In retrospect things had gone down hill fast after dad died. The hunts got more intense, and Sam’s visions more devastating. For months they’d fought the good fight side by side. Doing everything they could to keep the things that went bump in the night at bay.
They did what they’d always done; figuring that when the time came they’d work it out, they’d come up with an answer and kick demon ass like always.
But they didn’t see the truth...the pattern that linked everything together, from Sam’s conception right up to his fall from grace.
Dean had silently worried about Sam, about how it had affected him to see vision after vision full of blood, gore and rage. With each revelation his brother changed…not a lot but a little. It was enough for Dean to notice but not enough to set off any alarm bells in his head.
Sam was just a little more intense after a vision, a little more focused and a lot more apprehensive... that was all. Nothing too serious. Or so he’d thought at the time. Now he knew the truth. He knew that Sam had sensed the fall coming, that somewhere in the deepest part of his soul he’d known he was losing his grip on everything that was good.
“Maybe that’s what the Demon’s doing…pushing us. Finding ways to break us.”
But Dean hadn’t listened! He’d only seen, and what he’d seen was his distraught little brother, the one who could never possibly be anything other than pure. Maybe not driven snow pure but definitely not the future embodiment of wickedness...evil.
All he’d seen was Sam. His Sammy!
And all he’d known was that Sammy was hurting.
He supposed, if he really wanted to admit the dark ugly truth to himself then he’d have to say that he’d known that the visions, like the hunts, were damaging his brother. That it had been a good thing when Sam had went off to collage. But being a selfish bastard he couldn’t admit that, not then and certainly not now.
But if he’d known back then how far things would go, how quickly they’d get bad, then he’d have never dragged Sam back into the fight. He’d have left him at school, let him get married and have kids like a normal guy.
But unfortunately you don’t always see what’s right in front of your face. You don’t always know that something is broken...not until the evidence of it is staring you right square in the eye and then it’s too late to fix.
Dean had always loved Sam, loved him so much more than anything else in his life. Loved him enough that sometimes it scared him. Not that love was generally a scary thing but when your thoughts drifted toward warm skin and the soft sweet smell that only your own flesh and blood gave off...when you knew every scar before it was revealed...ever curve of muscle as it was formed...and every inch of hair that had been cut on a trip to the barber shop...well then it was scary.
Mostly because human beings weren’t supposed to have feelings like that about their own family, feelings they couldn’t put a name to but yet made them feel like crickets were dancing in their stomachs.
He’d have done anything for Sam...except let him go.
And in the end the demon had been counting on that.
Dean remembered bleeding on the floor, having the distinct feeling that someone had reached into his chest and yanked his heart out by the roots. He remembered Sam pleading, tears sliding down his too pale cheeks as he begged the demon for Dean’s life.
“I’ll give you anything, anything you want just please…please don’t kill him!”
“Say it Sam, Say it.”
“I’m yours in exchange for my brother’s life. I’m yours.”
Dean had wanted to scream, tell him no and to take it back but it was done---words once said that can never be unspoken! In a flash the demon had smiled, reached down and touched Sam’s face with an eerie sort of gentleness and Dean had been forced to watch as darkness spilled into his brother’s soul.
A pact made with the devil wasn’t always written in blood!
The pain had simply bled away on the instant leaving Dean numb and unable to move. His life was over! Without Sam there was no life, no love, no anything! Not for Dean.
When Sam stood and turned Dean’s heart had spiraled right down to the pit of his stomach, splashing bitter poison over his soul. For an instant before his consciousness was robbed from him he stared up at that beautiful face with the knowledge of what had just happened damn near eating him up alive.
It was a hard flash of memory, violent and painful in its own way. It reminded Dean of why he’d come here to California in the first place. Why he’d left his weapons in the Impala and why he’d spent the last three years looking for Sam.
When he’d come to he’d been alone, but bandaged up. Someone had taken great care to mend his wounds and tuck him carefully into bed. There was money, enough to get him clear across the country and a note scrawled in Sam’s neat handwriting telling Dean that things were forever changed and not to come looking for him.
Dean had never for an instant considered doing what Sam asked. There were only two choices for Dean after that night. Find Sam, end his suffering and then his own. Or find Sam and...save him.
The last notion hadn’t fully formed yet, the “how” was still mighty blurry despite all the research he’d done but the hope it represented was there hovering in the darkness like a neon cross. Even after three years full of dark non-Sam-like rumors he wasn’t ready to give up on his baby brother.
The club was bright, loud and bordering on obnoxious. It was just like a million other clubs he’d been to in this god-forsaken town. One proposition after another littered the ground in Dean’s wake and there was nothing truly solid to go on. No one seemed to know Sam, and the ones who did know him didn’t know where he was. Even some light-handed violence hadn’t helped them gain the desired knowledge so in the end he’d been forced to give up.
It put the oldest Winchester in a foul mood. After three years of hunting, searching and struggling with the nasties alone to get some kind of clue about Sam’s location...well he’d packed on a foul temper to say the least.
But hell, at least it added to the Dean Winchester swagger.
When Darkness Falls by Kasten