![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Sure Got a Dirty Mouth Chapter 74: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Author:
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Warning: Wincest
Word Count: 5429
Disclaimer: I don't own what I don't own. But I do own what I do own, such as my original characters and my plot.
Summary: Everyone learns why John is at the Sanctuary.
Master post of all chapters here
Dean yanked Sam away from John, shoving him back hard with a straight arm, putting himself between the two of them. “Sammy?” Sam’s arms were stiff at his sides, eyes wide with panic, chest heaving. Dean’s expression hardened, his mouth contorting. He turned toward John, fist drawn back, and punched him hard in the mouth.The force of his punch whipped John halfway around, made him stagger and fall to his hands and knees, head hanging down.
Dean wrapped Sam in a bear hug, his right palm cradling the back of his head. “You’re safe. I got you.” Reggie and Bobby came forward, one on either side of the boys. Flanking them.
Guarding them.
John groaned, collapsing on the floor with his back against the couch.
Sam hyperventilated in Dean’s arms, curling in on himself, knees buckling. Dean held him up, beating back his own panic, and focused on how to help Sam. “Reggie?” He indicated with his head toward the kitchen. “First drawer on the right. Little bottle.” Reggie went into the kitchen and came back with the bottle of peppermint extract. Dean cracked the bottle and stuck it under Sam’s nose. “Breathe deep.”
Sam obeyed, gasping, shaking his head at the strong scent.
“Again.”
He breathed in the sharp scent once more.
“Remember. You can do this. You already beat this.” Dean hugged Sam again. “Breathe with me.” Sam struggled to sync his breathing with Dean’s, but the fluttering fear in his chest, behind his eyes, wouldn’t subside.
If he gets panic attacks, distract him with something unexpected. Dean brought his mouth to Sam’s ear, slow and subtle so that John could not see. “You want to wear white?”
Sam whispered, “Huh?”
“When you marry me.” Dean’s voice was soft, the merest whisper. Only Sam could hear. Only Sam.
It worked. Sam’s breathing quieted, the panic ebbing away in the face of the immense force that was Dean’s love for him. Leaving only the quieter, bone-deep fear brought on by the sight of their father in their most private of sanctuaries.
John wiped his hand over his mouth. It came away bloody. Dean shot John a look that promised death if he so much as twitched in Sam’s general direction.
John examined the blood on his fingers. “I deserved that.”
“What in the name of all the hells are you doing here, John?” Bobby said. “And how did you find us?”
John looked at Bobby as if seeing him for the first time, taking in his injuries. “What happened to you?”
“Long story. You first.”
Dean pulled out of the hug, and put his arm around Sam in a solid, brotherly fashion. They both trembled. Sam looked down the hallway and caught sight of the open door to their bedroom. He gasped. He gave Dean a helpless look, and his breathing started to ramp up again.
The lube. The big bottle of sex lube they kept on top of the night stand.
“It’s ok, Sammy.” Dean spoke out loud, not believing his own words, just trying to get them through the next second.
“John. How’d you find us?” Bobby repeated.
“Is it ok if I get a glass of water?” John asked, blood streaking his white teeth.
Sam and Dean’s heads whipped around in surprise at the request in his voice.
“Hey, this is your place. I, um, had to break in so I could talk to you face to face. Because you wouldn’t have let me in if I knocked. And it’s important.” John could not tear his gaze away from his youngest son. “It’s beyond important. But this is your space, and I respect that.”
“Other than breaking in when it suits you,” Dean said. John met his son’s challenging gaze, and nodded, eyes dropping, conceding the point.
Sam frowned. “So you…what? Picked the lock and just sat right down on the couch with your hands on your knees and didn’t move until we came in?”
“Yeah, Sam. That’s exactly what I did.” John’s expression was earnest. “You know how I am about privacy.” John always honored his sons’ privacy, even when it only consisted of what was in the duffel bag they each carried on their shoulder, and he taught them to respect his. It’s even more important when you don’t have much, and when you live in each other’s pockets like we do, he used to say.
Sam watched John’s face intently, and then gave the smallest of nods to Dean. He’s telling the truth.
Dean blew out a long breath. “Keep an eye on him.” His voice expressed command so instinctively and naturally, Reggie and Bobby could not help but respond to it. “And get him a damn glass of water.” Dean took Sam’s hand and pulled him down the hallway to their bedroom and shut the door.
Sam snatched the bottle of lube and threw it into the top drawer next to their socks, then braced his hands on the heavy piece of furniture, back hunched, eyes squinted shut. Dean made sure the bag of money had not been touched, then came up behind Sam and put his arms around him.
Sam shook. “Jesus, Dean. That was close.”
“I know.”
“That was so fucking close.”
“I know, Sammy.”
Sam spun in Dean’s arms to face him, kissing him like his life depended on it. When he pulled back, his hazel eyes were bright and intensely focused on Dean. “I’ll tell him about us. If you want. Get it over with. I’ll tell Dad.” So we never have to be afraid of him finding out again. “Bobby will take us in. He said so. Or we could stay here. Or just go. Just take off. Fuck everything. We can just run. I’ll tell him, Dean.”
“God, Sam, no.” Dean’s face was a mask of horror. “He can’t. He can’t know.”
Sam looked stricken. “But you… you told Bobby.”
“Bobby’s different. And he’s not our blood family, so he doesn’t have legal power over us. Sam…you’re a minor. Dad could take you away from me.” Dean rubbed his hand over his mouth.
Sam recoiled.
“He’d kill me. Or get me locked up. And he’d take you from me.”
The realization that Dean was absolutely right hit Sam like a shot to the gut.
“If he didn’t have that over us, that legal thing, Sammy, I’d say fuck it, tell him, tell everyone, and kill anyone that tries to get between us.” Sam’s face lit up at the truth, the ferocity in Dean’s eyes. “But he can do it, Sam. And I can’t… Sam, I can’t do this without you.” Dean waved at nothing in particular.
Sam knew what he meant to say. “I can’t live without you either.”
The moment hung in the air, bright and deadly. They both let it sink in, what they had just admitted.
What they had just promised.
Dean squeezed Sam’s hand, and ran the fingers of his other hand through his hair, pushing it back. “So here’s what we do. We get through this. Play it cool. We’ve done it a thousand times before. It’s no big thing. Right?”
“Right.” Sam seemed unconvinced.
Dean put his hand on Sam’s face and rubbed his thumb gently over his jaw. “I love you. More than anything.” Then he took his hand away. “Watch me.” He rubbed his thumb along his own cheek. “If you see me do that, you know what that means.”
Sam understood.
“We act normal. Find out what the fuck he’s doing here, and figure out how to get him the hell out. And, Sam, it’s ok. Because he’s got his own little slice of the pie here. He’s not gonna stay in our place. He’ll be in his own apartment at night. So long as we’re quiet…”
Sam’s face brightened at the realization that they would still be able to be alone together. He gave a deep sigh of relief.
“Feeling better?”
Sam nodded.
“Ready to go back out?”
Sam’s face looked like Dean had just asked him if he was ready to go fight a dragon. “One minute longer?”
Dean nodded, as reluctant as Sam was to rejoin the others. Sam brought his hands to Dean’s face and kissed him like it was the last thing he’d ever do, pouring every ounce of feeling he had for Dean into that kiss.
Dean’s knees went weak, and he grabbed onto Sam to hold himself up. Sam grinned, mouth still on Dean’s, held Dean up and kissed him until he swayed in Sam’s arms, dizzy.
“Wow.”
Sam’s grin was infectious. Dean smiled back.
~
They walked back into the living room, feeling invincible. Dean left a few inches of space between them for appearance’s sake, but they felt like they were still touching.
Everyone looked at each other. No one wanted to start the conversation rolling towards the sharp and painful topics of conversation in store for them.
John pulled himself up onto the couch. Reggie brought him a glass of water and a wad of paper towels. John spat blood into the towels, and drank. “Are there any other hunters staying here?” He made an attempt at small talk.
Reggie shook his head. “Nope. Just us. The boys here, and me and Bobby are down the hall so I can take care of his gimpy ass.” Reggie explained to John how Bobby got hurt, not even needing Dean’s hard stare to tell him to leave out the bit about Sam’s powers for the time being.
John took another sip of water. “Wait... There’s just you four?”
“Yep. Why?”
“You sure? Because earlier. I heard…people having sex. Really loud sex.” John brought the water glass to his mouth again.
Sam and Dean looked like they would have thanked God fasting if the ground opened up and swallowed them whole, dragging them down to Hell, where their existence would doubtless be far more pleasant than how the rest of time on Earth was going to proceed.
Reggie and Bobby exchanged a glance of pure horror. They’d heard it too. It was something Reggie had been planning on mentioning to Sam and Dean when the time was right.
Bobby adjusted his ball cap. “We’ll try to keep it down next time.”
John spat water all over the coffee table. He stared at Bobby.
Reggie stared at Bobby.
Sam and Dean stared at Bobby, desperate relief in their eyes.
Reggie slowly removed his toothpick case and extricated one. “We said we weren’t gonna tell him.”
“You two?” John leaned forward towards Bobby. “You?”
“A man has needs.” Bobby looked put upon.
“You.” John’s focus snapped from Bobby to Reggie and back again. “You.”
Reggie sidled up next to Bobby and laid his hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “We ain’t married or anything. But you of all people should know how it is, John.” He chewed the end of the toothpick. “Gets lonely. You take your comfort where you can find it.”
“Hunters with benefits.” Bobby added.
John shook his head like his entire world view had shifted. “You?”
“Would you stop saying ‘you’?” Bobby pouted. Dean bit his lip, desperately trying not to smile. Sam squeezed Dean’s hand hard.
“Have sex. With him.” John rubbed his forehead. “What?”
“Really good sex, if you must know. Or didn’t you hear?” Bobby retorted.
“Oh god.” John buried his face in his hands.
“You want some water, darlin’?” Behind John, where he could not see, Reggie winked at Bobby.
Bobby erupted in a fit of coughing.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Reggie went to get another glass of water. As he passed Sam and Dean, he gave them a quiet, steady look that all but said out loud, “I got your back.”
“Enough chit-chat. How’d you find us?” Bobby asked.
“From you, actually.”
Bobby frowned. “Me?”
“Pencil on the notepad.”
Bobby realized what John meant, that Bobby had scrawled the address on the notepad using a ball-point pen, and not torn off a few extra sheets as a precaution. “Balls.”
Reggie handed Bobby the glass of water.
“Ok,” Bobby continued. “Why are you here?”
“Why’d you lie to me?” John’s voice was steady. “You told me you didn’t know where the boys were. Why didn’t you want me here?”
“I told him not to tell you.” Sam took his hands out of his pockets and stood up straight in a stance that was pure challenge. “I didn’t want you here.” He looked at his father evenly. “I don’t want you here.”
John flinched like Sam had slapped him. “That’s fair.” He took a deep breath. “Hurts like hell. But it’s fair.”
“Who are you and what have you done with our hardass of a dad?” Dean tried to keep his anger in check. “Letting Sam sass you like that. Letting me hit you, for Chrissakes. What’s going on?”
John’s gaze moved to the sutures on Dean’s chin. “Nice work. You do that, Sam?”
“Yes.”
“How’d Dean get hurt?”
“Could we go in order? With the questions? We asked you first. Why did you come all the way down here and bust into our apartment and scare Sam half to death?” Dean took a step toward John.
“I, uh, this is hard.”
“Spit it out.” In that moment, Dean looked and sounded like John’s son more than he ever had.
“I learned some things. About us. About you, Sam.”
Sam blinked rapidly. “Me?”
“About why all this happened to you. And more. So much more.”
Sam stilled, the hairs on the back of his neck going up.
John stood up. “I’m not going to hurt you. Ever. I’d rather die than hurt you, Sam, or let anyone hurt you. It’s important you know that. I—what I did before. I’ll never do anything like that again. You have to know that. I swear on Mary. I swear on everything that’s ever meant anything to me. ” He walked toward Sam, the grey in his beard and the grief on his face making him look much older than he was.
Sam didn’t pull away. He just cocked his head, looking at his father.
John extended his hand, offering it to Sam, waiting.
Sam looked at his hand, and into John’s eyes. Then he took John’s hand in his.
John made a soft little punched-out sound, and squeezed his fingers. “And it’s also important that you know I’m going to make it ok.”
“Dad? You’re scaring me.”
Dean reached out and took Sam’s other hand. “Just tell us. Don’t drag it out.”
“You need to know that. I’m going to fix it. Alright?” John’s brown eyes swam with tears. He touseled Sam’s hair gently. “I’ll make you ok again.”
“Dad.” Dean’s voice held a warning, and a plea.
“I know why Azazel is so interested in you.” John closed his eyes, tears rolling down his cheeks. “And why your mother was killed.” He opened his eyes. “Sammy, I’m so sorry.”
“For fuck’s sake—“ Dean began.
“You have demon blood in you.”
All sound in the room ceased. Not even the sound of breathing was heard. Nobody moved.
“What?” Sam shook his head, confused.
John held his hand tighter. “The night your mother died. Azazel came into the nursery that night. He… he dripped his blood into your mouth. Made you drink it.”
Sam tried to pull away, but John held him firm. Reggie sat down on the carpet. Just dropped from standing to cross-legged, in a simple, graceful, achingly wounded gesture. Bobby’s mouth formed a perfect O, soundless, lips white. He mouthed two words.
Boy King.
Dean didn’t let go of Sam’s hand.
“He did it to a bunch of babies. And he did it to you. She tried to stop him.” John continued. “That’s why he… why she…”
Sam pulled his left hand free from John’s grasp and moved closer to Dean, a cat slinking under the eaves to escape the sudden deluge. “No. I don’t believe you.” He shook his head no, over and over.
“Is he lying, Sam?” Dean’s green eyes locked onto Sam’s.
Sam stopped shaking his head, unable to dodge Dean’s gaze. “No, he’s telling the truth, but…”
“You can tell? When people are telling the truth? Anything else, Sam? Any other powers?” John reached for Sam again, but he recoiled.
“No, I, no, don’t touch me—there’s demon blood in me?”
Dean squeezed Sam’s hand hard, so hard it hurt, his face ashen—and then he let go and ran for the bathroom. The sound of his retching was clear even through the closed door.
Sam flinched, his body going cold. He’s thinking about all the times I came inside him. In his mouth.
~
Dean was on his knees in front of the toilet, retching. Not Sammy. Not Sammy. Please God not Sammy. The nausea welled up again, nausea born of the terrible violence, the violation, done to Sam when he was too young to even say the word no. Of such evil forced inside the sweetest, purest…
He braced his hands on the toilet seat and threw up again.
~
From inside the bathroom came the sound of Dean throwing up again, heaving up the contents of his stomach. Sam couldn’t feel his legs. He won’t want someone tainted like me. Images of Sir Galahad, bathed in light, flying up in the air like a pile of leaves scattered by a bittercold autumn wind, whisked away, leaving only scoured earth behind. His stomach spasmed, his heart racing like it wanted to bash its way out of his ribcage and escape. Just the thought of losing Dean sapped his strength. He swayed and collapsed, hit the ground before anyone could catch him.
When he came to, John was holding him. Dean was standing over his shoulder, looking down at Sam with a peculiar expression on his face. He doesn’t want to touch me. Not ever again.
“Unclean,” Sam whispered, and turned his face away, not wanting to see that terrible distance in his face, watch Dean rush away from him like a wave pulled back into the sea.
Dean sank to his knees and took Sam away from John, pulling him into his arms. “Don’t you say that.” His face was wet with tears. “Don’t you ever say that.”
Sam squirmed, feebly trying to push Dean away. “Dean, don’t, I’ll…”
“Contaminate me?” Dean’s fingers danced over the handle of his knife. “Your blood is my blood. Remember?” His smile was blinding, even while tears dripped down his cheeks.
Reggie lowered his head and sucked air in over his teeth in a hiss. John looked at him, a question in his eyes.
“The knives I gave them. They had to do a blood ritual to bind them to each of them. They mixed their blood.” John winced, and nodded, accepting this new bit of information.
Dean brought his hand to his own face and stroked his thumb over his jaw, eyes locked onto Sam’s. Suddenly, Sam gasped, a final realization taking hold. “It’s my fault mom died.” He crumpled, as if this was the last straw, the last bit of horror he could take. He sank back onto the carpet, curled up on his side, arms crossed over his face.
John scooped him up like he was still a little boy, as though he weighed nothing, and carried him to the couch. “No, Sammy. Hush. No. It’s my fault. ” He sat down and held Sam in his lap, stroking his hair. Sam curled up, left hand over his ear, and put his right thumb in his mouth.
“It’s all because of me.” He reached his hand out for Dean to come sit by him, leaned up against Sam’s back. Dean did so. He put his hand on Sam’s back, stroking it like he used to do when little Sammy was inconsolable.
“I went to see an old friend. A psychic. One of the only real ones I’ve ever met. And she told me. She told me that… I died. Azazel killed me.”
Bobby gasped.
“She said the demon had Mary, and I tried to stop him. Tried to save her. And…” John dropped his head. “And I failed. And he killed me.” The words were bitter in his mouth, the acrid taste of his failure spiraling out from the past to the present. “He offered Mary a deal to bring me back. And your mother—” John’s voice cracked. “She took the deal.”
Dean closed his eyes. Bobby swore, something in Japanese. Reggie went to the kitchen and came back with a nearly full bottle of bourbon. He took a pull right from the bottle, and passed it to Dean. Dean wiped the lip of the bottle on his shirt sleeve, took a long drink, and then offered it to Sam. He let his thumb slip free and accepted a swallow, then put his thumb back in his mouth and closed his eyes, lost in regression.
Dean stuck the bottle out for John. He shook his head no. Dean did a double-take, and passed the bottle to Bobby.
Bobby wiped the lip of the bottle on his sleeve and drank. John kept stroking Sam’s hair. “All she had to do was let the demon in her house in ten years. Let him do something without interrupting him. But when the time came, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t let him do what he had planned to do to you, Sam.” John held his youngest son and rocked him in his arms. “So she tried to stop him. And he… ”
Dean shook his head, trying to drive the memory back. Fire seething on the ceiling. The smell of blood and burning flesh, copper-bright, meat and bone. Mother, blonde-haired angel, blazing like a sacrifice.
“All of this that happened to you, Sam. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. Because I couldn’t protect her. Or myself.” John pressed his forehead to the top of Sam’s head and began to cry. “Forgive me. God, please try to forgive me, Sam. Let me start to make it right. Dean?” He reached blindly for Dean. “Please don’t hate me anymore.”
Dean let John pull him to the other side of the couch, down an embrace, holding both of them as best he could. The feel of his father’s strong arms around him, his clean, masculine scent, was soothing in a primal way that he couldn’t squirm away from if he wanted to.
And he found he didn’t want to.
“My boys.” John’s voice was choked. “I love you so much.”
Dean breathed in the scent of Old Spice deodorant and the musk cologne John always wore because Mary always gave it to him.
He inhaled again, breathing it in deep. Something was missing. A key scent he and Sam had always associated with John as long as they could remember. Sometimes faint, sometimes pronounced. The stale reek of sweated-out booze.
“You don’t smell like alcohol.” Dean sat up.
Sam roused, letting his thumb fall out of his mouth. He shook his head, coming back to himself. He sniffed John’s neck. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You don’t.”
John nodded.
“How long?”
“Since a few days after you left.” His eyes flickered to Bobby. “Someone old and wise, with balls the size of cannonballs, laid it out for me.”
Bobby’s mouth gaped, not expecting the acknowledgment.
John looked so weary it almost broke Dean’s heart. “It’s not enough. Nowhere near enough. I know that. But it’s a tiny little start. And it’s the longest I’ve gone without drinking since…” He thought about it. “Since before you were born, Dean.” Sam scooted back and swung his legs off John’s lap, suddenly feeling his true age again.
“You don’t even know me without booze in my veins.” John smiled, wincing at the pain from his mouth where Dean hit him. “I think you’ll like that guy a lot better.”
Sam surveyed him, warring emotions on his face. “I want to. Forgive you.”
The hope that broke across John’s face unraveled Sam’s resolve to hate him until the stars went cold.
The way Sam’s mouth tightened and his fingers twitched, Dean knew how badly that was true, saw how close Sam was to breaking under the force of this last bombshell. How badly Sam needed his father. He kept his own anger close to his heart, because the last thing Dean Winchester could easily forgive was anyone who hurt his Sammy. But he saw how desperately Sam needed it. Needed to forgive his father. Needed to not have that bitterness eating away at him, a slow sticky corrosion. And Sam always had been the best of all of them.
“It’s ok, Sam.” Dean blinked slowly, giving Sam his blessing to let go of the anger and hate and pain. Sam read it all in Dean’s face. His face was a question. Are you sure?
Dean’s smile was the answer. Yes.
Sam dove at his father, his hug more of a pummeling than an embrace. John gasped, the relief of his son’s arms around him, willingly thrown around him, almost too sharp to bear. “I don’t deserve you to forgive me, Sam. I don’t. What I did… the things I’ve done…”
Dean gave John a steady, appraising look. “You may not deserve forgiveness. But Sam needs to forgive you.” John knew, could read it all over Dean’s face, that Dean would never forget what he’d done and never forgive him for it. Not completely. Not because of the pain and hardship he went through, but for what it did to Sam. If he had a broken leg, he’d man up and try to walk it off, but someone giving Sam a paper cut would earn his lifelong enmity. And John had done a damn sight worse than give Sam a paper cut.
Sam, sweet loving Sam, who’d felt every moment of pain and fear John and Bobby had put that boy through, was holding his father like the world was ending, crying with the release of all the negative emotions he’d been carrying. Sam wasn’t built to hate. He wasn’t made to carry a grudge.
But Dean was strong. He could carry it for the both of them.
~
Everyone let the two cry it out, and passed the bottle around. Finally, John wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry for breaking in.” Sam laughed, more a release of tension than anything. “I just… I had to get here, as soon as I heard. I had to tell you. You deserve to know. It would have been wrong to keep that from you.” John eyed the bottle of bourbon. “It’s not the urges you have that matter. I’m finally learning that. It’s what you do about them that counts.”
Sam sniffled.
“So if you keep doing good, Sam, you are good. I have an idea. How we can purge the demon blood.” He laid out his whole idea. It was based on the old rumor that Keith Richards had gotten all the blood in his body replaced back in the seventies, to clean out all the drugs and detox his entire system. “What he actually did was had all the blood in his body purified. Filtered. If we can get you the medical equipment he had access to, and I know where we can start looking, we can rig it to purify your blood and purge the demon blood from you.”
John’s gestures were animated, buoyed by hope that he really had a solution to save Sam. And they all had to admit, it sounded pretty good.
But Sam knew. He didn’t know how he knew, but he just knew that would not work. Unclean. He closed his eyes and swayed, so drained that he could barely keep his eyes open.
“Sam’s practically dead on his feet here, y’all.” Reggie piped up. “That’s a lot to take in. On top of all the other stuff. What say we take this conversation elsewhere and let these two get some rest? We can have some dinner. Order a pizza.”
Dean shot Reggie a grateful look.
“Demons up front let the pizza man through?” John asked.
“Yep. They don’t seem to care about that. Just about keeping people like you and me out of here, away from Sam.”
“Hmm.”
“Come on. We’ll talk about that later. Give the boys some space.”
Reggie practically dragged John out of the apartment. He helped Bobby up, and made a point of sliding his hand over Bobby’s ass while John was within eyeshot. Bobby shook his head, and Reggie grinned, his moustache twitching.
John hugged Sam tight. “I’ll take care of this. Don’t you worry. We’ll get you all fixed up, and then Azazel will have to leave you alone. We can all go home.”
Sam swallowed hard, looking at Dean over John’s shoulder. Dean nodded. We’re never going back with him, Sam. That’s a promise.
John’s hug with Dean was cooler, but not without affection, despite everything. Dean had always been loyal to John, and that loyalty could not be set aside easily.
Reggie hugged Sam and Dean together. “I got this. Don’t you worry.” His words clearly referred to Sam’s demon blood issue, but also to the problem of John somehow finding out about them. Sam and Dean let themselves be reassured by this.
Bobby limped forward and folded Sam into his arms.“It’s not as bad as it sounds, kiddo.” He hugged Dean, and adjusted himself on his crutches,wincing.
“Go take some pain meds.” Dean thumped Bobby across the shoulders.
“Don’t mind if I do.”
With that, they left Sam and Dean alone.
~
Dean shut and locked the door, and pulled Sam into his arms. They said nothing, afraid to make a sound until the footsteps down the hall had faded and they heard the sound of Reggie’s door shutting behind them.
Sam’s legs trembled. Dean pulled Sam to the bedroom and urged him to lie down. He lay next to him, up on his elbow. “Don’t.”
“What?”
“I know what you’re going to say before you do.”
Don’t touch me. I’m unclean. Sam blew a loud breath out through his nostrils.
“I drank your blood, Sam.” Dean traced his fingertips over the general shape of his initials on Sam’s lower abdomen.
Sam looked stricken.
“Hush. Whatever’s in you is in me. I drank your blood. I swallowed your come.” Dean grinned. “A lot of your come.”
Sam’s eyes widened in shock that Dean could talk that way at a time like this. But it brought a tiny smile to his face.
“So don’t you dare try and say you can’t kiss me or fuck me or come in me or any of the things in your head right now.”
Sam’s eyes filled with tears.
“And don’t you dare start saying how sorry you are. It’s not your fault. So not your fault.”
Sam’s mouth, open to say exactly that, closed with a faint smacking sound.
“We’re in this together. If it’s in you, it’s in me.”
Sam said nothing. He just lay there, shaking.
“Dean, I feel so…”
“I know. But you’re not.”
Dean settled down, his arm around Sam. “I will not let anything bad happen to you, and that’s a fucking promise. Got it?” Sam nodded. “Besides…maybe my blood and stuff in you, maybe that made it less…potent or something.
Sam turned his head and stared at Dean for a few long seconds.
“What?”
“Are you trying to tell me that I need to swallow lots of your come to dilute the demon blood in me?”
Dean’s mouth curled up on one side, in pure flirtation.
“You’re unbelievable.” Sam’s smile was amused, with black panic at the edges.
Dean’s eyes went wide. “Sam. Maybe what that angel said. About pure love and corruption.”
Sam blinked, hope dawning on his face. “Where there is pure love, corruption cannot remain.”
“Maybe that’s what he was talking about.”
Sam closed his eyes, letting Dean’s words sink into him, chewing on them as if to worry the truth from them like marrow from a bone. The second his eyelids blocked out the light, he realized how profoundly exhausted he was, and barely had time to croak out the words, “So tired,” before he was asleep.
When he dreamed, he dreamed of pure light. Nothing else. No landmarks. No sounds. No people or animals. Just pure golden-white radiation, living and breathing light, dissolving his body, his thoughts, his soul, until all that remained was light.
no subject
This was a great chapter, as usual!
Good for John that he actually quit drinking. And Sam forgiving him. Loved how you mentioned again that “Where there is pure love, corruption cannot remain.”
Thank you for this awesome chapter!
♥
Thank you!
He wants to atone. John Winchester absolutely, without a doubt, wants to be a good father to his boys. And I thought the character earned a shot at redemption.
no subject
Laughed so hard about Reggie and Bobby! I think John's going to struggle to sleep for a while with those images in his head. :-)
Great chapter, as always.
no subject
Thank you!
So this John knows he has to tell Sam, because it's his right to know, and so he can keep an eye on his behavior. And he has to stick close to him and do everything to help him.
no subject
Well firstly, I'm so glad John reacted this way and is really trying to make amends. What a relief that he actually told them what he learned, so that they're all on the same page and can figure out what to do. I always hated Show!John keeping everything so close to his chest. I think it's also a good thing that Sam is so forgiving, they'll need to make peace in order to get through this. And anything going against what/who Azazel wants Sam to turn into is a good thing.
I love Bobby's and Reggie's support, spinning that lie quickly to protect the boys. It's so heartwarming! And very funny in this case. ;)
And Dean was just wonderful, trying to immediately take Sam's fears away about not being worthy of Dean's touch anymore. Bless them, I love their love for each other. Bringing the angel's words back into this was also a wonderful touch, I truly believe that's the key to Sam's fate and their relationship with each other.
What a wonderful, awe-inspiring chapter, yet again! Thank you. :)
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Bobby and Reggie covering for Sam and Dean made me laugh hysterically.
I'm glad Sam was able to release all the anger he'd been holding for so long but now I'm so worried for Dean and his burden and the demons and Gus and John and asdkfjald
This story is extremely good at making me want to beg for more, y'unno?
no subject
(and I'm glad you find this story so compelling!)
no subject
Bobby and Reggie covering from them was just awesome x
no subject