Genesis
Genesis
Summary: Today is a bad day. Good thing Sam has Dean to help him through it. Post-Cage AU.
Warnings: Potentially disturbing imagery. References to self-harm. Swearing.
Word Count: 2800ish
A/N: It's been about a million years since I've posted something but I haven't stopped writing so watch this space, hopefully there will be more stories to come.
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Today is a bad day. A too much, too big, too loud and overwhelming kind of day. It's the first in a while, long enough that Dean would have almost forgotten how bad bad days can get, if it were at all possible to forget the sight of Sammy, his fucking baby brother, wild-eyed and terrified, whimpering and cringing away from things Dean can't see, things that only exist in Sam's head, and Dean may have been to Hell but he's never spent time locked in a cage with two of the most pissed off angels in the universe so even he can't imagine the true horror Lucifer and Michael dreamed up for the kid.
“Hey,” Dean says softly, reaching out - slowly, so freaking slowly, don't startle the kid - to move aside one of the blankets that's partially obscuring Sam's face. There must be five, maybe six blankets, all wrapped around Sam in the cocoon Dean's made him in the corner of the room, because on bad days Sam is always a freezing, shivering mess, sometimes mumbling about bones turning to ice and shattering into millions of pieces to pierce and slice organs to shreds and how the pain of it was so unimaginable, so unbearable, that nothing Lucifer did afterwards seemed so bad for a while. “You want to look at the book with me?”
Sam says something in Enochian that Dean would know to be 'yes' even if Sam wasn't frantically nodding his head. (It's been three months, of course Dean's learned enough Enochian by now to understand his brother on bad days. The only exceptions are the really terrible days when Sam rants and screams and speaks the language so fast and fluently - he had over a hundred years to learn it - that Dean can't keep up and Sam couldn't hear him even if he could.) At least the book helps remind Sam that he's here at Bobby's house, with Dean, not in the Cage, and that English is easier for Dean to understand.
“Can I come in?”
Sam nods again and then squeezes his eyes shut to block out the things that might get in along with Dean as he carefully moves the blankets, Sam's shelter, aside so he can climb into the nest and lend his body heat and closeness to his shivering brother. He quickly rearranges the blankets so they're both wrapped up tight and pulls the dark blue one up over their heads so that there's only a tiny gap out into the rest of the world around eye level - because Sam likes dark but not too much dark, not complete dark, he needs to know that there's still more to life than a blanket fort. Dean presses himself, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, against Sam's side and places the book in his lap. There's just enough light coming in to see it mostly clearly.
It's nothing impressive really. It feels like it should be written in gold ink and bound in expensive leather or some shit given how important it is but it's really just an old notebook Bobby had hanging around that Dean figured would be as good a place as any to stick photos and write notes or whatever. At the time he didn't realize how much Sam would need this, how much better things would be with something physical to help the kid keep track of what's real and what's not. When Dean picked the notebook up he was the one who wanted something real to hold onto - because Sam didn't want to be touched when he first came back, could barely stand having Dean and Bobby in the same room as him, and Dean had so badly needed something solid to prove that Sam was really back and photographs were the only option.
“In the beginning, there was Dean,” Sam says through chattering teeth, miraculously back to English, as he opens the book to the first page and moves his fingers over the first photo Dean had snapped. Dean looks at photo-Sam sleeping on the couch, battered and exhausted by whatever happened to him before he found his way to Dean, but real and Sammy and not in Hell. Present-Sam shivers, his skin like ice against Dean's and how does that even make sense when the heater's on and the kid's covered in pretty much every blanket in the house? “On the first day, Dean created the world.”
“I think you're giving me too much credit, Sammy,” Dean says lightly, smiling a little at the expected statement. The book always brings on variations of this story from Sam as he works his way back to the beginning and then builds his way back up to sanity.
“On the first day, Dean created the world,” Sam says insistently, looking to Dean for confirmation. Dean feels the shudder that runs up Sam's spine, can sense his brothers need for him to define reality like it's a physical thing in the blanket fort with them, and nods.
“That was the first day. Your first day out of the Cage. Your first day back with me.” Sam needs to hear him say it. “I didn't actually create the world though, that was already here.”
“In the beginning, there was Dean,” Sam says again, a little more desperate, then he flinches away from something, pressing his face hard into Dean's shoulder. “Not real. Not Hell. In the beginning, there was Dean.”
“That's right, Sammy,” Dean says, wrapping his brother up in his arms as if there really is something to shelter him from because Sam is scared and confused and so fucking fragile, this shattered soul held together with nothing more than Winchester determination. He cards a hand through Sam's hair to cup the back of his head and draws him closer so Dean's heart can beat in his ear. Stone number one. In the beginning, there was Dean. “No more Cage. No more Hell. Just a bad day, that's all.”
Dean matches his breathing with Sam's in the long silence that follows and can tell when some of the panic recedes by the slowing and deepening of Sam's breaths. He's expecting it when Sam turns his head against Dean's shoulder and reaches down to flip the page over, revealing the second photograph.
“Just a bad day,” Sam echoes quietly. “On the second day, Dean destroyed the Cage.”
It wasn't really Sam's second day back when Bobby snapped the picture of the two of them, pressed together on the couch, Sam falling asleep against his shoulder in much the same position they're in now - only difference is that Sam's arms aren't smothered in bandages now like they were then. He hasn't tried to tear himself to pieces since the day Bobby took that photo, when Dean somehow convinced the kid that he wasn't in Hell anymore and wasn't obligated to destroy himself just because Michael and Lucifer weren't around to do it (and wasn't that one of the worst fucking things during the early weeks, struggling to stop his baby brother from hurting himself while the poor fucking kid screamed about how much worse it would be if they came back and he hadn't managed to strip all the skin off his arms, wasn't that just one of the worst fucking things ever?) That was the first day Sam had been convinced that Dean was Dean and this wasn't one of Lucifer's elaborate schemes. It was the first day Sam had spoken to him since coming back, actually spoken to him rather than muttering Enochian to the walls or screaming his name over and over in his sleep and ignoring Dean's presence as if he didn't exist, as if Dean was the thing that wasn't real in the Hell that resides in Sam's head.
Dean doesn't remember Bobby taking the picture - Photo-Dean's gaze is firmly trained on the sleeping kid in his arms, staring at Photo-Sam as if he's never seen anything so amazing before in his entire life, and, to be fair, it's Sammy and Sammy is the most amazing fucking thing ever full stop - but he was glad when it appeared in the notebook along with the first photo. Sam took to running his fingers over it and spent the next few days mumbling in English more often than Enochian, and Dean had told Bobby that they should take more photos.
“I sure did,” Dean says, because the Cage might technically still exist but Sam's not in it so close enough. He's not so sure Sam's being literal anyway. Kid may be crazy but he's still the smartest person Dean knows and Sam understands more when he's like this than people would think. Dean knows because sometimes on good days Sam can tell him what it's like on bad days. “Hey, are you thirsty?” It's been a while and he may as well ask while Sam's lucid, just in case he loses the kid to hallucinations again. “It's always good to stay hydrated.”
Sam pulls back a little, draws into himself. He's nodding but his eyes have lost their focus. “Yes, otherwise the blood turns into syrup and it doesn't flow the way they like it to.” He shudders, bony shoulder bumping against Dean's. “I don't want syrup blood.”
“You don't have syrup blood. You can have some water. You can have all the water in the fucking world,” Dean promises, aware that he sounds a little desperate but his mind's spinning with oh shit oh shit don't go downhill now.
Sam is quiet while Dean works his arm out of the little hole in their blanket-nest and grabs the plastic bottle of water he left there specifically so he can prove to the kid that he can have water whenever he damn well wants it because this isn't the Cage, this is real. Sam frowns at the bottle suspiciously but he wraps his fingers around it when Dean coaxes it into his hand. The silence stretches as Sam regards first the water (and it's always water, always clear and pure and nothing that could look like any kind of bodily fluid because there's a level of fucked up there that Sammy doesn't need to deal with, water is safe) and then Dean, dark eyes searching his face for something Sam would simply call Dean, some kind of proof that this really isn't a terrible set up. Dean tries to look as much like himself as possible and hopes Sam finds what he's looking for.
“On the third day, Dean created water,” Sam says finally, which makes no sense chronologically with the rest of Sam's story but whatever, Dean is used to Sam jumping from thought to thought and as long as those thoughts no longer include syrup blood, Dean is happy. He's even happier when he watches Sam take a long drink because things always seem better when Sam remembers that he's allowed to take care of himself.
“You think you could try eating something a bit later?” Dean asks when Sam puts the bottle down - inside the fort. Sam doesn't like reaching out. “We wouldn't have to move if you don't want to, Bobby could bring us something.”
Sam pulls the blankets closer. “Too cold to move. Everything is ice.”
“There's no ice,” Dean tells him. “It's actually pretty hot with these blankets and the heater on.” He holds up the back of his hand against Sam's cheek, hoping that some of the warmth will transfer to his brother. “Feel that?”
Sam shivers hard beside him and tugs Dean's hand down to clutch against his chest. “The ice is inside me.”
Dean should hate it when Sam says things like that. It does leave him with a strange feeling like someone's kicked him in the gut and is stomping on his windpipe, but he can't hate anything Sam says, even when it's hard to hear, because he's just too damn grateful that Sammy is here at all. He just wishes he could do more to fix Sam's messed up head. When he's more lucid, Sam assures him that just his presence helps, and when he's not, the way Sammy clings to him is proof enough of how much Dean is needed, but progress is slow and very much one step forward, two steps back and Dean just wishes he could take all Sammy's pain away once and for all.
Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Dean concentrates on the faint heartbeat he can feel through Sam's t-shirt. “Well, we'll just have to stay in here until it thaws out, how about that? On the third day, Dean melted the ice.”
“In the beginning there was Dean,” Sam agrees. One of his hands stays put to hold Dean's in place - which is fine, Sammy can use him as an anchor for as long as he needs it - and the other reaches out for the book, shaky fingers flipping the pages as he studies each snapshot of life since the Cage. Dean is pretty sure that the beginning Sam likes to talk about is the beginning of life after Hell, even though it occasionally seems to switch to the actual beginning, when Sam was born. Lucid-Sam told him that it didn't matter when he asked about it, that whichever one he's referring to is the first true thing he knows when he's having a bad day, that Crazy-Sam is doing what Dean told him to do; making Dean stone number one and building on it. Poor kid has to work so hard to remember what's real on days like this, when the things that aren't real (that were real in the Cage, the memories of an eternity of torture even Dean can't comprehend) are pushing through the cracks in his shattered soul and threatening to overwhelm him.
“On the first day Dean created the world,” Sam continues the story like a mantra. “On the second day Dean destroyed the Cage.” He closes his eyes and tries to squeeze closer to Dean but he's already as close as he can get without actually being in Dean's lap so he mostly just pushes Dean over. Dean braces himself and pushes back, like maybe if they push hard enough they can merge into one person and Dean can take some of Sam's burden onto himself.
“I don't think there's even atoms between us now, Sammy,” he says, which makes Sam smile, like that pleases him as much as it does Dean, all teeth and dimples and hair flopping in his face and how does Sammy do this? How does he manage to smile like that after everything? (How is Dean enough when sometimes he feels like his soul is as much of a mess as Sam's?)
“Lucifer never got you right but sometimes I pretended he did,” Sam says, eyes still closed, “So I could do this for a while.”
That foot stomping on Dean's windpipe is back. “Jesus, Sammy.”
“Sorry.”
“It's okay, you don't have to be sorry. I would've done the same thing.” Dean doesn't think he'll ever get used to the way Sammy drops such horrific, heartbreaking things into conversations like they're normal, like it's not a big deal that Dean's baby brother was so starved for kindness and affection that the freaking devil became a viable option for comfort.
“How's your head doing?” Dean asks, changing the subject in such an obvious way that old-Sam would have rolled his eyes and possibly pushed for a chick-flick moment. New-Sam just bites his lower lip thoughtfully, opening his eyes to peek warily out of the blankets. “Is it getting better now that we've got the book out?”
“Less things with fangs after me,” Sam says, turning his head away from the view of the world outside the blanket fort.
“That's good. Be better if there were no things with fangs but we can work with less. They still can't get in here, right?” Dean checks, because Sam sometimes forgets to warn him when they're getting close.
Sam shakes his head. “On the third day, Dean melted the ice.”
“I did?” Now that he thinks about it, Sam doesn't seem to be shivering as much. His hand feels a little warmer in Dean's grasp. “We should take a photo, add it to the book.”
“Not yet,” Sam says, “If we leave now, it might come back.”
“Okay, later then. We can stay here as long as you want.” He gives Sam's shoulders a squeeze to drive home the fact that he's still here and there's no freaking way he's leaving before Sam's ready. “It's just like when we were kids, building blanket forts in motel rooms. Remember that?”
Sam nods. “In the beginning, there was Dean.”
“You're like a broken record,” Dean teases.
“In the end, there was Dean,” Sam says, probably changing it up just to mess with him because Sam might be crazy but -
“In the end, there was Sam.”