, you’ll never know which ones, will you?”
“You son of a bitch.”
His smirk deepens with satisfaction as He reaches out and rests one hand on the bar just a few feet from Dean’s position. “You know, I was going to let you wear yourself out,” He says. “Give you some time to get used to the idea of your new position in life. But I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Dean.”
He moves suddenly, grabbing Dean’s right wrist and twisting it sharply. Dean drops the gun with a grunt of pain, and before the weapon has hit the floor His grip has shifted. It’s no less of a restraint, but now His thumb is rubbing over Dean’s abused, sore wrist in soothing strokes. Power pulses over Dean, soaking past the pathetic barrier of his skin and getting into his muscles, where it loosens everything and leaves him lax and helpless against the bar.
Grinning, He steps in and presses their chests together. Heat flushes through Dean, and he sags a little more as he cuts his eyes to one side and then the other, searching for escape. But there are demons everywhere Dean looks, and He is crowding Dean up against the bar, and Dean’s having trouble breathing. His head is spinning.
With an amused chuckle, He leans in, sliding their cheeks together and brushing Dean’s ear with His lips. When they come, His words send a trapped shiver down Dean’s spine.
“I’m tired of waiting.”
Dean blinks and there’s a mouth blanketing his. A tongue squirms past his lips and then into his mouth as fingers dig into his jaw and force it open. Dean makes a startled, protesting noise and tries to jerk away, but He isn’t having any of it. His grip tightens and His mouth grows even more demanding.
In the face of His intensity, Dean’s confused and frightened. He doesn’t know what the fuck to call this because he can’t remember ever being touched like this before. He doesn’t know what it means. He does know that it makes his heart race in a way that can’t be at all good, so he gets a hand up between their chests and tries to push Him away. He resists the attempt, though, leaning all of His weight against Dean and trapping him in place against the bar.
When He finally lets Dean go, it’s clear that it’s His decision to break the moment, and He’s only doing it because He’s done using Dean’s mouth for now.
“Look at me,” He orders, and a thumb rubs over Dean’s swollen lips.
Shutting his eyes, Dean turns his face to the side and then flinches at the dry, snapping sound of bone breaking. Somewhere in the room, one of the people lets out a high, hurt wail. His thumb eases between Dean’s lips, tasting of salt and copper. Old blood.
“That was just a wrist, but next time it’ll be a femur. You want to find out how a man sounds when his body is crushed one bone at a time, you keep on refusing.”
Swallowing the painful lump in his throat, Dean turns his head and opens his eyes.
He is inches away, staring down at Dean with bottomless, hungry eyes—hazel irises, but hazel is really too simple a word for the flecks of browns and golds and greens that have combined into a single, snapping hue that’s threatening (promising) so many things and turning Dean’s stomach into a nest of writhing snakes. When He sees that He has Dean’s attention, He smiles and drags His thumb along Dean’s bottom lip.
“See?” He murmurs. “You do know how to play nice. We just needed to find you the right motivation.”
Dean’s cheeks heat—a little bit of anger, although mostly it’s shame cutting through his fear—but he’s careful not to drop his eyes. His eyes are going everywhere, though, darting around Dean’s face and taking in the details.
“You’re so beautiful,” He muses, His voice hushed with something approaching adoration as He moves His thumb from Dean’s lips and runs it over his cheekbone and the bridge of his nose.
“Don’t,” Dean tries, not even sure what he’s protesting, but His fingers are back on Dean’s lips in an instant, pressing a warning.
“I don’t remember,” He continues, still speaking softly. “Do you have freckles everywhere?”
Dean’s confusion increases—He’s making it more than clear that Dean’s voice isn’t wanted right now, but that was definitely a question—and then he stiffens with understanding as weaves of power unzip his heavy coat and push it back off his shoulders. He can’t quite figure out how to fight effectively—there aren’t actually any wrists for him to grab and still—but after a few moments, he remembers that the power is coming from somewhere and strikes out at Him. It’s stupid—suicidal, maybe—but Dean’s not just going to stand here and allow himself to be stripped in the middle of the bar.
He gets in a couple of good hits—one that rocks His head back and bloodies His lip—before He catches Dean’s wrists in His hands.
“None of that now,” He scolds. “This is going to happen. The only question is how many bones I’m going to have to break before you man up.”
There’s another of those dry, snapping sounds, followed by a scream, and Dean stops trying to jerk his hands free. Stilling, he stands there and breathes in shallow, too rapid pants while coils of power tug his shirts up and over his head. When His attention shifts lower—invisible hands unbuckling Dean’s belt and then opening his pants—Dean twitches but manages to keep from bolting.
At least until He leans forward to nuzzle at the dusting of freckles across Dean’s collarbone.
Then the nervous, nauseous energy that’s been building inside of Dean spills over—what the fuck is He doing?—giving him the strength to shove Him back and break for the door.
Dean gets three steps before he trips over something—a high-pitched yelp tells him that ‘something’ is one of the hounds—and crashes to the floorboards. Before he can push back to his feet, He has a hand on Dean’s bicep and is hauling him up.
“That was stupid,” He growls. “Where the fuck do you think you’d go, anyway? Huh? You think I don’t have more demons waiting outside?”
He tosses Dean forward, sending him stumbling back up against the bar, and Dean catches himself on the polished wood. He turns as quickly as he can—doesn’t want Him at his back—and lifts his chin defiantly.
“I don’t know what the fuck you want from me,” he spits, “But whatever it is, you’re going to have to take it because I’m done rolling over for you, damn it.”
He looks surprised for a moment—maybe a little hurt—but Dean doesn’t have long to celebrate his victory before His expression is changing again, going cold and hard and smug.
“I’m not going to take anything from you,” He corrects. “You’re going to offer yourself to me, just like you always do. You’re going to beg me to claim you the way you’ve wanted me to for years—and I know your memory isn’t what it used to be these days, but trust me when I say you’ve been gagging for it.”
He smirks as Dean shakes his head and backs a few steps along the bar, putting some extra space between them and glancing along the length of polished wood for something he can use as a weapon.
“You can’t run from me,” He says conversationally, and Dean knows from experience that it’s true, but he can’t seem to stop himself from trying anyway. He takes another, sidling step and then freezes as his lower leg connects with something solid and warm and invisible. The hound gives a low, warning growl in the back of its throat and pushes back against him in clear command.
Not that Dean’s going to let the damned thing boss him around—especially when what it wants him to do is get closer to the big, bad nightmare in the room.
Swallowing awkwardly around the lump of fear in his throat, he stands where he is and stares at the far wall.
“Take off your clothes.”
Dean’s stomach turns over with an alarming sensation that’s a lot like freefall and his head jerks in instinctive denial. “No,” he rasps.
There are two cracks this time—one trailing the other like a rifle shot and its echo—and Dean’s gaze unwillingly shoots to the man whose bones He has been snapping like matchsticks. The man is down on the floor screaming, and trying to hold his legs with his one good hand—he’s still possessed, but the demon is hiding at present, leaving this poor guy to feel the pain.
And Dean has figured out that he isn’t allowed to save anyone, but that doesn’t mean he likes it.
His chest heats with impotent rage and his eyes burn. “Stop it,” he chokes out, hands flexing uselessly at his sides.
“Take off your pants and maybe I’ll think about it,” He counters.
Dean meets His eyes for a moment, searching for any signs that He’s bluffing (for some indication of what He wants), and then, biting his lower lip, puts his hands on the waistband of his opened jeans.
“That’s it,” He praises, taking a step nearer.
His grin sharpens, gaze raking up and down over Dean’s exposed chest in a way that leaves Dean feeling anxious and exposed. Dean’s hands tighten on his jeans—threat or not, he’s considering buttoning them back up instead of pushing them down like he’s been told.
“Socks and shoes too, while you’re at it,” He adds. “I want to see what I’m getting.”
The words carry a cold, mocking edge, and Dean can tell that He means the words to hurt. His eyes rest heavily on Dean’s skin, waiting eagerly for the damage to register and become visible on Dean’s face. The last thing that Dean wants to do is give Him the satisfaction of knowing how humiliated this entire situation is making him feel, but he feels a tear slip past his defenses anyway.
Dropping his eyes, he shifts and considers making another break for it as he struggles to keep another tear from following the first. The sound of a footstep on floorboard alerts Dean to His approach and he jerks back, knocking into the edge of the bar hard enough to make his lower back throb and ache.
“Shh,” He says, still moving forward. All of the mocking anger has gone out of His voice, leaving it almost gentle.
Dean can’t keep up with the rapid shifts in His moods; his brain hurts from rifling through the scattered memories left to him in a vain attempt to understand what He’s after. His thoughts are fixed on the front door and the snowy twilight outside, but he isn’t quite brave enough to try anything as He finishes closing the distance between them and rests His hands over Dean’s where Dean is still clutching the waistband of his jeans.
“Shh,” He says again, running his thumbs over the backs of Dean’s hands. “I’m sorry. That was cruel.”
Carefully, He takes hold of Dean’s wrists and eases Dean’s hands away from his jeans. The fabric, released, slips down a couple of inches to hang low around Dean’s hips.
“I’m just so frustrated, you know?” He continues, resting His forehead against Dean’s and bumping their noses together. “You—” The exhalation turns into a laugh, soft and fond. “You drive me nuts sometimes. You’re so fucking stubborn, and I was ... waiting. I lost track of how long, but it was a long time, Dean, and then I got back and you—playing the goddamned suburbia dad. Like you fucking forgot me.”
His hands clench around Dean’s wrists hard enough that Dean grimaces, although he’s wise enough to keep his protesting grunt trapped in his chest where it belongs.
“I showed you, though, didn’t I?” He breathes, viciously triumphant. “I fixed it. Now it’s just you and me in there, just like it should be.”
This game again.
Dean’s been keeping his eyes lowered—can’t meet His gaze when they’re so close—but now he shuts them as well and says, for what feels like the thousandth time, “You’re not him.”
“Bullshit I’m not!”
The words crackle through the room, riding a pulse of power that fries the lights overhead and blows the windows out. Snow swirls in on the wind, near invisible in the twilight, but Dean isn’t cold. It isn’t possible to be cold with the full force of His rage and displeasure leaking over his skin like dragon’s breath.
Slowly, and with obvious effort, He opens His hands and releases Dean’s wrists. Then, even more slowly, He takes a step back.
“Strip and get on the bar,” He says.
His voice is flat—commanding—and the words seem to twist in on themselves, echoing and expanding inside Dean’s head until they’re all he can hear. His fingers tremble as he obeys, but there’s no hesitation left to him as he pulls his shoes and socks off and then pushes his jeans down. It isn’t until he’s kneeling on the bar that he comes back to himself. It hits him all at once—where he is and in what condition—and his skin heats with an embarrassed, humiliated flush.
“You want to know how I know you’re not him?” he says, keeping his face averted and his eyes fixed on an abandoned beer by his right knee. “He never would have pulled that crap with me.”
He laughs. “I could beat you into submission if you’d prefer,” He offers. “Or I could snap a couple more bones, see how long it takes you to knuckle under.”
“He wouldn’t have done that either,” Dean adds. “He never hurt anyone.”
“So we’re not counting all those people I bled out so I could get my demon blood fix, huh? Good to know.”
Dean presses his lips more tightly together—not because he doesn’t have a response to that. He does. He has ... there are a lot of things he could say. He just doesn’t want to talk about this anymore.
He’s silent for several long minutes, and then, finally, says, “On your back.”
There’s no compulsion coloring His voice this time, but Dean only hesitates for a moment before complying. He may not have all of his memories left, but he doesn’t need them to know that he’d prefer to finish this with at least some shred of dignity intact.
Lying on his back on this cold, sticky surface reminds him unpleasantly of Alistair’s table. It’s just spilled alcohol that his skin is sticking to, though, and not tacky, drying blood, and he reminds himself of that fact. He reminds himself that Alistair is dead, and then bites his tongue against the almost uncontrollable urge to burst out laughing.
It’s unbearably amusing that the only things he can remember are his dead brother and a bunch of demons.
He shivers when His fingertips brush over his hip, but doesn’t otherwise move. “How did I get out of Hell?” he asks instead.
His fingers don’t so much pause as hesitate, resuming their wandering quickly enough that Dean almost thinks he imagined the delay.
“I pulled you out,” He says. “I walked into Hell after you, and I saved you.”
“If you saved me, then why don’t I remember it?” Dean asks, and this time there’s no missing the hesitation of His fingers because they’ve stopped moving altogether. He should probably stop while he’s ahead, but some mulish, self-destructive impulse pushes Dean to guess, “Someone else saved me, and they’re looking for me. If they found me in Hell, how long do you think it’ll take before—”
“He doesn’t care about you anymore,” He interrupts harshly. “He pulled you out of the Pit to serve a purpose and then he tossed you aside. No one’s coming for you, Dean, and if you’d just get your head out of your ass and acknowledge that I’m me, then you’d be fucking ecstatic to hear that.”
His hand moves from Dean’s side to his stomach, stroking and making Dean shift uncomfortably.
“After all, this is what you always wanted. Just you, me ...”
Dean watches as He leans in, filling Dean’s vision, and has a second to prepare himself to have his mouth taken a second time. It’s just as unnerving as it was before—mostly because Dean doesn’t know what to do with himself, doesn’t get what’s happening—but this time Dean’s not fighting it and it feels ... it feels different. Leaves his groin warm and tingling.
He pulls away slowly, hands moving up to brush Dean’s nipples now, and Dean—fuck, he can’t take anymore of these mind games.
“Just get it over with,” he bites out.
“Get what over with?”
“Whatever you’re going to do to me.”
He regards Dean with a dispassionate, unblinking stare for a long moment and then says, “You don’t remember, do you?” His mouth twitches as He tilts His head. “No, of course you don’t. You traded your last bimbo ride for that gas station attendant in Reno. Interesting.”
Only He doesn’t look interested.
He looks excited.
It clicks, then—what this has been leading up to. All the whispered promises, and Him draping himself around Dean’s dreams (even when He didn’t manifest Himself, Dean could sense Him there), and that strange, hot look in His eyes. Dean feels like he should have known, but even now he’s working off of incomplete memories of watching TV with Sam, no firsthand experience. No real knowledge of what the culmination looks like—and fuck, but he’s winded from the confused understanding that this kind of thing is even possible.
A guy having sex with another guy.
What the hell is that even supposed to look like?
Dean thought he’d feel better once he knew what was going on, but his stomach plummets further and his breathing speeds to shallow pants. He hangs onto the edges of the bar for support as He strips with efficient, methodical movements.
It isn’t a show—it doesn’t need to be a show, as built as He is. His pectoral muscles flex as He pulls His shirt over His head and drops it to the floor. His abdominals twitch while He undoes His belt and opens His jeans. His thighs are firm and broad beneath His pants; His hips lean. When He straightens again, there’s something in His expression that’s almost feral—that makes Dean think again of Alistair. But Alistair’s eyes were always cold; never bore so much heat.
He smiles as He grips the edge of the bar by Dean’s hip—bared flash of teeth like a wolf’s jaws. “Don’t worry, Dean,” He murmurs. “I’m sure you’ll pick it up as we go along.”
Hoisting himself up onto the bar, He straddles Dean’s waist in a smooth movement. Despite Dean’s recent realization, the weight is unexpected and alarming. He startles up, heedless of any possible repercussions. He plants a hand in the center of Dean’s chest and shoves him back down against the wood with a disapproving tsk.
“Thought I made it clear where I wanted you.”
“Get off me,” Dean spits back, twisting and attempting to buck Him off.
He gets a hand on one of Dean’s biceps and leans down, scraping up the side of Dean’s throat with His teeth and making his breath catch.
As Dean continues to struggle, He puts His mouth next to Dean’s ear and breathes, “Is it the audience? Because I’d never let anyone look at you like this—you should know that, Dean.”
At the reminder, Dean cuts his eyes to the side and finds that He’s telling the truth. The demons are still there, of course, but their backs are turned and their heads bowed. Dean wasn’t even aware they were bothering him until He pointed them out, but he’s suddenly acutely aware that he’s naked. He’s naked and about to be touched in a really, really intimate way, and his skin is crawling with the knowledge that there are almost twenty demons crowded into the room with him.
“Don’t worry about them,” He urges, shifting around on top of Dean until He’s draped over Dean’s body, huge and warm. A moment later, a large hand pushes between Dean’s thighs, moving them apart and edging one leg off the side of the bar. There’s an alarming heat trembling in Dean’s groin—something about the situation, or maybe the musky and familiar scent of His body is getting to him—but he ignores it as he shakes his head.
“Get rid of them,” he begs. “I don’t—I won’t fight, but not. Not like this.”
His hand doesn’t stop moving where it’s stroking the inside of Dean’s thigh, but He raises His head so that He can look Dean in the eyes. Whatever He finds there pleases Him, and His smile is sudden and blinding.
“So, you do remember something,” He says, moving His hand up higher and rubbing His fingertips over Dean’s balls.
“Don’t!” Dean yelps, jerking where he’s pinned against the bar and shooting a wide-eyed glance at the demons.
“Sorry, baby,” He whispers as He moves His fingertips further down between Dean’s legs. “The ritual requires witnesses. But they’re just going to listen. Anyone looks and I’ll fry them before they can see anything, okay?”
No, it’s not okay. Nothing about this is okay.
“Stop,” Dean tries again, but He ignores the protest and pushes His fingers up between the cleft of Dean’s ass, searching for something.
When He finds it a moment later, fingertips catching on a tiny, puckered indent, it sends a hot, almost electric shock singing through Dean’s groin. He associates the sensation with memories of waking in the morning as a teenager, Sam sprawled and dead to the world in the other bed. Those memories short out as soon as Dean’s teen self edges out of their shared room in search of privacy, but the way his cock is stiffening where it’s trapped against his stomach isn’t difficult to read.
The murdering, memory-stealing son of a bitch is crushing Dean into the tacky bar and there’s a part of him that’s getting off on it.
No, he thinks, his stomach pulling cold and tight with humiliated denial. He turns his face to the side, but He cups Dean’s cheek with the hand that isn’t between Dean’s legs and draws his face back around.
“I want you to look at me, Dean.”
Dean tries—reflex, more than actual desire to please—and can’t see much past the blur of tears. He hates how obvious his emotions are right now and instinctively squeezes his eyes shut, hiding.
His thumb curls beneath Dean’s jaw and He gives Dean’s head a gentle, chiding shake. “Behave.”
It isn’t the reprimand that makes Dean’s eyes fly open again—no, that’s the teasing push of His fingers where they’re nestled up against his hole, one fingertip working its way inside. His face is close, hair hanging down and brushing Dean’s skin. His eyes catch Dean’s at once, and then hold his gaze as He pushes His finger deeper.
Dean’s leg jerks where it’s dangling off the side of the bar.
“Sa—” he chokes out, and then bites down on the rest of the word.
He chuckles, low and heated, and presses deeper. “Thought I wasn’t him.”
“You’re not,” Dean manages, but his breath is coming faster, and he’s been run to ground in the buttfuck end of nowhere, and there’s a goddamned finger rooting around inside of him, and His eyes are merciless and demanding, not letting Dean squirm away, not letting him distance himself at all.
Fuck.
“Say my name,” He challenges, and then His finger rubs against something inside of Dean that makes Dean gasp and tremble all over. Dean’s still blinking spots away from his eyes when He nudges Dean’s cheek with His nose and whispers, “Say it.”
“Fuck you,” Dean says, and then groans as He rubs that spot again—more deliberately this time. His lips catch against Dean’s jaw—scrape of teeth, flick of tongue—and Dean’s hips shift a little of their own accord.
“In nomine fratris,” He murmurs, breath ghosting down across Dean’s throat.
Dean wants ... wants something. He’s stroking that lightning spot inside of Dean and mouthing at his neck, and Dean unclenches his hands from the edges of the bar and grabs His biceps instead.
“Say it,” He urges, mouth still pressed against Dean’s throat.
“Lucifer.”
Dean’s not sure where he scrounged up the strength to mouth off, but He sets him straight immediately, teeth digging in and finger twisting in a rough, violent way that sets off a deep-seated ache between Dean’s legs.
::That’s not my name,:: He says, pushing the words right into Dean’s mind. ::I’m not him.::
“You are. You fucking—you took him and you—in the earth.”
::Sixty six more seals to break open that prison again, Dean,:: He replies as the painful pressure of His mouth eases. ::And killing you is number one. Since I’m never letting that happen, I don’t think we need to worry about the Morning Star any more.::
And deeper, beneath those projected words, Dean catches a deeper litany of, Mine. MinealwaysforeverDeanownyoukeepyousafemine. It’s like standing on the edge of a maelstrom and peering down into the depths of the ocean. Only there’s no bottom to this yawning, churning pit of black water. Deep as Dean looks there’s just more whirling need and hunger and an overwhelming, crushing possessiveness that makes Dean feel small and humbled.
The oppressive sensation of His mind settling against Dean’s is all but lost in the rushing accompanying vertigo, but Dean feels His mouth hovering above his own well enough. His warm breath curls into Dean’s mouth on each exhalation. Their lips brush lightly as He spreads His fingers deep inside of Dean, stretching him. Dean’s head spins. He feels drunk—terrified, too, and angry, but more intoxicated than anything else, and as he looks up into His eyes, he finds that he wants to believe.
He’s been running for so long. Been alone for so long.
“Say my name,” He cajoles, brushing their lips together in something like the kisses Sam used to offer when they were just kids. Sam’s kisses were chaste, though. Innocent. This friction sparks heat through Dean’s skin and makes him shake as he moves his hips in weak, reluctant rolls.
“Dean,” He urges, nudging Dean’s nose with His own.
Dean’s mouth falls open. He wants—God help him, he needs—His mouth to blanket his again. Firm, claiming pressure instead of this torturous tease.
“Stop running from this,” He tells Dean as He works a third finger in alongside the first two. Dean lets out a high, soft whine. His hips jerk sharply against the bar. “Stop being so fucking stubborn and come home to me. Let me make everything right again. Let me take away the pain.”
His mind strokes Dean’s, and the power behind the caress carries promises of soothing numbness. Dean’s been living with the pain of his savaged memories long enough that he can’t really conceive of what that would feel like, but the relief from pain is the least attractive part of His offer.
Christ, but Dean’s tired of being alone.
“All you have to do is say my name. Just once.” His voice is filled with the smug assurance that He has Dean right where He wants him, but Dean’s too far-gone to even consider refusing on principle. He just—he doesn’t have anything left to fight with. His throat works, trying to get enough saliva to his mouth to allow this last surrender, and His lips curve in a slow, victorious smile.
“Who am I, Dean?” He asks. “What’s my name?”
“Sammy.”
The word tears from Dean’s throat, jagged and hard enough that Dean can taste the blood it leaves in its wake, but that hurts less than his chest as the forced acceptance shocks home. He still can’t understand how this has happened—how Sam managed to claw his way free from Lucifer’s prison, why he came out like this, what sorts of horrible things he’s spent his freedom doing—but now that he’s said it aloud, he can’t cling to denial any longer.
The dark, godlike creature on top of him—the one wearing Sammy’s face and mimicking Sammy’s form—really is Dean’s brother. He’s what’s left of Sam, anyway, and that’s going to have to be good enough because he’s all Dean has.
Sam saw to that himself, one memory at a time.
Above Dean, Sam has stilled. His fingers are a vast, unmoving intrusion inside of Dean.
“What was that?” he asks after a moment—as though, despite all of his pushing and maneuvering and demanding, he didn’t actually expect Dean to cave.
“Sammy,” Dean repeats obediently, and it comes out easier this time—no less painfully, but louder and with more conviction.
Sam’s mouth descends immediately, covering Dean’s and filling him with something that feels more like fire than arousal. Just because it’s Sam and not a stranger doesn’t make what’s happening right—it doesn’t make it any easier or more comfortable—but Dean’s pathetic enough that he wants it anyway. It feels like he hasn’t seen Sam in years—three long ones before this game of cat and mouse began, and then the six months of running from the truth that followed—and fuck, Dean wants everything that Sam can give him. He’ll take anything his murdering, possessive, bloody-minded demon king of a brother is willing to offer.
Eagerly, he opens his jaw wide for the kiss, letting Sam in, and gets his left leg up and over his brother’s hip. The new position tilts his ass up, giving Sam a new angle and letting his fingers slide deeper, and Dean makes an inarticulate cry at how open and loose he feels down there.
::Tell me yes,:: Sam insists as his fingers stroke faster, moving in a twisting, spreading movement that makes Dean burn inside. ::Come to me willingly.::
As though Dean has any other options, now that he’s accepted who he’s dealing with.
Yes, he thinks. Anything.
It comes to him in a vague way that the demons in the bar—the ones Sam says they need, who are listening but not looking—have begun to chant. The words are guttural and indecipherable, but Dean recognizes high ritual when he hears it, and even in his aroused, desperate state he can feel the power building. The air in the room heats—he’s sweating, and so is Sam—and the hounds are making nervous, excited yips and blundering into stools as they dance around the bar.
::He is mine,:: Sam announces, and Dean can tell from the echoing reverberations that his brother’s voice leaves in his head that Sam’s words are no longer for him alone. This is a broadcast, being sent out not just to the demons in the room with them, but around the globe. Maybe even into Hell. Into Heaven, if such a place exists.
Before the echo of Sam’s proclamation has died away, his fingers have pulled out of Dean and there’s something blunt and hot nudging in their place. Sam’s tongue leaves Dean’s mouth; his lips move away, leaving Dean free to pant in shallow gasps of charged air.
Sam noses at Dean's cheek, tilting his head to the side so that he can put his mouth right next to Dean’s ear and breathe, “Don’t hide. I want to hear you.”
Dean obeys as his brother pushes in slowly, gasping and moaning and making choked, aroused noises that would be embarrassing if he were capable of thinking clearly. Sam feeds Dean his cock inch by slow, teasing inch, and Dean clings to his brother and lets all of the tension and the hunger in his chest come pouring out his mouth in a ragged exhale.
Then Sam’s mind pushes inside of his, penetrating him in a whole new way, and Dean cries out. His body jolts where he’s lying on the bar, one hand releasing his brother's bicep to flail over his head for a safer anchor and knocking glasses off the counter in the process. The pain in Dean's head intensifies—even as emptied out as it is, his mind doesn’t have room to hold the blazing force Sam has become—and then Sam does something and the agony of being ripped open and stuffed too full melts into pleasure.
Dean writhes, gripping the edge of the bar with his flailing hand while clinging to Sam with the other. His inner muscles ripple, sucking his brother's cock in deeper—taking Sam right down to the base and leaving his balls flush with Dean's ass. It’s heaven, being so full of Sammy, but Dean can’t stay still and starts undulating his hips, working himself off and then back onto his brother’s cock with sloppy, open-mouthed moans.
Sam’s body is frustratingly still, letting Dean do all the work, but his mind is sliding in and out of Dean’s in a steady, languid rhythm. All of Dean’s remaining memories have gone liquid and pliable, and Sam is gathering them up and pouring them into a single, cohesive mass. The raw, hurt gaps that used to lie between are being smoothed over—healed without leaving so much as the faintest scar behind—and it feels so good that Dean doesn’t even notice the third, deepest invasion until Sam is already inside his soul and making himself at home.
It feels just like Dean guesses being possessed must feel, except the way Sam is moving around and rearranging things speaks for something a little more long term than that—like Sam doesn’t plan on ever detaching himself again. As Dean catches a stray, unguarded thought from his brother, he understands that he’s right.
Dean is never going to have another solitary thought. He’s never going to feel any emotions that Sam won’t know about. Isn’t ever going to be by himself in his head, even if he’s miles from his brother physically.
The relief that swells inside of him at that realization is staggering, and Dean’s frenzied efforts to fuck—yes, fucking, that’s what this is called—himself on Sam’s cock stall out as he grapples with the overwhelming intensity of it. Luckily, Sam is putting the finishing touches on the binding between them, and as Dean starts to come back to himself, he begins to move himself, thrusting into Dean with shallow, sharp bucks of his hips.
“Mine,” he pants into Dean’s ear. “You’re mine now.”
Yours, Dean agrees, and then cries out again as he comes all over his own stomach.
The air is so thick with power now that it’s almost unbreatheable, and in his post-orgasmic haze, Dean feels Sam’s thrusts growing increasingly rapid and desperate. His head spins, pulse deafening in his ears, and then Sam thrusts in and his cock jerks where it’s buried inside of Dean and there’s a deafening roar as the ritual flares to completion.
Dean's soul, still tangled with Sam’s, locks into position. His mind solidifies into the new configuration Sam made for it—no pain anymore, and that alone makes Dean feel like he’s flying. Even Dean’s body feels different—stronger, more durable. There’s heat running just below the surface of his skin; a gold light burning in his mind.
Around him, the demons and the hounds are quiet. Sam has collapsed on top of him, breathing just as quickly and lightly as Dean, and for the first time since Dean was ripped apart by hounds and woke up in Hell, he feels content. Peaceful.
He thinks that maybe, sometime in the next few months, he might get around to moving.
After a while, he realizes that his hand has slipped from where it was clutching the bar and is now dangling over the edge. A long tongue is lapping at his fingertips, and when Dean twists his head a little and peers down, he can see the hound—built like a wolfhound, but sooty black in color and with milky, white eyes—looking up at him adoringly. When it sees him looking back, the hound wags its tail slowly and redoubles its licking.
Dean waits for the fear to come, but all he feels is fondness and faint amusement. The tongue tickles, though, and after a few more moments he flicks his fingers. The hound gets the message and sits down, still wagging its tail and staring up at him slavishly.
He wonders if the hounds were watching him like this when he couldn’t see them, or if it’s a new development, and then the scrape of teeth against his shoulder draws his attention back to the weight of his brother draped over him.
Slowly—his muscles are weary and reluctant to obey—Dean lifts his hand up to stroke his brother’s hair. The pressure of Sam’s teeth increases momentarily and then eases as Sam lifts his head to meet Dean’s eyes. Sam’s gaze is just as hungry and possessive as ever, but there’s a new, searching cast to his expression that tells Dean his brother isn’t sure what to expect.
Which, considering the way Dean has been behaving, is fair enough.
Flushing with embarrassment over his own stupidity, he smiles and offers, “Um, hi.”
Sam’s expression remains wary and assessing for a moment longer—Dean can feel his brother rooting around inside his mind and soul, checking to see that everything is the way it should be—but then his mouth widens into a broad grin. “Hey,” he answers, and moves in for a kiss.
It’s almost an hour before they manage to detach from each other, Sam climbing off the bar first and pulling his jeans back on. He won’t let Dean get up, sending a demon out into the night for a 'more suitable outfit for his consort'. A few moments later, when the demon returns carrying new jeans, and a button-down black shirt, and what looks suspiciously like a metal collar, Dean makes a face.
"It's just for appearances,” Sam murmurs, helping him down off the bar. There isn’t much Dean can say to that—and he sure as fuck can’t resist the earnest, pleading gaze Sam fixes him with when he takes the collar in his hands and holds it out. Anyway, the metal band isn’t actually as uncomfortable as it looks—feels a little comforting, actually. It’s nice to have a tangible reminder that he belongs to Sam again.
The hounds wait until Dean has the jeans on and then crowd in close to fawn on him. Holding the shirt in one hand, Dean dispenses head pats and ear scratches with the other while his brother laughs and plasters himself against Dean’s back, arms wrapped low around Dean’s stomach and holding him tight.
“They recognize their master,” Sam says fondly, and then lays a gentle kiss against the curve of Dean’s throat.
Dean flushes as he leans back in the circle of Sam’s arms, tilting his head to the side and giving his brother more room to work.
It's good to be home.