Will the Circle Be Unbroken? by souslelys for fridayblues

[springflingmod.livejournal.com]

Title: Will the Circle Be Unbroken?
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: T

The First

Sam gasps a lungful of scorched earth and ash. For a moment it’s sweet, the high of life, before his new lungs begin to protest: deep, hacking coughs rejecting the acrid air.

It’s too bright to open his eyes just yet – the light and smoke burning through his eyelids - instead he reaches out blindly, has barely extended his arm before a searching hand collides with his own.

The next instant he's clutching at freshly-knit skin and bone, relearning the feel of his missing half. Becoming whole again. Hands travel along his skin in return, and Sam’s missed them so much. He barely gives a thought to the sting of smooth, hot metal of a ring tracing burning lines haphazardly across his back.

Dean. Dean. The name passes his lips, no more than a hiss from his dry throat. Pained rasps of SamSamSammy echo back to him. A familiar mouth meets his.

Ah. Home, again.

They don't make it out of the forest that day. With a year’s worth of longing to unleash, Sam revels in his brother until the sun disappears beneath the treeline. The light fades quickly, Dean's arms desperately clinging around his neck, legs wrapped around his waist, Sam does his best to shield him from the darkening skies above.

When Sam opens his eyes again, he's alone, sulfur and blood in the air, staring at the eternity of hellscape through the bars of a cage.

 

The Second

“Thought you hated me… you know?”

Dumbass bastard.

“You just. You just agreed so fast. Like it’d be easy. One whole year. Couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

Sam scoffs, head hanging low. “Trying to save you, jerk.”

“I’m not letting you go back there, Sammy. I’m not. Screw this ‘one day’ bullshit!”

He drops his forehead against Dean’s cooling skin, counting the freckles across his nose, barely visible in the fading sunlight. Sam’s foot scuffs the remains of Dean’s runework on the dirt around them as he pulls Dean closer, trying not to jostle the angelic spear protruding through his brother’s chest.

They broke the rules, and Heaven’s wrath had been swift. Sam’s sure his punishment is coming soon too. Or maybe they’re going to make him wait.

This is the price of saving the world.

He’s still holding Dean’s dead body when the hellhounds come for him.

 

 The Third

“You’re wrong,” Sam tells Dean as soon as he can form words.

You’re wrong, Sam thinks, pushing Dean onto his back.

Dean’s wrong and Sam spends the whole day proving it.

 

The Seventh

Having to let go of his brother is still worse than every other day Sam spends in Hell.

 

The Tenth

“You’re still trying to break the deal,” Sam murmurs sadly, finger tracing the smooth collar around Dean’s neck. He doesn’t mention the ancient texts that he’s pored over and over in his captivity, trying to find a way out. He’s close, the denizens of Hell aren’t exactly good at keeping secrets.

Dean’s embarrassed by the collar though, a flush visible all the way up to his ears, and Sam could crush Heaven for stealing away what they could of Dean’s dignity.

The thought causes a shudder of hell fury to run through him, and Sam reaches out and snaps the collar between his fingers, letting the pieces fall smoldering to the ground. Dean steps on the remains, and they crumble beneath his foot. Dean smiles for the first time that day, grateful and blinding.

“Put the eyes away, Sammy,” Dean says after a moment, firm hand on Sam’s arm. Sam blinks once, then twice, and it must have done the trick because Dean finally relaxes.

“Come here, Dean,” Sam beckons to his brother, determined to leave his own mark around Dean’s neck for Heaven’s generals to find.

 

The Thirteenth

Sam misses the way Dean used to smell – a mix of leather and gunpowder and home that Heaven has managed to erase, replacing it with a clean, sterilized, nothing.

It’s everything he can do to make sure Dean returns to them smelling like sweat and sin.

If Heaven wants to make a claim so badly, they’re going to have to fight Sam for it.

 

The Sixteenth

“This’ll buy us some time.”

Dean doesn’t ask Sam about the crown of bone shards and thorns. He doesn’t ask Sam about the spell and runework that Sam’s etching into the ground: an advanced form of the symbols Dean had attempted all those years ago.

And when the sun reaches the highest point in the sky and never drops lower, Sam grabs hold of Dean’s hand, hellfire and grace twining between the two of them – he doesn’t plan on letting go this time.