ante mortem

In the end he had been forced to let Dean die before he could save him.

There had been no demon to claim Dean's soul, not since Sam had killed the public face of Damnation Inc. The day had begun like any other, with Dean hogging the shower and cheap, watery coffee.

"I won't let this happen." Sam had promised, lying through his teeth.

Dean said nothing, pale and clammy, terrified as he bitched about missing BOC's latest tour, and the weather in New England. Even the Impala knew something was wrong, growing and stuttering through the unexpected rainstorm, eating up gas like it was going out of fashion. Dean soothed her with gentle strokes and Sam pretended he didn't see the way Dean's hands shook when he did it.

Around seven, Dean stopped the car and just started walking, rain warm and saturating. Sam followed, hands thrust in his pockets, every page of the Munich Handbook photographed in his mind, flipping through verse after verse as they strolled down the street.

Twenty minutes after that, Dean stopped and sighed, his face waxy in the dimming light. "Don't let the fucks screw up the packaging." He tried to joke.

Sam's eyes were dry but he nodded. "No worries." He promised. They continued on, one step after another.

Dean shook water from his face and brushed his hair back. Sam had seen him do it a million times, and he knew right then that that was the last of them. "To think I always wanted a dog." He whispered voice rough and anguished.

Ten minutes later, Sam saw the prints in the mud.

The Hell Hounds were waiting.



It wasn't until the first hound took a swipe at Dean's legs that Sam snapped. "No. Damnit they can't have you." He snarled, tugging Dean into a rough hug and clinging tight. Dean's eyes were screwed up and his head shook a denial. He wanted to run. He wanted to fight. He didn't.

So Sam fought for him. With salt and bullets and prayers to every god he could invoke, but in the end he could only rush forward and cry when Dean stilled and his soul was ripped out right in front of Sam's eyes.

He slumped forwards, knees in the mud, and Sam was there, waiting.

The fight was just beginning.





post mortem

His arms were numb by the time he had carried Dean back to the Impala. His chest heaved with exertion. Dean settled down in the back seat, still and peaceful, one claw mark above his eye, wounding him the same way he had been a year ago, and a year before that.

Dean only ever rode in the back when he was dying or sick, and Sam drove the Impala all the way to the state line before his body had cooled.



The European medieval writers on the subject were agreed on one thing; resurrection could not be achieved without the help of a Christian god. The rest, the incantations and sacrifices, conjurations and magic circles were all subject to debate. Sam wasn't too worried about that. Dean wasn't normal, odds are he'd be a stubborn ass and stomp his foot anyway. As for the God thing, well Sam had that covered.

"Easy bro, it's alright." Sam soothed, talking to his brother the way he did the few times Dean got really sick. He'd found a motel room and carried Dean inside, settled him down on the double bed before clearing everything in the room into the tiny bathroom. "Bobby's gonna kill us for this." He laughed humorously, filling the tub with salt and hot water.

Dean said nothing and Sam continued. He opened a vein and let his own blood drain into the paint he used to draw the inner circle. Dean was his brother. They had shared the same womb. Sam's blood should protect him better than other.

Sam couldn't look at the mirror on the wall, for when his gaze wandered over the smooth surface, he saw Dean, his mouth full of blood and his eyes, once Mary's, nothing but empty pits in his maimed face. He banged bloody fists against the mirror as he tried to escape the fires behind him, no eyes to see the horrors that lay there, and no tongue to scream with when they dragged him back down again. "Soon Dean." Sam said, his mouth dry and his skin too tight. "I'll get you out, I promise."

On the bed, Dean lay silent, his body going stiff.

It took an hour to draw the circles, and Sam left the inner one broken. Hauling Dean inside was impossible to do without the sickening cracks of bone, and as soon as his brother was laid naked in the blood infused circle, Sam lost his breakfast at the foot of the bed.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, petting skin than wouldn't bruise and wishing Dean would kick his ass for it.

He sealed the circle and removed his own clothes, stepping into the bath full of salt water, his eyes stinging when it splashed in his face. His bleeding wrist screamed and blistered. In Hell, Dean left bloody handprints on the back of the mirror.

Sam shaved off his hair with Dean's electric razor and ran his fingers over his scalp. He'd never had hair so short before, and it surprised him how cold he was. Dean would have teased the crap out of him, but he pressed against the mirror crying crimson tears, too busy with the demons trying to claw him open to mock Sam for his appearance.



"Ilāsā dariāpa, mikalazõdo tabaän," Sam stood in his own circle, across the room from Dean, his knees locked together in pain as the ritual stretched on. No one ever mentioned how long it took to raise a spirit from the dead, and Sam was glad his father had beaten stamina into his boys. "Amaimon dasa bijipa elanusāhč Iaida El voresa tofajilo gahč do elonudohe Ra-asa," Nothing had happened, no shaking furniture, no lightning from above. Dean sobbed against the mirror as his body lay still in the circle Sam had bleed for. "Babįje, So-bolenu, Lucalā, oel vavini õd zodacamč ilasā do-o-a-ipč VõANu Madā od do Madā soba ilāsā ieh hoatāhe."

It ended the way it started; quiet, unremarkable, with no sign that the last ten hours had produced more than a headache and a broken heart.

Sam dropped to his knees and crawled across the circle to his brother. Dean's body was like ice, but no longer stiff. He wrapped himself around dead flesh and wondered if this was how Dean had held him.

The sun rose outside, bright and warm, no hint of the rain that had fallen like tears. When Sam's limbs were as stiff as Dean's had been he stood up and wiped his dry eyes. The mirror was empty, and Dean's arm was black when Sam had broken it to move him into the circle.





ante mortem

"You going to tell me what an awful thing I've done?" Sam asked, leading Dean by the hand into Bobby's front room. His brother sat, docile as a lamb amongst the knee high piles of books.

Bobby wouldn't meet his eye. He brought Dean cookies and milk, watched as Sam reached out and placed his brother's hand on the glass.

"I should do." Bobby growled, toning his voice down when Dean flinched and reached out wildly for Sam. The grizzly hunter looked down into the sunglasses that hid Dean's sightless eyes and scratched the back of his head wildly.

"He's not a demon." Sam said firmly, holding Dean's hand in his own. "He's Dean."

Bobby just shook his head and the cookies remained untouched.



Dean never slept anymore, and Sam found himself doing so more and more often. He taught Dean Braille and sign language, learning himself so he could pass the knowledge on. He fed his brother Vicodin to take off the edge of the pain and Xanax to keep the panic attacks at bay -Dean didn't like not knowing where he was - and when a week had passed without him sleeping, Sam would drug him into oblivion with a large dose of Ambien. He mixed them in with Dean's smoothies

A year after Dean had been dragged to hell, he tugged Sam close in the middle of the night and wrote words on the inside of his arm.

"A puppy?" Sam frowned, holding Dean close and smelling the strawberry's in his hair. "You want a puppy?" Dean hesitated then nodded. "But…?" Cute puppy, Dean wrote. Husky. Sam said nothing. The first thing Dean asked for himself, the first thing Sam hadn't just known to give him, and it had to be a puppy of all things.

Not like we travel around anymore Okay, fair enough. Hunting had been pretty much a no go zone right from day one. That wasn't to say their lives were spook free. Dean seemed to have some demonic stamp on him. He attracted thing that went bump in the night at the same rate he attracted Victoria Secret models. Sam dealt with them all, and had the graves out back to prove it. They just didn't go looking.

"Okay Dean." Sam promised. If they had a dog, a smart dog, he could leave Dean alone more often. Dogs were pretty attuned to the supernatural; he'd be able to protect Dean when Sam wasn't there. "Tomorrow, okay? We'll go tomorrow."

Dean sighed and smiled, nestled down in Sam's arms, and pressed his cold feet to his brother's thigh.

"Jesus Christ!" Sam yelped, scrambling back in disgust.

Dean laughed, loud and bright, and life continued.



NOTE: Just to say that the incantation Sam uses is Enochian, and stolen shamelessly from the Lemegeton, Book I Clavicula Solomonis Regis by Aleister Crowley