Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

He's caught in a staring contest with the dog until he hears a choking sob. His eyes immediately shoot over to Sam, who's sitting on her ass, shotgun across her lap, one arm wrapped around Shell. She's still looking at Dean, though, and what's left of his heart after purgatory breaks at the way she has to clear her throat before she murmurs, "C'me here, Clo."

The German shepherd snaps its teeth one more time, then lopes back to Sam, sprawls out on the ground right in front of her, over the tips of Sam's feet, eyes fixed on Sam.

"Please don't tell me they share the bed," Dean says.

// Day Zero //

Sam hiccup-laughs, looks half-manic, but she lifts one arm, holds out her hand in Dean's direction. "Please tell me you're real," she says.

Dean wastes no time closing the space between them; he drops to his knees at Sam's side and gathers her up, getting a displeased growl from Clo at the same time. "Jesus," he says, one hand running down her back over and over again, his nose buried in the curve of her neck -- bonier than he remembers. "Christ, it's so good to see you, sweetheart."

It takes a moment but then he feels a damp patch growing on his shirt. Tears, and Sam's not even shaking, not making any noise, not doing anything but clinging to Dean with all the strength she has.

--

Dean's not sure how long they're sitting there but he's lost feeling in his knees and feet by the time Clo makes a whining noise and bumps Sam's elbow with her muzzle. Dean pulls back and lifts his hands, uses his thumbs to rub dry the tear-tracks on Sam's face. "Hey," he says, quiet. "Everything's gonna be okay. Okay?"

Sam nods, swallows, nods again. "Yeah," she says. Her voice is rough, worn ragged with crying, but she gives Dean the kind of smile he's been dreaming of throughout the past year, the kind of smile that kept him going in purgatory when all he wanted to do was lie down and die. "How are -- how did you get back?"

"Long story," Dean says, "that you aren't gonna believe. But can I tell you inside?"

Sam blinks, startled, and looks around like she's just realised they're still half-outside. "Oh, yeah, I --" and she stops, smile fading into something that looks a little wary, mostly tired. "Um. It's not -- I didn't -- there's not much food," she says. "We'll have to run to get groceries."

That worries Dean. Sam's had issues with food her whole life, from when she was sixteen, going practically anorexic to keep from looking so obviously male during puberty, to a couple years ago, Lucifer in her head. He's always had to coax her to eat, lets her stick to the rabbit food she prefers as long as she's eating something and bites back his wish to fill her full of real butter and fatty meat and the richest, creamiest pasta around. She's always veered toward the unhealthy side of skinny but this, now --

"The place is a mess," Sam goes on to say. "And I haven't -- well, you'll see, I guess."

Dean frowns but Sam's moving to stand up so he gets to his feet first, helps her up and then has to steady her when she blacks out for a split-second at the sudden change in altitude. He's helped by Shell, a solid presence behind Sam, and Clo looks up at Dean like this is his fault or something. He narrows his eyes at Clo, says, "So what's the deal with the --" and then stops when he gets inside, stops talking and moving both. "Jesus fuck, Sam."

The cabin was never the cleanest of places but it's gonna take a lot of work to get it back to normal. All the furniture's been shoved to the edges and then haphazardly piled to the ceiling; there's a cauldron on the counter next to the sink and half a dozen more stacked on the floor. Salt crystals are fucking everywhere Dean looks and four giant-ass rings have been burnt into the floorboards, melted wax around and in them. A few sigils are spray-painted on the walls -- at least, he hopes that's spray-paint -- and there are, shit, books and paper everywhere, some in piles, most just scattered around. It looks like Sam tried keeping to some kind of method at first, pinning notes and photographs and print-outs to the walls like their dad used to do, but gave up once she ran out of wall-space. Dean has no doubt that everything's organised in a way that Sam understands but it looks like someone bombed the shit out of a library and this is what's left.

"You were gone," she says. "What did you expect me to be doing?"

"What were you trying?" Dean asks. "I thought we found all there was on purgatory when the leviathans invaded." Sam bites her lower lip, looks away, and Dean glances again at the circles burnt onto the floor: summoning circles, three of them, but the fourth -- he has no idea what that fourth circle is. "Sam. What were you doing?"

Sam sways on her feet; Dean pulls her across the room to the couch, moves the footstool and coffee table off the cushions, sends a few notebooks and used-up pens following, and then sits Sam down. Shell curls up by the front door but Clo sticks close to Sam, sits right by Sam's feet. Dean's not too sure about having the dog that close, not when it wanted to eat him an hour ago, but she doesn't seem to be doing anything but keeping an eye on Sam. There's something -- not exactly right about this dog, Dean thinks.

He's getting ready to go and get a couple glasses of water but Sam clings to him, says, "Don't -- please don't leave." It's been a hell of a long time since Dean's heard that tone of voice coming from Sam. He sits down next to her and Sam's straddling him a moment later, her cheek on his shoulder, the breath coming from her mouth so close to his ear. "I can't -- Dean, you have to --"

"Yeah, sweetheart," Dean says. "Don't worry, I got you. I'm here; I'm not going anywhere." He winces as soon as he says that -- the whole reason they're in this mess is because he fucking went somewhere -- but Sam doesn't respond except to hold onto him even tighter, nearly close to hurting.

"I was gonna come get you," Sam whispers. "I was getting so close, Dean, I swear; I got a portal to open for a second and I was working on making it last longer -- I was close, Dean, I wasn't gonna let you stay there, you have to believe me, please, I was gonna do whatever it took and I never stopped trying and I was so close, I --."

"I believe you," Dean says, cutting her off before the rambling turns into hyperventilating. It's all too obvious how much work Sam's done; sure, Sam can research with the best of them and she makes uncanny leaps of logic every so often to come up with something brilliant, but the sheer amount of books and paper and mess tells Dean that Sam started her own type of hunt very soon after he left and hasn't stopped -- judging by the state of her, she hasn't even stopped long enough to eat or sleep.

Purgatory wasn't a cakewalk, that's for damn sure, but Dean had a purpose, he had allies, he had the hunt and the kill and the determination to get back to Sam. It was a different, cleaner, purer place where he never had to sleep or eat or drink, just survive, him against the monsters, no grey area, and Dean's always been able to thrive in that kind of environment if he knows he's got Sam waiting at the other end.

Sam's just had this -- and hearing her say that she was going to do whatever it took? That's a little terrifying to think about, honestly. She can be ruthlessly pragmatic, a side of her Dean saw when she was soulless, and she's gone to dangerous lengths before, but opening a portal to purgatory, that's world-killing stuff, nightmare stuff. Maybe Dean's sick, but it warms him inside to know that Sam missed him so much she would've cracked the universe apart to get him back. The fact that she was paying such a high price, physically, though, that's no good.

"How much sleep have you had lately?" Dean asks.

There's a moment before Sam says, "Not much." It's clear she's keeping something from him; Dean pokes her in the ribs -- god, he needs to get some food in her -- and Sam sighs, says, "I started having fainting spells about four months ago. I think."

Dean closes his eyes, inhales the smell of Sam, takes in the feel of her, the weight of her on his lap. "So you sleep when you pass out," he says, "and then it's back to work, just like that?"

"The dogs and I go for walks," Sam argues. "And -- and we have company. Sometimes."

"Yeah?" Dean asks, pushing down the irrational surge of jealousy. He had Benny and Cas, he can't be upset if Sam had someone to pull her back from the edge every so often -- just as long as that's all it was.

Sam lets out a breath. "The vet, Amelia -- she comes over once a week. Brings food, checks on the dogs, sometimes stays for a cup of coffee. You'll like her; she's sweet."

Dean makes a show of looking around the cabin, says, "She sees this?"

"Well, I mean, I put rugs down to cover the floor, and I've got tapestries to hide the sigils," Sam says. "But -- yeah."

"And she hasn't said anything," Dean says, flatly, because god knows if he wasn't a hunter and he saw someone obsessed with trying to make a portal to purgatory, the last thing he'd do is hang around long enough for a cup of coffee.

Sam tenses in Dean's arms. "She thinks I'm a writer. I mean, I told her I was a writer. I figured it would keep the questions to a minimum. And I -- um. I keep the Latin, French, and English books in the bedroom. Everything out here is -- is something else."

Dean narrows his eyes. "Greek?" he asks.

"Some of it," Sam says. She sits up at Dean's prodding but doesn't meet his eyes. "Most of my notes are in Greek. But. Uh. Y'know. All the usual."

"Sanskrit, Hebrew, Aramaic," Dean guesses. "What else?"

"Arabic," she says, and alright, that's not a stretch, but then she says, rattles them off so quickly it takes Dean a second to separate each word and make sense of it, "Akkadian and a little Persian and then Classical Irish and Connaught Irish so I could read St. Fursa and I can only translate two dialects of Classical Sanskrit so I had to learn the other two and Kevin and I managed to --"

Dean stops her, puts his hand over his mouth when it looks like she's going to keep going, holy shit. He waits until she's settled and her breathing's gone back to normal, then takes his hand away and asks, "How many languages have you been studying in, Sam?"

"I -- um. Nine, maybe ten?" she says, cautiously. Sam's probably underestimating; Dean can't help but shake his head at the thought but god, his sister's amazing. Sam, though, seems to take the head-shake as something else -- Dean's not sure what -- because Sam adds, "I'm not even close to fluent in all of them; I only know enough to translate with the help of a dictionary and some of them are so similar that they're almost nearly the same so they shouldn't really count. Dean. Are you -- you're not -- I promise, I didn't waste any time, I only learned what I needed to so I could get you out, swear."

"I'm not worried about that," Dean says. He makes sure Sam's looking at him when he says, "You didn't sleep, didn't eat, didn't spend any time for yourself. I'm worried about you."

Sam looks at him, just looks, for a long while. Eventually she lets out a breath, says, "I still can't believe you're really here. How?"

Dean brushes hair back from Sam's face, tucks it behind her ear and then gives in to the urge to let his fingers run down her cheek, says, "Would you believe me if I said I'm friends with a vampire now?"

At Sam's look, Dean bursts into laughter.