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This Is Not A Drive-By	By : karmascars Category: Supernatural > Slash - Male/Male Views: 1991 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, or make any money writing fanfiction about it.

Chapter List
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CHAPTER FOUR

They made it to Chicago a few days later. Castiel told Dean in his usual flat tone that he was certain Sam was there. Bobby called as they entered the city, and by some happy coincidence there was a rougarou to gank there, too. Dean rolled his eyes, and it was somehow conveyed over the phone.
“Heaven forbid you do any of this yourself,” Bobby groused.
“Sorry, Bobby,” Dean said, not sorry at all. “Thanks for the info. I'll call you later, once we've got it.”
“Have you heard from Sam?” There was nothing in Bobby's tone; perhaps some faint concern. Dean's jaw clenched. “He's fine, Bobby, just wanted some time. We'll be seeing him in a day or so.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Yeah, Bobby, we're cool.” Dean didn't expect the old hunter to let that one go, but Bobby just sighed and told him to be careful. Dean hung up, dissatisfied.
“You do not want his help, in this matter?” Castiel asked.
“Nah, Cas, I don't want him worryin' about Sammy when he's my responsibility.” Dean parked the car in a public lot and squinted through the windshield. “So the last victim lived in that apartment building --” he pointed “-- and the others were within a ten-mile radius, so I figure I'll start there and make an outward sweep. You could take the opposite direction...?”
“Do you have the... flame thrower?” Castiel said, pronouncing the words like they were odd in his mouth. Dean grinned. “Oh, yeah.”
The angel nodded solemnly. “Then yes, we will each take separate directions. Pray for me if you find the creature.”
“Our Cas, who art in Chicago, hallowed be thine smite,” Dean joked, shoving the car door open.
The flame thrower was a reassuring weight on his back, the nozzle's trigger secure in his hand. He scouted alleyways and fire escapes with narrowed, practiced eyes. He had a story in case anyone asked -- exterminator, neighborhood inspection -- but no one even spared him a second glance.
He soon discovered that this particular neighborhood had a serious maze of alleyways at its heart, after taking too many turns and not ending back at the main road. Brick walls ranged fifteen stories on either side, with directionless turns ahead of and behind him. Dean had no idea where north was, and it was seriously messing with his internal compass. He was actually feeling the first vestiges of nausea.
Distracted, intent on figuring out the maze, Dean didn't hear the rougarou approaching until it was dragging on the contraption attached to his back, trying to claw his neck and arms. Castiel! he prayed frantically, his mind refusing to come up with even the simplest sentence to accompany the name. He smelled the thing like a blow to his face, the stench of clotted blood and rotten meat rolling off it in waves. It snarled, the sound garbled by something unthinkable in its gullet. Trying to pull away, Dean stuck the nozzle of the flame thrower under his arm, pointed it in what he hoped was the right direction, and squeezed the trigger.
Flame burst along his side, searing away his T-shirt, drawing a hiss between his clenched teeth. The rougarou howled, stumbling backward, and Dean was finally able to spin and face it. It looked like it had been a businessman, once, still dressed in the tattered remnants of a suit. Its dinner-plate eyes tracked Dean hungrily as he shifted, the burn on his side starting to itch hotly.
Then he strode forward, and pulled the trigger back again.
A small spurt of flame, then nothing. Click. Click. He took an abortive step backward, eyes not leaving the creature. It realized it wasn't on fire and a hideous, gaping grin struck its face. Then it was lunging forward --
-- only to explode into a fine mist all over the alleyway, and Dean.
He dropped the nozzle, then shrugged out of the pack, casting it aside as his expression darkened. He focused on the tall man at the other end of the alley, whose hand was falling lazily back to his side.
Sam was grinning but it felt wrong, even if it looked the same beneath those floppy bangs. Dean wasn't close enough to see his brother's eyes, and he suddenly really wanted to. He wanted to see if the clenching in his gut had any foundations in truth.
“Heya, Sammy,” Dean said casually, lifting a hand to wave. “How ya been?”
“So-so,” came the reply, pitched low but it still carried effortlessly. He sounded the same, Dean thought, but still... why can't I shake this?
And where's Cas?
“How'd you, uh, go all Jedi Mind... Mist-Maker on that thing?” As quips went, it definitely wasn't his finest, but it did buy him distraction enough to take a few more steps down the alley. He could almost see his brother's eyes. Sam gave him an appraising look. “How do you think I did it, Dean,” the younger Winchester said flatly.
Dean's heart sank.
“How did you even get to this point, man?” he asked, hating the little bit of desperation that entered his voice, but this was Sammy, damnit, this was his baby brother, and fuck it all if Sammy's eyes weren't the weirdest shade of -- they fluctuated between brown and black and the whites of them had a little bit of a bio-luminescent sheen. Dean wished he'd stayed at the other end of the alley.
“Well, you know how it started,” Sam said lightly, hands sheathed in his pockets, the very picture of nonchalance. “Ruby helped me figure it out. She helped me with a lot of things, actually -- helped me understand that I wasn't a freak, that these powers were a gift, and that I should be using what I'd been given.” There was a little hint of a leer when he said that last bit. “And then...”
“Then I killed the bitch.” Whaddaya want, an apology? Dean stared defiantly at his brother, refusing to let any panic or that sudden, clenching despair well to the surface.
“Yeah... that didn't so much matter,” Sam said flippantly, raising a hand to inspect his fingers. “She got me started, but she didn't teach me jack shit.”
“How did you know what to do, then?” Keep him talking, back away slowly and just keep him talking... Cas, man, what's keeping you?
"I figured it out myself," Sam lied. "Didn't take a genius to see those vials she was giving me were full of demon blood. After you killed her --" that phrase held a sickening amount of blame "-- I just felt worse and worse and my powers faded, until I was forced to seek strength on my own." He shifted his weight, lowered his chin to stare at Dean through his bangs. "It's not like you would have helped me figure it out."
Sam's shaded, shifting eyes were wormholes to Hell, and something caught in Dean's throat. "Sammy," he croaked, "don't do this. Come back with me. We can figure out --"
"No, Dean, don't you see?" Sam's tone was resigned. "It could never happen any other way." He began to walk toward Dean, and the movement was so predatory that the hunter almost wasn't surprised when his brother raised a hand and added, "I'm so much stronger, now, what I do doesn't just affect demons, or mindless monsters."
Dean felt pressure on his throat and could have wept.
"Sammy, don't Vader me, man, that's -- awk," his trachea was touching sides and he couldn't breathe and all he could see was Sam's damned eyes.
He fell to his knees, mouthing for air, trying not to claw at his throat. Cas, where are you?
Sam's lips twitched in a smirk.
For the first time, Dean felt like he may actually have to kill his little brother.
Then lack of air forced his consciousness down to a pinpoint under clouds of shifting grays, and he fell to his side on the stinking alley pavement. As his eyes rolled back into his head, he heard Sam walk away. The sound of footsteps fell away much sooner than he it expected to, but then again, he was much more focused on trying to inhale.
The pressure on his neck took an agonizing length of time to dissipate. Damn, he's gotten strong. Dean shifted, groaned, and rolled to just lay on his back and breathe for a bit. His abused throat protested at the use but his starved lungs didn't care, so they all gulped air together, reveling in it.
Sammy...
Dean mourned, then, as he lay in the alley. I don't want to kill him, I want to save him. And even as he asked himself hopelessly how?, his mind was already kicking in to overdrive. Trank gun, tie him up, take him to Bobby's panic room... hmm, could I get a foam isolation box?
"Excuse me, sir?" Dean rolled to his feet at the sound of this new voice, only to nearly laugh at the irony of it all when he saw a cop standing cautiously at one of the anonymous turns. "Are you all right?" the man called.
"Never better," Dean said as breezily as he could manage. His voice was lower and raspier than usual. "I'm going to go get a shower."
"Do you need a ride?" the cop asked, ever professional. He barely even wrinkled his nose as Dean, covered in alley muck and something that really couldn't be identified as blood anymore, drew abreast of him. The elder Winchester flashed his most winning smile.
"I appreciate it, but you don't want all this crap on your upholstery." He didn't really want it on his, either, but he was a good ways away from the motel, and like hell I'm leaving my baby somewhere.
The cop let him saunter off without another word. Dean supposed that all the grime on his skin covered the bruises on his throat.
But later, as he toweled off, he stared at his neck in the mirror. Sammy's Dark Side powers hadn't left a single mark.
Dean didn't feel sickened, or angry -- just deeply, overwhelmingly sad.

~#~#~

A month later he announced to himself in a different mirror: "I need a drink." His unshaven reflection nodded. Dean reached for the half-empty bottle of whiskey he'd placed on the back of the toilet.
"Hello, Dean," came a familiar, graveled voice from right next to him. Castiel's face registered in the mirror a split second before Dean was leaping, twisting around, slipping and falling on his ass in the tub. A pained groan wrenched from his throat, which had never quite recovered from Sam's tender ministrations -- on top of all this, a goddamn bruised tailbone, Jesus fuck that hurts!
"I do wish you would not blaspheme," Castiel said mildly as he held out a hand. Dean took it, allowed himself to be effortlessly strong-armed out of the tub. "I thought you couldn't read my thoughts?" he said snidely, re-wrapping the towel that had fallen too low on his hips.
"Your thoughts were written rather expressively across your face," the angel said.
Dean sighed, dragging his hand through his water-spotted hair. A fine spray arose. "So... 's been awhile," he said finally, when it was clear Castiel was just going to stand there. Not waiting for an answer he grabbed the pair of clean jeans he'd laid on the toilet lid, turned his back and dropped his towel.
An unseen flock of birds passing by, that's what it sounded like when Castiel left. Dean raised an eyebrow. Modesty, he noted, surprised. That's new.
He dressed mechanically, not even paying attention to what shirt he put on. "Castiel, who art somewhere nearby, you can... come back now," he said lamely, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Bird wings. "You do not put much creativity into your prayers." The way he said it, the phrase was just an observation, so there was no need to actually vocalize the I'm not a fucking poet that circled atop Dean's tongue. Dean looked up at him, that familiar rumpled trench coat, perpetual five-o'clock shadow, deep circles beneath eyes like the sky. Castiel looked as weary as the hunter felt.
"What do I do about Sam?" Dean asked, unthinking. He'd been wondering something more along the lines of, where were you when that went down? and Where have you been all this time? He was glad of what came out of his mouth, though, because Dean Winchester Is Not Needy.
Aw, who was he kidding. He needed his brother, needed to be needed by him like he always had been, and in the absence of that it was looking like he needed Castiel -- if only to keep him sane.
"Sam has made his choice," came the reply he didn't want to hear. "He has sided with the demons, no matter how he may protest that this is just a means to an end."
Dean stood, got right in Castiel's face. They were inches apart, and something hummed between them as he said, very quietly, "I forbid you to kill my brother."
"Dean, you are thinking about doing it yourself. How is that different?"
"He's my brother." He felt that should explain anything, all of it. "And I thought you couldn't read my mind."
"I don't have to." What was that, flickering through those fathomless eyes? "I rebuilt you from nothing. I know you better than you know yourself. You wear your emotions... prominently."
Dean realized how close they were when Castiel closed the distance, holding his gaze, lips moving micrometers from his own. No breath ghosted across his face -- yet another reminder of the alien thing that was an angel -- but the movement sent small breezes dancing away. "Dean," Castiel was saying, "no one knows you like I do."
Then Dean was backing away, breathing air that wasn't charged with unsung electricity. "Personal space, Cas," he said, and to his shock and dismay his voice betrayed him as a breathy growl. The angel's head canted to the side. "What is it called," he asked, "when a person says one thing but does another?"
The hunter glowered. "That's called duplicity, Cas. Are you trying to say --"
"Sam is being... duplicitous," Castiel said, tasting the unfamiliar word. Dean tensed and all the confusion and anger flowed into indignation. "Sammy wouldn't lie to me!"
"And you are being naive," Castiel continued evenly. "He must be stopped. His powers had grown to such an extent that the last time you and I saw each other...” A look of consternation twisted his features. “I heard you praying, but something held me in place. For many days.”
Dean remembered the pressure on his throat, how it had taken so long to fade. He let me up to focus on holding Cas down. Then: Sam held an angel in place for a month with his mind. Holy fucking shit.
“As you doing the deed, considering your feelings, would also be duplicitous,”Castiel continued, oblivious, “then the task must fall to myself or another of the Host." His gaze softened somewhat. "I would make it my personal mission to –"
The door banged open and there stood Sam, shoulders heaving. His right arm dripped blood. The look on his face was venomous.
"You're plotting to kill me?" he spat, and his sneering tone was a dagger in Dean's chest. "Low, even for a washed-up wannabe angel and his catamite."
Dean didn't know what that was supposed to mean, but it was obviously an insult. Grief and fury fought, and he knew it was plain on his face. "You're not my brother," the hunter snarled, hoping against hope. "Get your black-eyed ass out of --"
"No, Dean," Sam said as one would to a child, "it's me."
And, truly, the holy water Dean took the opportunity to douse him with had no effect. His heart dropped to the soles of his shoes. "What happened to you, Sammy?" he whispered brokenly.
"I woke the fuck up!" Sam laughed, a sharp, terrible sound. "My power is incessant, unlimited! I've never felt this free. You might even say --" and there was a mad glint to his eye that curried nausea "-- I've found God."
Castiel stared at Sam, unwilling to believe his own eyes.
He hadn't sensed the man approach. He hadn't sensed him for awhile, as a matter of fact -- he'd been unwilling to tell Dean, in Chicago, that the real reason they'd stopped there was because Castiel had no idea where to go.
Now, as he stared at the younger Winchester standing there, he knew exactly why that was.
The warm glow of Sam's mortal soul was... not gone, but diffused, and pulsing unhealthily. The sickening pulses spread evenly throughout his whole body, twisting its lines. It was almost like... the angel's eyes widened, his mouth slack, incredulous.
Almost like he'd consumed his own soul.
With a strangled cry, Castiel leapt forward, angel-blade sliding from his sleeve, but Sam slapped his bloody hand on the outside wall and mid-leap the angel disappeared.
"Gotta love Enochian sigils," Sam grinned smugly.
Dean squared his shoulders. "What do you want, Sam?"
Sam took a step inside the room, then another. "I want us to be brothers, Dean, like we always were." He held out his bloody hand, a peace offering. "I know that together we could defeat anything that comes at us."
"I'll never join you," Dean quoted softly.
Sam rolled his eyes. "Enough with the Star Wars parallels, dude, seriously." He dropped his hand. "Don't you want to be able to put down monsters without risking our lives? I can do that now. Dean, I took out a shtriga in Cincinnati last week with nothing but my mind. And we can --"
"Sammy, please. Stop." Dean was amazed his voice was that steady. "You're killing yourself. I don't want to lose you, man."
Any goodwill dropped from Sam's expression. "You and the angel were talking about putting me down like a dog," he said flatly.
"Cas was just --"
"No, Dean." Sam's eyes narrowed. "You've got a hell of a blind spot when it comes to that guy. He's a soldier. He follows orders. He doesn't think for himself. If Heaven is convinced I've gone rogue, then he won't hunt me down just to chat."
Have you gone rogue? was on the tip of Dean's tongue, and of course, Sam saw right through him. "Every enlightened man experiences tyranny and oppression,” he said, “and then years down the road it's discovered that he wasn't mad -- he was right."
A backhanded slap of raw power swept Dean off his feet and across the room before he could say anything. He hit the bathroom door frame sideways, bent around it and slammed into the fixtures. Pain flared in multiple limbs, spread like fire across his torso. His jaw was broken, and he couldn't breathe.
Sam was over him in an instant, moving with inhuman speed to push his knee into Dean's sternum. Dean clawed at his brother's leg, but it was like trying to scratch titanium with a twig. The edges of his vision sparked and spread gray as Sam bent over, placing all of his weight on that knee, and Dean felt his sternum give way, ribs bowing like dying branches under the strain. "I want you to think about it, Dean," his brother said tenderly. "Just give me that much."
Then Sam was gone, with not even a breeze to mark his passing, and Dean gasped his way into unconsciousness on the tile.

~#~#~

He woke to concerned sky-colored eyes not inches above his own, but he didn't even twitch. "Hey Cas," he choked. "You miss me?"
"You were blue," the angel said without preamble. "The force of the impact broke many bones, and your sternum was crushed."
"But I guess you healed me, yeah?" Dean grunted as he sat up unhindered, Castiel moving fluidly back as he did. A pale hand grasped his own and for the second time that day hauled Dean to his feet.
The angel's eyes were inscrutable. "Do you believe me now?"
"He's still my brother," Dean said stubbornly, not meeting Castiel's gaze. "I have to believe I can save him."
"Your tenacity will be your undoing," Castiel grated out, his jaw clenching. He was actually angry. Dean stared doggedly at the far wall. "You have blinded yourself in regards to Sam,” the angel spat, “and your refusal to see sense is born of sheer pigheadedness. He has become wicked, Dean -- and 'the wicked shall perish'."
Dean's eyes slid to Castiel's, locked there, and before he knew what was happening he strode across the floor and snapped his fist into Castiel's jaw. He felt a knuckle break and grunted in pain. The angel barely moved.
Rage like he'd never felt came spilling from deep inside him and Dean balled his other fist, aiming specifically to break Castiel's nose. A pale hand caught the fist, twisted it to the side, and Dean yelped as his wrist shattered and he was forced to his knees.
Then with a touch, he was healed.
"I'm sorry, Dean," the angel said, sorrowfully, and then with a muted flapping of many wings he was gone.
"Cas, you bastard!" Dean screamed at empty air. "Don't you touch him!"
With newly healed fists he took his frustrations out on the room, punching holes in the drywall and yanking huge pieces down. Mirrors and framed pictures, shattered. Everything wooden, he reduced to splinters. He took a knife to the other twin bed, flipped up the mattress and threw it through the window. Lastly, shoulders heaving, he stalked over and pulled the shower head out of the wall. Water sprayed everywhere, flooding the bathroom, and as it soaked into the carpet Dean shouldered his duffel and left, slamming the door behind him so hard that it cracked.
He threw himself into the Impala and peeled out, choking the wheel, his face a dissonant mask. He had no idea where to look, but he did know that he had to find Sam before the angel did.

A/N: Please review? (Trust me, the best part is yet to come.)
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This Is Not A Drive-By