"The Ghost Of You"

I keep goin' to the river to pray,

'cuz I need somethin' that can wash out the pain.

As he hung there on his knees, he smelled the blood. It filled nostrils, mouth, memories. He tasted it, and it multiplied on his tongue. How many times in his life had he smelled it? Tasted it? Felt it on his flesh?

So much blood.

It always tasted dark, to him. Like a blackness of the soul.

So much dead flesh scattered around him.

Vessels? No. Well—yes. All humans were vessels for a soul. But these men were not, had not been, vessels for demons.

One hundred percent human. Bad men all, dedicated to criminality, to intimidation, to harming others, and all deserving of some form of justice, but not his. Not one that he meted out. Not to humans.

Not his job.

Not this.

Time slowed. Images faded, replaced by reality. He wished to disbelieve, to depart. But he was held in a mental stasis that also trapped his body. He knelt upright upon the floor surrounded by bodies. Not those he'd seen in the dream, in the nightmare that had jerked him from slumber at the bunker, but bodies nonetheless. Human bodies.

And at the rising of the Mark, at the onset of the terrible, insatiable hunger, a warning issued: "You guys don't wanna do this."

But they did want to, and they did do it, and he was right to retaliate in self-defense. But not like, not like . . .

This.

This.

Execution.

Butchery.

I didn't mean to.

Not like this.

Screaming. Young woman. Who?

As the first wave of trembling took him, he managed to look up. He registered the girl, saw Cas—Cas?—take her in his arms, curve his own around her protectively as he made her look away.

Blood everywhere. He smelled it. Tasted it. Knew it was his doing.

I didn't mean to.

"Dean."

He felt distant. Disconnected. Untethered. The world was at a remove, and he was no part of it. A shiver wracked his flesh. He was cold.

No more screaming.

He wavered there on his knees, gripping something. Something sticky.

Knife.

Not gun.

Carved them, cut them, tore them apart.

As he had done to souls in hell, for ten long years.

He wondered, inconsequentially, if Crowley would meet these men on his doorstep.

The tone was all of urgency. Of something that sounded like fear. "Dean, hey—"

And it was Sammy. Right there.

Sammy kneeling, laying aside his gun. Reaching to cradle his head. A head that felt much too heavy.

Sam's voice, thick with emotions Dean was unable to separate, layers of horror, nuances of disbelief and realization and acknowledgment all tangled upon one another.

And fear.

So much fear.

Dean felt the hands on his neck, the lifting of his head, as if to steady it, or to hold him in place so he couldn't look away. So he had to face the truth. "Tell me you had to do this."

It was hard to speak over the stench and taste of blood, the raggedness of his breathing.

"I did . . ." But was that the right answer? Was it what Sam wanted? "I didn't mean to."

Sam's hands, trembling hands, closed more tightly on his head. Dean heard the cadence of his brother's breathing deepen.

"No." It was horror. Rejection. And then the desperate command forced between breaths. "Tell me it was them - or you!"

But he couldn't.

Couldn't.

Because he didn't know.

I didn't mean to.

# # # #

It was battlefield. It was massacre. It was sheer carnage, and in the center of it knelt his brother.

Claire Novak screamed. Sam was aware of peripheral movement then, of Cas supporting Jimmy's daughter, turning her away. But he lost track of what Cas did almost immediately, because it was Dean, all Dean, alive and alone amidst a sprawl of bodies and lakes of blood.

The name was so often said, but never like this. "Dean."

He felt a trembling begin as he lowered his gun.

"Dean, hey—"

He moved stiffly, but swiftly. Lay down his gun; no enemies survived, to offer threat. He knelt on one knee before his brother, and put his hands upon him. Cradled Dean's head.

Inside his own head he knew fear and horror and realization, the knowledge that his gut had been right all along, that the worry was justified.

And now . . . this.

He gripped his brother's head. The words left on a rush . . . "Tell me you had to do this."

Dean confessed. But they were not the words Sam wished to hear. They didn't agree with Sam's statement. They merely made everything so much worse, so terribly, horribly worse.

His own voice shook. He could barely force the words out between hard breaths. He had to get the right answer. He needed it desperately, because it was the only way he could keep at the forefront of his mind that this was his brother, not something else. Not something other.

Not the man made all of rage and fury, bound by a fierce, unquenchable need to destroy; who had, with the First Blade, chopped Abaddon's chest apart.

Who had, with merely a knife, shredded five humans.

"No." Sam forced the words out through unstable breathing, through the fear. He demanded the answer he needed. "Tell me it was them - or you!"

Because if Dean couldn't, or wouldn't, it signaled something, something Sam wasn't certain he was equipped to deal with.

A matter of weeks before, Dean had been a demon.

Only weeks.

"I didn't mean to," Dean repeated.

He spoke as a child, echoing what children said when they did a thing against a parent's wishes, something that ended in broken keepsakes, or injured friend or sibling. So dazed, so lost, as Sam looked upon him. He felt the coldness of his brother's skin, the unsteady beat of his pulse. Saw the emptiness in Dean's eyes. His unquestionably human eyes.

Cas's voice. "Sam."

What occurred to Sam then, in the midst of carnage, was something terribly prosaic. It came so naturally that for a fleeting instant he was taken aback, and then he embraced it.

Dean had used his knife. Knives were silent. No gunshots, to bring other people running.

"Sam, you need to get him home."

Home. They had one, now. And it was there, not here, that they would figure out what was to be done.

He nodded, retrieved his gun and put it away, then clasped Dean's arm tightly, began to urge him up. He felt the trembling in his brother's body. Dean was slow, sluggish, as he climbed to his feet.

He's in shock, Sam realized. Completely out of it. Devoid of awareness of the here and now.

Or else lost too deeply within it.

Sam took the knife from his brother's unresisting hand. "Dean—we have to go. We have to get out of here." He guided his brother out of the house, across the porch, aware that Claire, now free of Cas, was withdrawing sharply, was backing away as if she feared Dean.

Probably she did.

Possibly he did, Sam realized.

Dean was never, with the Mark of Cain upon him, going to be normal.

Never.

Such a terrible word.

And Sam wanted, simultaneously, to cry, and to vomit.

And at most, I'm sleepin' all these demons away,

But your ghost, the ghost of you, it keeps me awake.

Dean made no protest when, outside of the house, Sam asked for the keys. After a moment, when he roused enough to do so, he simply dug them out of his pocket with an uncoordinated hand, and Sam took them. Nor did he protest when Sam opened the passenger-side door and indicated he should get in. And so he did get in, because there seemed to be no other choice, and it wasn't in him to consider trying to think of one.

It wasn't in him to consider anything at all.

He wasn't . . . here.

Was he?

As he sat down, as he brought his right foot up onto the floorboards, he heard the grind of the hinges. Felt the short, thudding impact as Sam swung shut the door.

Like a heartbeat, stopped.

Sam rounded the car, heading for the driver's side, and only Cas was left, then, in Dean's line of sight just beyond the window. The angel made no move to open the back door.

"I'm not coming," he said. "Claire is afraid."

Unstated, it was nonetheless implicit.

Afraid. Of him.

"I'm staying here to get her settled," Cas continued. "There is much for Claire and I to discuss. When I can, I'll come."

Inside his head, Dean heard the words. Knife me, smite me, throw me into the freakin' sun . . .

Was it darkside enough, that he had butchered five men? Men who were criminals, who lacked all moral compass, but were nonetheless human, and unpossessed.

Cas's eyes told him nothing beyond a grief, a sorrow. He made no promises, the angel; suggested no course he might take. Just that he would come.

Come to do what?

Exorcism couldn't be done when no demon existed.

I can't be that thing again.

He hadn't been possessed. He wasn't possessed now.

"It's the Mark," Cas said, as if it might comfort him.

Dean looked away. He couldn't meet those eyes. He could not bear compassion.

Be angry with me, Cas.

He should be angry. They all should be angry. But Cas offered him no anger; and Sam was simply afraid.

Unlike Claire, not of him. For him.

Sam turned over the engine. Dean felt the rumble of power deep in his gut, the thrum of a singular voice in which he always took pride. Took comfort.

But that was projection, not reality. A car didn't care. It couldn't.

He wished, that moment, he could be like the Impala: an inanimate object built of steel and leather and chrome, lacking soul, and heart. Lacking care. Lacking conscience.

And lacking memory, the unceasing parade of images. Blood that tasted dark.

Carved them, cut them, tore them apart.

It was hell all over again.

Alastair. Dean Winchester. One and the same.

"We have to go," Sam said, and put the car into gear.

With blood not his own on flesh and clothing, Dean began to shake.

# # # #

Sam was well aware his brother was highly capable of carrying on long conversations about totally disconnected tangents strictly as a technique to deflect questions, topics, even implications. Save for the years at Stanford, Sam had spent his whole life with Dean. He could get around his brother's defenses if he worked very, very hard at it, but others didn't even realize those defenses existed. Dean was a genius at constructing a façade and convincing everyone it was real.

Everyone but his father, his brother, and Castiel.

Which was why he retreated into silence when his façade was stripped away and the wall beyond was breeched, so that all could be reconstructed, bricked and hammered back into place, made solid again, unyielding. But in the meantime he coped by being exquisitely stubborn, and Sam, who had grown up very much the beta to his older brother's meticulously crafted alpha, found even in adulthood it was difficult to insist that Dean talk. Because Dean could shut him down with a lethal stare out of icy green eyes, or a posture that was aggressive even in subtleties. It was a slight tilt of the head, the line of his mouth, the set of his shoulders. Dean had a nuanced but very unambiguous, sheer physical presence that was far more verbal than the man himself. Even when Dean didn't talk, his body shouted.

When he wouldn't talk, he wouldn't. But generally, eventually, he did. On his own terms. Because apparently, sometimes, he came around to the conclusion that Sam was owed an explanation; even, now and then, an apology.

Sam did not know when, or if, Dean would ever speak of what he had done a matter of hours before. If he ever could. For now he sat in silence, riding shotgun, head turned as he gazed out of the window. Sam wasn't certain Dean actually saw anything. Not anything real. Probably he just stared.

The shock- and adrenaline-bred shakes that had overtaken him so badly as they departed the house eventually stilled themselves. Sam carefully said nothing, allowing Dean what little privacy could be won while sitting a matter of inches away from one another: avoidance. No questions. Not even an offering of sympathy. The latter Dean detested more than questions about feelings.

But it was hours later now, and the shakes were gone. Maybe it was time for something else in the car besides the loud purr of the big engine and the otherwise tangible silence between brothers.

"You okay with some tunes?" Sam asked.

Dean's tone was disinterested. "Whatever."

If Sam asked for a cassette, any cassette, Dean might construe it as an attempt to ease him with something he loved. Dean wasn't in the mood for any kind of manipulation, even if he only believed it might be. So Sam turned on the radio. They were almost through St. Joseph, Missouri, on Highway 36 about three-and-a-half hours out of Lebanon, and the bunker.

" . . . ten years ago today, multimedia superstar Martha Stewart was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and two counts of making false statements regarding insider trading."

And Sam thought, in a strange sideways slide into absurdity and black humor, that Martha Stewart would have a heart attack if she saw the mess Dean had made of the house in Pontiac.

The retrospective ended, and what apparently was an oldies station began to play Jethro Tull's "Songs From The Wood," which Sam found oddly nostalgic. Dean had always claimed Tull was best with the harder stuff such as "Aqualung," though the group did not qualify as metal, but "Songs" had been decidedly Winchester-esque. The entire album celebrated pagan folklore. Dean had spent some time explaining to a young brother, who wasn't even born when the album was released, what each of the songs meant, and precisely how one could kill whatever beastie Ian Anderson was singing about.

He'd also pointed out, with an immoderate amount of glee, that "Hunting Girl" bordered on pornography.

Sam thought maybe Dean would bring that up, would begin to speak again about the album. But he didn't. He said nothing at all.

Ten years ago. Sam did the math.

Stanford. Jessica Moore alive and in his arms whenever he could get her there.

Dad, too, alive. Bobby. Ellen and Jo. Rufus. Ash, and Kevin Tran. Pamela Barnes.

The men Dean had destroyed mere hours before.

Jesus. So many people dead.

Ten years ago Dean, at 26, was hunting on his own, and Sam, at 22, wanted nothing whatsoever to do with the life.

But now . . . well, Sam was now so thoroughly a hunter that he could no longer envision any kind of the nice, apple pie life Dean had ridiculed him for desiring. It wasn't even in the vicinity of a possibility. And finally, at long last, he'd accepted there would be nothing of permanence about any relationship he might enter into. Nor would there be for Dean. Both of them had tried it: Dean with Lisa, Sam with Amelia. Both of them failed.

Sam did the math again. Dean had been hunting, full-time full-bore hard-core hunting, the kind that aged a man two years for every one he survived, for nearly 20 years.

"Songs From the Wood" ended, was replaced by the Beatles' "Hey, Jude."

Distracted, Sam smiled. "You said this was Mom's favorite song. That she sang you to sleep with this instead of a lullaby . . . well, I guess you could call all the 'na-na-na' stuff at the end a lullaby. Though McCartney does do a little screaming over it - - "

Dean cut him off with a flat, hostile tone. "This isn't what you want to talk about, Sam."

He blinked, genuinely startled. "I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't want to talk about it."

"No, you want to talk about what I did back there."

Sam looked at him sharply. His brother was staring through the windshield. Shakes gone, blood cleaned up, wearing fresh clothes, Dean appeared presentable, but he bore the beginnings of a bad bruise on the side of his face.

He shook his head. "No, Dean. I don't want to talk about it. Because you won't say anything. You'll just shut me down, and I'm not going to waste my time." He drew in a breath. "Look, we're almost through town . . . do you want to grab some food?"

Dean turned his head and looked at him for the first time since he'd climbed into the car. Sam saw a fleeting glint of surprise in his eyes, followed swiftly by suspicion, by calculation. "Sam—"

Sam's hand shot into the air to stop whatever his brother intended to say. "No. No, Dean. It's not a trick question, it's not misdirection, it's not an opening gambit meant to manipulate you. The question was, do you want food? It has nothing whatsoever to do with what happened earlier today. Do-you-want-food? Nothing more, nothing less. Okay?"

Dean looked away again. But Sam had seen the quick downward hitch of his eyebrows, as if he still couldn't figure out what was going on with Sam. "Sure. Food's good."

"Fine," Sam said.

# # # #

In truth, Dean wasn't hungry. He ate, because to push away the burger and fries was a sure way of making Sam suspicious. Or worried.

He couldn't bear either. Because he knew he deserved both.

And when he'd finished the meal, it sat in his gut like a rock. A very heavy, very large rock. He ached with it. It pressed upon him, weighed him down. Made him feel vaguely sick.

He shifted in his seat across the table from Sam. "You done?" As Sam nodded and wiped his mouth on a napkin, Dean extended a hand. "Keys. I'll take her the rest of the way."

And there it was. The worry. "You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." And he was. He felt clear-headed again. He pushed to his feet, restless, needing to move, to go. "Keys, Sam."

He could see his brother debating with himself whether to refuse, and what the outcome might be. He saw Sam give him an up-and-down once-over, as if weighing his fitness to get behind the wheel of his own damn car. Then Sam dug the keys out and tossed them over even as he rose.

Dean felt better already. Just having the keys back in his hand eased some of the tension. Even the rock in his gut felt smaller.

With renewed purpose, he strode out of the restaurant as Sam paused to pay at the register and walked directly to the Impala. A twist of the keys in the lock, the familiar grind of metal as he pulled the door open, the welcome of leather bench seat as he slid into his customary place. He closed his hands over the steering wheel, felt with intense tactile pleasure how perfectly it fit his palms.

God, it felt good. It felt right. He was whole again; and wasn't that something Sam would scoff at, citing Tom Cruise in Jerry McGuire saying "You complete me."

Smiling, he turned over the ignition as Sam slid into the shotgun position, pulled his door closed. The Impala kicked in and came alive, instantly responsive. Dean released a long breath lost in the noise of the engine, and the last of the tension bled away. He aimed the car out of the parking lot, back onto the highway. Only a few hours to go, and the Impala could flat mow down the miles.

Three Dog Night's "Shambala" came on the radio, filling the car with the gloriously pure opening chords.

Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain
With the rain in Shambala
Wash away my sorrow, wash away my shame
With the rain in Shambala

Dean mouthed the words, singing along in his head, and for the first time in hours, he was in control again, he felt in control again . . .

. . . until he wasn't. Until, as they drove westward into the lowering sun, it turned the color of blood and poured itself, like rain, upon the earth.

He thrust up a spread hand to block the light, the blood. "—Jesus—"

Sam's voice: sharp, alarmed. "What is it?"

And he was in the house again, carving, cutting, tearing, feeling the blade slice through flesh. Felt it catch on bone, heard it grate, heard the cries and whimpers of the men he killed. Smelled, and tasted, the blood.

"Dean!"

Off the road. Off the road. Elsewhere. Anywhere. Away.

"Dean, where are you going?"

Road sign. Side road. Away. Now.

Winding down and down the gravel, following curves, hearing the scrape and grit of rubber against stones. The sun now hung on his left. He could feel the heat, the burning; feel the blaze against his skin.

Blood rained down.

"For God's sake, Dean—what are you doing?"

"River," he blurted.

Sam's hand closed within the fabric of Dean's jacket sleeve. "Why are we going to the river? Dean—are you seeing something? Is it the Mark?"

"River," he repeated, as the car bounced over ruts.

"Why?"

He didn't know. He knew only he needed to get to it, to stop the car, climb out, and go into the water. To stop the burning.

To extinguish the sun.

To wash away the blood.

"Dean, what are we doing?"

Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain

"Dean!"

Wash away my sorrow, wash away my shame

# # # #

Sam had turned himself sideways on the seat, grasping the sleeve of Dean's jacket. His brother provided no answer, no logic, no explanation for why he had abruptly taken the car off the highway and down a winding gravel road leading to the Missouri River. It made no sense. No sense at all.

"Shambala" played on.

"Dean—" But he broke off, because Dean hit the brake and Sam had to brace himself against the dash. They were feet away from the shallows of the wide, twisting river that formed the boundary between Kansas and Missouri. Once across the bridge, they'd be in their home state again. This side, they remained in Missouri. Hours out of Illinois.

Hours away from five men, five ordinary, human men, butchered by his brother.

Even as Dean cracked his door, Sam went for his. He flung it open, scrambled out, hastened around the massive front end of the Impala.

"Dean!" But Dean was ahead of him; Sam stretched his stride. "Why are we at the river?"

Dean made no answer. He stripped off jacket, flannel shirt, dropped both to the ground. It left him in jeans, boots, dark t-shirt. And just like that, without hesitation, Dean walked off the low bank and into the shallows.

Shocked, Sam stopped short. Dean stood ankle-deep in the Missouri River, facing the sun.

Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain

"Oh God," Sam murmured. "Dean."

Wash away my sorrow, wash away my shame

In the river, Dean went down to hands and knees, head bowed. Water lapped over his calves, reached to his elbows. It ran sluggishly in the shallows.

With one hand he groped at his right boot. When he brought it up, Sam saw the knife. The backup knife customarily worn in an ankle sheath. Sam hadn't taken that one from him.

"Crap—" he blurted.

Sam crossed the distance in four long, leaping strides. As his brother before him, he splashed out into the river. Reached down even as Dean, rising up to balance atop both knees, took the knife in his left hand and set the blade against the inside of his right forearm.

Where the raised, brand-like Mark of Cain polluted his flesh.

Sam knew instinctively it wasn't suicide. It was despair, and impulse, and a wild, desperate need to rid himself of the Mark. But what would the Mark do to defend itself?

A cut made too deep, his brother bleeding out, and the demon resurrected?

"Dean, no!"

Sam practically dove for it. He caught Dean's left wrist in one hand, clamped the other over the fist closed around the hilt. He squeezed, twisted, not caring if he sacrificed one of Dean's fingers, or two, even the wrist itself. Or if he endangered himself.

Twisted hard. Stripped the knife from Dean and, on a sudden spurt of rage, hurled it as far as he could into the Missouri River.

"Dammit, Dean, don't do this! Not like this! We'll find another way!"

Dean remained on his knees in the water, seeking balance even as Sam still clung to his right arm. His mouth drew back into something akin to a rictus of grief. Eyes were wide, pupils huge. His voice was half shout, and all raw rasp. "I almost killed you, Sammy! In the bunker . . . I almost killed you!"

"That wasn't you, Dean!" Sam shouted back.

Dean twisted his right arm, ripped it free of Sam's grip. He rose awkwardly, staggered sideways. The surface of the river was halfway up his calves. "It was me. It was me, Sam! Hell, you heard me—you know what I said. You know what I was!"

Sam shook his head, placating hands lifted. "We'll figure it out, Dean. We'll find a way to get rid of the Mark."

"How?" Dean's tone was anguished. "Before or after I butcher more people? Humans, Sam!" He raised his hands, brought both down across the crown of his head, fingers interlaced. "God, Sammy, I don't know what to do! I don't know what I am anymore! It's driving me, it's forcing me—and I can't control it. All I can see is blood . . . and I can taste it, taste it—"

Sam stood before his brother. With exquisite care, he placed both palms against Dean's chest. "We'll find a way. Dean, we will find a way."

"How?" Dean cried. "How on this earth do we get rid of the sign that was placed upon Cain himself thousands of years ago? Cain, Sam! And I took it, I accepted it—I did it willingly. Cain found me worthy. Worthy. Because I was already a killer, and it was what the Mark demanded."

"Dean—"

Dean unlaced fingers, let his arms drop heavily, hanging like loose weights from his shoulders. "I was in such a freaking hurry to take on the damn thing I never even asked about how to get rid of it. It's the ends with me, Sam. Always the ends, justifying the means. Hell, I can't even have you shoot me! Because I'll just come back again as that thing." The breath he drew in was noisy, unsteady, sucked through a constricted throat. "But Cas—Cas can do it. Hell, he can explode me the way Raphael was exploded, the way Cas was, when Lucifer blew him up. And I won't come back from that."

"God, Dean, no—"

Dean's face was ravaged. "It's the only way, Sammy. It's the only thing I can think of. I can't do this. I can't let it use me. I can't just go around ganking people." His inhalation sounded painful. "Christ, Sammy . . . we kill demons. And I was one."

Sam closed his fists in Dean's damp t-shirt. "We'll find a way! I promise you, Dean! After everything else we've done? We stopped the freakin' Apocalypse!"

Dean pressed the flat of one hand against Sam's chest and shoved him, backed him off. Sam let go, splashing two steps backward to maintain his balance.

Sam watched as his brother turned, put his back to the setting sun. Waded through the water. When he reached the bank, he turned again, stared hard at Sam. Then, as if he were a marionette with all his strings cut, Dean collapsed jerkily to the ground. He sat upon the bank with legs drawn up, knees bent, arms resting across them.

His tone was uneven. "I was dead, Sammy. In 2005, when the semi hit the Impala. I should have gone with Tessa. I said it then, I'll say it now: 'What's dead should stay dead.' And Dad would be alive, and I'd never have broken the first seal, never have jump-started the Apocalypse. Never have taken on the Mark. Never have become something that could try to kill his own brother." He drew in a noisy breath. "Hell, I thought it was over when Metatron nailed me, and I was ready, I was . . . and I was proud of us. But then I came back." His voice was thick with tears. "Christ, Sammy . . . all I've ever wanted was to keep you safe. And I almost killed you."

"Dean."

"Every choice . . . every choice I've ever made has been wrong." Dean's chin trembled. "All I want to do is make it right. Make everything right. And I don't know how."

For a moment, his throat aching, Sam said nothing. He just gazed upon his brother, his weary, guilt-ridden brother whose soul was intact, that great, generous, self-sacrificing soul, but whose heart was so badly broken.

He told him the truth. It would be disbelieved, but he told him. Because it was the truth. "You always make the right choices. The hard choices no one else is capable of."

Dean looked up at him. Sam saw the first tear spill over, fall, saw the terrible despair. "What if next time you don't duck, and I don't miss?"

Sam waded through water. He reached the bank, turned, sat down beside his brother. After a moment he leaned just enough to set his shoulder into Dean's. "I'll always duck, and you'll always miss."

Dean drew a hand down his face, banishing tears. His tone was raw. "It's not a joke, Sam."

"No. It's not. And it wasn't when I shot you in Duluth. Hell, Dean—I might have killed you!"

"You were possessed. It wasn't you."

"You wouldn't have been any less dead! And in that hallway, with that hammer, you were a demon. It wasn't you."

"Sam—"

"I almost beat you to death at Stull Cemetery."

"That was Lucifer—"

"And this is the Mark of Cain, Dean. My point is, we've both done things, terrible things, to one another. But it wasn't me in Duluth, it was Meg. It wasn't you in the bunker, it was the Mark that made you a demon. It's not you, Dean. It isn't. Give up the guilt. Give up that ghost. It's killing you. And I can't—" Abruptly, grief rose up. He wanted to wail like a child. "I can't lose you, Dean. I can't. I won't."

"Christ, Sammy . . ." Overcome, Dean leaned down, scooped water, sluiced it over his head and scrubbed his hair, his face. It rained upon his shoulders.

Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain.

Sam stared out into the water. Always a river, in the Bible. For baptism; a plea; a place for forgiveness. A cleansing of all sins.

Unbidden, the verse came into his head.

Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?"

He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?"

And the Lord said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground."

Dean was alive, and his blood remained in his veins. But it cried out to his brother.

Sam would always answer. Just as Dean would. They were one another's keepers.

Wash away my sorrow, wash away my shame.

Sam cleared his throat, swallowed back the lump. "We need to go." He rose, reached down, set himself, and as they clasped arms Sam pulled his brother up from the riverbank.

Dean stood there a moment longer, staring at his brother. Sam saw loss in those eyes, and the grief, the ever-present guilt, the sorrows of a soul torn to shreds in hell for thirty long years, reknitted daily only to be torn apart again.

And then Dean turned, faced westward, closed his eyes, and let the blaze of a setting sun bathe his face. Shadows and light lay upon him, painting planes and hollows and the harrowing of his spirit.

Dean never had escaped hell, Sam knew. Not wholly. Cas had pulled the soul free, but in his brother's mind, in every day of his life, part of him resided there still.

Sam wished so badly he could lift that burden. Or to share it, so the weight was not so heavy. So terribly, crushingly heavy.

He put out a hand and touched the back of his brother's neck. Closed his fingers and gripped. "Dean—let's go home."

After a moment, on a rushing exhalation that was both sigh and surrender, Dean said, "Yeah."

At the Impala, Sam didn't immediately climb in. He caught his brother's eyes and stared at him across the top of the car. "Dean, I swear: If we have to hunt down Cain himself, we'll find a way. We always do."

Dean's mouth twitched briefly. He lifted his chin in acknowledgment. But Sam knew he didn't believe it.

West of the Missouri, the sun went down. They lost the radio station. Static filled the car until Dean switched it off.

I keep goin' to the river to pray

'cuz I need somethin' that can wash out the pain.

And at most, I'm sleepin' all these demons away,

but your ghost, the ghost of you, it keeps me awake.

~ end ~

A/N: From the start, Supernatural has been a show built on the foundations of music. Music expresses everything about us, and has always provided superb subtext to Sam and Dean.

While other songs play a role in the story, particularly Three Dog Night's gorgeous "Shambala," this tag was actually inspired by Ella Henderson's marvelously evocative "Ghost," written by Henderson and Ryan Tedder. The chorus, to me, is all Dean Winchester, the harrowed Dean of Seasons 9 and 10. And I think this is beautifully exemplified by a video Nova42 created specifically for this story. (Thank you!) Take a look and a listen.

you(tube).com(backslash)watch?v=Juw3E4hloiU