Two Bullets
by Inzane
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, or the brothers Winchester, or the Impala. I would, however, gladly accept donations of any of the above.
Summary: Dean lets Sam know what the promise Sam forced him to make will cost. Takes place after What Is and What Should Never Be but before All Hell Breaks Loose. No spoilers.
Warning: Angst, baby, yeah! Oh, and some language. Sorry. I get a little bit excited about the angst.
A/N: This story is my thoughts on what might happen as the big showdown draws near. This is my first real attempt at a Supernatural fic, so please be kind.
"There'll be two bullets."
"What?"
Sam had been staring moodily out the passenger window, falling into a light doze, when the sound of Dean's voice startled him back to full awareness. Sam blurted out the question, whipping his head around in confusion at his brother's words, the first words he'd spoken in over a hundred miles.
Hard rain pelted against the windshield as the Impala blazed through the pitch-black night on one of those ubiquitous back roads in the middle of nowhere. The only sound in that time had been the rhythmic thump of the wiper blades and the growl of the engine. Dean had angrily ejected the cassette tape that had been playing and then flicked off the radio over an hour ago. He had remained stonily silent since then, jaw clenched tight and white-knuckled fingers gripping the wheel as he never took his eyes off the road in front of him.
Sam hated it when Dean gave him the silent treatment. It was kind of ironic, considering how many times, during their endless road trips, his fondest wish was that his brother would just shut up. Sometimes, Dean would go on seemingly forever about girls, movies, cars, food, guns, sex, food, girls, that Sam almost seriously considered trying to find a spell or a curse or something that would render Dean mute for a day. But since he'd left Stanford, he'd once again become so used to constantly hearing Dean's voice, that whenever Dean was pissed enough to refuse to talk to him, the silence was unnerving.
Sam knew that he had been the one to start the argument that led to the elder Winchester's silence. For the past week, Sam had been overcome by an increasing sense of dread. He'd had nightmares that caused him to wake up screaming, but he couldn't remember a single detail. He would find himself staring at his watch, trying to figure out if he had lost time, like he had when Meg had possessed him. He would stare at himself in the mirror, trying to see if there was any hint of something... other. But no matter what, he couldn't shake the sense of impending doom, and he feared that his time was finally running out.
It had been lunch in the diner that had set him off. He and Dean had stopped off in some small town, just like they had so many times before, and had dropped in for a couple of burgers at the local diner, again, like so many times before.
The diner was packed, and Sam found himself staring at the varied families out for the Saturday lunch rush, young and old, big and small. He couldn't take his eyes off them. These were the people he was supposed to protect. He and Dean stood between them and the things in the dark.
Sam's eyes finally returned to Dean, his family. His thoughts took a darker turn, and he thought, what if, just what if, he became one of those things in the dark. His own father feared that it might happen--his last words to his firstborn son attested to that. He was a threat to everyone around him, a threat to his own brother. He watched the families smile and laugh, watched his brother munch happily on his burger, and he knew that he couldn't allow that to happen. And to ensure that, he needed Dean's help.
Once they were back on the road, Sam had brooded for a while, ignoring Dean's attempts at conversation. When the sun began to hang low in the sky, darkness gathering on the horizon, he had started in on Dean. Now that he thought about it, he knew that he had been too insistent, too sure that he would go bad and that Dean would have to kill him. He made it sound like it was a certainty, not just one of many possible futures. He saw the affect that his words were having on his brother, yet he couldn't stop himself. He couldn't get the image of those happy families out of his head, couldn't be rid of the image of his brother sacrificing himself to try to save him.
Dean had tried to calm him down, to insist that it would never come to that, that Sam would never be evil. Sam had yelled at Dean, told him that he couldn't know that, not for sure. He needed Dean to be prepared to do what their father had asked of him, if it came to that. He had to be certain that Dean would do it. Everything that he had been feeling over the past week had pressed down on him until he couldn't breathe, made him certain that it would indeed come to just that.
He should have known when to back off, should have recognized the set of Dean's jaw, the tension in his shoulders. But he had pushed and pushed, until finally Dean had exploded.
"Goddamitt, Sam, that's enough!" He had slammed on the brakes and pulled to a skidding halt at the side of the road, causing Sam to place a hand on the dash to brace himself. Sam watched in shocked silence as Dean flung open the driver's side door, leveled a finger at him, and said, "Don't even think about following me." Then he stepped out onto the road, crossing it and disappearing into the woods on the other side.
Sam had stared in shock, then had been overcome by panic when he realized that Dean had walked off alone, minimally armed, into the twilight darkness of the woods. Sam knew too well the many things that could lurk in woods such as these. He almost went after him, had actually opened the door and stood up, when he spotted Dean's form leaning against a tree, just within sight of the road. His breath rushed out of him in relief, and he ran a shaky hand over his face. Dean wasn't gone. He was right there. His brother wouldn't leave him.
Sam had got back in the car and waited for Dean. He'd known that if he tried to talk to his brother right then, he would have just made things worse. Sam had tried to think of what to say to him when he returned, but couldn't come up with anything. Fifteen minutes later, Dean had come back to the car, started it up, and took off down the road again. He didn't say a word, and he never even glanced in Sam's direction. His face was a cold, emotionless mask.
"Dean, I..." Sam began, but Dean had reached forward and turned the volume on the radio hard to the right, his way of saying he didn't want to talk. Sam had swallowed hard and turned to look back at the road. There was no talking to Dean when he got like this. He'd just have to wait it out.
Now, after miles and miles of silent road, after the sun had long set and rain poured from the sky in buckets, Dean had finally spoken. He had said two bullets. Two. Sam's heart rate increased at the thought of what that could mean.
Dean gave Sam a brief glance, then drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He knew that Sam had been becoming increasingly withdrawn over the past week, and he had tried to snap him out of it without luck. He saw the way Sam had stared at the families in the diner, could practically read his thoughts.
Sam thought the demon was going to win.
Dean could see Sam was giving up, accepting what he thought was his fate, and it was killing Dean. It may have been selfish, but he needed Sam to be there with him, at his side, two brothers against the world. Dean had never asked for anything for himself, ever. Was it so wrong to want to have his brother in his life? His whole life had been about Sam, about what he wanted and what he needed. If Sam was so ready to throw his life away, then he wanted his brother to know what it would truly cost.
"If you make me go through with this…" Dean began, his words faltering. He had to clear his throat before he could continue. "If there's absolutely nothing I can do to save you… I won't let you hurt anyone, Sammy. I'll do what I have to. I promised." Dean's voice was hoarse with emotion. The thought of having to do it, of having to kill his baby brother--the only family he had left in this world, and the person who had always been the most important in his life--tightened his throat and threatened to shake the rigid control he kept on his emotions. He gripped the wheel tighter and drew in a hitching breath.
"But there'll be two bullets." He let the words hang in the air between them. He didn't feel the need to elaborate. Sam would understand what he meant.
"Dean…" Sam began, his heart now pounding hard in his chest, his breaths coming fast and shallow. He can't mean it, he told himself. Dean would never do something like that. Not Dean.
Dean turned his head to look at Sam and meet his eyes for a brief moment before turning them back to the road. He heard Sam suck in a sharp breath as he saw complete and total honesty in Dean's green eyes.
"Just so you know," Dean added quietly.
He'd said what he needed to say. The rest would be up to Sam. He reached forward and pushed the cassette back into the player, then turned the radio back on, Kansas' Dust in the Wind suddenly blaring from the speakers.
Sam turned his face away, staring through the rain pelting against the passenger window to the blackness beyond. His heart continued to pound, seemingly in time to the fast thump of the wiper blades, and he had to blink at the threat of tears that gathered in the corner of his eyes.
He'd thought that… after… Dean would carry on, lay the last of his family to rest and go live a normal life. The thought that Dean would be out there somewhere, living his life, made the idea of his own death bearable. As long as Dean was okay, he could go without regrets.
He'd never even considered that Dean might not be okay. This was Dean, after all. It would be hard for a while, but he could handle it. His brother could handle anything. But Sam now realized that he should have known better. How quickly he had forgotten how out of control Dean had gotten after the death of their father. After all, it had never been about revenge for Dean, it had been about protecting his family. When their Dad died, it was like Dean was cut adrift, part of his purpose in life gone. It had taken Dean a while, but he had recovered, mainly because he changed his sole purpose in life to protecting his little brother. If that was taken away…
Sam swallowed hard, then thought, what if the positions were reversed? What if Dean asked me to kill him? He felt a wave of nausea overtake him at the thought of holding a gun to Dean's head and pulling the trigger. Could he live with himself, knowing that he had ended Dean's life? He didn't even want to think of the possibility.
Sam risked a quick glance at Dean, who was once again staring at the road ahead. His face seemed almost serene in the soft glow from the dashboard lights. This was his brother, the one who had raised him. Dean had been there every day of his life, excluding those four years when Sam had run away to Stanford, trying so hard to be something he was not. Sam had been prepared to sacrifice himself, had accepted it as his fate, but now things had changed. He wasn't prepared to sacrifice his brother as well.
No more accepting fate. He would fight it, every step of the way. He wouldn't let the demon win. He would do anything and everything so that Dean would never have to fulfill that promise.
He was a Winchester. It was not his destiny to become evil; it was his destiny to fight it.
They'd make it out of this together, or not at all. Sam was going to do everything in his power to ensure that it was together.
The End.
May 2007
A/N: I don't think that Dean is the kind of person that would ever consider suicide under normal circumstances. But I also don't think that he could live with himself if he had to pull the trigger on Sam. Whether he threw himself recklessly at every bad thing out there until something did him in, or he decided to end it himself, I don't think that Dean would last very long, knowing what he had done.