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English
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Sinful Desire
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Published:
2009-07-11
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1/1
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11
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"drinking hard and acting wild"

Summary:

Just a glimpse of what's going on in Sam's head as he meets the crossroads demon. Title borrowed from Vaya con Dios "I don't want to know".

Notes:

Note from the Sinful Desire archivists: this story was originally archived at Sinful-Desire.org. To preserve the archive, we began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2016. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on Sinful Desire collection profile.

Work Text:

There are some things that should never be taken from you.

 

That's what goes through Sam's mind. He's in the first month since Dean was taken from him and he's thinking that's how come he's sitting where he's sitting right now.

 

In a heap by the dark road side with a swirl of demon blood on his shirt.

 

Actually not demon, actually human blood from whatever poor slob the last crossroads demon was riding. But that's neither here nor there. Or maybe it's all over the place, because Sam kinda went to town with the knife, there's blood fucking everywhere. On his shirt. In his hair. In his sneakers.

 

Sam is drunk off his ass. It started out with research. Well, first he got drunk for awhile, a few days worth, then he sobered up and did research. He read until his eyes bled, Faust legends, breaking deals and all the rest, crossroads crossroads crossroads, and now he’s sitting by the roadside at the fucking crossroad while the corpse burns.

 

He knows these things for what they are. He is desperately trying to put his mind elsewhere. Somewhere he can’t hear Dean screaming, won’t see him torn open and bloody. It doesn’t work at all, at all.

 

Sam threw his bottle earlier in some misguided attempt to get the haze and pounding in his head to let up a little. No, that’s not right. He threw the bottle because he was pissed right the fuck off. Bellowing into the night for the damned thing to come. Blinking to get his sight to clear. Loosing his goddamned balance, overreaching and worn thin.

 

He'd thought this one would stay down, but no. Sam knew the second the man appeared they weren't dealing. It’s all about the stance, the glare, the choice of body.

 

They're not dealing. Sam offered fair trade. Him for Dean, Dean for him, him and Dean, whatever ... whatever they wanted and the demon said, said, no. Flat and final. They have it all as they want it. There's something to that. They're not doing it to get to Sam, Sam is good and gotten to, he knows it. Drunk by the roadside with a bad case of crossroads blues. Fuck them all. He’ll kill ‘em. Every last one. Wade through their torn bodies to get to Dean.

 

Dean had been shredded right in front of him while he was pinned and helpless, and Sam can't sleep, can't close his eyes. It's like after Jess, only never, not at all like that. So much worse.

 

So he drinks... Mornings are not his friend. They don't usually happen until after three o'clock anyway and he drifts from the diner to the bar hardly without a hitch and mostly he can't stand that either, so he drinks alone. Has a place to do that in now, hanging around close to where Dean is buried, 'cause he can't move on. Can’t go forwards, can’t go back.

 

Fucking hurts all over.

 

Sometimes when you use the blade, depending on how much force you put behind it, you get this weird blood bruise right at the meat between the thumb and the index finger. Kind of hurts. Can’t do what you normally would with a busted knuckle, lick at it, lick it clean, taste your own blood. Sam has that now, blood bruise, because he went to town on that guy. Went to town and there was blood on his hands, so there’s the pump by the roadside to wash up at like that’s all what it’s for.

 

The blade has a particular heft and feel. Not like that wicked curved blade Dean gave him. Dean Dean Dean and Dean’s in hell. So not like that blade that Dean gave him, but it has a hum when you use it. The power in it to kill demons and that kind of sings to Sam. Humming in his own blood like something really good.

 

Like Dean would sometimes hum right under the music so you could hardly even hear him. You’d need to put your ear to his chest, maybe a splayed hand. Feel the noise pick up in his ribcage. Not now, no more, shredded like that. No more hum from Dean, from under that cage of bones. Sam regrets never doing that, never listening to Dean like that, with his hands.

 

Dean is in hell and Sam is trying so hard to deal. But there are no comers.

 

It … sucks.

 

Should find a bigger word. Faust legends. Sam has read them all. In one minute you can lose it, the soul. Fuck, he doesn’t care, he’s already lost everything. He’s willing to trade.

 

For a year now he’s been feeling this. Long time. He nods to himself and staggers to his feet. Pisses on the smoldering corpse of the demon before shoveling the shallow grave closed. Shouldn’t have done that, there was a man in there too. Sam is hurting too bad to care. He would tear through a hundred of them, bloody to the elbows, his hair soaked and matted, if he could get to Dean.

 

“Can’t keep this burning over the long haul, it will eat you up inside”

Dean had said that about something, about Jess maybe, when Sam was in pain. “Can’t keep this burning”. And with Dean there he couldn’t keep it burning. He didn’t really need to. Smolder, yes, burn… no. This is what the burn is. Conflagration.

 

Sam by the roadside, weaving his way back to the rented room, too drunk to drive Dean’s baby. Too drunk to sit there. Too drunk to care about the blood on his clothes or the pain in his hand. Dulling ache that just said “you did something tonight” and that’s all. Killed a demon. Killed a man. Didn’t care about the one and hated the other.

 

Dean so torn in the end. Sam laid him out and washed his body. Sowed him up real neat. Tucked everything back inside. Dean would need a body when Sam got him out of hell. Sam would burn the world, tear down the barrier, bust open the Devil’s Gate, eat the fire that rushed out against his skin. For Dean. He would for Dean. Anything. For the hum of Dean instead of the blade.

 

There’s only the blade now.

 

Gravel makes a particular noise under Sam’s sneakers. The night air crisp and cold against his face, but he’s still numb. It’s too much and not enough. The feeling of the night air on him like that and the sense that he has done something now. Done something for Dean tonight even though nothing came of it. He can be allowed to go on for a little while as long as he does that. Something for Dean.

 

To get Dean back.

 

Dean’s body, laid out, was torn so wide open Sam could smell the black bile, the stomach contents, the emptied bowls, the drain of fluids. But he stitched him up nice, leaning in to bite the thread, teeth close to Dean’s bloodless skin, so white, so Snow White-white it could have made some kind of joke.

 

Sam remembers too, bending over his brother’s body and howling his grief, a wounded animal keening in harsh light.

 

For a year he fought against it. For a whole damned year.

 

“Take me, take me, it’s a fair trade”

 

Not what Sam had meant. Because Dean is worth more than Sam. Sam is not worth the sacrifice that Dean had made. Forever. No taking anything back.

 

“Lilith wants me dead and she can have me”

 

Closer to the truth, whatever that might be. Sam can’t feel this anymore. He can’t feel this. It’s too much to contain in one body, in one mind. There is too much hurt for it to stay inside his skin, for him to remain human with all this in his head. He can’t …

 

“You have to burn him, son”.

Bobby had told him to let Dean go. There was never a moment in all the time they had ever spent together when Sam had actually come that close to raising a hand against his father’s friend. Against a man he trusted and relied on to some measure. Against a man he knew Dean thought of as a milder and more benevolent version of their dad. Sam knew too that if he started he wouldn’t be able to stop.

 

Took Sam longer than he expected to tamp down the desire to take Bobby apart with his bare hands. He never looked at the man when he told him “Dean will need a body”. He already knew the expressions he would meet. “You got to let him go, son”. That time he had looked up. Dragged his gaze from Dean’s pale hands folded on his chest. Met Bobby’s eyes steady.

 

Bobby didn’t argued the point after that.

 

Sam crawled into a bottle for a few days after the pine box was in the ground. He sat next to the marker drunk off his ass. He thought they’d come for him too.

 

No one came near him.

Wounded animal in the woods howling over his dead brother.

And no one came near him.

Then he got real quiet.

 

Some things should never be taken from you.

 

Sam wears Dean’s shirt. Sam wears Dean’s amulet. Sam carries Dean’s gun. Sam drives Dean’s car.

 

It’s not to be close to Dean, because he can’t be closer than he is. He sees his brother every time he closes his eyes, hears his voice. Not always screaming, not always torn ragdollstuffingleakingbloody. Sometimes he sees Dean as he was at his best, eyes wide open and kicking with adrenaline and the rush of a job well done. Dean’s shining light burning through Sam to scour out his darkness.

 

Now there’s no one to do that and Sam falls like a stone. Darkness without, darkness within and murder on his mind. Lilith’s head on a plate. Sam would burn cities, wade a river of blood for that.

 

To be without. That is the lesson here.

 

Sam knows how to be without everything else. Mother, home, address, normal, money, school, job, father, lover, friends. Sam knows how to be without these things. Living the roving life of the hunted haunted hunter. But he can not be without Dean.

 

Just one thing.

 

The thing that contains it all, holds it like water trapped in a stone. He has forsaken everything else. Possessions, constants, safety, peace of mind. Learned to rely on rougher things, harder things. Learned to see beyond the veil. Learned to see beyond the way that could lead home.

 

All the things Sam has have been carved and stolen, bartered for, taken out of his own hide, gouged out and burnt free. He only ever had one thing that was anywhere near a balance for all that and it has always been housed in Dean.

 

Each day is a day he has to do something for Dean. To be for Dean if that is all he's capable of. To get out of bed for Dean, to search out another path, another way of breaking into hell. Sam has seen things, done things, these past few weeks that are already well beyond anything he's ever even considered before.

 

He didn't think he could get this broken. He doesn't even believe it now, boots scuffing the roadside dirt. How can anyone be this broken and still keep moving?

 

Sam among the walking wounded. Sam bleeding his own darkness into the night like it could expand and swallow him back down. Sam has a darkness in him. It is not about the demon blood, it is the other. The Winchester blood. A long line of trained killers. A long line of bad people who do good things and good people who do bad things and he's fucked if he knows where he lands on that. Which side…

 

There’s a space in his head where he really hates living and now he’s there most of the time, broken, bleeding and screaming into the dark hurricane that threatens to swallow him down. Sam rubs at his head with a wide open palm. He rubs the sockets of his eyes, his cheeks, his neck. He tries to feel something other than chill and numb.

 

It’s not until he does that that he realizes he’s crying and probably has been for a while. Maybe all the time since he started this gravel crunching walk back to the room he’s renting.

In the room there is a brace of weapons and a bag of booze and that’s a bad combination but it is what Sam has these days. All he has. That and the cold amulet laying against his skin and this torch burning inside him like he can’t even breathe for smoke rising from it.

 

Dean is in hell and so is Sam. All the rest is just ... geography.

 

 

END