A Curse and a Blessing

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, nor am I making any profit from this story.

Author's Note: SPOILERY for 6.12. I saw a clip for the episode and it spawned this. I just wanted to put my own spin on the upcoming episode before it aired. Its angtsy and sappy and has spiritual themes.

Summary: They've always been a breath away from being cursed or blessed. No slash.

Love. It is a curse in his family. Dean Winchester should know that by now. The evil paths that his family has traveled, every step has been borne out of a blinding love. The crossroad deals they have made, his mom, his dad, his own – all done in the name of love. All ending in hell.

And that is not the worst of it. It didn't end there. And it should have, for him…for Sam. Because Sam, he is not broken, he is shattered, is a thousand shards of agony and torment swirling in a body that once housed Dean Winchester's beloved little brother. Sam is agony incarnate. And Dean has resurrected Sam to live that agony, did it because he loves his brother.

Falling, Dean's knees impact with the wooden floor and his head bows. He isn't the first to kneel here but he will be the last. This holy place is to be no more, will be nothing but a track of overturned dirt by nightfall.

It will take the last of his faith with it when it goes.

It is fitting, that the church that had blessed the union of Mary Campbell and John Winchester be condemned. That it is crumbling on its foundations, its white paint yellowed and peeling, its steps broken and its pews rotting. It is the physical manifestation of the curse that union has wracked on the world, that Dean has called down on the heads of every living soul by his weakness, his evil.

The sob bursts from him like a scream of pain. He had tried, God had to know that he had tried to do right, to save people, to be worthy of love, his mother's, his father's, Sam's. He had given everything he had, everything he was to the cause, to his mother's revenge, to his father's mission, to his brother's salvation. He had never thought of his own salvation until it was gone, until he had picked up the knife and turned his soul into ash, set the whole world on fire with one deft slice.

And what had followed…it was worse than what had came before. The pacts he had made, the compromises, the schemes, the vanity, the blasphemy he had wallowed in? There is no shred of righteousness in the man kneeling in this condemned church, God has to know that. If He was listening, if He was watching, if He was bothering to keep score.

Tossing his head back, Dean's sob turns into a true scream, speaks of horror and torment and the very death of hope. He screams until his voice falters, until he has to choke back his scream to breathe. Leaning over, he puts his head down onto the wooden planks of a church that had once witnessed his mother's hope for a safe future, his father's steadfast love for a woman he didn't truly know.

"You win," he thickly concedes, words muffled as they are spoken into the wooden groves that sermons once rained down upon. "I was wrong." He laughs bitterly a moment. "Wrong doesn't quite cover it. I deserve hell, I know that." He sits up, lets his head tilt back, watches as sunlight begins to filter through the ruined roof. "I'm sorry," his voice cracks on the words and a single tear runs pointedly down his cheek. "For not believing in You for so long, for cursing You after I did, for thinking…thinking I was worthy of Your help. It's your world…if You wanted it destroyed…if You want Sam…." He breaks off, can't speak of what comes next.

He swallows and remains still, broken. "Forgive me," he whispers, the plea too desperate to last long in the brisk morning air. 'And please help Sam to forgive me somehow.' Then he uses a pew to lever himself to his feet. Standing, he's swaying in the aisle, an aisle that once heralded a new life for his parents, but now leads him to a path of death, of damnation.

Sam will die by his hands, as it was fated before the stars were in the sky, before man breathed his first. It is the only kindness that he can offer his brother, can do it with love. He can condemn them both in one fell swoop. They will be the sacrifice that they were meant to be, should have known they would end up being. But they will face that fate together, it is the only mercy to be had in all of this.

His footfalls echo on the old boards as he turns away from the wooden cross hanging on the front wall of the church, walks toward the open church door spilling light onto the floor. Even as he steps out into the sunlight, he knows it is the last warmth he will feel, doesn't deserve it now, has never deserved it. Anymore than he deserved Sam's love, Sam's faith in him.

He closes his eyes, greedily soaks up the warmth, bathes in the sunlight. He revels one last moment in the life that was once his, in the world he once foolishly fought to save.

"Dean," his name comes to him on the wind, is the haunted remnants of a formidable love from a treasured voice so long unheard.

Squeezing his eyes tighter, he wills away this delusion, his need, this lie. Sam does not speak his name. Sam was destroyed in hell. The soul returned to his brother's body, it's not capable of love, of loving him, of loving anyone. It knows only torment. Sam does not stir in the bed he is chained to. Sam is not there. His Sam is not anywhere.

He flinches as fingers touch his face, tentatively, tenderly. He clinches his jaw, but doesn't open his eyes, will not be decimated by a delusion, not when he can't crumbled asunder, not until he performs one final task. Not until he bestows one last act of love on his brother. His brother who is not there, whose shell is back at Bobby's house.

"Dean," the voice breaks. "I'm here."

His face is cupped in large, gentle hands and bangs tickle across his brow before a forehead is pressed against his.

If this is the final temptation, the devil has saved the best for last.

He is not strong enough for this. He never was.

"I can't explain it, don't know how…" There is breath skimming over his skin with each word. "There was ….light…but such purity and then…I woke up."

Dean shakes his head, eyes clamped shut tighter. This isn't the truth, he knows that.

"And you weren't there," and he's heard this before, this heartbreak, this agony, this terror. And he has always, always done everything in his power to vanquish it, to make Sam feel safe, to protect Sam.

A whimper escapes him but inside, inside he's screaming, begging for mercy, for strength, for a mustard seed of faith to endure this last test.

A gasping sob falls on his ears. "Dean." And it's a sound he's heard before: it followed him down into the bowels of hell, echoed in his soul, for all eternity. It was the sound of his brother's heart breaking, of the utter loss of hope, of failure so great that its depths were immeasurable.

"Dean …just…look at me. Can't you …please just open your eyes. See me."

He has never heard a voice so broken, a plea so beseeching. He has never wanted to believe in miracles, real miracles more than now.

"I'm your Sammy, Dean. I swear I am."

Dean shook his head, couldn't bear more of this, would rather be back on the rack then hear this voice, Sam's voice claiming what he was, promising him everything he wanted, needed.

"Michael, he protected me in Hell as best he could. He couldn't not protect me…there was too much of you bound in him, too much love alive in you and me. I survived hell itself because of you. And I …I can survive the memories, the torment, can live without the wall…if you're with me."

Dean exhales sharply, shudders, wishes that he had the strength to step away, to break the spell, to denounce the illusion.

As if his intensions are known, his need for escape broadcast, he's pulled into a fierce hug, is trapped in strong arms, pressed against solid flesh. "If you're not with me…can't be….can't trust me…" the breath hitches and the hug intensifies. "I'll leave. You'll never see me again. Just …look me in the eyes, Dean." Then the arms release him, let him go, set him adrift. Allow him his choice.

The words, the voice, the essence, it's his little brother's. He knows that even as he knows how inconceivable it is. Sam can not be there.

"Dean, if you ever loved me, just look at me one last time. Please."

'God, you're going to have to forgive me one last transgression,' Dean prays because this is the only temptation that he can not resist, is the one declaration that he can't let go unsaid, unproved. For all the wrongs he has done, for all the dark paths he's traveled, for all his faults, not loving his brother was never one of them.

Slowly, he opens his eyes, braces for the heartbreak, for the last part of his soul to whither and die.

Sam. Sam is there. Sam is there with tears streaming down his cheeks. And Sam's eyes…they aren't as they have been. They blaze with love and swell with desperate need.

Dean knows he's lost when he allows his brother's name to slip from his constricted throat. "Sam?"

But Sam, he shakes his head. "Sammy," he clarifies, a longing in his gaze for Dean to know what he's pledging, what he's promising.

And Dean knows. This Sam, his Sam, his Sammy has been returned to him. Whole, shattered but made anew. Restored. To life, to him. "Sammy," the name coming out as a crumpled cry. Closing the space between them, he pulls his little brother into his arms, clings to him as tightly as his strength allows.

Instantly Sammy's arms seize tightly onto Dean again, possessively, like he won't let go, ever. "Dean," his brother's name an endearment, a ward against the evil once housed inside him and still encroaching on the outside.

Closing his eyes, not in denial now but in peace, Dean rests his chin on Sammy's shoulder. He lets his tears drop onto his brother's shirt and believes again in miracles. True miracles. The ones that come even to the unworthy.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

The End

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Ok, that's how I want things to play out. But of course, I'm a sap.

Have a great evening!

Cheryl W.

"Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day. And a curse, if you will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you." ~ Deuteronomy 11: 26-28