Remission
Title: Remission
Author: debbiel66
Characters: Dean, Sam, Castiel
Word Count: 3500
Genre: gen; h/c; broken!Sam, hurt!Dean
Rating: R (language)
Warnings: Spoilers through Season 6; AU from that point on.
Author's Notes: Huge grateful thank you to the lovely and talented callistosh65 for the beta read.
Summary: The demon voices in his head were so hard to resist…they whispered he was damned and doomed and as good as dead. They crooned to him that all hope was lost. Sam was tired, so very tired, but Dean needed him. And Sam was still his father’s son.
Remission
Sam took to his bed on a Sunday, and for a while, Dean believed things were getting better. Maybe it was some kind of freak remission, a reprieve from the battle they’d been waging for longer than Dean could even keep track of. God only knew Sam deserved a little rest. They both did.
But it was an unnatural sleep, too much like before, when the hell-wall first came down. Dean didn’t know whether his brother was among the living or the dead or somewhere in between. But this time, Dean reminded himself Sam was only sleeping, something like a nap on steroids. He had curled fetus-like into himself. Like maybe if he got small enough, the demons in his head would decide he wasn’t worth the trouble.
Dean started to worry about dehydration when Sam didn’t wake up to drink anything or even to take a leak. Bedpans sucked, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t done before. He hoped he wouldn’t need to get the catheter out of the trunk. He’d had enough of that during Sam’s two-week hibernation. But Sam just slept.
It wasn’t like Dean had been fretting by Sam’s bedside, holding his hand, wiping his brow, or any crap like that. Dean had stuff to do, kept himself busy, even if they weren’t hunting at the moment. It took him most of the first day just to clean the place up. Before all this began, Dean had left Sam alone in the motel room for less than an hour, but it had been long enough. A single razor blade could do a lot of damage, even when wrists weren’t involved. Dean had gotten Sam stitched up good enough to fix most of it, so he was pretty sure that Sam’s current coma wasn’t caused by residual blood loss.
Even before the razor blade debacle, Dean had taken precautions-no key to the car for Sam, not any more. After that one time with the Glock, Dean had locked up everything in the trunk-the guns, bullets and casings, their crossbow, the taser, every damn knife they owned. Even salt, after Sam tried to eat the damn stuff. That was disgusting. Forks. Dean even stashed away the army guy that had been crammed in the ashtray forever, after Sam tried to swallow the friggin toy whole. Dean brushed up on the Heimlich maneuver after that one.
Then there was the walking dead act. Sam would space out for hours at a time, occasionally for a whole day. You could move him around, drive with him, tug him along. He was portable, but that was it-Sam was no longer in the building. The worst part was when Sam would come to and anxiously ask, “Did I hurt anyone?”
“Only yourself,” Dean would grumble, and it was partly true.
Then there was the hoarding. For reasons that had yet to be explained, Sam had been collecting junk, storing it in every nook and cranny he could find in their room and in the car or in his pockets. Sam had always squirreled shit away when he was a little kid, but this took that irritating quirk to a whole new level. Dean wasn’t even sure where or when Sam picked up half of it. Dean was always watching, but Sam was sneaky that way.
There was so much of it. Matchbooks from places Dean knew he had never been, frilled color toothpicks from pansy-assed drinks he never saw Sam drink, odd shaped buttons, razor blades-god!-dental floss, breath mints, train schedules, chapstick in every flavor, which was Dean’s contribution actually. Sam had been licking his lips raw-oyster shells, green coffee beans, bottle caps…
But worst of all was the self-medication.
Honestly, even with the demon blood addiction behind them, Dean didn’t see it coming. Sam had been taking shit, tripping balls was how the damn warlock put it after Dean kicked his ass for selling some kind of magic mushroom to his brother. Sam’s head was already a freak show, and for the life of him, Dean couldn’t figure out why Sam would take anything to fry it even worse.
“How can you do this? How? You saved the world so you could O.D. on friggin mushrooms?”
But horribly, Sam had started crying while Dean yelled at him.
“Anything’s gotta be better than being stuck in my own head,” Sam said brokenly, tears streaming down his face.
And damn, Dean didn’t know what to say to that.
But from then on, Dean was more careful and did regular searches, confiscating anything. And it went beyond the mushrooms. There was cocaine in a tiny tan envelope, multiple painkillers, fucking bath crystals…and once, he was pretty sure he found heroin. He lost it that time, might have fractured his fist against Sam’s cheekbone. Like he’d expected the beat-down, Sam had confessed to everything, but couldn’t promise not to do it again. Dean flushed the heroin down and willed it to stay down.
It was hard. Hard enough that Dean had been tempted to just give up and let Sam stay crazy.
When it got bad, he liked to remember the time Sam got a hold of his first beer from some fellow mathlete geek. Sammy couldn’t have been more than fourteen, all gangly and not yet grown, with a single zit on his chin and his hair flopping in his eyes. Even though Dean had been pissed, Sam had been giggling and waving the bottle around.
That was when Dad had stormed into the room and grabbed the bottle. “What the hell is this?”
Sam had stopped laughing then. Dad was pretty damn scary.
But Dad had taken a closer look at the label and started to chuckle, handing the empty bottle over to Dean. He’d taken one look and had doubled over, laughing. It was non-alcoholic-fake geek beer. At the time, it was the best thing that had ever happened to Dean…the priceless lifelong ammunition of knowing that his dork of a kid brother had gotten drunk off the idea of beer.
Sam didn’t mess around with beer now. Whiskey seemed to be his drink of choice when Dean took all his drugs away, but Sam wasn’t picky. Anything would do, as long as it knocked back some of the hell. One thing Dean knew for sure-the self-medicating had to stop. Sam was going to kill himself if he kept this up…but maybe that was the point.
No. Dean refused to believe that. They were Winchesters, and they were never going to give up. But Dean had to keep reminding himself that this wasn’t his Sam, not really. Yeah, it was still Sam, unlike that soulless douchebag, but Sam was sick. Lucifer’s cage had screwed him over so thoroughly, it might take a lifetime to come back from it. Maybe longer.
So when Sam finally went to bed and slept dreamless at last, Dean allowed himself the tiny, pathetic hope that maybe the worst of their problems were over. But it had been days, and Sam was still sleeping.
Dean was exhausted. He sat heavily on the edge of the bed and ran his hands over his eyes, almost wishing he could just climb in with Sam. There was only a queen-it was the only room available when they checked in, and Dean hadn’t known they’d be staying for days. But Sam was all curled up by the edge of the mattress. There was plenty of room…but someone had to keep watch.
Dean had run an extra salt line at the threshold and at the windowsill, but Sam was too vulnerable like this. It was the thing Dean hated the most…how all Sam’s defenses had been laid bare. It was a terrible thing to happen to a good hunter. Dean was trying to be patient. This was a marathon, not a sprint. That was what Bobby kept telling him.
Dean sighed deeply and decided to try again. Gave Sam’s shoulder a little nudge and said, “Sam, get your ass up… Dad’s pissed.” It was playing dirty, but it used to work when Sam was a kid.
He was about to poke at Sam again, when suddenly, Sam’s breathing hitched. He sat up with a gasp, like some kind of monster in a late night horror movie. Dean shoved himself back a foot, not knowing which version of Sam would be waking up. But Sam just yawned and drowsily scrubbed at his eyes and looked like he was all of ten with the worst case of bedhead ever.
“Dean?” Sam’s voice was still raw, the way it had since he’d strained his vocal cords with all the screaming. “Is it breakfast?”
Dean forced a smile, even as he willed his sinner’s heart to stop pounding like he was scared of his brother. “It’s dinner. Bout time you woke your lazy ass up.”
Sam swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “Why’d you let me sleep so long?” he asked accusingly.
Dean let out a real laugh at the question. “Don’t be a bitch,” he said. “I chased down a friggin’ ice cream truck bout an hour ago that kept circling the parking lot, so it wouldn’t wake you up. It’s you’re two all over again.”
Sam flipped him off grumpily, but the frown on his face proved Dean’s point. “Sorry,” Sam said, and for a moment, Dean believed that they’d actually turned some kind of corner.
But that was when Sam’s eyes rolled back in his head. Luckily, he didn’t have far to fall before his head hit the pillow.
“That went well,” Dean muttered, trying to heave Sam’s legs back onto the bed.
In truth, it hadn’t gone that badly. Sam had woken up without drama, bitched a little, and wasn’t even fetal any more. He was actually stretched crossways on the bed, arms wide open, the way he used to sleep when the monsters were on the other side of the salt line.
Dean sank back in his chair and let his head fall back. Despite what Bobby and Sam said, he had always been an optimist. It was the only way he’d survived this long. Glass half full and all that crap. So maybe Sam was only half crazy.
***
Sam opened his eyes to hellfire.
“Sam. Sam.”
He quickly shut them again. That voice. Dean was always begging him for something…always something that Sam couldn’t give. You couldn’t tread water for long in the lake of fire…
“Sammy-”
There was pain this time, even desperation. Dean needed him, and that always brought Sam back from whatever depths he’d been wandering.
Sam opened his eyes to the real world-the one everyone kept telling him wasn’t anything like hell. He was standing in a field, some kind of industrial graveyard, and the air around him was wet-warm and buzzing. He had utterly no idea how he had gotten there. Bewildered, Sam tried to take a step forward, but the ground under his feet seemed to be seizing.
Sam tried breaking his own fall, but instead he fell, practically on top of Dean. At first, he couldn’t make sense of it. Dean was on his knees with his own hands inexplicably clenched around his throat. He was gasping, choking for air, dying. His lips were already blue. Sam had to hand it to Lucifer…this rendition was original. Dean had never choked himself to death before.
Sam needed to get himself out of the pit, so he reached for the pills that he’d stashed in his pocket.
“This isn’t hell, Sam,” a familiar and terrifying voice said quietly.
With a jolt, Sam looked up to stare into the omnipresent gaze of Castiel. Sam squeezed his eyes shut and tried to figure out what the divinity was doing in the depths of hell.
“This is the ‘real’ world,” Castiel said, and Sam could see the air-quotes, even if Cas didn’t use them anymore.
“I won’t listen to you,” Sam gritted out, but he didn’t know what to do. This felt real, but then again, it always did.
“Dean must back down if he wishes to live.” There was no bite to Castiel’s words, but Sam felt them in his heart as truth. Dean was dying.
Save him, save him, save him.
The litany screamed through his fucked-up brain, giving Sam the clarity he needed. Turning his back to Castiel, Sam tried pulling Dean’s hands away from his neck, and realized that Dean’s grip was iron-fast. Definitely supernatural. No matter how hard Sam yanked at his arms, Dean would not let go.
Sam looked for Castiel, but he had vanished again. Dean’s eyes were already rolling back in his head. Sam pulled even harder, feeling something give in his shoulder. Dean wasn’t breathing any more. Sam hadn’t even heard the death rattle.
“God,” he swore desperately, gathering his brother up in his arms. “Shit, oh, God. Please!”
“That’s better.” Castiel was now standing in front of them them. “Prayer is often effective in cases like this, although you lack the proper reverence.”
“Cas, please…please save him,” Sam begged. He didn’t need to bow down-he was already on his knees, humbled in every way.
“Up to this point, it has been figurative,” Castiel said calmly, “but your brother has been killing himself for a long time now.”
It was almost too late. “Please help him.”
Not much of a prayer, but the iron cords around Dean’s throat suddenly loosened, and Dean’s fingers fell away from his neck. His eyes opened and he sucked in one raw breath and then another. Then Dean was heaving, leaning from Sam’s lap and vomiting onto the ground. Sam held him through it.
“Thank you,” Sam whispered to the one who had been their friend once-he had no pride left anyway. “Thank you so much.”
Castiel smiled his creepy, beatific smile. “This is the ripple effect of mercy. My faithfulness has no bounds.”
“Bullshit,” Dean gritted out, and Sam resisted the impulse to throttle his brother all over again.
“Shut up-don’t provoke him,” Sam hissed and saw Dean clench his jaw, but he kept his mouth shut.
Castiel gazed down on them. “All the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven. But if you reject me…decisively…that I cannot forgive.” He almost looked lonely, and despite himself, Sam had to wonder why.
Castiel disappeared, all smoke and mirrors. Sam was pretty sure Cas was omniscient now, so his physical presence didn’t really matter, but it was a relief to have him gone.
“Dude, let go. I can’t breathe.”
Sam blinked and realized he was squeezing the hell out of Dean. He forced himself to let go, and Dean painfully sat up. Already, Sam could already see fingerprint bruising around his neck.
“Dean, let me look. Is it crushed? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, no thanks to the friggin’ insane deity,” Dean rasped, still hacking and spitting out bile.
But Sam could hear the hurt in his brother’s voice, and he knew it wasn’t all from being strangled. They both missed Castiel, but Dean felt the loss daily like a phantom limb.
Cautious at first, but relieved that the ground was no longer buckling, Sam stood and gave Dean a hand up. “What the hell was that about?” Sam asked, probing Dean’s throat gently, checking for structural damage.
Dean pushed his hand away. “I pissed him off. He was teaching me a lesson.” He studied Sam more critically. “Sam, you were checked out for a while this time. You okay?”
Sam didn’t really know. He closed his eyes and warily opened them again. The field didn’t self-destruct into fire and brimstone. “Yeah. I’m good.”
Dean took a deep breath and nodded…it took so little these days to make Dean happy. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “This place is friggin’ carcinogenic.”
The field did look pretty toxic. Nearby, giant hunks of metal jutted out of a pool of swamp-green sludge. “What are we doing here anyway?”
“You don’t remember?” Dean sounded surprised, but he didn’t wait for Sam to answer. “Probably for the best. Let’s just say, we earned our keep today.” He paused. “You sure you’re okay?”
Sam was surprised that he actually could think about the question. Usually, the wreckage of his soul was too great for clarity. But his mind felt quiet somehow. Sam tested it by taking a deep breath and then another, relaxing a little when the air didn’t scorch his lungs. But the situation could change so quickly-Sam could never trust it. He reached into his pockets, checking for the painkillers just in case, but they were empty. Apparently, Dean had already patted him down. Maybe Sam wouldn’t need anything to get through the rest of today.
Dean was apparently tired of waiting for an answer. He tugged at Sam’s arm. “Walk with me, man, you’re too big for me to drag, and it’s been a shitty day.”
Sam realized that Dean sounded exhausted. He wondered when his brother had last slept and couldn’t remember. Maybe they could nap in the car-that sounded pretty good. He needed to help, needed to walk. Sam tried ordering his legs to move faster, but his body didn’t listen to him any more. One step at a time was about all he could manage.
“How many times can we do this?” Sam heard himself asking. He wasn’t even sure what he meant, but Dean set his jaw.
“As many as it takes,” Dean retorted and stubbornly hauled him along.
Sam felt his eyes well up. He hated how easily he cried now, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. The taint in his soul was like a drop of ink in a glass of water. It would never be clear again. But Dean didn’t seem to care about that. He just kept on keeping on, searching Sam’s pockets, and not letting him get anywhere near razors.
“Dean…”
“Almost there, Sam,” Dean said and coughed raggedly.
Sam worried. Maybe Dean’s larynx had been compressed, his breathing compromised. They should probably get him checked out...
Sam felt like he couldn’t breathe…the air wasn’t making it all the way down. What if he couldn’t get Dean to a hospital? Even if he did, they’d probably admit Sam into the nearest psychiatric ward, if hospital personnel spent more than a couple minutes talking to him. Maybe it would even be for the best, having Sam locked up and out of the way. Maybe Dean could simply live his life and-
“Sam, I swear I’ll tear you a new one, you even think about checking out now. The fucking car is twenty feet away.”
Sam realized they were standing still, and Dean had him gripped tightly by his jacket. Sam had been fading again. Sam swallowed, his throat raw like he was the one who had just been strangled by the invisible hands of an angry god.
“Are you listening to me? I need you to keep going.”
The demon voices in his head were so hard to resist…they whispered he was damned and doomed and as good as dead. They crooned to him that all hope was lost. Sam was tired, so very tired, but Dean needed him. And Sam was still his father’s son.
Dean gave him a stern little shake. “Sam. You with me?”
“I’m here,” Sam said and meant it. He stood up a little straighter and looked Dean in the eyes. “I am. I really am.”
Dean broke out in a smile big enough to charm the devil. To Sam, it was like the sun punching through dark clouds, a temporary reprieve. Sam’s soul was still a ravaged thing, but he had always counted that smile as grace, only better.
The End
Author: debbiel66
Characters: Dean, Sam, Castiel
Word Count: 3500
Genre: gen; h/c; broken!Sam, hurt!Dean
Rating: R (language)
Warnings: Spoilers through Season 6; AU from that point on.
Author's Notes: Huge grateful thank you to the lovely and talented callistosh65 for the beta read.
Summary: The demon voices in his head were so hard to resist…they whispered he was damned and doomed and as good as dead. They crooned to him that all hope was lost. Sam was tired, so very tired, but Dean needed him. And Sam was still his father’s son.
Remission
Sam took to his bed on a Sunday, and for a while, Dean believed things were getting better. Maybe it was some kind of freak remission, a reprieve from the battle they’d been waging for longer than Dean could even keep track of. God only knew Sam deserved a little rest. They both did.
But it was an unnatural sleep, too much like before, when the hell-wall first came down. Dean didn’t know whether his brother was among the living or the dead or somewhere in between. But this time, Dean reminded himself Sam was only sleeping, something like a nap on steroids. He had curled fetus-like into himself. Like maybe if he got small enough, the demons in his head would decide he wasn’t worth the trouble.
Dean started to worry about dehydration when Sam didn’t wake up to drink anything or even to take a leak. Bedpans sucked, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t done before. He hoped he wouldn’t need to get the catheter out of the trunk. He’d had enough of that during Sam’s two-week hibernation. But Sam just slept.
It wasn’t like Dean had been fretting by Sam’s bedside, holding his hand, wiping his brow, or any crap like that. Dean had stuff to do, kept himself busy, even if they weren’t hunting at the moment. It took him most of the first day just to clean the place up. Before all this began, Dean had left Sam alone in the motel room for less than an hour, but it had been long enough. A single razor blade could do a lot of damage, even when wrists weren’t involved. Dean had gotten Sam stitched up good enough to fix most of it, so he was pretty sure that Sam’s current coma wasn’t caused by residual blood loss.
Even before the razor blade debacle, Dean had taken precautions-no key to the car for Sam, not any more. After that one time with the Glock, Dean had locked up everything in the trunk-the guns, bullets and casings, their crossbow, the taser, every damn knife they owned. Even salt, after Sam tried to eat the damn stuff. That was disgusting. Forks. Dean even stashed away the army guy that had been crammed in the ashtray forever, after Sam tried to swallow the friggin toy whole. Dean brushed up on the Heimlich maneuver after that one.
Then there was the walking dead act. Sam would space out for hours at a time, occasionally for a whole day. You could move him around, drive with him, tug him along. He was portable, but that was it-Sam was no longer in the building. The worst part was when Sam would come to and anxiously ask, “Did I hurt anyone?”
“Only yourself,” Dean would grumble, and it was partly true.
Then there was the hoarding. For reasons that had yet to be explained, Sam had been collecting junk, storing it in every nook and cranny he could find in their room and in the car or in his pockets. Sam had always squirreled shit away when he was a little kid, but this took that irritating quirk to a whole new level. Dean wasn’t even sure where or when Sam picked up half of it. Dean was always watching, but Sam was sneaky that way.
There was so much of it. Matchbooks from places Dean knew he had never been, frilled color toothpicks from pansy-assed drinks he never saw Sam drink, odd shaped buttons, razor blades-god!-dental floss, breath mints, train schedules, chapstick in every flavor, which was Dean’s contribution actually. Sam had been licking his lips raw-oyster shells, green coffee beans, bottle caps…
But worst of all was the self-medication.
Honestly, even with the demon blood addiction behind them, Dean didn’t see it coming. Sam had been taking shit, tripping balls was how the damn warlock put it after Dean kicked his ass for selling some kind of magic mushroom to his brother. Sam’s head was already a freak show, and for the life of him, Dean couldn’t figure out why Sam would take anything to fry it even worse.
“How can you do this? How? You saved the world so you could O.D. on friggin mushrooms?”
But horribly, Sam had started crying while Dean yelled at him.
“Anything’s gotta be better than being stuck in my own head,” Sam said brokenly, tears streaming down his face.
And damn, Dean didn’t know what to say to that.
But from then on, Dean was more careful and did regular searches, confiscating anything. And it went beyond the mushrooms. There was cocaine in a tiny tan envelope, multiple painkillers, fucking bath crystals…and once, he was pretty sure he found heroin. He lost it that time, might have fractured his fist against Sam’s cheekbone. Like he’d expected the beat-down, Sam had confessed to everything, but couldn’t promise not to do it again. Dean flushed the heroin down and willed it to stay down.
It was hard. Hard enough that Dean had been tempted to just give up and let Sam stay crazy.
When it got bad, he liked to remember the time Sam got a hold of his first beer from some fellow mathlete geek. Sammy couldn’t have been more than fourteen, all gangly and not yet grown, with a single zit on his chin and his hair flopping in his eyes. Even though Dean had been pissed, Sam had been giggling and waving the bottle around.
That was when Dad had stormed into the room and grabbed the bottle. “What the hell is this?”
Sam had stopped laughing then. Dad was pretty damn scary.
But Dad had taken a closer look at the label and started to chuckle, handing the empty bottle over to Dean. He’d taken one look and had doubled over, laughing. It was non-alcoholic-fake geek beer. At the time, it was the best thing that had ever happened to Dean…the priceless lifelong ammunition of knowing that his dork of a kid brother had gotten drunk off the idea of beer.
Sam didn’t mess around with beer now. Whiskey seemed to be his drink of choice when Dean took all his drugs away, but Sam wasn’t picky. Anything would do, as long as it knocked back some of the hell. One thing Dean knew for sure-the self-medicating had to stop. Sam was going to kill himself if he kept this up…but maybe that was the point.
No. Dean refused to believe that. They were Winchesters, and they were never going to give up. But Dean had to keep reminding himself that this wasn’t his Sam, not really. Yeah, it was still Sam, unlike that soulless douchebag, but Sam was sick. Lucifer’s cage had screwed him over so thoroughly, it might take a lifetime to come back from it. Maybe longer.
So when Sam finally went to bed and slept dreamless at last, Dean allowed himself the tiny, pathetic hope that maybe the worst of their problems were over. But it had been days, and Sam was still sleeping.
Dean was exhausted. He sat heavily on the edge of the bed and ran his hands over his eyes, almost wishing he could just climb in with Sam. There was only a queen-it was the only room available when they checked in, and Dean hadn’t known they’d be staying for days. But Sam was all curled up by the edge of the mattress. There was plenty of room…but someone had to keep watch.
Dean had run an extra salt line at the threshold and at the windowsill, but Sam was too vulnerable like this. It was the thing Dean hated the most…how all Sam’s defenses had been laid bare. It was a terrible thing to happen to a good hunter. Dean was trying to be patient. This was a marathon, not a sprint. That was what Bobby kept telling him.
Dean sighed deeply and decided to try again. Gave Sam’s shoulder a little nudge and said, “Sam, get your ass up… Dad’s pissed.” It was playing dirty, but it used to work when Sam was a kid.
He was about to poke at Sam again, when suddenly, Sam’s breathing hitched. He sat up with a gasp, like some kind of monster in a late night horror movie. Dean shoved himself back a foot, not knowing which version of Sam would be waking up. But Sam just yawned and drowsily scrubbed at his eyes and looked like he was all of ten with the worst case of bedhead ever.
“Dean?” Sam’s voice was still raw, the way it had since he’d strained his vocal cords with all the screaming. “Is it breakfast?”
Dean forced a smile, even as he willed his sinner’s heart to stop pounding like he was scared of his brother. “It’s dinner. Bout time you woke your lazy ass up.”
Sam swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “Why’d you let me sleep so long?” he asked accusingly.
Dean let out a real laugh at the question. “Don’t be a bitch,” he said. “I chased down a friggin’ ice cream truck bout an hour ago that kept circling the parking lot, so it wouldn’t wake you up. It’s you’re two all over again.”
Sam flipped him off grumpily, but the frown on his face proved Dean’s point. “Sorry,” Sam said, and for a moment, Dean believed that they’d actually turned some kind of corner.
But that was when Sam’s eyes rolled back in his head. Luckily, he didn’t have far to fall before his head hit the pillow.
“That went well,” Dean muttered, trying to heave Sam’s legs back onto the bed.
In truth, it hadn’t gone that badly. Sam had woken up without drama, bitched a little, and wasn’t even fetal any more. He was actually stretched crossways on the bed, arms wide open, the way he used to sleep when the monsters were on the other side of the salt line.
Dean sank back in his chair and let his head fall back. Despite what Bobby and Sam said, he had always been an optimist. It was the only way he’d survived this long. Glass half full and all that crap. So maybe Sam was only half crazy.
***
Sam opened his eyes to hellfire.
“Sam. Sam.”
He quickly shut them again. That voice. Dean was always begging him for something…always something that Sam couldn’t give. You couldn’t tread water for long in the lake of fire…
“Sammy-”
There was pain this time, even desperation. Dean needed him, and that always brought Sam back from whatever depths he’d been wandering.
Sam opened his eyes to the real world-the one everyone kept telling him wasn’t anything like hell. He was standing in a field, some kind of industrial graveyard, and the air around him was wet-warm and buzzing. He had utterly no idea how he had gotten there. Bewildered, Sam tried to take a step forward, but the ground under his feet seemed to be seizing.
Sam tried breaking his own fall, but instead he fell, practically on top of Dean. At first, he couldn’t make sense of it. Dean was on his knees with his own hands inexplicably clenched around his throat. He was gasping, choking for air, dying. His lips were already blue. Sam had to hand it to Lucifer…this rendition was original. Dean had never choked himself to death before.
Sam needed to get himself out of the pit, so he reached for the pills that he’d stashed in his pocket.
“This isn’t hell, Sam,” a familiar and terrifying voice said quietly.
With a jolt, Sam looked up to stare into the omnipresent gaze of Castiel. Sam squeezed his eyes shut and tried to figure out what the divinity was doing in the depths of hell.
“This is the ‘real’ world,” Castiel said, and Sam could see the air-quotes, even if Cas didn’t use them anymore.
“I won’t listen to you,” Sam gritted out, but he didn’t know what to do. This felt real, but then again, it always did.
“Dean must back down if he wishes to live.” There was no bite to Castiel’s words, but Sam felt them in his heart as truth. Dean was dying.
Save him, save him, save him.
The litany screamed through his fucked-up brain, giving Sam the clarity he needed. Turning his back to Castiel, Sam tried pulling Dean’s hands away from his neck, and realized that Dean’s grip was iron-fast. Definitely supernatural. No matter how hard Sam yanked at his arms, Dean would not let go.
Sam looked for Castiel, but he had vanished again. Dean’s eyes were already rolling back in his head. Sam pulled even harder, feeling something give in his shoulder. Dean wasn’t breathing any more. Sam hadn’t even heard the death rattle.
“God,” he swore desperately, gathering his brother up in his arms. “Shit, oh, God. Please!”
“That’s better.” Castiel was now standing in front of them them. “Prayer is often effective in cases like this, although you lack the proper reverence.”
“Cas, please…please save him,” Sam begged. He didn’t need to bow down-he was already on his knees, humbled in every way.
“Up to this point, it has been figurative,” Castiel said calmly, “but your brother has been killing himself for a long time now.”
It was almost too late. “Please help him.”
Not much of a prayer, but the iron cords around Dean’s throat suddenly loosened, and Dean’s fingers fell away from his neck. His eyes opened and he sucked in one raw breath and then another. Then Dean was heaving, leaning from Sam’s lap and vomiting onto the ground. Sam held him through it.
“Thank you,” Sam whispered to the one who had been their friend once-he had no pride left anyway. “Thank you so much.”
Castiel smiled his creepy, beatific smile. “This is the ripple effect of mercy. My faithfulness has no bounds.”
“Bullshit,” Dean gritted out, and Sam resisted the impulse to throttle his brother all over again.
“Shut up-don’t provoke him,” Sam hissed and saw Dean clench his jaw, but he kept his mouth shut.
Castiel gazed down on them. “All the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven. But if you reject me…decisively…that I cannot forgive.” He almost looked lonely, and despite himself, Sam had to wonder why.
Castiel disappeared, all smoke and mirrors. Sam was pretty sure Cas was omniscient now, so his physical presence didn’t really matter, but it was a relief to have him gone.
“Dude, let go. I can’t breathe.”
Sam blinked and realized he was squeezing the hell out of Dean. He forced himself to let go, and Dean painfully sat up. Already, Sam could already see fingerprint bruising around his neck.
“Dean, let me look. Is it crushed? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, no thanks to the friggin’ insane deity,” Dean rasped, still hacking and spitting out bile.
But Sam could hear the hurt in his brother’s voice, and he knew it wasn’t all from being strangled. They both missed Castiel, but Dean felt the loss daily like a phantom limb.
Cautious at first, but relieved that the ground was no longer buckling, Sam stood and gave Dean a hand up. “What the hell was that about?” Sam asked, probing Dean’s throat gently, checking for structural damage.
Dean pushed his hand away. “I pissed him off. He was teaching me a lesson.” He studied Sam more critically. “Sam, you were checked out for a while this time. You okay?”
Sam didn’t really know. He closed his eyes and warily opened them again. The field didn’t self-destruct into fire and brimstone. “Yeah. I’m good.”
Dean took a deep breath and nodded…it took so little these days to make Dean happy. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “This place is friggin’ carcinogenic.”
The field did look pretty toxic. Nearby, giant hunks of metal jutted out of a pool of swamp-green sludge. “What are we doing here anyway?”
“You don’t remember?” Dean sounded surprised, but he didn’t wait for Sam to answer. “Probably for the best. Let’s just say, we earned our keep today.” He paused. “You sure you’re okay?”
Sam was surprised that he actually could think about the question. Usually, the wreckage of his soul was too great for clarity. But his mind felt quiet somehow. Sam tested it by taking a deep breath and then another, relaxing a little when the air didn’t scorch his lungs. But the situation could change so quickly-Sam could never trust it. He reached into his pockets, checking for the painkillers just in case, but they were empty. Apparently, Dean had already patted him down. Maybe Sam wouldn’t need anything to get through the rest of today.
Dean was apparently tired of waiting for an answer. He tugged at Sam’s arm. “Walk with me, man, you’re too big for me to drag, and it’s been a shitty day.”
Sam realized that Dean sounded exhausted. He wondered when his brother had last slept and couldn’t remember. Maybe they could nap in the car-that sounded pretty good. He needed to help, needed to walk. Sam tried ordering his legs to move faster, but his body didn’t listen to him any more. One step at a time was about all he could manage.
“How many times can we do this?” Sam heard himself asking. He wasn’t even sure what he meant, but Dean set his jaw.
“As many as it takes,” Dean retorted and stubbornly hauled him along.
Sam felt his eyes well up. He hated how easily he cried now, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. The taint in his soul was like a drop of ink in a glass of water. It would never be clear again. But Dean didn’t seem to care about that. He just kept on keeping on, searching Sam’s pockets, and not letting him get anywhere near razors.
“Dean…”
“Almost there, Sam,” Dean said and coughed raggedly.
Sam worried. Maybe Dean’s larynx had been compressed, his breathing compromised. They should probably get him checked out...
Sam felt like he couldn’t breathe…the air wasn’t making it all the way down. What if he couldn’t get Dean to a hospital? Even if he did, they’d probably admit Sam into the nearest psychiatric ward, if hospital personnel spent more than a couple minutes talking to him. Maybe it would even be for the best, having Sam locked up and out of the way. Maybe Dean could simply live his life and-
“Sam, I swear I’ll tear you a new one, you even think about checking out now. The fucking car is twenty feet away.”
Sam realized they were standing still, and Dean had him gripped tightly by his jacket. Sam had been fading again. Sam swallowed, his throat raw like he was the one who had just been strangled by the invisible hands of an angry god.
“Are you listening to me? I need you to keep going.”
The demon voices in his head were so hard to resist…they whispered he was damned and doomed and as good as dead. They crooned to him that all hope was lost. Sam was tired, so very tired, but Dean needed him. And Sam was still his father’s son.
Dean gave him a stern little shake. “Sam. You with me?”
“I’m here,” Sam said and meant it. He stood up a little straighter and looked Dean in the eyes. “I am. I really am.”
Dean broke out in a smile big enough to charm the devil. To Sam, it was like the sun punching through dark clouds, a temporary reprieve. Sam’s soul was still a ravaged thing, but he had always counted that smile as grace, only better.
The End