Resurrection
Title: Resurrection
Summary: This is a take on Sam's return from Hell based on a prompt from ottermusprime
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers through S5. Possible triggering content (emaciated Sam)
Author's Note: Go ahead and read pre-Sam/Cas into this if you want. I didn't write it that way, but I've boarded the ship since I wrote this :)
Sam comes back weak and emaciated, borne across Castiel’s arms, unable to stand or even sit up on his own, and Dean reaches out - “Give him to me” - and has his exhausted, fragile brother in his arms, close against him, before his mind has even processed the central fact that Sammy is here.
He looks up at Cas. The angel is breathing harshly, one hand on his abdomen, and when he pulls it away it’s covered in blood.
“Cas?” Dean spares him a glance.
The angel shakes his head, waves his hand toward Sam, and thank god thank god because Dean is already bending instinctively around the wasted form of his baby brother, shielding him from a threat that’s no longer there. “SammySammySammy talk to me.”
Sam’s eyelids flutter, and his head curls in toward Dean, but he doesn’t speak.
He’s so light. He’s insubstantial.
Dean feels tears prick at the backs of his eyes. “What happened?”
He’s not expecting an answer, so Castiel’s voice takes him by surprise. “He jumped in, Dean. His body was in hell. Not just his soul. And they didn’t feed him.
“The whole time?” He’s barely making a sound, it’s so hard to get words out.
Cas shakes his head. “I don’t know. They didn’t have to. It’s not like he could die.”
But he could starve.
“He needs…what does he need? He needs an IV. Oh, god.”
***
Twenty minutes later, Sam’s plugged into a saline drip and Dean’s sitting there holding his hand. “He doesn’t look alive, Cas.”
Cas wraps gauze around his own torso, carefully. “He is.”
Dean reaches and feels Sam’s fluttering pulse for the fifth or sixth time. He’s losing track. That gentle, fragile beatbeat against his fingers, soft and irregular, Dean could just curl up beside his brother and feel that pulse for hours. He’s alive. He’s alive.
His skin is pale and papery. His breathing is so, so shallow, and Dean can count his ribs as his chest rises and falls. He is sick, broken, almost destroyed. Almost.
Come back to me.
Cas sits down beside Dean and grips his shoulder reassuringly and Dean watches the tiny movements of his brother’s lungs expanding and contracting and waits.
***
Sam is awkward sticks of limbs, knobby joints and hollowed out cheeks, but when he opens his eyes that frightened flash of hazel is exactly the same.
He strains for a minute, like he’s trying to move (and he’s pulling away from Dean, which hurts so goddamn much, Sammy, shh, come here), but he’s too weak and he knows it. The effort is halfhearted and he abandons it much too quickly.
Dean lifts his brother’s hand in both of his own. Sam’s hands are strong and dexterous in his memory, the hands of a hunter, of a hero. Now they’re helpless little things, dwarfed in Dean’s grip, and he cradles the hand gently. He’s so afraid it will break in his grip. “Hey, Sammy.”
Sam opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a soft whimper.
“Hey, don’t talk.” Dean pushes the hair out of Sam’s eyes. “That’s better, huh? There you are.”
Sam’s eyebrows knit together with confusion.
“Cas went and got you, Sammy,” Dean whispers. “Brought you back home safe and sound, kid.” He swallows. “You’re pretty sick right now. That’s what you’re feeling. We’re going to get you better. It’s okay.”
Sam’s breaths are shallow and heaving. His eyes go to Cas, standing off to the side, and something unfamiliar flits across his features.
Dean moves over to sit on the bed beside him and scoops Sam into his arms as easily as he did when Sam was six years old. Sam’s jutting hipbone presses into his stomach, and he draws the blanket up around his brother. “Rest. Just rest, okay? You don’t have to worry about anything right now. I’m gonna take care of you.”
Sam’s eyes slip closed, his head lolls against Dean’s neck, and apparently that’s it for now.
Dean looks up at Cas. “He’s scared. Cas, he’s scared, can’t you help?” Immediately he feels awful, because of course Cas just has helped, Cas has been to hell and back to help Sam, Cas is bleeding from a stab wound that shows no sign of stopping, and how can you ask him for more right now?
But Sammy.
So Dean doesn’t redact his request, doesn’t look away from the angel’s face, and Cas reaches out and touches Sam’s forehead, smoothing away worry lines under his hand.
“He’ll sleep peacefully,” Cas says.
***
Dean holds Sam for nearly an hour, just watching him. The thought of letting him go, even to walk across the room, is painful.
Finally, when it seems Sam is cocooned so deeply in sleep that nothing can touch him, he shifts his wasted brother back onto the mattress and approaches Cas. “Let me see that.”
Cas touches the bandage. “It’s all right.”
“Come on, show me.”
Cas unwinds the gauze. The bleeding hasn’t stopped, but it’s slowing. “Did Lucifer…”
He shakes his head. “Michael.”
Fuck, Michael. Dean’s thrown. He had honestly forgotten Michael was down there. “What…what was it like?”
Cas looks up at him. “It was a cage.”
“Just…a cage?”
“A cage with two angry archangels and the man who locked them in a pit.” Cas furrows his brow. “You’ve seen archangels, Dean. You know what their vengeance is like.”
Dean knows that their vengeance is swift.
They had Sammy (sandy hair, laughing face, chews up new languages and spits them back out like their his own and the cool hands on his brow when he fought off infections from lacerations and fevers) for unthinkable amounts of time. Nothing was swift.
Sammy is a pile of bones on a hotel bed, jesus.
What did those bastards do to my brother?
***
The part of Dean that’s been taking care of Sam all his life knows that healing’s going to be gradual, that he can’t rush it. But that part of him sits right up against the part that aches at the sight of Sammy all sick and skeletal and wants to feed him fourteen steaks and make him better now, dammit.
It is so, so hard to be patient. So hard to take his time.
He sits against the headboard, one arm on either side of Sam, and lets him rest against his chest. Sam can support his own head for only a few seconds, and then it drops into Dean as though pulled by gravity. He’s shivering with cold and Dean can feel his bones shifting under his skin.
He holds a bowl of broth in one hand - just a touch above room temperature, so it’ll be warm to his shivering mess of a brother, but not hot, nothing too extreme. With his other hand he carefully spoons up a small amount and brings it to Sam’s chapped lips.
Sam doesn’t respond.
Dean rests the spoon on his bottom lip, seeking entrance. “Open up, Sammy, come on baby.” He’s forcibly reminded for a moment of actual-baby Sammy, chubby and bright-eyed and laughing, how he’d turn away when Dean tried to feed him pureed carrots on that little baby spoon, and Mom (Mommy) would laugh and mess up his hair and say “My Sammy’s such a little joker.”
Sam always ate for Mom, every damn time.
“My Sammy,” Dean whispers, running the backs of his fingers along Sam’s cheek. He traces under Sam’s bottom lip. “Come on, dinnertime.”
Without opening his eyes, Sam lets his mouth drop open just a little. Just enough. Dean works the spoon between his lips and Sam’s mouth closes on it instinctively, and then Dean feels the tug of him swallowing the broth.
His eyes open wide and he gasps.
Suddenly he’s crying, doubled over on himself, deep, heaving sobs that wrack his body, and Dean puts the soup aside and holds him so close he’s worried Sam might break, Sam’s fragile, malnourished bones might snap under the pressure of his embrace, but goddamn it Sammy’s crying and what else can I fucking do.
Sam heaves into his neck, shaking, and Dean rubs circles on his back heyheyhey calm down and feels lost, scared, helpless, Sammy is so fucking sick.
“Too much?” He whispers, petting Sam’s hair.
Sam shakes his head and then he speaks, the first words he’s spoken since Cas brought him back, and his voice is rough and pained and small, but alive. “It was so good. I forgot how…it was so good. Can I have more? Please?” His voice breaks helplessly on the please, like he really thinks Dean’s going to deny him.
“Oh god, Sam, Sammy." Dean's short of breath and maybe crying too, he doesn't care if he is or not. "You can have all you want.” He ladles spoons of broth into his brother’s mouth as quickly as he can, feeling Sam swallow again and again against him, feeling Sam take nourishment and be filled, feeling overcome with relief and hope because Sammy is eating and Sammy is going to get stronger. For a moment the horror of seeing his brother wasted away to almost nothing clears, and Dean is certain that everything's going to get better, that Sammy's going to be okay.
The bowl’s only half empty when Sam sags into sleep, but that’s fine. Dean sets it aside, whispers, “I love you, you fucking kid, you fucking hero,” and rolls them sideways to lie down, Sam cradled in his arms.
***
“Is he dreaming?”
Cas closes his eyes for a minute. “Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“It isn’t anything.”
“Tell me, Cas.”
“Just images.” He pauses. “Colors. Sounds.”
“Yeah?” Dean touches his fingertips to Sam’s temple, wondering.
“This is how Sam usually dreams,” Cas says. “He gives it meaning after he wakes up.”
“He does?” How can there still be so much he doesn’t know about Sam?
“Blues and greys,” Cas says. “Gunsmoke. He’s happy.”
***
He wakes up to Sam stirring in his arms, and Sam looks up at him and says “Hey, Dean,” and Dean could fucking kiss him.
“Hey, kid. You feeling better?”
“I’m…” Sam closes his eyes for a minute. “I’m…god.”
“You’re what, Sammy?” Dean leans in to hear.
Sam swallows. “I’m alive. Right?”
Dean can’t speak. He nods and pulls Sam into his chest.
“I’m home?”
“You’re home, Sam. It’s over.”
“How?”
“Magic,” Dean whispers.
***
Sam’s sleeping probably twenty hours a day, long stretches of hard, exhausted slumber broken by brief periods of drowsy wakefulness. When Sam sleeps, Dean paces and looks up foods on the internet and makes shopping lists and sends Cas out to get them.
and when he’s awake Dean holds him and talks to him and gives him sips of Gatorade and bowls of broth.
He’s taking a brief respite, sprawled across his own bed and dozing lightly in case Sam needs him, when Cas returns from the latest grocery run. “Good, you’re sleeping.”
“I can get up.” Dean struggles to sit upright. His muscles are limp with exhaustion.
“Do you want me to help with this?” Cas asks, holding up a spoon and a pack of yogurt for Sam. “You should try to get some more sleep.”
That sounds amazing. “Can you just…can you just not touch him?”
“Of course,” Cas says quietly, without asking questions. He perches on the bed beside Sam and gives him slow bites until Sam is heavy-lidded and content, and Dean watches through half-open eyes and forces himself to stay awake until he sees Sam’s breathing even out.
***
Dean loses track of time. Has it been a week? Two?
Sam’s got some color in his cheeks, some brightness in his eyes. Cas gets a hard plastic cup with a straw and Dean fills it with Gatorade, and Sam holds it and curls himself around it and drinks.
He gets bad stomach cramps that keep him awake and he trembles with exertion in Dean’s arms, exhausted and frightened by the unfamiliar sensation of fullness. Cas extends a hand toward Sam’s abdomen, eyebrows raised, and Dean shakes his head and pulls Sam close to him. “Don’t touch him, Cas, don’t.”
There aren’t words to describe the injustice of what’s been done to Sam. Dean was supposed to protect him. All those years ago, Dad trusted Dean to carry Sam out of the fire, and the fire keeps nipping at him and scorching him and sucking him back in, and so now Dean will be a shield for his brother, Dean will surround him and defend him and nothing is ever going to touch Sammy again.
***
Three days later, Dean’s watching a basketball game on mute when Sam cries out in his sleep and his face contorts into something scarred and terrified and oh jesus, Sam.
Cas is trembling in periphery, murmuring ”blackredblack sharp sharp vinegar acid poison tearing” and Dean can’t listen, Dean tunes him out and cups Sam’s face, holds his shoulder steady. “Hey. Hey.”
Sam makes a noise that’s part exhale and part cry.
“Sam, wake up!”
“Yeah,” Sam gasps, but doesn’t open his eyes. He’s breathing hard.
“You okay in there?”
“Almost.” He whimpers again and now Dean does look up at Cas, desperate, confused.
Cas is sweating. “He knows - “ He pauses to breathe. “He knows it’s a dream. He’s trying to wake up.”
So Dean bends over his brother and whispers, “That’s it, Sam, wake up, come on back,” reeling him in with a slowly circling hand on his back, until finally Sam jolts awake with a gasp and rolls onto his back, gazing up at Dean like he’s never seen him before, confusion and betrayal warring across his features.
“What, Sam?” Dean whispers, and at the same time Cas speaks over him: “No.”
He turns. Cas is standing behind him, looking at Sam almost tenderly. “It’s not like that anymore. Everyone wants to help you get better.”
“Not like what?” Dean looks from Cas to Sam and back so quickly his neck hurts. “What is he…what are you…Cas?”
Cas looks down. “They used to poison him. Feed him things that made him violently ill, so he’d think he was getting better, so he’d feel hopeful.”
“Oh Sam…” Dean rests a hand on his brother’s chest and feels the etchings of protective sigils on his ribs like reading Sam is safe in Braille. He lets his fingers run over and over the birdlike bones. Sam is safe. Sam is safe.
And Sam’s saying “No, it’s okay, it’s okay,” like anything about this is okay, like it’s not fucking horrible that he’s this strung out skeleton who no one took care of for a hundred years and now somehow he’s comforting Dean and Dean can’t stop shaking.
“Dean.” Strong hands on his shoulders. “You need to rest.”
“No…”
“I have Sam.”
Somehow he’s in his own bed, Cas looming protectively over him. “I’ve got him, Dean. You have to rest.”
He glances at Sam, and Sam nods. “It’s okay.”
He is so tired, he is so tired.
Consciousness slips into an inky black tidepool, cool and deep, and Dean mumbles “don’t touch him,” as he’s carried away.
The angel’s steady voice eases him into sleep - “I won’t.”
***
The next day, because the universe obviously has a sense of humor and Sam is its favorite punch line, Dean accidentally overfeeds him.
Probably it’s the bread. Probably it was too soon to give him solid foods.
It’s just that Sam is so strong. It’s just that Dean is so eager to see him better, to see him sitting up on his own and laughing and making jokes and being happy and whole. It’s just that every time he holds his brother and feels the individual bones of his spine pressing against his own body, he feels like he’s been hit in the stomach with a bat.
It’s just that he was supposed to take care of Sam.
They’re on the floor of the bathroom and Sam’s shivering against the cold tiles and crying because he’s so scared, because he’s already lost several days’ worth of food and his stomach’s still in revolt. Dean holds him upright - he can hold Sam in one arm, one arm wrapped all the way around that tiny frame, and he likes that Sam fits so snugly against him, and he fucking hates himself for liking it.
Sam heaves, convulses, and Dean holds him over the toilet bowl and reaches around with his other hand to hold the hair out of Sam’s face and listens to him throwing up and sobbing. It hurts. So fucking much.
“Just a setback,” Dean whispers, rubbing his back gently, feeling his shoulder blades shift as he gasps for breath. “Just a setback, Sammy, you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re going to be fine.”
“No, I don’t want…”
He gags again and Dean pushes his fingers into his hair. “Deep breaths, Sam. Try to hang onto some of it. You need it.”
Sam nods hard, turns and buries his face in Dean’s neck and breathes and breathes.
“Good boy,” Dean whispers. “Good job. You can do it.”
But he can’t, it turns out, because a minute later he’s spinning away from Dean. He flings himself back at the toilet, and he hits it too hard -shit - and Dean feels the crack of ribs against porcelain.
Sam’s sobs turn harsh and desperate and sharp, that cry that meant pain when he was a baby, that meant he wouldn’t cry himself to sleep, that meant Dean should go ahead and get his shoes on because it was time to go to the hospital, and he feels the shift of fractured bones under his fingers.
***
By the time they get to the hospital, Sam’s calm. He’s clearly still in pain - his face twists when Dean lifts him out of the backseat of the car (sorry, sorry, Sammy) - but he’s not crying and his breathing is ragged but quiet.
Dean settles into a chair and just holds Sam on his lap, crosswise so Sam can lean into his shoulder and not have to look at anyone, because even though Dean’s got him wrapped protectively in blankets, it’s apparent how scary-thin he is, and people are staring. Dean kind of wonders what they think Sam’s here for. He kind of doesn’t care.
“Does it hurt?” he asks Sam, quietly.
Sam talks into his shoulder. “It’s okay.” Broken ribs are nothing new for Sam.
Then the doctor comes for them and Dean feels suddenly panicky because this guy’s going to be looking at Sam and judging him, and he gives them a strange look when Dean rises from the chair with Sam still in his arms, a why didn’t you bring him in a lot sooner? sort of look, and so Dean situates his brother on the examination table and meets his eyes and smiles a little and then pulls the doctor out into the hall to give him the situation.
“He’s bad,” Dean says without preamble. “We know. We know it’s bad. I’m trying to help him get some weight back, but it’s slow and he’s tired and it was a rough day and he fractured a couple of ribs so I had to bring him in.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was…kidnapped. Tortured. What they did to him - I can’t even imagine. He can’t talk about it. He’s been doing pretty well, considering I just got him back.”
“He looks extremely malnourished.”
“Yeah. They - he-no one was feeding him”
“Jesus.” The doctor whistles, long and low. “And you said…his ribs?”
“That happened today.” Dean ducks his head, ashamed. On my watch.
“What’s he been eating?”
“Soft foods. Liquids.”
The doctor nods. “Okay, good, that’s right.”
They go back into the examination room and Sam’s asleep on the table. He wakes with a cry midway through Dean peeling him out of his shirt, and Dean stops and soothes him - “Shh, Sam, we’re at the hospital, remember?” and Sam nods and nods like he’s convincing himself.
Dean’s stomach contracts unpleasantly as he works the shirt over Sam’s head. His brother’s torso is a mess of bruises. He holds Sam’s head in his lap while the doctor pokes at him gently and confirms three fractures. Sam is stoic throughout. “So brave,” Dean whispers, petting his hair. “So fucking brave, Sammy.”
The doctor wraps his ribs and gives them vitamins and supplements and nutrition bars and says he’s very sorry but Sam can’t have any drugs while his weight’s so low, which leads Sam to ask “How low?” and fuck you both very much, Dean does not want to assign a fucking number to this.
But the doctor just smiles at them - a fucking nice doctor, now Dean’s seen everything - and says, “I’ll just be a lot happier when you’ve put on about fifty pounds, so go home and eat lots of steaks and cakes, okay?" And Sam actually smiles.
***
Sam rides shotgun on the way home, still bundled in his blanket, but without his shirt because it hurts him to move his arms much. He’s quiet.
“Doing all right?” Dean asks.
Sam nods against the seat. “I just want to feel better.”
“Shit, Sam, I know. Me too.”
Sam slides his hand across the seat and takes Dean’s wrist in his feather light grip, and Dean would swear he can feel the blood rushing under his brother’s skin. “Can I tell you a thing?”
“A thing?”
“About…you know.”
“Oh. Yeah, Sam, god yeah.”
Sam takes a deep breath and swallows three or four times and then says in a rush, “they carved me up and reached into me and took out pieces and made me eat and I was so hungry, I was so fucking hungry I had to, I had to, I tried and they laughed at me and painted sigils with my blood on each other’s faces and I was sicksicksick, I’m sorry, Dean, it’s horrible, you shouldn’t have to know, but I can’t, I can’t…”
Dean pulls over so fast the car skids and gets his arms around his little brother. “Sam. Sam. Shhh.”
“They made me.” Sam’s shaking. “They made me, I had to.”
“I know.” He buries his face in Sam’s hair for a minute. “It’s over, Sammy.”
“No steaks,” Sam whimpers. “No steaks no steaks.”
Dean swallows and nods. “Deal.”
***
Cas is waiting for them back at the motel, standing in the middle of the room and looking lost, and when he sees them he runs over and his hands are all over Sam and that is completely unacceptable, no one touches Sammy. He pulls Sam away, and Cas looks hurt and angry. “Dean, where were you? Sam.”
“Hospital. Don’t touch my brother.”
“It’s okay, Dean,” Sam says quietly.
“I came back here and you were gone. Do you know what that’s like?” Cas sounds dangerous.
Dean’s really not feeling better about letting him near Sam.
“You’re away all the time.”
“But I know where you are!” Cas rakes a hand through his hair, and it strikes Dean that he’s never looked this human. “I brought him back from the cage, Dean, I…I have to know where he is. I have to.”
Slowly, as though it’s costing him great effort, Sam lifts an arm towards Cas. “I’m sorry.” He takes the angel’s arm. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”
Cas deflates a little, panic ebbing away, and he moves in close and tangles his arms with Dean’s in some incomprehensible way so they’re both holding Sam, so they’re a cradle for their fallen soldier, and Dean feels the very familiar pooling of weight and heaviness as his brother falls asleep in his embrace.
Summary: This is a take on Sam's return from Hell based on a prompt from ottermusprime
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers through S5. Possible triggering content (emaciated Sam)
Author's Note: Go ahead and read pre-Sam/Cas into this if you want. I didn't write it that way, but I've boarded the ship since I wrote this :)
Sam comes back weak and emaciated, borne across Castiel’s arms, unable to stand or even sit up on his own, and Dean reaches out - “Give him to me” - and has his exhausted, fragile brother in his arms, close against him, before his mind has even processed the central fact that Sammy is here.
He looks up at Cas. The angel is breathing harshly, one hand on his abdomen, and when he pulls it away it’s covered in blood.
“Cas?” Dean spares him a glance.
The angel shakes his head, waves his hand toward Sam, and thank god thank god because Dean is already bending instinctively around the wasted form of his baby brother, shielding him from a threat that’s no longer there. “SammySammySammy talk to me.”
Sam’s eyelids flutter, and his head curls in toward Dean, but he doesn’t speak.
He’s so light. He’s insubstantial.
Dean feels tears prick at the backs of his eyes. “What happened?”
He’s not expecting an answer, so Castiel’s voice takes him by surprise. “He jumped in, Dean. His body was in hell. Not just his soul. And they didn’t feed him.
“The whole time?” He’s barely making a sound, it’s so hard to get words out.
Cas shakes his head. “I don’t know. They didn’t have to. It’s not like he could die.”
But he could starve.
“He needs…what does he need? He needs an IV. Oh, god.”
***
Twenty minutes later, Sam’s plugged into a saline drip and Dean’s sitting there holding his hand. “He doesn’t look alive, Cas.”
Cas wraps gauze around his own torso, carefully. “He is.”
Dean reaches and feels Sam’s fluttering pulse for the fifth or sixth time. He’s losing track. That gentle, fragile beatbeat against his fingers, soft and irregular, Dean could just curl up beside his brother and feel that pulse for hours. He’s alive. He’s alive.
His skin is pale and papery. His breathing is so, so shallow, and Dean can count his ribs as his chest rises and falls. He is sick, broken, almost destroyed. Almost.
Come back to me.
Cas sits down beside Dean and grips his shoulder reassuringly and Dean watches the tiny movements of his brother’s lungs expanding and contracting and waits.
***
Sam is awkward sticks of limbs, knobby joints and hollowed out cheeks, but when he opens his eyes that frightened flash of hazel is exactly the same.
He strains for a minute, like he’s trying to move (and he’s pulling away from Dean, which hurts so goddamn much, Sammy, shh, come here), but he’s too weak and he knows it. The effort is halfhearted and he abandons it much too quickly.
Dean lifts his brother’s hand in both of his own. Sam’s hands are strong and dexterous in his memory, the hands of a hunter, of a hero. Now they’re helpless little things, dwarfed in Dean’s grip, and he cradles the hand gently. He’s so afraid it will break in his grip. “Hey, Sammy.”
Sam opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a soft whimper.
“Hey, don’t talk.” Dean pushes the hair out of Sam’s eyes. “That’s better, huh? There you are.”
Sam’s eyebrows knit together with confusion.
“Cas went and got you, Sammy,” Dean whispers. “Brought you back home safe and sound, kid.” He swallows. “You’re pretty sick right now. That’s what you’re feeling. We’re going to get you better. It’s okay.”
Sam’s breaths are shallow and heaving. His eyes go to Cas, standing off to the side, and something unfamiliar flits across his features.
Dean moves over to sit on the bed beside him and scoops Sam into his arms as easily as he did when Sam was six years old. Sam’s jutting hipbone presses into his stomach, and he draws the blanket up around his brother. “Rest. Just rest, okay? You don’t have to worry about anything right now. I’m gonna take care of you.”
Sam’s eyes slip closed, his head lolls against Dean’s neck, and apparently that’s it for now.
Dean looks up at Cas. “He’s scared. Cas, he’s scared, can’t you help?” Immediately he feels awful, because of course Cas just has helped, Cas has been to hell and back to help Sam, Cas is bleeding from a stab wound that shows no sign of stopping, and how can you ask him for more right now?
But Sammy.
So Dean doesn’t redact his request, doesn’t look away from the angel’s face, and Cas reaches out and touches Sam’s forehead, smoothing away worry lines under his hand.
“He’ll sleep peacefully,” Cas says.
***
Dean holds Sam for nearly an hour, just watching him. The thought of letting him go, even to walk across the room, is painful.
Finally, when it seems Sam is cocooned so deeply in sleep that nothing can touch him, he shifts his wasted brother back onto the mattress and approaches Cas. “Let me see that.”
Cas touches the bandage. “It’s all right.”
“Come on, show me.”
Cas unwinds the gauze. The bleeding hasn’t stopped, but it’s slowing. “Did Lucifer…”
He shakes his head. “Michael.”
Fuck, Michael. Dean’s thrown. He had honestly forgotten Michael was down there. “What…what was it like?”
Cas looks up at him. “It was a cage.”
“Just…a cage?”
“A cage with two angry archangels and the man who locked them in a pit.” Cas furrows his brow. “You’ve seen archangels, Dean. You know what their vengeance is like.”
Dean knows that their vengeance is swift.
They had Sammy (sandy hair, laughing face, chews up new languages and spits them back out like their his own and the cool hands on his brow when he fought off infections from lacerations and fevers) for unthinkable amounts of time. Nothing was swift.
Sammy is a pile of bones on a hotel bed, jesus.
What did those bastards do to my brother?
***
The part of Dean that’s been taking care of Sam all his life knows that healing’s going to be gradual, that he can’t rush it. But that part of him sits right up against the part that aches at the sight of Sammy all sick and skeletal and wants to feed him fourteen steaks and make him better now, dammit.
It is so, so hard to be patient. So hard to take his time.
He sits against the headboard, one arm on either side of Sam, and lets him rest against his chest. Sam can support his own head for only a few seconds, and then it drops into Dean as though pulled by gravity. He’s shivering with cold and Dean can feel his bones shifting under his skin.
He holds a bowl of broth in one hand - just a touch above room temperature, so it’ll be warm to his shivering mess of a brother, but not hot, nothing too extreme. With his other hand he carefully spoons up a small amount and brings it to Sam’s chapped lips.
Sam doesn’t respond.
Dean rests the spoon on his bottom lip, seeking entrance. “Open up, Sammy, come on baby.” He’s forcibly reminded for a moment of actual-baby Sammy, chubby and bright-eyed and laughing, how he’d turn away when Dean tried to feed him pureed carrots on that little baby spoon, and Mom (Mommy) would laugh and mess up his hair and say “My Sammy’s such a little joker.”
Sam always ate for Mom, every damn time.
“My Sammy,” Dean whispers, running the backs of his fingers along Sam’s cheek. He traces under Sam’s bottom lip. “Come on, dinnertime.”
Without opening his eyes, Sam lets his mouth drop open just a little. Just enough. Dean works the spoon between his lips and Sam’s mouth closes on it instinctively, and then Dean feels the tug of him swallowing the broth.
His eyes open wide and he gasps.
Suddenly he’s crying, doubled over on himself, deep, heaving sobs that wrack his body, and Dean puts the soup aside and holds him so close he’s worried Sam might break, Sam’s fragile, malnourished bones might snap under the pressure of his embrace, but goddamn it Sammy’s crying and what else can I fucking do.
Sam heaves into his neck, shaking, and Dean rubs circles on his back heyheyhey calm down and feels lost, scared, helpless, Sammy is so fucking sick.
“Too much?” He whispers, petting Sam’s hair.
Sam shakes his head and then he speaks, the first words he’s spoken since Cas brought him back, and his voice is rough and pained and small, but alive. “It was so good. I forgot how…it was so good. Can I have more? Please?” His voice breaks helplessly on the please, like he really thinks Dean’s going to deny him.
“Oh god, Sam, Sammy." Dean's short of breath and maybe crying too, he doesn't care if he is or not. "You can have all you want.” He ladles spoons of broth into his brother’s mouth as quickly as he can, feeling Sam swallow again and again against him, feeling Sam take nourishment and be filled, feeling overcome with relief and hope because Sammy is eating and Sammy is going to get stronger. For a moment the horror of seeing his brother wasted away to almost nothing clears, and Dean is certain that everything's going to get better, that Sammy's going to be okay.
The bowl’s only half empty when Sam sags into sleep, but that’s fine. Dean sets it aside, whispers, “I love you, you fucking kid, you fucking hero,” and rolls them sideways to lie down, Sam cradled in his arms.
***
“Is he dreaming?”
Cas closes his eyes for a minute. “Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“It isn’t anything.”
“Tell me, Cas.”
“Just images.” He pauses. “Colors. Sounds.”
“Yeah?” Dean touches his fingertips to Sam’s temple, wondering.
“This is how Sam usually dreams,” Cas says. “He gives it meaning after he wakes up.”
“He does?” How can there still be so much he doesn’t know about Sam?
“Blues and greys,” Cas says. “Gunsmoke. He’s happy.”
***
He wakes up to Sam stirring in his arms, and Sam looks up at him and says “Hey, Dean,” and Dean could fucking kiss him.
“Hey, kid. You feeling better?”
“I’m…” Sam closes his eyes for a minute. “I’m…god.”
“You’re what, Sammy?” Dean leans in to hear.
Sam swallows. “I’m alive. Right?”
Dean can’t speak. He nods and pulls Sam into his chest.
“I’m home?”
“You’re home, Sam. It’s over.”
“How?”
“Magic,” Dean whispers.
***
Sam’s sleeping probably twenty hours a day, long stretches of hard, exhausted slumber broken by brief periods of drowsy wakefulness. When Sam sleeps, Dean paces and looks up foods on the internet and makes shopping lists and sends Cas out to get them.
and when he’s awake Dean holds him and talks to him and gives him sips of Gatorade and bowls of broth.
He’s taking a brief respite, sprawled across his own bed and dozing lightly in case Sam needs him, when Cas returns from the latest grocery run. “Good, you’re sleeping.”
“I can get up.” Dean struggles to sit upright. His muscles are limp with exhaustion.
“Do you want me to help with this?” Cas asks, holding up a spoon and a pack of yogurt for Sam. “You should try to get some more sleep.”
That sounds amazing. “Can you just…can you just not touch him?”
“Of course,” Cas says quietly, without asking questions. He perches on the bed beside Sam and gives him slow bites until Sam is heavy-lidded and content, and Dean watches through half-open eyes and forces himself to stay awake until he sees Sam’s breathing even out.
***
Dean loses track of time. Has it been a week? Two?
Sam’s got some color in his cheeks, some brightness in his eyes. Cas gets a hard plastic cup with a straw and Dean fills it with Gatorade, and Sam holds it and curls himself around it and drinks.
He gets bad stomach cramps that keep him awake and he trembles with exertion in Dean’s arms, exhausted and frightened by the unfamiliar sensation of fullness. Cas extends a hand toward Sam’s abdomen, eyebrows raised, and Dean shakes his head and pulls Sam close to him. “Don’t touch him, Cas, don’t.”
There aren’t words to describe the injustice of what’s been done to Sam. Dean was supposed to protect him. All those years ago, Dad trusted Dean to carry Sam out of the fire, and the fire keeps nipping at him and scorching him and sucking him back in, and so now Dean will be a shield for his brother, Dean will surround him and defend him and nothing is ever going to touch Sammy again.
***
Three days later, Dean’s watching a basketball game on mute when Sam cries out in his sleep and his face contorts into something scarred and terrified and oh jesus, Sam.
Cas is trembling in periphery, murmuring ”blackredblack sharp sharp vinegar acid poison tearing” and Dean can’t listen, Dean tunes him out and cups Sam’s face, holds his shoulder steady. “Hey. Hey.”
Sam makes a noise that’s part exhale and part cry.
“Sam, wake up!”
“Yeah,” Sam gasps, but doesn’t open his eyes. He’s breathing hard.
“You okay in there?”
“Almost.” He whimpers again and now Dean does look up at Cas, desperate, confused.
Cas is sweating. “He knows - “ He pauses to breathe. “He knows it’s a dream. He’s trying to wake up.”
So Dean bends over his brother and whispers, “That’s it, Sam, wake up, come on back,” reeling him in with a slowly circling hand on his back, until finally Sam jolts awake with a gasp and rolls onto his back, gazing up at Dean like he’s never seen him before, confusion and betrayal warring across his features.
“What, Sam?” Dean whispers, and at the same time Cas speaks over him: “No.”
He turns. Cas is standing behind him, looking at Sam almost tenderly. “It’s not like that anymore. Everyone wants to help you get better.”
“Not like what?” Dean looks from Cas to Sam and back so quickly his neck hurts. “What is he…what are you…Cas?”
Cas looks down. “They used to poison him. Feed him things that made him violently ill, so he’d think he was getting better, so he’d feel hopeful.”
“Oh Sam…” Dean rests a hand on his brother’s chest and feels the etchings of protective sigils on his ribs like reading Sam is safe in Braille. He lets his fingers run over and over the birdlike bones. Sam is safe. Sam is safe.
And Sam’s saying “No, it’s okay, it’s okay,” like anything about this is okay, like it’s not fucking horrible that he’s this strung out skeleton who no one took care of for a hundred years and now somehow he’s comforting Dean and Dean can’t stop shaking.
“Dean.” Strong hands on his shoulders. “You need to rest.”
“No…”
“I have Sam.”
Somehow he’s in his own bed, Cas looming protectively over him. “I’ve got him, Dean. You have to rest.”
He glances at Sam, and Sam nods. “It’s okay.”
He is so tired, he is so tired.
Consciousness slips into an inky black tidepool, cool and deep, and Dean mumbles “don’t touch him,” as he’s carried away.
The angel’s steady voice eases him into sleep - “I won’t.”
***
The next day, because the universe obviously has a sense of humor and Sam is its favorite punch line, Dean accidentally overfeeds him.
Probably it’s the bread. Probably it was too soon to give him solid foods.
It’s just that Sam is so strong. It’s just that Dean is so eager to see him better, to see him sitting up on his own and laughing and making jokes and being happy and whole. It’s just that every time he holds his brother and feels the individual bones of his spine pressing against his own body, he feels like he’s been hit in the stomach with a bat.
It’s just that he was supposed to take care of Sam.
They’re on the floor of the bathroom and Sam’s shivering against the cold tiles and crying because he’s so scared, because he’s already lost several days’ worth of food and his stomach’s still in revolt. Dean holds him upright - he can hold Sam in one arm, one arm wrapped all the way around that tiny frame, and he likes that Sam fits so snugly against him, and he fucking hates himself for liking it.
Sam heaves, convulses, and Dean holds him over the toilet bowl and reaches around with his other hand to hold the hair out of Sam’s face and listens to him throwing up and sobbing. It hurts. So fucking much.
“Just a setback,” Dean whispers, rubbing his back gently, feeling his shoulder blades shift as he gasps for breath. “Just a setback, Sammy, you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re going to be fine.”
“No, I don’t want…”
He gags again and Dean pushes his fingers into his hair. “Deep breaths, Sam. Try to hang onto some of it. You need it.”
Sam nods hard, turns and buries his face in Dean’s neck and breathes and breathes.
“Good boy,” Dean whispers. “Good job. You can do it.”
But he can’t, it turns out, because a minute later he’s spinning away from Dean. He flings himself back at the toilet, and he hits it too hard -shit - and Dean feels the crack of ribs against porcelain.
Sam’s sobs turn harsh and desperate and sharp, that cry that meant pain when he was a baby, that meant he wouldn’t cry himself to sleep, that meant Dean should go ahead and get his shoes on because it was time to go to the hospital, and he feels the shift of fractured bones under his fingers.
***
By the time they get to the hospital, Sam’s calm. He’s clearly still in pain - his face twists when Dean lifts him out of the backseat of the car (sorry, sorry, Sammy) - but he’s not crying and his breathing is ragged but quiet.
Dean settles into a chair and just holds Sam on his lap, crosswise so Sam can lean into his shoulder and not have to look at anyone, because even though Dean’s got him wrapped protectively in blankets, it’s apparent how scary-thin he is, and people are staring. Dean kind of wonders what they think Sam’s here for. He kind of doesn’t care.
“Does it hurt?” he asks Sam, quietly.
Sam talks into his shoulder. “It’s okay.” Broken ribs are nothing new for Sam.
Then the doctor comes for them and Dean feels suddenly panicky because this guy’s going to be looking at Sam and judging him, and he gives them a strange look when Dean rises from the chair with Sam still in his arms, a why didn’t you bring him in a lot sooner? sort of look, and so Dean situates his brother on the examination table and meets his eyes and smiles a little and then pulls the doctor out into the hall to give him the situation.
“He’s bad,” Dean says without preamble. “We know. We know it’s bad. I’m trying to help him get some weight back, but it’s slow and he’s tired and it was a rough day and he fractured a couple of ribs so I had to bring him in.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was…kidnapped. Tortured. What they did to him - I can’t even imagine. He can’t talk about it. He’s been doing pretty well, considering I just got him back.”
“He looks extremely malnourished.”
“Yeah. They - he-no one was feeding him”
“Jesus.” The doctor whistles, long and low. “And you said…his ribs?”
“That happened today.” Dean ducks his head, ashamed. On my watch.
“What’s he been eating?”
“Soft foods. Liquids.”
The doctor nods. “Okay, good, that’s right.”
They go back into the examination room and Sam’s asleep on the table. He wakes with a cry midway through Dean peeling him out of his shirt, and Dean stops and soothes him - “Shh, Sam, we’re at the hospital, remember?” and Sam nods and nods like he’s convincing himself.
Dean’s stomach contracts unpleasantly as he works the shirt over Sam’s head. His brother’s torso is a mess of bruises. He holds Sam’s head in his lap while the doctor pokes at him gently and confirms three fractures. Sam is stoic throughout. “So brave,” Dean whispers, petting his hair. “So fucking brave, Sammy.”
The doctor wraps his ribs and gives them vitamins and supplements and nutrition bars and says he’s very sorry but Sam can’t have any drugs while his weight’s so low, which leads Sam to ask “How low?” and fuck you both very much, Dean does not want to assign a fucking number to this.
But the doctor just smiles at them - a fucking nice doctor, now Dean’s seen everything - and says, “I’ll just be a lot happier when you’ve put on about fifty pounds, so go home and eat lots of steaks and cakes, okay?" And Sam actually smiles.
***
Sam rides shotgun on the way home, still bundled in his blanket, but without his shirt because it hurts him to move his arms much. He’s quiet.
“Doing all right?” Dean asks.
Sam nods against the seat. “I just want to feel better.”
“Shit, Sam, I know. Me too.”
Sam slides his hand across the seat and takes Dean’s wrist in his feather light grip, and Dean would swear he can feel the blood rushing under his brother’s skin. “Can I tell you a thing?”
“A thing?”
“About…you know.”
“Oh. Yeah, Sam, god yeah.”
Sam takes a deep breath and swallows three or four times and then says in a rush, “they carved me up and reached into me and took out pieces and made me eat and I was so hungry, I was so fucking hungry I had to, I had to, I tried and they laughed at me and painted sigils with my blood on each other’s faces and I was sicksicksick, I’m sorry, Dean, it’s horrible, you shouldn’t have to know, but I can’t, I can’t…”
Dean pulls over so fast the car skids and gets his arms around his little brother. “Sam. Sam. Shhh.”
“They made me.” Sam’s shaking. “They made me, I had to.”
“I know.” He buries his face in Sam’s hair for a minute. “It’s over, Sammy.”
“No steaks,” Sam whimpers. “No steaks no steaks.”
Dean swallows and nods. “Deal.”
***
Cas is waiting for them back at the motel, standing in the middle of the room and looking lost, and when he sees them he runs over and his hands are all over Sam and that is completely unacceptable, no one touches Sammy. He pulls Sam away, and Cas looks hurt and angry. “Dean, where were you? Sam.”
“Hospital. Don’t touch my brother.”
“It’s okay, Dean,” Sam says quietly.
“I came back here and you were gone. Do you know what that’s like?” Cas sounds dangerous.
Dean’s really not feeling better about letting him near Sam.
“You’re away all the time.”
“But I know where you are!” Cas rakes a hand through his hair, and it strikes Dean that he’s never looked this human. “I brought him back from the cage, Dean, I…I have to know where he is. I have to.”
Slowly, as though it’s costing him great effort, Sam lifts an arm towards Cas. “I’m sorry.” He takes the angel’s arm. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”
Cas deflates a little, panic ebbing away, and he moves in close and tangles his arms with Dean’s in some incomprehensible way so they’re both holding Sam, so they’re a cradle for their fallen soldier, and Dean feels the very familiar pooling of weight and heaviness as his brother falls asleep in his embrace.