Supernatural: Chapter 14 - The Rescue
Title: Chapter 14 - The Rescue
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Dean
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,858
Author’s Note: Written for spnland “Write a Chapter” challenge and then uncremoniously neglected when voting came around. \o/
Summary: The final chapter of Carver Edlund’s What Is and What Should Never Be.
CHAPTER 14
THE RESCUE
Meanwhile, Sam was beginning to worry. After the idiotic stunt at the prison last week, Sam and Dean had been playing it safe. No hunts, no going outside unless necessary-that Agent Henrickson was one scary guy. They were both going a little stir crazy. Now that they were finally on a case, Sam should have known his brother wouldn’t be able to restrain himself if he let him go out on his own. He should have insisted on going with Dean. But someone had to do the research and he had figured out what they were up against.
That was not a real comfort to Sam. He’d spent hours reading through what djinns were capable of and there were still images bouncing around in his head, all too fresh and much too terrifying. Sam knew his brother well enough to understand that Dean was going to hear genie and think he was in good condition. He would charge into whatever passed for ruins in the middle of Illinois halfcocked and before he knew what had hit him, he would be gone.
In other words, Sam was pretty sure Dean was in trouble and he wasn’t going to wait around until “pretty sure” turned into positive. If he got there and Dean was fine, Dean would tease him relentlessly about how dramatic he was. Maybe he was being dramatic. But Dean wasn’t answering his cell and it had been hours. He could deal with the taunting; he couldn’t deal with letting Dean get too wrapped up to be rescued. It didn’t matter that Dean probably didn’t want to be rescued. Sam was way past pretending he could get by without Dean.
It was a long drive. The car Sam “borrowed” didn’t run fast enough to satisfy his nerves. He was already panicking when he arrived and the tiny thrill of relief he felt when he saw the Impala dropped back to fear within moments-just because he’d found Dean didn’t mean Dean was okay. In fact, if Dean was still inside this many hours after their conversation, chances were Sam’s instinct had been right.
Sam walked into what seemed to be an abandoned office, typewriters and thin walls on either side. It was dark. He heard nothing, he saw nothing. No sign of the djinn or of his brother, but Sam knew he would find him if he looked hard enough. He didn’t have to press on for long before the room full of hanging bodies opened up to him.
And there he was, strung up alongside people Sam half-recognized from their missing person’s reports. Sam had expected the djinn’s victims to look peaceful in their dream worlds. He had been mentally preparing himself to confront a Dean much happier than his brother would ever be and to have to force himself to wake that Dean up. But Dean didn’t look happy at all-he looked the way he had the first time Sam mentioned Stanford to him: miserable and trying to hide it for Sam’s sake. It was easy to hate that, it was easy to want to jolt him out of it.
“Dean! Dean! Dean!”
Sam shook him hard and hated himself for waiting so long to go looking for Dean when his brother didn’t respond.
“Oh, God. Come on. Hey. Wake up. Wake up, damn it!”
Sam could feel his eyes beginning to burn with tears and tried his best to push it back. Dean was alive and Sam needed to focus-there was no way he was about to let his big brother go that easily.
Dean made a little noise and Sam saw his eyes moving behind heavy lids. It was exactly how Dean looked every morning when Sam shook him awake. It was exactly how Dean looked when he was safe. Sam felt hours of tension draining from his body but checked his joy, attempting not to let his hopes get ahead of Dean’s recovery. He murmured encouragement half to himself and half to his brother and lost track of what he was actually saying.
“Ahh…Antie Em. There's no place like home.”
It was such a Dean thing to do and Sam had been so worried that he wanted to pull his brother into a tight embrace. He would have, in fact, if not for the fact that Dean didn’t look like he could physically take it at the moment.
“Thank God. Thought I lost you for a second.”
Discarding the hug idea, Sam settled for taking the needle out of Dean’s throat as carefully as he could while going as fast as possible.
“You almost did.”
Sam tried to ignore it, he could tell Dean was relieved to be back and that was more important than whatever regret Dean felt over leaving the wish behind. Sam would have plenty of time to be jealous later.
“Oh god.” Dean was breathing too hard and Sam still wasn’t sure they were entirely in the clear. “Let's get you down.”
Sam couldn’t be careful cutting Dean down, he was too anxious to get it over with. He winced as Dean made little sounds of complaint at being jostled, but Dean didn’t tell him to be careful and Sam knew Dean could take it. Get Dean down, make sure he was safe, that was all that mattered. They would have all the time in the world to come back and hunt the djinn together (the way they should have done it to begin with) when Dean was alright. Sam desperately hoped he would be the one to waste it when the time came to do it-he owed Dean that much after a lifetime of protection and he hated the creature even more than he hated most of the scum they went after for the way he tried to take Dean. For giving Dean something he wanted, something Sam couldn’t give him.
Suddenly, Sam felt a familiar crawling in his skin; he knew Dean’s expression and heard the warning before Dean cried it out.
“SAM!”
It was all in vain, Sam’s premonition and Dean’s cry had come moments too late. Sam turned to attack the djinn but he was too strong. Dean watched helplessly as Sam was thrown into the wall-another moment and they could have both been lost. Dean was coming to himself slowly and if it hadn’t been for the fact that Sam needed him, he may not have been able to break free of the bonds. He struggled until at last he felt the ropes give way and his body dropped to the floor. Dean had only moments until the djinn got Sam, he could see that clearly, but the thing was distracted and no match for Dean’s speed or determination. He scrambled to pick up the knife-he could see Sam attempting to force the djinn’s hand away from him and Dean could remember too clearly how futile it had been to try to match the creature’s strength.
Dean ran to his brother’s aid, thrusting the knife deep into the djinn’s back and twisting, relishing in the kill. Sam watched the electric blue light in his attacker’s eyes fade and knew immediately that Dean had saved him. Again. He watched the monster fall heavily to the floor and took deep breathes to try to recover. Dean still looked weak and Sam had to marvel, not for the first time, at Dean’s strength. He had been nearly comatose before the adrenaline kicked in.
Dean didn’t need to check to see who was dead and who wasn’t. He rushed to the girl who had been haunting his dream world and checked her pulse. She was breathing here, as well.
“She's still alive, Sam.” Dean passed the knife to his brother and took the needle out of her, then held her steady as Sam cut her loose. The girl woke up, she stared at Dean with terror.
“I gotcha. I gotcha. We're gonna get you out of here, ok? I gotcha.”
The girl made distressed sounds, but Dean had seen people in worse condition pull through. He was pretty sure he’d made it out in time to save her. After the shock of finding out all of the people he’d saved had died, Dean was relieved to have that little bit of evidence that he’d done some good. He was not going to let her get any worse.
“I got you,” he repeated one last time before the girl nodded and closed her eyes. Sam and Dean carried her out together and rushed her to the emergency room.
It had been a long ride back into civilization and Dean didn’t exactly feel his best. They dropped the girl at the first hospital they passed and from the look Sam gave him, Dean was pretty sure he would have been forced to at least talk to a doctor if they weren’t still in such a bad spot with the cops. Dean was a little thankful to Agent Henrickson for a moment or two.
Finally, Sam had settled for getting Dean back to the motel and letting him relax while he figured out how the girl was doing. Dean sat on his bed, idly flipping through one of the magazines they had lying around when he saw something familiar. It was Carmen, one of the pictures they’d had in their home. Dean still felt a little sick letting the idea go.
I had a home, he thought gazing at the advertisement with longing. It wasn’t Carmen he missed, not really. She’d been great, but all she really meant to Dean was that he needed to stop paying so much attention to the hot chicks in ads. It was home, and mom, and…Sam. Sam exactly how he was supposed to be. Apparently, Sam wasn’t supposed to need him, or like him-but he had been happy.
“Go someplace better,” the advertisement demanded and Dean scoffed at the irony. Better for who?
“Ok, uh, thank you so much for the update. Ok, bye.”
Sam hung the phone up.
“That was the hospital. Girl's been stabilized.”
He sat on the bed next to Dean and Dean could hardly look at him.
Happier, an ugly voice sung in his head. Happier without you.
“Good chance she's gonna pull through.”
“That's good.”
Dean’s eyes stubbornly refused to leave the page in front of him, as if the beer ad he was staring at held the secrets of life. Sam attempted, again, to hold his brother’s attention.
“Yeah. How 'bout you? You alright?”
“Yeah, I'm alright.”
You are such a bad liar, Sam wanted to accuse but no way was he about to pick a fight. Dean had been weird and distant ever since they got back to the motel and especially when he’d been telling Sam about the wish. But Sam had understood every hesitation and knew perfectly well why Dean was so upset, even if he was trying to laugh it off.
“Should have seen it, Sam. Our lives. You were such a wussy.”
Sam could see it, and he wished he couldn’t. For all of Dean’s protectiveness, there was one thing Dean had always been naïve about that Sam had learned shortly after going to Stanford. Dean never realized that their relationship depended entirely upon the bad things. Maybe Dean had treasured them too much, never thought to attribute the one good thing they had going to the tragedies.
Sam had met a hundred versions of himself at Stanford and after a few weeks of wondering how so many intelligent men could be so simple, so uninteresting and unsympathetic, Sam realized that it wasn’t his peers that were off somehow, it was him. He was still the freak, but it was the first time it had occurred to him that maybe that could be a good thing. Dean made him better, that much was obvious. But from what Dean told him about himself, Sam made him better, too. That was something to be proud of, even with the terrifying knowledge that something awful was apparently lurking inside of him, waiting to break out.
Sam weakly attempted a smile.
“So we didn't get along then, huh?”
Of course they didn’t get along. Dean was still Dean and no one as devil-may-care as Dean could have gotten along with that Sam. And maybe Dean and Sam pushed each other into what they turned into, Sam was pretty sure Dean was every bit the jerk he claimed he was, but Sam knew that superior, self-obsessed Sam had never expected better of Dean, had treated Dean like trash. Sam didn’t need Dean to describe that Sam to him. Even if he was happy, Sam loathed the idea that it could have been him, even if it meant all the bad things would go away. If that’s what it took to be happy, Sam was perfectly ready to settle for utterly doomed. At least he didn’t take his big brother for granted.
“No.”
“Yeah…I thought it was supposed to, to be this perfect fantasy.”
Sam had. He’d known that Dean would wish for mom back but had expected to hear about dad being there, about his wife and kids, and how much they adored him and Jess. Sam knew his brother would never willingly imagine a world where they weren’t close, not his Dean anyway. It seemed that even in the fantasy, reality had to take over somewhere.
“It wasn't.”
Dean still hadn’t looked at his brother, even when he laid the magazine to the side and responded he was entirely detached.
“Was just a wish. I wished for mom to live. That mom never died, we never went hunting and you and me just never uh…You know.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I'm glad we do.”
Dean’s eyes finally met Sam’s, a little bit happy and a little bit scared. Sam could practically hear Dean thinking “that’s just because you weren’t there” and Sam wanted to grab him and shake him. He was tired of Dean selling himself short; he was tired of being treated as if he was better, or as if he didn’t love Dean just as much as Dean loved him.
After what happened with Dad, Sam spent terrible nights awake considering…if dad had been willing to do something so drastic, there was really no knowing what Dean would do. Not just to save Sam, but if he thought it was better for him in anyway-it was a genuinely horrifying thought. By now, Sam had a morbid list of the things Dean would do for him tucked away in the back of his mind. Sam could tell Dean had hated that world and yet he had clearly wanted to stay. For him. Dean had nearly abandoned him out of love; Sam couldn’t imagine what that would have been like. He wished his brother realized there were things he could do for him that were worse than anything that could happen, worse than dying.
“And I'm glad you dug yourself out, Dean. Most people wouldn't have the strength, would have just stayed.”
Dean had a hard time processing that. Sam seemed genuine, though, and Dean was at least glad that this version of his brother cared. Not that the other one hadn’t, Sam would always care about him, even when he’d been so awful to him. Dean hadn’t been surprised when Sam had gotten into the car. “You’re still my brother,” he had said and that was his Sammy talking, always Sammy, no matter how he grew up. He could have fixed things, he was sure of it, and even if he liked his Sam better, Dean wanted that one to be real, would have given anything for Sam to be that naïve, prissy college boy again.
“Yeah…Lucky me. I gotta tell you though, man. You know, you had Jess. Mom was gonna have grandkids...”
Sam noted that Dean forgot to take his own happiness into account. Typical Dean.
“Yeah, but... Dean, it wasn't real.”
And it isn’t what I want. I want this, more than anything, I want to be your brother, Sam thought. The longing to say something was overwhelming but he managed to squash it. No chick flick moments, he reminded himself.
“I know. But I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay so bad. I mean, ever since dad...all I can think about is how much this job's cost us. We've lost so much. We've…sacrificed so much.”
But you got Sam, Dean thought selfishly. God, Dean almost didn’t want things to change now that he knew that wouldn’t have always been the case.
“But people are alive because of you. It's worth it, Dean. It is. It’s not fair, and...you know, it hurts like hell, but…it's worth it.”
Dean didn’t doubt his brother’s words for a moment. Worth it? Dean had never thought of himself as lucky, but at that moment, it was the only word to describe him. He was good for something, he saved people. More than that, he had Sam. Dean wouldn’t have traded his life for anything. Or so he thought at the time.
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Dean
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,858
Author’s Note: Written for spnland “Write a Chapter” challenge and then uncremoniously neglected when voting came around. \o/
Summary: The final chapter of Carver Edlund’s What Is and What Should Never Be.
CHAPTER 14
THE RESCUE
Meanwhile, Sam was beginning to worry. After the idiotic stunt at the prison last week, Sam and Dean had been playing it safe. No hunts, no going outside unless necessary-that Agent Henrickson was one scary guy. They were both going a little stir crazy. Now that they were finally on a case, Sam should have known his brother wouldn’t be able to restrain himself if he let him go out on his own. He should have insisted on going with Dean. But someone had to do the research and he had figured out what they were up against.
That was not a real comfort to Sam. He’d spent hours reading through what djinns were capable of and there were still images bouncing around in his head, all too fresh and much too terrifying. Sam knew his brother well enough to understand that Dean was going to hear genie and think he was in good condition. He would charge into whatever passed for ruins in the middle of Illinois halfcocked and before he knew what had hit him, he would be gone.
In other words, Sam was pretty sure Dean was in trouble and he wasn’t going to wait around until “pretty sure” turned into positive. If he got there and Dean was fine, Dean would tease him relentlessly about how dramatic he was. Maybe he was being dramatic. But Dean wasn’t answering his cell and it had been hours. He could deal with the taunting; he couldn’t deal with letting Dean get too wrapped up to be rescued. It didn’t matter that Dean probably didn’t want to be rescued. Sam was way past pretending he could get by without Dean.
It was a long drive. The car Sam “borrowed” didn’t run fast enough to satisfy his nerves. He was already panicking when he arrived and the tiny thrill of relief he felt when he saw the Impala dropped back to fear within moments-just because he’d found Dean didn’t mean Dean was okay. In fact, if Dean was still inside this many hours after their conversation, chances were Sam’s instinct had been right.
Sam walked into what seemed to be an abandoned office, typewriters and thin walls on either side. It was dark. He heard nothing, he saw nothing. No sign of the djinn or of his brother, but Sam knew he would find him if he looked hard enough. He didn’t have to press on for long before the room full of hanging bodies opened up to him.
And there he was, strung up alongside people Sam half-recognized from their missing person’s reports. Sam had expected the djinn’s victims to look peaceful in their dream worlds. He had been mentally preparing himself to confront a Dean much happier than his brother would ever be and to have to force himself to wake that Dean up. But Dean didn’t look happy at all-he looked the way he had the first time Sam mentioned Stanford to him: miserable and trying to hide it for Sam’s sake. It was easy to hate that, it was easy to want to jolt him out of it.
“Dean! Dean! Dean!”
Sam shook him hard and hated himself for waiting so long to go looking for Dean when his brother didn’t respond.
“Oh, God. Come on. Hey. Wake up. Wake up, damn it!”
Sam could feel his eyes beginning to burn with tears and tried his best to push it back. Dean was alive and Sam needed to focus-there was no way he was about to let his big brother go that easily.
Dean made a little noise and Sam saw his eyes moving behind heavy lids. It was exactly how Dean looked every morning when Sam shook him awake. It was exactly how Dean looked when he was safe. Sam felt hours of tension draining from his body but checked his joy, attempting not to let his hopes get ahead of Dean’s recovery. He murmured encouragement half to himself and half to his brother and lost track of what he was actually saying.
“Ahh…Antie Em. There's no place like home.”
It was such a Dean thing to do and Sam had been so worried that he wanted to pull his brother into a tight embrace. He would have, in fact, if not for the fact that Dean didn’t look like he could physically take it at the moment.
“Thank God. Thought I lost you for a second.”
Discarding the hug idea, Sam settled for taking the needle out of Dean’s throat as carefully as he could while going as fast as possible.
“You almost did.”
Sam tried to ignore it, he could tell Dean was relieved to be back and that was more important than whatever regret Dean felt over leaving the wish behind. Sam would have plenty of time to be jealous later.
“Oh god.” Dean was breathing too hard and Sam still wasn’t sure they were entirely in the clear. “Let's get you down.”
Sam couldn’t be careful cutting Dean down, he was too anxious to get it over with. He winced as Dean made little sounds of complaint at being jostled, but Dean didn’t tell him to be careful and Sam knew Dean could take it. Get Dean down, make sure he was safe, that was all that mattered. They would have all the time in the world to come back and hunt the djinn together (the way they should have done it to begin with) when Dean was alright. Sam desperately hoped he would be the one to waste it when the time came to do it-he owed Dean that much after a lifetime of protection and he hated the creature even more than he hated most of the scum they went after for the way he tried to take Dean. For giving Dean something he wanted, something Sam couldn’t give him.
Suddenly, Sam felt a familiar crawling in his skin; he knew Dean’s expression and heard the warning before Dean cried it out.
“SAM!”
It was all in vain, Sam’s premonition and Dean’s cry had come moments too late. Sam turned to attack the djinn but he was too strong. Dean watched helplessly as Sam was thrown into the wall-another moment and they could have both been lost. Dean was coming to himself slowly and if it hadn’t been for the fact that Sam needed him, he may not have been able to break free of the bonds. He struggled until at last he felt the ropes give way and his body dropped to the floor. Dean had only moments until the djinn got Sam, he could see that clearly, but the thing was distracted and no match for Dean’s speed or determination. He scrambled to pick up the knife-he could see Sam attempting to force the djinn’s hand away from him and Dean could remember too clearly how futile it had been to try to match the creature’s strength.
Dean ran to his brother’s aid, thrusting the knife deep into the djinn’s back and twisting, relishing in the kill. Sam watched the electric blue light in his attacker’s eyes fade and knew immediately that Dean had saved him. Again. He watched the monster fall heavily to the floor and took deep breathes to try to recover. Dean still looked weak and Sam had to marvel, not for the first time, at Dean’s strength. He had been nearly comatose before the adrenaline kicked in.
Dean didn’t need to check to see who was dead and who wasn’t. He rushed to the girl who had been haunting his dream world and checked her pulse. She was breathing here, as well.
“She's still alive, Sam.” Dean passed the knife to his brother and took the needle out of her, then held her steady as Sam cut her loose. The girl woke up, she stared at Dean with terror.
“I gotcha. I gotcha. We're gonna get you out of here, ok? I gotcha.”
The girl made distressed sounds, but Dean had seen people in worse condition pull through. He was pretty sure he’d made it out in time to save her. After the shock of finding out all of the people he’d saved had died, Dean was relieved to have that little bit of evidence that he’d done some good. He was not going to let her get any worse.
“I got you,” he repeated one last time before the girl nodded and closed her eyes. Sam and Dean carried her out together and rushed her to the emergency room.
It had been a long ride back into civilization and Dean didn’t exactly feel his best. They dropped the girl at the first hospital they passed and from the look Sam gave him, Dean was pretty sure he would have been forced to at least talk to a doctor if they weren’t still in such a bad spot with the cops. Dean was a little thankful to Agent Henrickson for a moment or two.
Finally, Sam had settled for getting Dean back to the motel and letting him relax while he figured out how the girl was doing. Dean sat on his bed, idly flipping through one of the magazines they had lying around when he saw something familiar. It was Carmen, one of the pictures they’d had in their home. Dean still felt a little sick letting the idea go.
I had a home, he thought gazing at the advertisement with longing. It wasn’t Carmen he missed, not really. She’d been great, but all she really meant to Dean was that he needed to stop paying so much attention to the hot chicks in ads. It was home, and mom, and…Sam. Sam exactly how he was supposed to be. Apparently, Sam wasn’t supposed to need him, or like him-but he had been happy.
“Go someplace better,” the advertisement demanded and Dean scoffed at the irony. Better for who?
“Ok, uh, thank you so much for the update. Ok, bye.”
Sam hung the phone up.
“That was the hospital. Girl's been stabilized.”
He sat on the bed next to Dean and Dean could hardly look at him.
Happier, an ugly voice sung in his head. Happier without you.
“Good chance she's gonna pull through.”
“That's good.”
Dean’s eyes stubbornly refused to leave the page in front of him, as if the beer ad he was staring at held the secrets of life. Sam attempted, again, to hold his brother’s attention.
“Yeah. How 'bout you? You alright?”
“Yeah, I'm alright.”
You are such a bad liar, Sam wanted to accuse but no way was he about to pick a fight. Dean had been weird and distant ever since they got back to the motel and especially when he’d been telling Sam about the wish. But Sam had understood every hesitation and knew perfectly well why Dean was so upset, even if he was trying to laugh it off.
“Should have seen it, Sam. Our lives. You were such a wussy.”
Sam could see it, and he wished he couldn’t. For all of Dean’s protectiveness, there was one thing Dean had always been naïve about that Sam had learned shortly after going to Stanford. Dean never realized that their relationship depended entirely upon the bad things. Maybe Dean had treasured them too much, never thought to attribute the one good thing they had going to the tragedies.
Sam had met a hundred versions of himself at Stanford and after a few weeks of wondering how so many intelligent men could be so simple, so uninteresting and unsympathetic, Sam realized that it wasn’t his peers that were off somehow, it was him. He was still the freak, but it was the first time it had occurred to him that maybe that could be a good thing. Dean made him better, that much was obvious. But from what Dean told him about himself, Sam made him better, too. That was something to be proud of, even with the terrifying knowledge that something awful was apparently lurking inside of him, waiting to break out.
Sam weakly attempted a smile.
“So we didn't get along then, huh?”
Of course they didn’t get along. Dean was still Dean and no one as devil-may-care as Dean could have gotten along with that Sam. And maybe Dean and Sam pushed each other into what they turned into, Sam was pretty sure Dean was every bit the jerk he claimed he was, but Sam knew that superior, self-obsessed Sam had never expected better of Dean, had treated Dean like trash. Sam didn’t need Dean to describe that Sam to him. Even if he was happy, Sam loathed the idea that it could have been him, even if it meant all the bad things would go away. If that’s what it took to be happy, Sam was perfectly ready to settle for utterly doomed. At least he didn’t take his big brother for granted.
“No.”
“Yeah…I thought it was supposed to, to be this perfect fantasy.”
Sam had. He’d known that Dean would wish for mom back but had expected to hear about dad being there, about his wife and kids, and how much they adored him and Jess. Sam knew his brother would never willingly imagine a world where they weren’t close, not his Dean anyway. It seemed that even in the fantasy, reality had to take over somewhere.
“It wasn't.”
Dean still hadn’t looked at his brother, even when he laid the magazine to the side and responded he was entirely detached.
“Was just a wish. I wished for mom to live. That mom never died, we never went hunting and you and me just never uh…You know.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I'm glad we do.”
Dean’s eyes finally met Sam’s, a little bit happy and a little bit scared. Sam could practically hear Dean thinking “that’s just because you weren’t there” and Sam wanted to grab him and shake him. He was tired of Dean selling himself short; he was tired of being treated as if he was better, or as if he didn’t love Dean just as much as Dean loved him.
After what happened with Dad, Sam spent terrible nights awake considering…if dad had been willing to do something so drastic, there was really no knowing what Dean would do. Not just to save Sam, but if he thought it was better for him in anyway-it was a genuinely horrifying thought. By now, Sam had a morbid list of the things Dean would do for him tucked away in the back of his mind. Sam could tell Dean had hated that world and yet he had clearly wanted to stay. For him. Dean had nearly abandoned him out of love; Sam couldn’t imagine what that would have been like. He wished his brother realized there were things he could do for him that were worse than anything that could happen, worse than dying.
“And I'm glad you dug yourself out, Dean. Most people wouldn't have the strength, would have just stayed.”
Dean had a hard time processing that. Sam seemed genuine, though, and Dean was at least glad that this version of his brother cared. Not that the other one hadn’t, Sam would always care about him, even when he’d been so awful to him. Dean hadn’t been surprised when Sam had gotten into the car. “You’re still my brother,” he had said and that was his Sammy talking, always Sammy, no matter how he grew up. He could have fixed things, he was sure of it, and even if he liked his Sam better, Dean wanted that one to be real, would have given anything for Sam to be that naïve, prissy college boy again.
“Yeah…Lucky me. I gotta tell you though, man. You know, you had Jess. Mom was gonna have grandkids...”
Sam noted that Dean forgot to take his own happiness into account. Typical Dean.
“Yeah, but... Dean, it wasn't real.”
And it isn’t what I want. I want this, more than anything, I want to be your brother, Sam thought. The longing to say something was overwhelming but he managed to squash it. No chick flick moments, he reminded himself.
“I know. But I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay so bad. I mean, ever since dad...all I can think about is how much this job's cost us. We've lost so much. We've…sacrificed so much.”
But you got Sam, Dean thought selfishly. God, Dean almost didn’t want things to change now that he knew that wouldn’t have always been the case.
“But people are alive because of you. It's worth it, Dean. It is. It’s not fair, and...you know, it hurts like hell, but…it's worth it.”
Dean didn’t doubt his brother’s words for a moment. Worth it? Dean had never thought of himself as lucky, but at that moment, it was the only word to describe him. He was good for something, he saved people. More than that, he had Sam. Dean wouldn’t have traded his life for anything. Or so he thought at the time.