The Strength of Frenzy, for Misplaced_Ad

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Title: The Strength of Frenzy
Recipient: misplaced_ad
Rating: T
Word Count: 2500 words
Warnings: Canon-typical violence, violence perpetrated by a child.
Author's Notes: Thanks to my ever-helpful and ass-kicking beta, who knows who she is!
Summary: The Mark is so big on Dean's skinny arm.
(Prompt: "De-aged Dean still has the Mark of Cain.")


It’s in the way that Dean clenches his hands.

I got zero control, he’d said. He fights for it, though. His body, ungainly and long-limbed, is tightly leashed, as tight as Dean can pull it.

The lights on the highway striate Dean’s face, illuminating it inch by inch and then letting darkness swallow him, and Sam can’t stop looking.

This was never Dean, he thinks. Not this lost kid. Not this gangly, pimply adolescent. His Dean was never so human.

And in a way, no, this was never Dean. This Dean is fourteen years old. This Dean’s body is growing in bursts and spurts and is encumbered by limbs that should be longer than expected, but here and now they are shorter than expected. The last time Dean was fourteen, his eyes were heavy, but not like this.

The lights on the highway striate Dean’s face, and they striate his arm, propped against the window, an uncomfortable placement, judging from Dean’s expression, probably because it’s not the height he’s expecting.

The Mark looks so big on Dean’s skinny limb.

It’s a vicious thing to begin with, a brand, a curse, but it fits on Dean’s arm when he is an adult. When he is an adult, here’s a stomach-twisting sense of rightness about it.

Sam steals a glance at his brother’s face, two decades stripped away from it in a matter of seconds. The Mark is brutal and merciless and dangerous. He tries to fit those words to that face, slot them like puzzle pieces, and he cannot.

Yesterday, he could have.

It’s the way that Dean doesn’t look at him for more than a second.

Sam mentions the yarrow he found, just to break the silence.

Dean responds but it’s perfunctory. Yes, so yarrow means witches. Spellwork. Obviously this is spellwork, he says, gesturing to his thin, angular body. He gestures with the arm that the Mark is impressed upon, and he quickly puts it back against the window.

It is dark against his skin. It draws in light like an omen. A warning.

Sam says they can reverse the spell. That they will reverse it.

Dean attempts a smile and says he knows.

The smile is older than Dean’s eyes, and his eyes are older than his body, and his body is swallowed up by darkness that the street lights do not—perhaps cannot—illuminate.

*

The Mark does not care that Dean is fourteen.

The witch’s servant tries to get the jump on them—well. He does get the jump on them. But Dean is slippery at fourteen, and the Dean inhabiting this small body has learned well how to get out of the grip of stronger creatures.

Sam has his gun raised to pistol-whip their attacker, but Dean has wrenched himself around in the chokehold and crawls up his assailant’s body until he can get his hands around his throat.

Sam shouts his brother’s name, but it does nothing, because something else is talking to him, too, and it drowns out Sam’s voice.

The man crumples to his knees, and Dean’s fingers do not tremble, do not relent.

He brings the man from his knees to the floor, prone. He demands to know where the girl is, what was done to them. The man chokes out that he doesn’t know.

Dean murmurs something like that’s too bad, and his hands slip up to the man’s head while a knee replaces them over his throat. Thumbs slip into place above eyelids, and Sam sees his brother’s eyes flick to his forearm.

Dean begins to press down and the man begins to scream.

Sam lurches forward and wraps his arms around Dean’s waist. He drags him off, and it requires an almighty effort, because Dean begins to fight back immediately. The violence, the wildness, the feral child his brother has become is now turned on Sam, and he finds himself landing hard on his side on the cold floor, his brother now kneeling astride him, his fist pulled back, a snarl wrenching his lips askew.

Sam puts his hands up in front of his face, defensive, because he can’t raise a hand against his brother. Not like this.

Not in this thin, fragile body, no matter how the Mark is juicing it up.

The first punch lands solid, and he feels an instant nausea as his skull bounces against the floor. His vision tunnels, just for a second, and he hears himself expel all of his breath in a single exhalation.

His eyes are bleary as he looks up at Dean out of his periphery, and he’s already bracing for a second blow.

When it doesn’t come he turns his head—slowly, damn it, that hurts—and meets his brother’s eyes.

Big, shocky, green, reflective with what might to Sam’s horror be tears. Dean throws his weight back and falls off of Sam, backing up, crawling away and holding up a hand when Sam tries to follow.

The attacker has recovered now and staggers to his feet. Dean—almost without looking, like it’s just instinct, Christ—swipes a foot out and catches him, sending him crashing back down to the floor. He crawls on top of him like something out of a horror movie, all spindly limbs and rapid ferocity, and his fists are raining down on the man’s face and he’s yelling, barely words, certainly nothing that Sam can make out.

And it’s stupid, it’s stupid, but Sam manages to get to his knees and he crawls over to his brother and grabs an arm and Dean is so small, he’s a child, but he twists around and grabs Sam by the wrist and Sam freezes.

“I don’t wanna hurt you,” Dean rumbles, his tone so out of sync with his pubescent child’s voice that Sam feels himself shiver, “but I will if you touch me again, Sammy, I swear to fucking God.”

Sam inhales.

Dean releases his arm.

Sam sinks down and says, “Don’t kill him.”

Dean narrows his eyes.

*

Dean doesn’t kill him.

And maybe it’s Sam’s fault that he’s distracted enough not to spot the lie. Dean is sharp like this, savvy, jagged edges and razor perception. He is Dean without the scar tissue, without the exhaustion and despair dulling him.

He is, once again, a perfect vessel.

They follow Hansel upstairs. The man is tall and broad, a significant presence, but he shoots anxious glances back at Dean every few seconds.

Sam doesn’t blame him.

Dean is vibrating. His hands clench and unclench. His eyes dart to the Mark, to Hansel, to the path in front of them. He doesn’t look at Sam.

Hansel is in front, but Dean is leading them.

The girl upstairs is tied to her chair, her eyes wide, and she’s reeking of fear and sweat. Her eyes lock on Dean and Sam can tell immediately that she knows him: but she looks at him like she knows him, like she knows who he ought to be, and this child scares her as much as he scares Sam. Her mouth works around her gag, and her eyes flick to Sam, desperate.

He in turn looks to his brother.

The witch is talking to Dean, and he jabs back at her but it sounds dull, flat. He’s holding a Molotov they found earlier in his hand, and a stillness has fallen over him. Sam raises his gun and trains it on the witch, but she’s only watching Dean.

Sam doesn’t blame her.

“I never made Hansel do anything,” the witch says, and Sam feels himself jerk with surprise but Dean has turned around and landed a sucker punch to Hansel’s kidney before the witch is even done speaking.

Hansel is on his knees again, and Dean pulls away long enough to dig for his lighter. Sam rushes over to restrain Hansel, who’s struggling up to his feet, so Dean can get the Molotov lit. Just as the flame flicks on, the witch shouts something and Dean’s eyes widen as the bottle flies out of his hand and shatters against the wall.

Dean stares at his hand.

Dean stares at the Mark.

Sam stares at Dean.

*

Fifteen seconds later finds them both on their knees, Sam’s gun in Hansel’s hand, pointed at both of them. Sam is watching Dean rather than the gun.

He’s been well-taught to keep his eye on the most dangerous person in the room.

The witch circles Dean, touching his arm. The one without the Mark. Dean looks up at her, his eyes wide and blank. Sam can hear his mind whirring. He is seven steps ahead of all of them.

Sam feels secure enough in Dean’s control over the situation to wonder where this version of his brother has been, all these years.

The Mark strips away the layers that held Dean back from this potential, this violent purpose, but it’s more than that—more than just taking away his reluctance or his morality. Dean is a razor’s edge. Dean is tactical perfection. Dean is all of the things he would mock Sam for being, all of the things he never claimed for himself.

Dean is brilliant like this, in his horrifying way.

The witch makes a remark about fattening Dean up, and Dean makes no reply. Dean would have said something, yesterday. Kept her talking. Stalled.

This Dean doesn’t need to stall her.

This Dean looks up at her, all serenity, all green eyes blank and purposeful. His toes curl up, ready to spring.

Sam wonders, just for the cringing life of a moment, who he is going to spring at.

It’s Hansel. Of course it’s Hansel. Dean launches himself at the minion and is almost balletic, catches himself by the crook of his arm around Hansel’s neck, changes his momentum and wraps around his neck. Sam takes the moment and charges the witch, disarming her, getting thrown against the wall for his troubles.

Dean roars.

Hansel is keeping him busy, though, busy enough for the witch to throw open the oven. She screams for Hansel to bring Dean.

She thinks that Hansel has the upper hand. Sam is limp and breathless against the wall, but he can see that Hansel never did.

When Dean snaps his neck, the sound rings like finality, louder in the room than it should be.

Sam looks at the girl. Every muscle in her body is frozen.

Sam looks at the witch. She is staring, gape-jawed, at the body of her servant, as Dean lets it slide to the floor.

Sam looks at Dean. He has ripped the cord with the hex bag from Hansel’s neck, and is staring at it in his hand.

Dean looks at Sam.

There’s indecision in his face and it wrenches Sam’s gut. If this were different—if this had been Dean as he had been in childhood, if this had been Dean unscarred by life he’d led, then whatever the consequences Sam would have grabbed that hex bag away and said no.

Said you can have this.

Said it’s your turn.

But this is the Mark staying Dean’s hand and Sam knows it. This is the Mark claiming this pristine tabula rasa Dean-child and keeping the Dean that can fight it at bay. It is not Dean’s hesitance that keeps his hand from closing. It’s the Mark.

It is.

So Dean looks at Sam, and Sam says his name.

Dean’s hand closes around the hex bag.

*

Tina is in their rearview and they are several hundred dollars poorer, but Dean is in the driver’s seat and the Mark is proportional on his arm.

They haven’t talked about it. Sam doesn’t think they probably will. Dean has barely looked at him, keeps his eyes on the road.

Sam feels himself relaxing into his seat more, on this ride. He doesn’t feel the electricity coming off of Dean anymore, the static of barely-contained violence. Dean is clamped down hard around the Mark, now. His energy is focused. It doesn’t bleed out across the seat.

Dean eases the car onto the shoulder, and Sam tenses, just a little.

He puts the car in park and reaches over to Sam.

“Let me see your head,” he says.

Sam frowns.

“Where you hit it. When I decked you.”

Sam rolls his eyes with an effort.

“I’m fine, Dean.”

Dean ignores him and scoots over, checking Sam’s pupils, feeling the back of his head where there’s a lump.

He sits back.

“You dizzy? Nauseous?”

“I’m not concussed, Dean.”

Dean scowls.

“You’re not okay, either. Fuck. We need to find a motel. You shouldn’t be moving.”

He sits back in his seat and grabs the gear shift, but Sam knocks his hand away.

He waits until Dean meets his eyes.

“It’s okay.”

“You’re not—”

“I said it’s okay, Dean. You weren’t—you didn’t do it to me. Okay? I know it was the Mark. I know you didn’t—you couldn’t control it.”

Dean’s eyes are wide in the far-off light of the street lamps. He doesn’t breathe.

“You handled it. Okay? You handled it and it’s done.”

Dean looks away, pulls back onto the interstate.

The lights striate the face that Sam knows so much better than any other, even if the expression on it is foreign, just now.
It’s twelve miles later that Dean says, “I wanted to kill you.”

Sam says nothing.

He doesn’t say I know, even though he does.

Dean drags a breath into reluctant lungs, lets it out slowly.

“It’s all I could think about. I know—the Mark—I knew that would end it. Make it livable. Make it stop itching.”

Dean’s eyes flick towards him, and Sam says nothing.

“Sammy, it was all I could do. I killed him because it was that or you. It felt—easy. Like breathing. Like your heart beating. Hard as that to stop.”

“You stopped it,” Sam reminds him.

Dean slams a hand against the steering wheel, then smoothes it over, an apology. To Sam or to the Impala, it isn’t clear.

“I almost didn’t break that hex bag,” he says. “It wanted me to put it down. It was so easy, Sammy. Just put it down and finish it.”

He stops, abruptly, like he’s hit a wall, and Sam knows that there will be no more words. That was Dean’s confession; he’s waiting for Sam’s judgment now. He won’t accept a few Hail Marys or Acts of Contrition to expiate this sin, and he won’t accept Sam’s forgiveness.

“You never do the easy thing,” Sam says.

Dean nods.

“I’m alive. You’re alive. That’s all.”

Dean’s eyes cut to him.

“This isn’t done,” Sam says.

“I know.”

Sam sits back in his seat, and he sees Dean’s shoulders relax, just a fraction.

It wasn’t I forgive you, but that’s not how this works. It’s one more lob in the endless game, and the only absolution is in facing the next day.

Everything they do is an Act of Contrition, Sam thinks.

The lights striate his brother’s stony face as they drive on.