fannishliss

title: The Blade in Dean's Hand
author: fannishliss
genre: Gen
rating: PG
spoilers: 9.16 Blade Runners
1571 words

Summary: So much has come between the Brothers. Add to that now, the First Blade connects with the Mark of Cain branded into Dean.  A bi-bro perspective on 9.16.

For: the Bi-Bro challenge at spn_bunker (thanks quickreaver!)

Disclaimer: This is a pair of vignettes set during 9.16.  This is a fan creation; no money is being made and no infringement intended by the use of this material.
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Pure sadistic glee sparkled in St. Clair’s eyes as he dragged the razor sharp blade across and into Sam’s skin.

Sam could hear Dean cursing and thrashing against his chains.  Only a handful of days ago, Dean had been the one under the blade.  Sam knew Dean felt the same desperation he’d felt, to break the bonds and save his brother.

“Take me to my brother,” Sam had growled, ready and willing to kill to save Dean.  For all that it bothered Sam all they’d do to save each other, when it came down to the moment, Sam was ready with the knife.  It used to scare them, both of them, just how far they’d go.   Sam was trying to break the cycle, but all he’d succeeded at doing so far was hurt Dean.  Dean was well aware of everything and everyone he’d thrown under the bus, but all he would admit was that he’d do it again.

The weight on Sam’s shoulders — all Dean was ready to sacrifice for him — it was crushing him, slowly but surely.  With his impending death, Sam had almost made the break, good and clean — a solid death, without any chance for a deal or any kind of unholy resurrection that would further damage the natural order — but Dean had bargained away that chance.

For Sam it wasn’t a question of love.  Sam would always love Dean, come Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, or Oblivion.  It wasn’t even a question of forgiveness. Sam understood, *really* understood, why Dean had done all the things he’d done for Sam.  He’d been there himself.  He remembered his obsessive quest for Lilith — anything, anything to get the marker off Dean’s soul.  He’d done a lot of things.  He wasn’t proud. But somewhere, someone had to draw the line.  Sam knew Dean would never, ever, draw that line — so he had to do it.  Dean had done a lot of things this time around that Sam could point to and say, “Look, Dean, you’ve gone too far”: taking away his choice to die when his time was up… tricking Sam into being possessed by an Angel.  They were Dean’s last ditch efforts to keep Sam with him, to keep Sam *safe*, regardless of what Sam had to say about it.

Dean had talked Sam down from completing the trials.  Truth be told, that had irked Sam the most.  In his heart, Sam knew he hadn’t been the one to kill Kevin.  Seeing Kevin’s spirit had even helped with that a little.  But the Trials still made Sam grind his teeth, all for nothing, all because Dean had panicked when Sam’s life was on the line.

Now here they were again.  Honestly, when were they ever very far from right here — tied up, threatened by monsters, swearing a vendetta on anyone who dared to hurt the other.

But then Dean slipped his chains — thanks to Crowley — and just as St. Clair pulled back to deliver a killing strike, Dean was behind him, cleanly following through with the Blade, and the madman’s body was twitching on the ground, blood pooling out, head a little distance away.

But Dean didn’t drop the Blade.  He stood there, panting.  He glowered at Crowley, then his eyes slowly came to rest on the Blade in his hand.

“Dean?”

Something was wrong.  Something was really, really wrong.  The Mark on Dean’s arm was glowing. The Blade in Dean’s fist was shaking, as if it had a life of its own.

“Dean.  Hey.”

Dean just stared at the Blade, his face blank. Then the Blade was rising up in Dean’s hand, and Dean’s face went dark, darker, glowering into an evil that Sam had never imagined looking out of his brother’s face.

“It’s over.  He’s dead,” Sam said, gently, trying to break through to Dean, through the trance or curse or whatever it was.

Dean’s lip quivered in a murderous rage like Sam had never seen Dean.  The fury on his brother’s face wasn’t even human: it was vicious, baser than animal, worse than monster.

“Drop the Blade, Dean,” Sam said.    He knew the first thing that Blade had done — the very first murder, brother against brother, a cruel travesty of everything Dean had ever stood for.  Sam couldn’t let that happen.

“Dean!” Sam barked.  Stunned, Dean’s gaze snapped around. His eyes were red and bloodshot, like he’d been crying, confused and helpless.

“Drop the Blade,” Sam suggested, and finally Dean’s fingers went lax.  The Blade dropped to the floor with a clatter.

Dean had nothing to say as he let Sam loose, and Sam could see he was in no shape for reconnaissance around the compound.  They got out, and Sam vowed he’d eventually be back for a thorough cataloging of the collection.

Sam didn’t know how to broach the topic of the way the Blade had taken Dean over.  The Mark was already on Dean’s arm. That die was already cast.  Dean would see it through, to kill Abbadon or be killed, to kill Crowley or live another day with the snarky Demon flirting and cheating them by turns.

Sam was pissed that Crowley had once again escaped, taking the Blade with him — but the Blade was something horrific in Dean’s hand.

Dean moved about the Bunker in a stupor.  Sam knew he thought he was hiding the drinking, and Sam just shrugged it off.  The final showdown was around the corner.  There was nothing more either one of them could do about it but what they were already doing: find Abaddon.  Research.  Do the job.

Sam threw himself into the work, and hoped against hope that the two of them would make it through, somehow.

***

“Magnus, I swear to God,” Dean threatened.

It seemed to Dean that his whole life was one vendetta after another, but seeing the ex-Man of Letters holding his brother at gunpoint, watching Sam get chained up like he already had been, it wasn’t something Dean could react to calmly.

“What are you gonna do,” Magnus taunted.  “What is he gonna do, huh?”

Dean thrashed against his chains as Magnus cut into his brother.  No matter how much was broken between them, Dean wasn’t just gonna stand there idly while Sam got cut up by a megalomaniac.  Chains or no chains, Magnus was a dead man.

While Magnus was busy getting his rocks off on Sam, Crowley snuck in by a different door and undid Dean’s chains.  Before the madman could kill his brother, Dean had the Blade in his hand and Magnus’s head was on the floor.

The Blade.  The Blade.  The feel of it in his hand was so wrong, so right.  It pulled something deep inside him toward it, some reptile instinct to strike and lash out.  It sang to him with a horrid ringing hiss, killer, killer, give me blood.

There stood Crowley, sizing Dean up.  That little shit.  But Dean needed him, didn’t he?

And then, there was little brother Sammy, tied to a pillar, again — also needing rescue, and never grateful for very long.  Dean had saved him, again.  How much shit would he take for it, again?

The Blade rang in his hand, deep down into his bones, thrilling up and down his spine, drilling into his darkest places, the places where Dean pushed his rage at what he’d done, what he’d suffered, the horrible double-edged choices he’d been forced to make that no one could shoulder but himself.   That rage fed the Blade, and the Blade fed the rage, and the circuit ran like fire into Dean, through him, through them, weaving them together, forging them into a unit, a murderous catastrophe.

Dean felt the rush as the Blade shook, coated in Magnus’s blood.

Bury me, bury me deep, it urged.  Slake me.  Use me.

Dean’s whole body shook with the need to obey.  Only by sheer force of will did he hold the Blade back from plunging itself into Sam and whirling around and into Crowley.

Trembling, sick and on fire with the bloodlust, Dean bargained with the Blade. I can’t get out of here on my own.  You need them, or else we’ll be trapped in here forever.

Desperately Dean tried to let the Blade fall, but he couldn’t.  It was part of him now, melded to his hand, blood and bone and fury, one terrible instrument.

Sammy was calling him.  “Dean? Dean, hey. It’s over.  He’s dead.”

Death, destruction, blood and bone.  It was Dean’s destiny.  The Blade was all he’d ever been.

“Drop the Blade, Dean,”  Sam murmured, but Dean could hardly hear him.  The Blade was everything; its desires were Dean, its need for blood was boiling in him.

“Dean!”  Sam barked.

A lifetime of training somehow broke through, shaking the hold the Blade had on him.

“Drop the Blade,” Sam implored. His brother’s eyes begged him, and Dean dropped the Blade.

For Sammy, he could do it.  This time.

They made it out, Dean didn’t know how.  They made it back to the Bunker, his Baby defiled.  If Dean cried while he sanded her clean, no one would know.  He got the horrible marks off her skin, and primed and painted, she was clean and good as new.

Dean floundered through the library, not sleeping, going through bottle after bottle of whiskey.  Sam was quiet.

Somewhere, the Blade was singing, and Dean heard every note clear as crystal.