vail_kagami
in
ohsam
Drawing Outlines (of Us, with Chalk on the Asphalt)
Title: Drawing Outlines (of Us, with Chalk on the Asphalt)
Author: vail_kagami
Genre: gen
Characters: Sam, Dean, Bobby
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 5218
Warnings: Some violence, OC death
Spoilers: Set between 5.16 and 5.17.
Summary: Dean's inability to trust his brother becomes life-threatening when Sam is injured fighting demons.
Note: For the h/c challenge. Prompt by khakigrrl: In Season 5, after Dean knows about the demon blood, Sam is hurt on a hunt but is trying to hide it. However, he starts coughing up blood, for whatever reason, and Dean, seeing the blood around Sam's mouth, mistakenly thinks it's evidence of Sam drinking blood again.
The woman screamed until the demon increased the pressure of its fingers around her throat and cut her off. He laughed (more like a giggle, an insane little sound that felt like fingernails drawn over a chalkboard), and shook her a little, and started to speak. Probably wanted to give some snarky, sarcastic comment before he broke her neck, because that was what demons did, but Sam lunged at it before it could, so they never found out what brilliant and witty phrase it would have come up with. Sam’s hand was wrapped around the handle of Ruby’s knife and the blade of Ruby’s knife was only inches from the demon’s back when the demon made a casual gesture with his free hand - the hand not busy strangling the life out of a small, thin woman who couldn’t be older than thirty - and Sam was flung backwards by a painfully familiar feeling wave of power.
He had enough time, as he was thrown all the way across the street, for a small, treacherous part of his mind to whisper that this wouldn’t have happened if he had never given up his own powers. If he still had his powers, he could have pulled out the demon from a distance and the woman would have already been safe - or as safe as anyone could be in a town overrun by demons, at the edge of the apocalypse.
He even had enough time to start hating himself for that thought (because the power comes with a price, and the whole fucking world is too high a price to pay for little Sammy Winchester to play superhero) before he hit the wall of a building and then the sidewalk below and the shock of the impact pushed every thought and feeling right out of him.
But he had something to do and that was all he needed to know to pick himself up. He stumbled to his feet and onto the street thinking about his jeans. This was the last pair he had that didn’t have holes in it, and while he felt blood running down his legs from his knees, he hoped that he managed to break the skin without breaking the fabric. Sam knew that this was not what he should be thinking about right now, but somehow it was hard to focus, and then the screeching of tires made him turn just in time to actually get to see the small, green car before it slammed into him.
It looked much bigger up close.
The driver was on the run from demons, and Sam had kind of stumbled onto the street without looking, so he couldn’t really blame the guy for not stopping when it was over. Sam couldn’t stop either. He had to get up and kill something, but he’d just been slammed into a wall and run over by a small green car and apparently his body was convinced it deserved a break.
Breathing kind of hurt.
A shadow fell on him and Sam looked up to see the demon looking down. On him. There was a demon, and it was looking down on him, so he must have been lying on the ground. That wasn’t good. Sam’s hand was still clenched around the hilt of the knife, but he was somewhat awkwardly lying on the arm, and the demon only snorted and turned away.
Breathing kind of hurt, but his hand was still clenched around the knife and he could still move. He could move. He got to his feet, and he could move his right arm, and one second later the thrown knife entered the demon’s back and the host body sank to the ground as the evil that had possessed it was destroyed.
When Sam knelt beside the body to retrieve his knife, he mumbled an apology to the human who had had to die for him to destroy the demon. (He could have saved him.) Getting back up was a bit of challenge, but he had to check on the woman the demon had been attacking - only to see that he had wasted too much time with his little trip across the street. She was lying in the grass of her own lawn, her neck bent at an unnatural angle.
Lying down beside her seemed like a good idea for a second. Sam shook his head, took a deep breath and startled when he tasted the metallic tang of blood on his tongue (not the right taste, useless). His fingers were still clenched around the hilt of the knife and he didn’t let it go even when he wiped off the blood running from his nose with the back of his hand.
The knife which he had to take back to Dean. Sam’s head cleared a little at the thought of his brother. Dean was going after the demon that controlled all the others in this town, and he would be pretty pissed if he had to do it without a demon killing weapon.
If he even got that far before the demon snapped his neck like that of the poor woman before Sam.
Once he became aware again of the situation they were in, concern for his brother gave Sam the strength to push himself up one more time. He hurried on, started running before he was fully standing, only to nearly fall down when pain shot through his body and made it impossible to think.
Something seemed to crawl up his throat, blocking off his air, and Sam coughed painfully, tried to keep going despite the fact that he couldn’t see and couldn’t breathe. He had to stop for a moment, before his airways cleared and he managed to draw in a few strangled breaths. His head hurt and he thought he might have a concussion. Bad timing for that. Dean needed the knife.
A few more hacking coughs shook his body, leaving him dizzy. Salvia was running down his chin, only it tasted metallic (and familiar and tempting), and when he ran the sleeve of his jacket over his face it came away bloody.
Sam only stared at it for a second, before he started running again, as fast as his body would allow him.
-
Dean finished the exorcism with three bloody slashes across his chest and something that was either concern or anger curling cold in his stomach. He’d been lucky that the demon had wandered right into the devil’s trap be had drawn in the earth under the floorboards. He’d been even more lucky that lately they had been facing so many demons that he was finally able to remember the exorcism by heart.
It was lucky, because he didn’t have any book containing an exorcism with him. He didn’t have one, because he didn’t think he’d need one. Because he was supposed to have a knife that was able to destroy any demon just below Alastair’s pay grade.
The last of the black smoke disappeared and Dean went to check on the host, who had collapsed in a boneless heap. Dead. Well, that had to be expected - demons rarely handled their meat suits with consideration, but if the guy had survived, at least something good would have come out of his lack of knife. As it was, the demon was send back to hell but not destroyed, and the host was dead anyway.
And then, finally, there was Sam, running up the street toward him, panting hard and just in time to be completely useless.
The momentary relief Dean felt upon seeing his little brother unhurt was replaced by anger almost immediately. “Look who finally showed up,” he snapped as Sam cam to a stop beside him and took in the dead body and the devil’s trap.
“Sorry. I got held up.”
“I bet. If I’d known you were going to take that knife to see the sights, I wouldn’t have left it to you.”
“I told you to take it,” Sam said, sounding like a petulant child.
“And I told you splitting up was a bad idea. Well, any luck saving those kids in the hall?”
Sam said nothing, and Dean cursed under his breath. Fan-fucking-tastic. Why had they even come here in the first place, if everyone insisted on dying on them?
Anyway, they were done here. All Dean wanted now was get back to the impala, wrap himself up so he didn’t get blood on the seats and drive to the next motel so Sam could sew him up. He just hoped they had enough whisky to help him though that, and then some.
When he turned to go, he noticed the blood on Sam’s face, and the first impulse that went through him was ugly and unfair and not what a big brother should feel when he saw blood on his sibling. Sam got hurt. It happened. Sometimes the blood on his face was just his own, and when Dean took a closer look, he saw that this was indeed the case this time.
“Are you okay?” he asked gruffly. “Your nose is bleeding.”
The hasty, startled way in which Sam quickly wiped the blood off his face with the hand holding the knife spoke of guilt and Dean’s eyes narrowed as any worry he might have been feeling was replaced by bitter disappointment. “You’ve been using your powers again.”
“What? No!” Sam seemed honestly surprised by the accusation. There was a time when those wide eyes would have been able to convince Dean of anything, but those times were long gone, and now all Dean could see was the blood that Sam has missed because he’d been whipping in the wrong place.
“Of course you did! Got held up, huh? By some nice little demon who offered their neck to you as a gesture of friendship?” Dean had to stop and close his eyes for a moment, to fight the urge to punch his brother in the face. “Never mind that your brother was facing the boss-demon without a weapon. It’s hard to remember unimportant things like that with so much demon blood round you, I guess.”
“You know I don’t do that anymore!” Now it was Sam’s turn to get angry, but Dean could see right through the act, and judging by the way Sam looked pale and shaken, he knew it. Had the nerve to pretend anyway. “I came here as quickly as I could, but there was this -”
“This demon, I know,” Dean cut him off. “And you drank it dry. Please, stop this, Sam. It’s pathetic. At least stand up to what you’ve done and spare us this. There’s still blood on your lips.”
If possible, Sam looked even more shocked and guilty as he raised his fingers to his lips. “That’s mine. I bit my tongue -”
“What, no other demon around, so you had to fall back on your own blood? Please, Sam, don’t do this, okay?” Sam opened his mouth, but Dean lifted his hand, didn’t want to hear any more lies. “It’s okay. I know this was my fault. I should have seen this coming. Should have known why you wanted to split up even though it was a stupid idea. Town full of demons, and I let you run off with the demon killer knife. After everything, you’d think I’d have learned better.”
“I didn’t -”
“Let’s just go, okay, Sam? I need a shower. And you need mouthwash.”
There was such hurt and anger an Sam’s face that for a second, Dean thought the other man would hold him back, maybe force a fight. But then his shoulders slumped and he seemed to just give up. Accept that he’d been caught and had to deal with the consequences.
Except there wouldn’t be any consequences, because Dean was just tired of this, and he didn’t really care anymore. Sam was a grown man, and if he wanted to go dark side and suck blood, that was his decision. Dean was not responsible for his actions, and it wasn’t his damn job to deal with the fallout.
Sam trailed behind as they walked back to the car, and while Dean appreciated not having to look at him, having to wait for him irritated him further. Because his brother trailed behind quite slowly, and the engine had been running for a solid minute by the time he finally took his place on the passenger seat.
It was only when he thought about Sam’s nosebleed that Dean remembered he had forgotten to wrap his own wounds and was currently bleeding on the driver’s seat. Overcome by anger at himself, at Sam and at the entire fucking world, he slammed his hands on the wheel and cursed loud and long. Sam flinched, but didn’t say anything. Didn’t comment on Dean’s bleeding wounds either. The blood probably wasn’t the right flavour for him to be interested in it.
And Dean just couldn’t do it anymore.
“I’ll take you to Bobby’s,” he said, “so he can put you in the panic room again. And that’s it.”
“I don’t need the panic room.” Oh, look, he could still talk. Only, none of his words sounded like an apology, which were the only words Dean would have been interested in hearing.
“Yes, you do. Because I’m not dealing with your detox alone. I’m not dealing with your detox, period. I’ll take you to Bobby, and that’s it. I just can’t deal with this anymore, Sam. I can’t deal with you anymore. I have the whole fucking world to save, thanks to you, and you’re not helping.” He swallowed, but kept talking because he didn’t want to give Sam a chance to say anything. Everything his brother said or did just hurt. “You know, I tried. I wanted to trust you. I thought you could get over this and help me deal with this mess you created, but you’re not. And I can’t do this if I constantly have to wonder what’ll happen the next time you’re giving in to your addiction.” He made the mistake of glancing to the side and was met with an expression so full of hurt it hurt him right back. So he looked at the street again and kept talking. “I don’t blame you, Sam. You’re a junkie, and junkies do stupid shit. But that means I can’t trust you. I’ve been giving you so many chances, and you’ve always let me down. It’s time for me to learn my lesson. This, all this, it’s too important for me to put the world at risk just to protect your feelings. I need to know you’ve got my back. And today, you didn’t.”
Sam didn’t say anything in reply. He had to see that it would be pointless, and Dean felt grim satisfaction at that. It didn’t lessen his anger and disappointment, though. (Except it wasn’t disappointment, not really, because he had known this would happen, had been waiting for it.) Still, he had expected his brother to plead with him, ask for another chance, ask Dean to stay with him (like he did last time). But the only thing he heard from Sam was a strangled breath and some coughs, like he had tried to swallow a sob and was choking on it. Or like he was fife years old and tried to distract Dean or dad from being angry with him by making them feel sorry. (Always worked with Dean. Never worked with dad.)
Dean refused to so much as look at him. Sam eventually fell silent, and they didn’t speak for a long time. Dean waited for it. Waited for Sam to utter his apology, to come up with an excuse, to present his reasons why they shouldn’t separate. That he didn’t, that he let Dean go this easily, that stung a little, but… well. Dean wanted to separate. He wouldn’t complain about Sam not making it harder.
And it wasn’t like he’d let Sam be on his own in the cold, evil world, though God knew after all the shit he’d given Dean, he deserved it. But there was this cursed part in Dean that still felt responsible for his little brother, and the cold, evil world would probably kill him. Temporarily. Worse, it would drive him to Lucifer. And Dean would never let that happen.
Another part of him already hated himself for knowing that he would check up on Sam in a week, a month at the latest. Forever his brother’s slave. He wouldn’t take him back, of course, he’d just check to see if he was doing okay and didn’t feel the need to have the world toasted yet. Maybe he could leave him at Bobby’s until this was all over, where someone would have an eye on him.
In the end, Dean had to admit that he couldn’t bear the thought of Sam all on his own. Because he didn’t trust the world not to destroy his brother, and because he didn’t trust his brother not to destroy the world.
About half an hour later, Sam coughed again, wheezing and painful sounding. Dean’s hands were wrapped around the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white, while he refused to look at his brother. The miles went by too fast and too slow at once, and neither of them spoke.
-
It was more than three hours into the drive that the silence became too much for Dean to bear. They had been driving for days on end with hardly a word being spoken before, but now the car was filled with wordless anger and hurt and it was grating on Dean’s nerves. The only sound Sam was making was the occasional low moan, early signs of the starting withdrawal. Damn, it was fast this time. Just how much had he drunk?
The sounds were half-suppressed, as if Sam didn’t want him to hear them. Didn’t want to let Dean hear this confirmation of how much Sam had fucked up again, or maybe he just didn’t want to admit that he was going into withdrawal because he didn’t want to be locked up to ride it out alone. Dean pressed his lips together and let his brother cling to the belief that he hadn’t noticed.
When he flipped open his phone and called Bobby, he did it because he had to anyway, but also because he wanted to talk, and because he wanted Sam to hear him talk.
“We’re about six hours from your place. Get the panic room ready,” he told their old friend. “Yes, he did it again.”
He heard the long, painful sigh on the other hand and was reminded that he wasn’t the only one Sam had let down. “What happened?”
“Town full of demons. Sam alone with the knife. You know how it goes.”
“No, I don’t. Sam’s faced countless demons without doing it. So what exactly happened?”
“I don’t know, Bobby. To be honest, I don’t really give a damn. So just, you know, get everything ready. And Bobby, you don’t need to set up a bed for me.” He snapped the phone shut before Bobby had a chance to reply.
Beside him, Sam remained silent.
Well, if he didn’t want to pester Dean with his excuses, all the better.
-
Five hours to the Singer Salvage Yard had them running low on gas, and Dean began looking for the next gas station.
“Gonna stop for gas soon,” he said. “If you need to take a leak, this is your last chance for the rest of the trip.”
Sam didn’t answer, and for the first time since the beginning of their ride, Dean looked at him, wanted to see if he was asleep.
Sam’s head had fallen forward, his chin resting on his chest, his long hair falling into his face. “Hey, Sam,” Dean snapped, roughly showing his brother’s shoulder. Sam’s head lolled to the side until it rested against the window, revealing his paper-white face and the blood that ran down his chin, dripping onto his shirt.
“Oh, fuck!” Dean yelled and nearly drove the impala into the creek beside the road.
-
The hardest part, later, when the impala had been dumped standing awkwardly over two spaces in the hospital parking lot and Sam had been rushed to surgery, was calling Bobby, and telling him just how much he had fucked this up. No, sorry, false alarm. Sammy didn’t drink demon blood, he was just bleeding to death internally and I kind of got that down wrong. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Bobby said he would be there in five hours. He needed more than eight, because Bobby was a cripple since he’d thought sacrificing himself for Dean was a good idea and needed someone to drive him. And that someone apparently kept to speed limits and needed a break every now and then. Dean wasn’t particularly eager to face the man, but after he found himself reaching instinctively for the amulet around his neck for the sixth time, only to remember that he’d dumped it in some motel waste bin and why, he found himself wishing for anything to keep him from thinking. Even if it was Bobby ripping his head off.
By the time Bobby arrived, Sam was out of surgery and Dean had been updated on his injuries. Broken ribs. Punctured lung. Tears in his spleen and kidney. All made worse by aggravating the wounds, by not keeping still, by sitting cramped in a car too small for his long legs. The concussion, cracked shin and broken arm didn’t even seem worth mentioning after that.
The doctor asked what had happened, and Dean could only shake his head. I don’t know. I wasn’t there, he never said anything.
When Bobby found him, Dean was sitting beside Sam’s bed, staring down at his pale, still brother without holding his hand. He didn’t acknowledge the other man’s presence, and until Bobby cleared his throat behind him, all they could hear was the comforting beeping of the heart monitor and the noise of the ventilator.
“Well?” Bobby finally said, and Dean still didn’t turn around.
“They removed a kidney,” he said. “And his spleen. Damaged beyond repair.”
“I heard.” Bobby rolled closer to have a better look at Sam and gave his limp hand a brief squeeze, the simple gesture showing how shaken he was. Bobby didn’t do hand holding, even less so than Dean. “It’ll be fine. The next time… when they bring him back, they’ll fix him up.”
The fact that they were counting on Sam dying sometime in the near future so he could come back all whole and healthy was so messed up that Dean nearly laughed out loud right there and then. Their lives were unique like that.
“What happened?” Bobby asked the dreaded question once again. “They say it looks like he was run over by a car.”
“I don’t know,” Dean had to admit once again. He stood and began to pace the room. “I wasn’t with him. He came too late to help me with the demon we were hunting, and he had a nosebleed, and I thought he’d used his powers again. When I saw the blood on his lips, I thought… Well.”
Bobby just looked up at him with exactly the kind of look on his face Dean had been dreading. He shook his head. “I don’t get you, boy. How did you get so messed up that you see your brother bleeding and automatically think the worst of him?”
Shame ran through Dean then, but not enough, not as much as he should be feeling. Not enough to make him forget the bitterness, the reason why it was so easy to think badly of Sam now.
“I’m sorry,” he said and meant it. God, he was sorry! So sorry. He’d failed, he was supposed to look after his brother and he’d failed. Had made it worse by not caring and not listening. But then, Sam never told him. Sam never gave him a chance not to end up feeling this way, and an ugly, despised part of Dean thought that maybe Sam had done this on purpose, had wanted Dean to hurt like Dean had hurt him. “I fucked up. I know.”
“Damn right, you did! Dammit, you used to get sick with worry when he had a sprained ankle. Sometimes I don’t even recognize you anymore, Dean.”
“That’s because I don’t recognize him anymore, Bobby,” Dean defended himself. Because yeah, he’d failed here, big time, but it wasn’t like Sam was entirely without blame. “There is a reason why I thought he’d snacked on a demon, after all. You know, that didn’t exactly come out of nowhere.” Bobby shook his head again, his face grim, but Dean wasn’t done. “After what happened with Famine, what was I supposed to think? What would you have thought?”
“I would have asked him if he was okay.”
“I did. He told me he’d bitten his tongue.” And he did laugh, there, because of how ridiculous that sounded now.
“Oh, right. Sam Winchester not telling anyone he’s hurt. I’m shocked.”
“You’re not with him all the time. You only see some glimpses of good little Sammy and can still pretend he’s the same boy you watched grow up. But I’m with him all the time. He doesn’t even talk to me anymore.”
“Do you talk to him?” Bobby asked back. “Anything beside empty accusations, I mean?”
“He’s started the apocalypse, Bobby. I wouldn’t call any of those accusations empty.”
“Your brother tried to stop it. When will you finally get that he didn’t want this to happen?”
“Doesn’t matter. It happened, and it wouldn’t have if he’d listened to me and not to that demon bitch! If he hadn’t lied to me, and thought he knew so much better than everyone else, a lot of people wouldn’t have died. Jo and Ellen wouldn’t have died!” And Dean was pissed. He was worried and ashamed and that made him even more pissed, but even as his anger boiled, he found himself glad that his brother was still out and hadn’t heard that.
If the look on Bobby’s face was anything to go by, he thought the same.
“I don’t think we should continue this conversation,” he said lowly.
Dean ran a hand over his face. “Look, I’m sorry. That came out wrong. But the thing is, my own failure aside, I can’t rely on him anymore, and I can’t trust him. And as long as I can’t, there is no way to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
“Yes, there is. You could try having a little faith in your brother, for starters.”
“Easier said than done,” Dean said tiredly. He sat down in his chair again, in a way that pulled on the stitches he’d gotten for the wounds in his chest while Sam was in surgery. The wounds he had lamented Sam not noticing. Funny, that.
But he, at least, had bled on the outside. Where people could see it.
“It’s what you do,” Bobby said, a little softer. “You’re his big brother, after all. Look, I know this is all hard for you, but it won’t help you at all if you keep pushing your brother away. He can help you through it.”
“Yeah,” Dean muttered. “Yeah, right. I’ll think about it.”
Bobby knew him far too well, knew Dean had given in far too quickly. This wasn’t Dean thinking about his words, this was Dean wanting to be left alone.
Thankfully, Bobby accepted this, and with a last long look at Sam he rolled out of the room.
-
Dean was there when Sam woke up, of course. It was another day before they had a conversation that went beyond acknowledging the other’s presence.
“Why didn’t you say anything, Sam?” This first words Dean spoke to his brother were accusing, reflecting the worry and anger of the last days. “If you’re hurt that bad you fucking tell me!”
Sam just blinked at him. He looked so tired, so exhausted it made Dean’s heart ache, and his voice was weak and rough from pain and the tube that had only recently been removed from his throat. “I didn’t think it was that bad.”
“That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard,” Dean said, almost fondly. “You were coughing blood, for God’s sake!”
The movement of Sam’s shoulders might have been a shrug, had he not been so weak. “Didn’t matter. I thought…” He coughed, and Dean almost moved, ready to place the oxygen mask back over his face. But the coughing stopped and Sam wasn’t finished yet. “I thought, if I died, I though, he’d just bring me back and we’d get spared all this hospital bullshit.”
“God, Sammy!” Dean groaned, because thinking like that - it was just wrong, even for their standards.
“Not that I thought I would die. Thought it’d go away by itself. Not really worth bothering you with, if it had.”
Sam was still so hurt and weak that it took him forever to get the words out. Long enough for Dean to contemplate how to Sam apparently only a lethal injury was an injury worth mentioning. If even that.
“Hey, Dean,” Sam said. Dean looked at him. “We don’t have time for this,” Sam said. “It’ll be weeks before I can hunt again,” Sam said, and Dean cut him off before he could say anything more.
“No.”
“Think about it. It sucks, what they’re doing to us. But we could make the best of it. Use it to our benefit.” Sammy, always so pragmatic.
Dean felt vaguely sick.
“You’re not going to die to make things easier for us. You’re not going to die, Sammy! What if they grow tired of bringing you back? What if they dump you to hell for a few years before they revive you? No way! You’re doing this the normal way. I don’t care how long it takes.”
Sam studied his face though bruised looking, red-rimmed eyes, as if searching for something, and maybe he almost smiled, for whatever reason. “And what will you do while I’m stuck here?”
There it was, the big question Dean had refused to think about for the past days. “I guess,” he said, making his decision, “I guess I’ll be stuck here, too. Gotta keep an eye on you so you don’t do anything stupid.” He became aware of how that sounded, of how Sam could take it, so he reached out and touched his brother for the first time since coming here, brushed the hair out of his face. “Whatever happens, I’m not gonna let you die. Not ever. I’m not going to kill you. So don’t ask that of me again!” Sam wasn’t making it easy for Dean to love him, but the thought of him dying by his hands was making Dean physically sick. He leaned closer. “I won’t kill you!” he promised.
Sam just blinked at him slowly before letting his eyes close. He had to know as well as his brother that one day Michael and Lucifer might leave Dean no other choice.
November 16, 2010
A/N: A note on the title: It's a rough translation of a line from the German song "Du Erkennst Mich Nicht Wieder" ("You Don't Recognize Me Anymore") by Wir Sind Helden.
Ich erkenn hier nichts wieder
(I don't recognize anything around here)
Alles müde und alt
(Everything's tired and old)
Und ich male uns beide
(And I draw the two of us)
Als Umriss aus Kreide
(As chalk outlines)
Auf den Asphalt
(On the asphalt)
Author: vail_kagami
Genre: gen
Characters: Sam, Dean, Bobby
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 5218
Warnings: Some violence, OC death
Spoilers: Set between 5.16 and 5.17.
Summary: Dean's inability to trust his brother becomes life-threatening when Sam is injured fighting demons.
Note: For the h/c challenge. Prompt by khakigrrl: In Season 5, after Dean knows about the demon blood, Sam is hurt on a hunt but is trying to hide it. However, he starts coughing up blood, for whatever reason, and Dean, seeing the blood around Sam's mouth, mistakenly thinks it's evidence of Sam drinking blood again.
The woman screamed until the demon increased the pressure of its fingers around her throat and cut her off. He laughed (more like a giggle, an insane little sound that felt like fingernails drawn over a chalkboard), and shook her a little, and started to speak. Probably wanted to give some snarky, sarcastic comment before he broke her neck, because that was what demons did, but Sam lunged at it before it could, so they never found out what brilliant and witty phrase it would have come up with. Sam’s hand was wrapped around the handle of Ruby’s knife and the blade of Ruby’s knife was only inches from the demon’s back when the demon made a casual gesture with his free hand - the hand not busy strangling the life out of a small, thin woman who couldn’t be older than thirty - and Sam was flung backwards by a painfully familiar feeling wave of power.
He had enough time, as he was thrown all the way across the street, for a small, treacherous part of his mind to whisper that this wouldn’t have happened if he had never given up his own powers. If he still had his powers, he could have pulled out the demon from a distance and the woman would have already been safe - or as safe as anyone could be in a town overrun by demons, at the edge of the apocalypse.
He even had enough time to start hating himself for that thought (because the power comes with a price, and the whole fucking world is too high a price to pay for little Sammy Winchester to play superhero) before he hit the wall of a building and then the sidewalk below and the shock of the impact pushed every thought and feeling right out of him.
But he had something to do and that was all he needed to know to pick himself up. He stumbled to his feet and onto the street thinking about his jeans. This was the last pair he had that didn’t have holes in it, and while he felt blood running down his legs from his knees, he hoped that he managed to break the skin without breaking the fabric. Sam knew that this was not what he should be thinking about right now, but somehow it was hard to focus, and then the screeching of tires made him turn just in time to actually get to see the small, green car before it slammed into him.
It looked much bigger up close.
The driver was on the run from demons, and Sam had kind of stumbled onto the street without looking, so he couldn’t really blame the guy for not stopping when it was over. Sam couldn’t stop either. He had to get up and kill something, but he’d just been slammed into a wall and run over by a small green car and apparently his body was convinced it deserved a break.
Breathing kind of hurt.
A shadow fell on him and Sam looked up to see the demon looking down. On him. There was a demon, and it was looking down on him, so he must have been lying on the ground. That wasn’t good. Sam’s hand was still clenched around the hilt of the knife, but he was somewhat awkwardly lying on the arm, and the demon only snorted and turned away.
Breathing kind of hurt, but his hand was still clenched around the knife and he could still move. He could move. He got to his feet, and he could move his right arm, and one second later the thrown knife entered the demon’s back and the host body sank to the ground as the evil that had possessed it was destroyed.
When Sam knelt beside the body to retrieve his knife, he mumbled an apology to the human who had had to die for him to destroy the demon. (He could have saved him.) Getting back up was a bit of challenge, but he had to check on the woman the demon had been attacking - only to see that he had wasted too much time with his little trip across the street. She was lying in the grass of her own lawn, her neck bent at an unnatural angle.
Lying down beside her seemed like a good idea for a second. Sam shook his head, took a deep breath and startled when he tasted the metallic tang of blood on his tongue (not the right taste, useless). His fingers were still clenched around the hilt of the knife and he didn’t let it go even when he wiped off the blood running from his nose with the back of his hand.
The knife which he had to take back to Dean. Sam’s head cleared a little at the thought of his brother. Dean was going after the demon that controlled all the others in this town, and he would be pretty pissed if he had to do it without a demon killing weapon.
If he even got that far before the demon snapped his neck like that of the poor woman before Sam.
Once he became aware again of the situation they were in, concern for his brother gave Sam the strength to push himself up one more time. He hurried on, started running before he was fully standing, only to nearly fall down when pain shot through his body and made it impossible to think.
Something seemed to crawl up his throat, blocking off his air, and Sam coughed painfully, tried to keep going despite the fact that he couldn’t see and couldn’t breathe. He had to stop for a moment, before his airways cleared and he managed to draw in a few strangled breaths. His head hurt and he thought he might have a concussion. Bad timing for that. Dean needed the knife.
A few more hacking coughs shook his body, leaving him dizzy. Salvia was running down his chin, only it tasted metallic (and familiar and tempting), and when he ran the sleeve of his jacket over his face it came away bloody.
Sam only stared at it for a second, before he started running again, as fast as his body would allow him.
-
Dean finished the exorcism with three bloody slashes across his chest and something that was either concern or anger curling cold in his stomach. He’d been lucky that the demon had wandered right into the devil’s trap be had drawn in the earth under the floorboards. He’d been even more lucky that lately they had been facing so many demons that he was finally able to remember the exorcism by heart.
It was lucky, because he didn’t have any book containing an exorcism with him. He didn’t have one, because he didn’t think he’d need one. Because he was supposed to have a knife that was able to destroy any demon just below Alastair’s pay grade.
The last of the black smoke disappeared and Dean went to check on the host, who had collapsed in a boneless heap. Dead. Well, that had to be expected - demons rarely handled their meat suits with consideration, but if the guy had survived, at least something good would have come out of his lack of knife. As it was, the demon was send back to hell but not destroyed, and the host was dead anyway.
And then, finally, there was Sam, running up the street toward him, panting hard and just in time to be completely useless.
The momentary relief Dean felt upon seeing his little brother unhurt was replaced by anger almost immediately. “Look who finally showed up,” he snapped as Sam cam to a stop beside him and took in the dead body and the devil’s trap.
“Sorry. I got held up.”
“I bet. If I’d known you were going to take that knife to see the sights, I wouldn’t have left it to you.”
“I told you to take it,” Sam said, sounding like a petulant child.
“And I told you splitting up was a bad idea. Well, any luck saving those kids in the hall?”
Sam said nothing, and Dean cursed under his breath. Fan-fucking-tastic. Why had they even come here in the first place, if everyone insisted on dying on them?
Anyway, they were done here. All Dean wanted now was get back to the impala, wrap himself up so he didn’t get blood on the seats and drive to the next motel so Sam could sew him up. He just hoped they had enough whisky to help him though that, and then some.
When he turned to go, he noticed the blood on Sam’s face, and the first impulse that went through him was ugly and unfair and not what a big brother should feel when he saw blood on his sibling. Sam got hurt. It happened. Sometimes the blood on his face was just his own, and when Dean took a closer look, he saw that this was indeed the case this time.
“Are you okay?” he asked gruffly. “Your nose is bleeding.”
The hasty, startled way in which Sam quickly wiped the blood off his face with the hand holding the knife spoke of guilt and Dean’s eyes narrowed as any worry he might have been feeling was replaced by bitter disappointment. “You’ve been using your powers again.”
“What? No!” Sam seemed honestly surprised by the accusation. There was a time when those wide eyes would have been able to convince Dean of anything, but those times were long gone, and now all Dean could see was the blood that Sam has missed because he’d been whipping in the wrong place.
“Of course you did! Got held up, huh? By some nice little demon who offered their neck to you as a gesture of friendship?” Dean had to stop and close his eyes for a moment, to fight the urge to punch his brother in the face. “Never mind that your brother was facing the boss-demon without a weapon. It’s hard to remember unimportant things like that with so much demon blood round you, I guess.”
“You know I don’t do that anymore!” Now it was Sam’s turn to get angry, but Dean could see right through the act, and judging by the way Sam looked pale and shaken, he knew it. Had the nerve to pretend anyway. “I came here as quickly as I could, but there was this -”
“This demon, I know,” Dean cut him off. “And you drank it dry. Please, stop this, Sam. It’s pathetic. At least stand up to what you’ve done and spare us this. There’s still blood on your lips.”
If possible, Sam looked even more shocked and guilty as he raised his fingers to his lips. “That’s mine. I bit my tongue -”
“What, no other demon around, so you had to fall back on your own blood? Please, Sam, don’t do this, okay?” Sam opened his mouth, but Dean lifted his hand, didn’t want to hear any more lies. “It’s okay. I know this was my fault. I should have seen this coming. Should have known why you wanted to split up even though it was a stupid idea. Town full of demons, and I let you run off with the demon killer knife. After everything, you’d think I’d have learned better.”
“I didn’t -”
“Let’s just go, okay, Sam? I need a shower. And you need mouthwash.”
There was such hurt and anger an Sam’s face that for a second, Dean thought the other man would hold him back, maybe force a fight. But then his shoulders slumped and he seemed to just give up. Accept that he’d been caught and had to deal with the consequences.
Except there wouldn’t be any consequences, because Dean was just tired of this, and he didn’t really care anymore. Sam was a grown man, and if he wanted to go dark side and suck blood, that was his decision. Dean was not responsible for his actions, and it wasn’t his damn job to deal with the fallout.
Sam trailed behind as they walked back to the car, and while Dean appreciated not having to look at him, having to wait for him irritated him further. Because his brother trailed behind quite slowly, and the engine had been running for a solid minute by the time he finally took his place on the passenger seat.
It was only when he thought about Sam’s nosebleed that Dean remembered he had forgotten to wrap his own wounds and was currently bleeding on the driver’s seat. Overcome by anger at himself, at Sam and at the entire fucking world, he slammed his hands on the wheel and cursed loud and long. Sam flinched, but didn’t say anything. Didn’t comment on Dean’s bleeding wounds either. The blood probably wasn’t the right flavour for him to be interested in it.
And Dean just couldn’t do it anymore.
“I’ll take you to Bobby’s,” he said, “so he can put you in the panic room again. And that’s it.”
“I don’t need the panic room.” Oh, look, he could still talk. Only, none of his words sounded like an apology, which were the only words Dean would have been interested in hearing.
“Yes, you do. Because I’m not dealing with your detox alone. I’m not dealing with your detox, period. I’ll take you to Bobby, and that’s it. I just can’t deal with this anymore, Sam. I can’t deal with you anymore. I have the whole fucking world to save, thanks to you, and you’re not helping.” He swallowed, but kept talking because he didn’t want to give Sam a chance to say anything. Everything his brother said or did just hurt. “You know, I tried. I wanted to trust you. I thought you could get over this and help me deal with this mess you created, but you’re not. And I can’t do this if I constantly have to wonder what’ll happen the next time you’re giving in to your addiction.” He made the mistake of glancing to the side and was met with an expression so full of hurt it hurt him right back. So he looked at the street again and kept talking. “I don’t blame you, Sam. You’re a junkie, and junkies do stupid shit. But that means I can’t trust you. I’ve been giving you so many chances, and you’ve always let me down. It’s time for me to learn my lesson. This, all this, it’s too important for me to put the world at risk just to protect your feelings. I need to know you’ve got my back. And today, you didn’t.”
Sam didn’t say anything in reply. He had to see that it would be pointless, and Dean felt grim satisfaction at that. It didn’t lessen his anger and disappointment, though. (Except it wasn’t disappointment, not really, because he had known this would happen, had been waiting for it.) Still, he had expected his brother to plead with him, ask for another chance, ask Dean to stay with him (like he did last time). But the only thing he heard from Sam was a strangled breath and some coughs, like he had tried to swallow a sob and was choking on it. Or like he was fife years old and tried to distract Dean or dad from being angry with him by making them feel sorry. (Always worked with Dean. Never worked with dad.)
Dean refused to so much as look at him. Sam eventually fell silent, and they didn’t speak for a long time. Dean waited for it. Waited for Sam to utter his apology, to come up with an excuse, to present his reasons why they shouldn’t separate. That he didn’t, that he let Dean go this easily, that stung a little, but… well. Dean wanted to separate. He wouldn’t complain about Sam not making it harder.
And it wasn’t like he’d let Sam be on his own in the cold, evil world, though God knew after all the shit he’d given Dean, he deserved it. But there was this cursed part in Dean that still felt responsible for his little brother, and the cold, evil world would probably kill him. Temporarily. Worse, it would drive him to Lucifer. And Dean would never let that happen.
Another part of him already hated himself for knowing that he would check up on Sam in a week, a month at the latest. Forever his brother’s slave. He wouldn’t take him back, of course, he’d just check to see if he was doing okay and didn’t feel the need to have the world toasted yet. Maybe he could leave him at Bobby’s until this was all over, where someone would have an eye on him.
In the end, Dean had to admit that he couldn’t bear the thought of Sam all on his own. Because he didn’t trust the world not to destroy his brother, and because he didn’t trust his brother not to destroy the world.
About half an hour later, Sam coughed again, wheezing and painful sounding. Dean’s hands were wrapped around the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white, while he refused to look at his brother. The miles went by too fast and too slow at once, and neither of them spoke.
-
It was more than three hours into the drive that the silence became too much for Dean to bear. They had been driving for days on end with hardly a word being spoken before, but now the car was filled with wordless anger and hurt and it was grating on Dean’s nerves. The only sound Sam was making was the occasional low moan, early signs of the starting withdrawal. Damn, it was fast this time. Just how much had he drunk?
The sounds were half-suppressed, as if Sam didn’t want him to hear them. Didn’t want to let Dean hear this confirmation of how much Sam had fucked up again, or maybe he just didn’t want to admit that he was going into withdrawal because he didn’t want to be locked up to ride it out alone. Dean pressed his lips together and let his brother cling to the belief that he hadn’t noticed.
When he flipped open his phone and called Bobby, he did it because he had to anyway, but also because he wanted to talk, and because he wanted Sam to hear him talk.
“We’re about six hours from your place. Get the panic room ready,” he told their old friend. “Yes, he did it again.”
He heard the long, painful sigh on the other hand and was reminded that he wasn’t the only one Sam had let down. “What happened?”
“Town full of demons. Sam alone with the knife. You know how it goes.”
“No, I don’t. Sam’s faced countless demons without doing it. So what exactly happened?”
“I don’t know, Bobby. To be honest, I don’t really give a damn. So just, you know, get everything ready. And Bobby, you don’t need to set up a bed for me.” He snapped the phone shut before Bobby had a chance to reply.
Beside him, Sam remained silent.
Well, if he didn’t want to pester Dean with his excuses, all the better.
-
Five hours to the Singer Salvage Yard had them running low on gas, and Dean began looking for the next gas station.
“Gonna stop for gas soon,” he said. “If you need to take a leak, this is your last chance for the rest of the trip.”
Sam didn’t answer, and for the first time since the beginning of their ride, Dean looked at him, wanted to see if he was asleep.
Sam’s head had fallen forward, his chin resting on his chest, his long hair falling into his face. “Hey, Sam,” Dean snapped, roughly showing his brother’s shoulder. Sam’s head lolled to the side until it rested against the window, revealing his paper-white face and the blood that ran down his chin, dripping onto his shirt.
“Oh, fuck!” Dean yelled and nearly drove the impala into the creek beside the road.
-
The hardest part, later, when the impala had been dumped standing awkwardly over two spaces in the hospital parking lot and Sam had been rushed to surgery, was calling Bobby, and telling him just how much he had fucked this up. No, sorry, false alarm. Sammy didn’t drink demon blood, he was just bleeding to death internally and I kind of got that down wrong. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Bobby said he would be there in five hours. He needed more than eight, because Bobby was a cripple since he’d thought sacrificing himself for Dean was a good idea and needed someone to drive him. And that someone apparently kept to speed limits and needed a break every now and then. Dean wasn’t particularly eager to face the man, but after he found himself reaching instinctively for the amulet around his neck for the sixth time, only to remember that he’d dumped it in some motel waste bin and why, he found himself wishing for anything to keep him from thinking. Even if it was Bobby ripping his head off.
By the time Bobby arrived, Sam was out of surgery and Dean had been updated on his injuries. Broken ribs. Punctured lung. Tears in his spleen and kidney. All made worse by aggravating the wounds, by not keeping still, by sitting cramped in a car too small for his long legs. The concussion, cracked shin and broken arm didn’t even seem worth mentioning after that.
The doctor asked what had happened, and Dean could only shake his head. I don’t know. I wasn’t there, he never said anything.
When Bobby found him, Dean was sitting beside Sam’s bed, staring down at his pale, still brother without holding his hand. He didn’t acknowledge the other man’s presence, and until Bobby cleared his throat behind him, all they could hear was the comforting beeping of the heart monitor and the noise of the ventilator.
“Well?” Bobby finally said, and Dean still didn’t turn around.
“They removed a kidney,” he said. “And his spleen. Damaged beyond repair.”
“I heard.” Bobby rolled closer to have a better look at Sam and gave his limp hand a brief squeeze, the simple gesture showing how shaken he was. Bobby didn’t do hand holding, even less so than Dean. “It’ll be fine. The next time… when they bring him back, they’ll fix him up.”
The fact that they were counting on Sam dying sometime in the near future so he could come back all whole and healthy was so messed up that Dean nearly laughed out loud right there and then. Their lives were unique like that.
“What happened?” Bobby asked the dreaded question once again. “They say it looks like he was run over by a car.”
“I don’t know,” Dean had to admit once again. He stood and began to pace the room. “I wasn’t with him. He came too late to help me with the demon we were hunting, and he had a nosebleed, and I thought he’d used his powers again. When I saw the blood on his lips, I thought… Well.”
Bobby just looked up at him with exactly the kind of look on his face Dean had been dreading. He shook his head. “I don’t get you, boy. How did you get so messed up that you see your brother bleeding and automatically think the worst of him?”
Shame ran through Dean then, but not enough, not as much as he should be feeling. Not enough to make him forget the bitterness, the reason why it was so easy to think badly of Sam now.
“I’m sorry,” he said and meant it. God, he was sorry! So sorry. He’d failed, he was supposed to look after his brother and he’d failed. Had made it worse by not caring and not listening. But then, Sam never told him. Sam never gave him a chance not to end up feeling this way, and an ugly, despised part of Dean thought that maybe Sam had done this on purpose, had wanted Dean to hurt like Dean had hurt him. “I fucked up. I know.”
“Damn right, you did! Dammit, you used to get sick with worry when he had a sprained ankle. Sometimes I don’t even recognize you anymore, Dean.”
“That’s because I don’t recognize him anymore, Bobby,” Dean defended himself. Because yeah, he’d failed here, big time, but it wasn’t like Sam was entirely without blame. “There is a reason why I thought he’d snacked on a demon, after all. You know, that didn’t exactly come out of nowhere.” Bobby shook his head again, his face grim, but Dean wasn’t done. “After what happened with Famine, what was I supposed to think? What would you have thought?”
“I would have asked him if he was okay.”
“I did. He told me he’d bitten his tongue.” And he did laugh, there, because of how ridiculous that sounded now.
“Oh, right. Sam Winchester not telling anyone he’s hurt. I’m shocked.”
“You’re not with him all the time. You only see some glimpses of good little Sammy and can still pretend he’s the same boy you watched grow up. But I’m with him all the time. He doesn’t even talk to me anymore.”
“Do you talk to him?” Bobby asked back. “Anything beside empty accusations, I mean?”
“He’s started the apocalypse, Bobby. I wouldn’t call any of those accusations empty.”
“Your brother tried to stop it. When will you finally get that he didn’t want this to happen?”
“Doesn’t matter. It happened, and it wouldn’t have if he’d listened to me and not to that demon bitch! If he hadn’t lied to me, and thought he knew so much better than everyone else, a lot of people wouldn’t have died. Jo and Ellen wouldn’t have died!” And Dean was pissed. He was worried and ashamed and that made him even more pissed, but even as his anger boiled, he found himself glad that his brother was still out and hadn’t heard that.
If the look on Bobby’s face was anything to go by, he thought the same.
“I don’t think we should continue this conversation,” he said lowly.
Dean ran a hand over his face. “Look, I’m sorry. That came out wrong. But the thing is, my own failure aside, I can’t rely on him anymore, and I can’t trust him. And as long as I can’t, there is no way to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
“Yes, there is. You could try having a little faith in your brother, for starters.”
“Easier said than done,” Dean said tiredly. He sat down in his chair again, in a way that pulled on the stitches he’d gotten for the wounds in his chest while Sam was in surgery. The wounds he had lamented Sam not noticing. Funny, that.
But he, at least, had bled on the outside. Where people could see it.
“It’s what you do,” Bobby said, a little softer. “You’re his big brother, after all. Look, I know this is all hard for you, but it won’t help you at all if you keep pushing your brother away. He can help you through it.”
“Yeah,” Dean muttered. “Yeah, right. I’ll think about it.”
Bobby knew him far too well, knew Dean had given in far too quickly. This wasn’t Dean thinking about his words, this was Dean wanting to be left alone.
Thankfully, Bobby accepted this, and with a last long look at Sam he rolled out of the room.
-
Dean was there when Sam woke up, of course. It was another day before they had a conversation that went beyond acknowledging the other’s presence.
“Why didn’t you say anything, Sam?” This first words Dean spoke to his brother were accusing, reflecting the worry and anger of the last days. “If you’re hurt that bad you fucking tell me!”
Sam just blinked at him. He looked so tired, so exhausted it made Dean’s heart ache, and his voice was weak and rough from pain and the tube that had only recently been removed from his throat. “I didn’t think it was that bad.”
“That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard,” Dean said, almost fondly. “You were coughing blood, for God’s sake!”
The movement of Sam’s shoulders might have been a shrug, had he not been so weak. “Didn’t matter. I thought…” He coughed, and Dean almost moved, ready to place the oxygen mask back over his face. But the coughing stopped and Sam wasn’t finished yet. “I thought, if I died, I though, he’d just bring me back and we’d get spared all this hospital bullshit.”
“God, Sammy!” Dean groaned, because thinking like that - it was just wrong, even for their standards.
“Not that I thought I would die. Thought it’d go away by itself. Not really worth bothering you with, if it had.”
Sam was still so hurt and weak that it took him forever to get the words out. Long enough for Dean to contemplate how to Sam apparently only a lethal injury was an injury worth mentioning. If even that.
“Hey, Dean,” Sam said. Dean looked at him. “We don’t have time for this,” Sam said. “It’ll be weeks before I can hunt again,” Sam said, and Dean cut him off before he could say anything more.
“No.”
“Think about it. It sucks, what they’re doing to us. But we could make the best of it. Use it to our benefit.” Sammy, always so pragmatic.
Dean felt vaguely sick.
“You’re not going to die to make things easier for us. You’re not going to die, Sammy! What if they grow tired of bringing you back? What if they dump you to hell for a few years before they revive you? No way! You’re doing this the normal way. I don’t care how long it takes.”
Sam studied his face though bruised looking, red-rimmed eyes, as if searching for something, and maybe he almost smiled, for whatever reason. “And what will you do while I’m stuck here?”
There it was, the big question Dean had refused to think about for the past days. “I guess,” he said, making his decision, “I guess I’ll be stuck here, too. Gotta keep an eye on you so you don’t do anything stupid.” He became aware of how that sounded, of how Sam could take it, so he reached out and touched his brother for the first time since coming here, brushed the hair out of his face. “Whatever happens, I’m not gonna let you die. Not ever. I’m not going to kill you. So don’t ask that of me again!” Sam wasn’t making it easy for Dean to love him, but the thought of him dying by his hands was making Dean physically sick. He leaned closer. “I won’t kill you!” he promised.
Sam just blinked at him slowly before letting his eyes close. He had to know as well as his brother that one day Michael and Lucifer might leave Dean no other choice.
November 16, 2010
A/N: A note on the title: It's a rough translation of a line from the German song "Du Erkennst Mich Nicht Wieder" ("You Don't Recognize Me Anymore") by Wir Sind Helden.
Ich erkenn hier nichts wieder
(I don't recognize anything around here)
Alles müde und alt
(Everything's tired and old)
Und ich male uns beide
(And I draw the two of us)
Als Umriss aus Kreide
(As chalk outlines)
Auf den Asphalt
(On the asphalt)