All the things I never said (but I hope) you knew anyway. / R/ Wincest
Title: All the things I never said, but (I hope) you knew anyway.
Author: Dolavine
Artist: justmep2
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Word Count: 10,036
Warnings: Major Character Death, Spoilers for Season 9 finale
Disclaimer: I own nothing; if I did the boys wouldn’t hurt like they do.
Summary: This is the story of Sam and Dean as Sam recounts them to his brother after his death. Sam's grieving, doesn't want to let go of Dean and can barely bring himself to move on. One night in the bunker alone with Dean's body, he tells Dean everything he's ever wanted to say to him and reminisces about their life together.
A/N: Written for the samdean_otp minibang. Thank you to my lovely artist justmep2, whom it's has been an absolute pleasure to work with. Her video is amazing and you NEED too watch it. Thank you to all of the encouragement from firesign10, the beta by memoonster and all of the love from my friend shawndi who cried for a day after reading it.
PDF: AO3
Link to Art: The wonderful video
It’s a cold empty feeling, the kind you have when everything you’ve ever known disappears from your life. That thing, that pit that lives inside of your soul, you know the one that makes you sad or lonely. It’s that thing that keeps you from ever knowing true happiness in a lifetime. This is what opens up and swallows Sam whole as Dean dies in his arms and he’s not sure if it’s ever going to go away.
This time is different, this time it feels more real than the other times. Somehow, he knew Dean would be back, somehow he just knew he wasn’t gone, but this time, this time feels so different that he can’t explain it.
He never thought that anything could feel worse than watching his brother be torn apart by hellhounds, watching him die a hundred different ways on a hundred Tuesdays and when he was gone, just gone for an entire year after disappearing. There was still some strange tug at his heart, like Dean was out there but he just didn’t know where.
The tears have dried bloody on Sam’s face. The sticky mess from Dean’s final touch is pulling tight over his cheeks as he’s lifting Dean up and cradling him close.
“We’re going home now.” The words are soft, a quiet sob still in his tone. He sniffles hard as he gains the courage to take that first step towards the exit and he has to shift Dean a little so that he’s more balanced in his grip.
Dean’s body is limp in Sam’s arms, heavier than he’s ever been as it hangs bowed across Sam’s forearms. Dean’s head is lulled against Sam’s chest, the sticky blood smearing over Sam’s jacket. Sam’s on a mission, he’s not thinking about anything else but getting Dean home. Taking him to the bunker where, where, he’s not sure what he’ll do. Not yet anyway, but he’ll come up with a plan before it’s too late.
“It’s not too late,” he whispers with heavy breath as he makes his way back to the Impala.
When he lays Dean out across the back seat, he blinks and has to look twice because the reality of the situation is trying to take hold, but he refuses to let it. Sam’s a rational man but this is no time for rational, this is a time for… something else.
“Almost home,” he mutters as he looks at Dean’s crumpled body, his reflection is slumped sideways in the rearview mirror.
The keys jangle against the bullet when Sam turns the engine off. He looks at Dean’s keychain for a second before he stuffs it into his pocket and gets out of the car. The backdoor creek’s with its usual groan as it’s opened. Sam just stands there for a moment, frozen in place. One of Dean’s eyes is half lidded and he just can’t deal with that sight right now. He turns away and swallows hard; his hands clutching the door frame as he gets control of himself. He takes several deep breaths before he has the strength to turn back around and gently push the eyelid back down over Dean’s eye. Once it’s done Sam rubs his bloody fingers over the hem of his jacket, like a little kid wiping away something they didn’t want to touch.
Once inside, he kicks the bunker door shut with his foot. It’s dark, they didn’t leave any lights on but he knows his way by heart.
Down the stairs and to the left, through the door way, past the control room, right turn, down the hallway.
The first door is Dean’s. He stops. Turns and faces the doorway. The thought of Dean’s unmade bed and the smell of his cologne still on the pillowslip make Sam start to tear up again. His heart aches even worse now. He can’t bring himself to go inside.
Dean’s getting heavier by the second but Sam would find the strength to carry him forever if he didn’t have to lose him.
Its two more doors down to Sam’s room, his footsteps are heavy as he makes his way there. The bed covers are still crisp and tight, a testament to Sam’s insomnia as he spent countless nights researching the Mark of Cain and the first blade. What little sleep he did get was usually slumped over one of the great tables or propped up in one of the chairs.
He hits the light switch with his elbow and the bright bulb sears his tired red eyes. He really wasn’t ready for the gravity of what he would see once the light was on.
Dean’s head has fallen back, his mouth agape and lulled off to the side. His heart sinks and this time the tears do come again. He isn’t sure how much is the light and how much is sheer grief but he really doesn’t care.
When he lays Dean down and gently stretches out his body, he fixes his jaw so that his mouth is closed. There’s a pleasant expression of slumber on his face and not an ounce of worry across his brow. Sam sighs quietly, just taking in the somber view before going into the bathroom to get a wet washcloth.
He’s running the water to make it warm, his blood tinged fingers running pink as the water cascades over them. He’s numb, the water temperature isn’t registering and before he knows it, it’s scalding hot.
“OUCH,” he hisses, pulling his hand out and shaking it off. He looks up into the mirror and sees his blood shot swollen eyes still wet with tears. He runs the wet hand over his blood stained cheek and then down his face, smearing the dried dregs of his brother’s life blood. He lingers at his jaw as he remembers the touch and the words. “I have to tell you something. I’m proud of us” Sam’s lip quivers, he clenches his jaw to try and stop it but it persists until his entire jaw finally gives in and shakes uncontrollably.
He closes his eyes and turns on the cold water to splash his face with it. His soaking wet bangs fall over his eyes. He pushes them back, the water spraying off of them in large droplets. The sound of the water is deafening as it rushes into the porcelain bowl.
He wets the washcloth and shuts the water off.
There’s a straight back chair in the corner of the room, he pulls it over and sits down beside the bed. Dean’s face is bloody; there are wounds along his mouth and eyes. His nose was bleeding but it’s all dry now. Sam gently wipes away most of the blood. He’s tender as he swipes over Dean’s eyes then down his cheeks, across his upper lip and over his nose. He’s even more careful with the large gash in Dean’s lower lip, the plush flesh split open caked with dried blood.
Dean’s knuckles are next, his hands are covered in it as Sam straightens each digit and wipes over it with the once white washcloth. Over each finger, in the webbing and across the palm. Even around the wrists and the face of Dean’s cheap digital watch. He drops the cloth on the floor once he’s done cleaning his brother up and he straightens his arms at his side again.
“There, that’s better,” he says softly.
The room is quiet, deafeningly quiet. The only sounds are the ones resonating from the control room and water dripping in the bathroom shower.
Sam’s thirsty, not for water, not for soda pop, tea or coffee but whiskey. Something dark and alcoholic that will take the edge off, kill the sting, erase the numbness. He remembers Dean’s bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and heads for a drink.
The bottle’s in Dean’s room. He’d never leave it out for anyone to drink. It had been Bobby’s after all. He’s standing in the doorway of Dean’s room again just looking inside. It’s dark, only the softest of outlines from the dim light traveling up the hall from his room. He looks back down the hallway and then back into Dean’s room.
He takes a step inside. Right away it’s the scents that hit him, woodsy aftershave- Dean’s favorite gas station scent or whatever they had that didn’t smell like rubbing alcohol or motor oil. And then there is the gun oil, it’s the next scent to blend in and make itself known and last but not least there’s the leather. Even though Dean didn’t have his leather jacket anymore his jeans always smelled of it from the car seats. You can’t drive for days and not smell like Baby once you’ve stopped. He’s afraid to breath deep, afraid he’ll suck all of them out of the air and be left with nothing once they’re gone.
He turns on the light. There’s a blue scarf over the lamp to mute the bulb and cast a soft glow over everything. Sam smiles, that’s Dean’s way of making the room romantic for… He swallows hard and steels his shoulders.
The bottle is under the nightstand, he bends down, puts one hand on the bed and reaches under to grab the bottle. The cool sheets on his fingertips send chills through his body. He does this as quickly as possible. Once he has the bottle, he’s out of the room again.
Out in the great room he sets the alcohol down on one of the long tables and turns on the lamp, it’s the only light in the room, it casts a faint yellow glow--just enough to see by-- not enough to do anything else by.
He grabs two glasses out of habit and pulls a chair out to sit at the table. He slides one glass across the wooden surface then cracks the bottle and pours half a tumbler in the other. The amber liquid glints as it sloshes in the glass, Sam stares at it, swirling it around as he’s turning the glass between his fingers before taking a drink. The hot burn coating his throat as it glides down. The first real thing he’s felt in hours. He takes another drink and relishes the lesser burn as the bitter smooth alcohol numbs his senses.
He scrubs his palm down over his face, Dean’s broken body bleeding and mortally wounded by an angel blade keeps playing in his mind. The look in his fading eyes as he tells Sam he needs to get out before Metatron gets back. The resolve in his voice when he asks Sam what happened to him being okay with letting him die and the semi snarky remark of “Ain’t that a bitch.” after Sam admits he lied. He keeps hearing the words in his head, seeing the images, and smelling all those dark aromas of death. He can’t seem to break free of them and he’s not sure if he wants to.
The last few months have been dark; Sam knows most of everything that happened is his fault. He knows that the decision to try and make Dean pay for the betrayal of tricking him into being possessed by Ezekiel aka Gadreel by being distant and cold was the wrong choice to make but it’s too late now and he can’t take it back no matter how much he wants too.
He never stopped loving Dean, still showed him in many ways but Dean, he wouldn’t see it, too consumed with his own guilt and need to beat himself up for what he did. In the end, he punished himself more than Sam ever could have no matter what he did in retaliation. It’s something that their dad had ingrained in Dean. Good little soldier, everything rests on your shoulders and if you do something wrong, mea culpa, mea culpa.
Four whiskies later and Sam’s thinking about how he can get Dean back. Crossroads won’t work, he already tried that and once they have Dean, Sam’s unnecessary. All deals are off and his soul is safe but there is Crowley, he got Dean into this, maybe he can get him out.
Everything is already set up for summoning Crowley; Dean made sure of that when he summoned him earlier to help get him out of the dungeon. Sam lights the herbs and does the ritual and then waits.
Crowley never comes.
“You fucking bastard,” Sam sobs. He’s out of options.
He makes his way back to the bedroom with the bottle of whiskey in one hand and his glass in the other. He smells like stinky incense and blood. He pulls his jacket off and throws it over the back of the chair before sitting down.
“You know I tried to summon that fucking bastard,” his speech is a little slurred. “He won’t come,” he sloshes his drink on his lap with an emphatic movement of his arm. “He got you into this, took you to Cain knowing that you’d accept that fucking mark,” he reaches out and turns Dean’s arm until the mark is exposed. “That fucking mark.”
He pours himself a sixth glass. The bottle is over half empty now. He doesn’t know what time it is, he doesn’t care, he just sits with Dean and talks about how things were and how they should have been.
“You know you should’ve come with me to Stanford like I asked you too,” he’s thinking about the night he told Dean he was leaving.
They were lying in bed, basking in the afterglow of sex when Sam decided to tell Dean he was accepted to Stanford.
“I got my letter the other week,” he says snuggling into Dean’s chest, listening to the contented purr he always made after a good romp.
“What letter?” Dean asks sleepily.
“I’ve been accepted to Stanford University, full scholarship,” he rubs Dean’s chest softly.
Dean looks down with a confused expression. “Wait, what?”
Sam looks up innocently. “I’m going to college in California, I leave in two weeks,” he sits up a little.
“When did all this happen?” Dean sits up pushing Sam off of himself.
“I’ve always wanted to go to college. Did you think I was going to stay here and be a hunter?”
“What about me- us- what about this?” Dean’s clearly upset.
“Come with me,” Sam urges, he’s smoothing over Dean’s back as he presses against him.
“I’m not college material, barely got my GED. I’m street suave you know that,” he won’t look at Sam.
“I’m not telling you to go to college, I’m asking you to come with me, get away from this. We can start a life together somewhere where no one knows us, away from hunting.”
“You mean away from dad,” Dean finally looks at Sam.
“It would be away from dad and his obsession,” Sam doesn’t deny it. “I’m going Dean, with our without you but I’d rather it was with,” he kisses Dean’s shoulder.
“Let me think about it.”
Several days pass and they don’t mention it again. One night they’re just sitting watching TV and Dean pulls Sam in close.
“I’m in,” is all he says.
“To what?” Sam asks with confusion.
“Stanford, I’m going with you.”
“Really,” Sam’s so excited he could burst. “Next week, I’ll get us two tickets on the greyhound. You’ll see, it’s the right thing to do,” he kisses Dean on the mouth. It’s a needy kiss, an all encompassing deep kiss.
Sam buys the tickets with money he’s squirreled away and gives Dean his.
The night before they’re to leave Sam tells John. He’s waited so long because he knows that it won’t be met with joyful pride for his son’s accomplishments but as a betrayal to the family.
He’s right, there is a huge fight and they come to fisticuffs. John strikes Sam’s eye and Sam retaliates with a strike to John’s mouth. It ends with an ultimatum.
“If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back,” John yells at Sam.
“Don’t worry I won’t,” Sam says as he grabs his backpack and heads for the door. He looks over at Dean who’s standing behind their father.
Dean doesn’t say anything he just stands there with a scared look on his face as Sam walks out the door alone.
Sam waits at the station for Dean, he never comes and the bus pulls away.
He’s leaning back in the chair, eyes full of half shed tears as he pours himself another drink.
“I don’t blame you for not coming, it was a hard choice for you and somehow I knew you’d choose dad, I just had to have that hope.”
Sam touches Dean’s hand, it’s cooler than before, he doesn’t mind, he just smoothes over it with his thumb and takes another drink of his whiskey.
“You know, I wasn’t going to come with you when you came to Stanford for me. I had a different life there and even though that life desperately needed you in it, instead of Jess. I was going to choose Jess over you. I used to sometimes wish I had chosen her, but now, I'll always be grateful that I didn’t.”
They’re fighting in the dark. Sam’s wrestling with the intruder when he’s topped and pinned down.
“Easy there tiger.”
“Dean?” The light hits his brother’s face and he’s surprised to see him. “What are you doing here?”
Dean helps Sam up. “Looking for a beer,” he gives him a smart ass grin.
Jess comes into the room and Sam introduces her. She’s wearing a tight blue Smurfs t-shirt. Dean makes an inappropriate comment.
“I love the Smurfs.” Then he smiles wide and bites his lower lip flirtatiously.
The banter goes on from there.
“Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been back for a few days,” Dean gives Sam a knowing look.
“Can I talk to you outside?” Sam takes Dean’s arm and leads him into the hallway.
“Dude, she’s hot,” Dean slaps Sam on the shoulder. “You little dawg.”
“What do you want from me? You don’t call or write and no visits for the past three years and now you show up here with this lame excuse,” Sam’s both upset and elated to see Dean again.
“Like you kept in contact,” Dean rolls his eyes.
“What do you want?” Sam’s tone is edgy.
“For you to come find dad with me, he’s been missing now for a few weeks with no contact at all and he won’t answer my calls.”
“I have an interview on Monday for law school, I can’t miss it,” Sam’s trying to make Dean understand that he can’t just leave this life, it’s not pretend because he’s not hunting monsters, this is his real life now, the monster hunting is the pretend one.
“I’ll have you back by Monday, scouts honor,” he holds up his fingers in the scout salute.
Sam rolls his eyes and exhales exasperatedly. “Why do I let you talk me into these things?”
“Because I’m hot and you love me,” Dean’s smiling wide, his green eyes glinting with joy to be with his brother again.
He smacks Sam’s ass as they walk back inside and Sam gives him a dark glare then a sly smirk to let him know that he’s missed him on all levels.
Sam’s bent forward, slumped over, elbows on his knees as he waves the empty glass around, his mind dipping into the corners of their past that he hasn’t thought about in years.
“When you took me back to Stanford I was relieved to be going back to Jess,” he swallows hard as the edges of his words are curling up in his throat. “I had to fight every urge to stay with you. To let myself go back to us, to the very thing that drove me away in the first place, dad,” he pours more whiskey in his glass but he doesn’t drink it. “God, how I wanted you, to feel you on top of me again, letting you love me with everything you had,” he sighs deep. “You always had control of me, even when we were at odds; you had me in the palm of your hand.”
He leans back in the chair, runs his hands through his hair and then takes another drink of the warm liquor.
“I guess that the Angels were right when they said that everything is predestined for us. Jess burning on the ceiling, me running back to you, us happening all over again. Don’t get me wrong, you are all I ever wanted but that is when I learned, that we belong together. Good or bad, evil or saintly, right or wrong, in the end, it’s always been only us.”
Sam’s leaning forward, hands on his knees, he feels sick, like he might vomit. The bile is rising up in his throat and he tries to contain it. He’s breathing shakily as he swallows against the burn. He coughs, grabs the bottle and drinks several big glugs from it, pushing down all of the fear and pain trying to find its way out.
He calms himself and leans back again. Mind wandering to a time when they were younger, much simpler and the small things brought them the most joy.
“Remember the fourth of July when I was like twelve. We bought all of those fireworks and hid them from dad. He would have killed us of he knew we had them. Guns and ammo were fine but something like fireworks just didn’t fit into the hunter’s criteria.”
“Once dad passed out, you drove us out to that field in the middle of nowhere, that place where we found the Wendigo and dad killed it.”
“While we waited for it to get dark enough, we ate cheeseburgers, drank chocolate malts and cranked up Quiet Riot’s, Metal Health album.”
“When it was finally pitch black outside and the stars were out fully, we popped open the trunk and pulled out that huge box of fireworks. I was so excited,” his hands are clasped in his lap and he picks at his fingers.
“The first one was a dud, barely went high enough and just popped instead of exploding. The next, a bottle rocket, went straight up, exploded and burst into vibrant blue. You were as excited as me when the sparks rained down on us. Pulled me tight and danced with me in the glowing embers,” he looks over at Dean. “We had so much fun. One right after the other, exploding, and bursting, raining showers of color down on us like an electric storm.”
“I loved those sparklers too, the ones that looked like they were shooting sparkling lava that hissed when ignited.”
“And then we noticed the leaves burning, the cascades of smoke billowing out of the thickly brushed area. You freaked out, grabbed the gallon jugs of holy water and high tailed it into the brush screaming, Holy Fuck!!! at the top of your lungs. When you came running out, no jugs and more fire than smoke chasing you, we got out of there faster than Flash,” he chuckles. “I never knew your foot was so heavy. Making me watch out the rearview window for police lights all the way back to the motel.”
“Dad was waiting on the porch with his shotgun between his knees when we pulled in. To this day I don’t think it was loaded but you never know with him,” he shakes his head and goes back to looking at his fingers.
“I guess being grounded for three weeks was worth it though, we didn’t complain about it- much, and we got to watch the free HBO for the entire time, since dad skipped out for most of it.”
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
“You took on a lot at sixteen. I wasn’t exactly the easiest twelve year old to deal with sometimes. Taking off and rebelling about a lot of things. I can’t help it that I didn’t see eye to eye with dad, like you did,” he worries his lower lip between his teeth. “You were always there for me and even though I never said it, it meant a lot to me- when I got older.”
He looks up from under his brow, his bangs hanging down like a fringe around his vision. “I guess I should just say thanks for always having my back, even when I wasn’t returning the favor.”
Sam’s hands start to shake; he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stands up. He puts the glass on the chest of drawers against the wall. He notices a small photo lying on top, it’s of the two of them, arms over each others shoulders, huge smiles on their faces and he remembers that they were at Bobby’s place.
Probably a movie night since they were on the couch and Dean has licorice hanging out of his mouth.
They always have to have guy flicks since Dean can’t handle emotional chick flicks, as he calls them. They usually end up arguing at the rental place because they can never settle on one classic superhero. Dean’s a Batman fan and Sam, well he’s into the X-men, which Dean always teases him about.
“Sure Sammy, X men, stud muffins, xxx porn dudes in tights with x-ray vision and cod pieces to make their junk look bigger,” Dean’s snickering as Sam blushes.
They’d usually end up renting either a scifi movie or an action flick so that the movie rental dude stops staring at them like a bickering old married couple.
He sits on the edge of the bed and rubs his hand over Dean’s stiff thigh. “Even though you teased me about everything I liked, I know that you secretly enjoyed a good chick flick now and again. I mean you watched The Black Swan after all,” he lets a smile crease the edges of his mouth.
“You watched The Black Swan?”
“Twice,” he holds up two fingers while smiling mischievously. “Hot girl on girl action,” Dean waggles his eyebrows. “I mean, she’s bat shit crazy but…”
“There were good times. We never really talked about them much but they were always there on the fringe of everything that was going wrong with us. I just wish we had focused more on them and less on all of the things that ended up tearing us apart.”
It feels like he’s been sitting here forever, like days have gone by. “Maybe this is how it feels when your heart breaks,” he thinks.
“I don’t know if you know this or not but when you came back to me from hell. When you walked through that door with Bobby, I thought I’d gone crazy. I couldn’t believe it was you.”
Sam’s expecting the pizza guy at the door when he walks into the room but instead he sees Dean and Bobby standing in the doorway.
“Who the Fuck,” Sam says under his breath as he pulls a knife and lunges at Dean.
“Sammy, Sammy,” Dean’s fending off the attack.
“It’s him Sam, it’s Dean,” Bobby says pushing Sam backwards away from Dean.
“Like you didn’t do this,” Dean says expecting Sam to admit to having done a spell or something to raise him from hell.
“What, no, I… I tried,” Sam looks confused and frightened, “but not for a while now.”
“Well I look great,” Dean smiles and holds up his hands like Sam’s supposed to inspect them.
Sam just stands there for a second before it all registers in his head and his eyes fill with tears as he pulls Dean in for a tight embrace. He doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t want to ever let go.
After his guest leaves they talk. Sam can barely control his emotions, his hands are unsteady and all he wants to be doing is cradling Dean in his arms.
“So, how’s Baby?” Dean asks with a grin.
“Uh.. fine,” Sam can’t believe he wants to talk about the car.
“Good… good.” It feels awkward but he tries not to show it.
“Look boys, you have some catching up to do, so I’m going to just… you know- find a room,” Bobby bows out.
“Oh yeah, sure,” Dean hugs him good-bye.
“Thanks Bobby,” Sam squeezes him tight before he walks out the door.
After the door is closed and Dean has a beer in his hand, things loosen up.
“God, I’ve missed you,” Sam says sitting close to Dean, his body pushed as tight to him as possible.
“You can’t even imagine,” Dean responds by putting his arm around Sam’s shoulders.
They sit like this for a long time, neither talking, just reveling in the other’s warmth.
Sam’s back in the chair again, another glass of whiskey poured and he knows he’s feeling the effects because he’s light headed. He wants to forget everything he’s remembering but he can’t and he won’t.
“I don’t think anyone could ever love someone as much as I loved you at that very moment.”
He leans his head back and stares up at the ceiling.
“You thought I didn’t have any memories of you in Heaven, that you weren’t in my heaven but you were. Me and you in the Impala, the open road ahead of us and your annoying classic rock blaring as we rolled down it. That’s what I was doing when I first got to heaven, you just popped in at an awkward moment when I was flashing back to my teenage years,” he takes a deep breath. “My heaven was filled with you. But once you came and found me, we shared heaven like soul mates do. Ash even told us that only special people, like soul mates can share a heaven and still you thought you weren’t in my heaven, even though you were there the whole time.”
“You’ve been my life since I was born. You carried me safe from fire and helped to raise me, how could you think that you wouldn’t be in my heaven,” he starts to cry again. It’s more of a sob that he can’t control.
There’s a noise in the hall and Sam jerks quickly towards the doorway. His eyes are cloudy with tears and everything looks blurry.
Walking over to the doorway he calls out, “Who’s there?” hand on the gun still tucked into the back of his jeans.
His hands are shaky, his fingers twitchy, and he’s a lot drunk, but if Metatron’s come looking for him or anything else, he’s pretty damned sure he’s taking him down, cloudy vision or not.
He listens intently at the door. No more sounds. He puts his fingers around the gun handle and pulls it out, holding it close to his body, thumb on the safety and finger resting against the trigger cage. He leans into the doorjamb, his body poised to propel himself around the corner in the direction of the next sound.
He waits, but hears nothing.
He gingerly peeks around the corner, then steps into the hallway looking in both directions, but nothing. He relaxes, puts the gun back in place under his waistband and sighs.
He’s heading back into the room and as he rounds the corner, he feels a cold spot. He stops suddenly, chills pimpling his skin. He thinks about Kevin and how he was roaming around the bunker watching them for weeks and tears fill his eyes again. His mouth goes dry, his heart skips a few beats and he can’t breath. He makes a choked sound then swallows what saliva has thickly gathered in his mouth.
“Dean,” he says weakly, his eyes squinting as he searches the hallway in both directions. “Come on dude,” he’s not sure if he wants it to be Dean. He wonders if he could handle ghost Dean. He takes another deep breath.
“If it’s you,” he pauses to think about what he really wants. “Give me a sign,” the hair on the back of his neck stands up at the thought. “Touch me,” he braces himself for an icy touch that never comes. He waits patiently for a minute but nothing happens.
He turns to go back into the room but he can’t quite shake the feeling that something or someone is here.
Crowley’s been holding his preverbal breath since Sam stepped out of the room. He’s invisible, like a ghost, watching Sam pour his heart out to Dean. He’s taking no pleasure in this but Sam summoned him and he comes when a Winchester beckons, he just doesn’t have to appear or do what’s asked of him. He’s not a genie, he doesn’t give out three wishes and he has other business he needs to attend to when Sam’s done.
Sam sits in the chair again; his knees touching the side of the bed, his elbows perched on his knees, clasped hands tucked under his chin as he stares down into his brother’s expressionless face.
“Remember the Christmas I gave you the amulet?” he smiles. “I never saw you smile like that, and when you put it on, I was filled with joy to see that you liked it,” his gaze wanders as his slight smile fades into the background of what he’s going to say next.
“All of those years, that was the one pure thing between us. The one thing that was always there letting me know that you never forgot who we were. What we were to each other,” he rubs over his forehead and closes his eyes.
“Then, you gave it to Cas. I understood that, I got it; it was an important amulet that could lead us to God. The fact that you told Cas he couldn’t let anything happen to it, that you wanted it back safe and he promised it’s safe return made it easier to watch you hand it off.” Both hands come over his face and he slowly slides them down over it as if trying to wipe away a feeling.
“When Cas kept up his end of the deal and handed it back safe and sound, I was relieved but then I had to watch you drop it into the trash can.” Tears gather in his eyes again. His lip quivers as he finishes.
“Something broke between us that night. You might not have seen it, hell you probably weren’t even paying attention being as you were in obsessive Dean mode at the time. But watching you drop that into the trash can helped me to distance myself from you. It changed how we were. I don’t know if you even noticed the change between us at that point, when you’ve got your blinders on, you are truly blind to everything around you,” he wipes the tears with the sleeve of his shirt.
“That was the beginning of our crack. Everything else that came after that, that would drive a wedge between us, was rooted in that tiny hairline fracture,” he reaches into his pocket and pulls something out that he keeps clasped in his palm.
“I don’t know, I guess I just hoped that things would get better, especially after the church proclamation. The promise that we were going to do this together, nothing was ever going to get between us again. No Benny’s, no demons, nothing to stand between us ever again. No more lies, no more hiding things, just us, the truth and our love to hold us together till the end,” he clenches his fist tighter as he stares at it.
“That didn’t happen. As always with us, there had to be a wedge,” he shakes his head and gives a faint scoffing chuckle. “We weren’t able to get along since you came back from hell. I tried, I really, really tried to go back to what we were but then Castiel and my blood addiction,” he looks up at the ceiling and takes a deep breath. “Then the angel, demon war, the apocalypse, me being Lucifer’s vessel and going soulless for over a year. We just let it all come between us. Our bodies were there, the love was there but we just didn’t let, us, be there,” he scoots closer to the bed; he’s half sitting on the edge, half on the chair.
“I’m not really sure what I thought I was going to do with this,” he opens his hand and the golden glistening amulet face is lying on top of the tangled up black cord. “I took it out of the trash can,” his words are quiet. “When you weren’t looking,” he looks down at Dean’s chest. “I’d imagine it around your neck; worry it between my fingers when things weren’t going so swift. All the while waiting for the day when I’d be able to put it around your neck again, see it there for real, and feel it between us when we’d kiss.”
He unfurls the cord. “I guess there isn’t anything between us now, no wedge to separate us, no one or thing to pull us apart anymore,” he slips the necklace over Dean’s head and adjusts it around his neck so that the amulet is over his heart. “Well, nothing but death that is.”
The bottle isn’t empty yet and Sam takes a long swig from it. It burns his raw throat and he’s disgusted that he’s sobering up enough to feel pain again. He wants to be numb; it goes better with the empty feeling gnawing at his insides.
He can’t help but go through the list of people he’s lost in his short lifetime.
He knows everyone says, It’s the hunter’s life to lose everyone you love. That’s why you don’t love anyone. He never agreed with that because he always had Dean. He thinks about losing his mother before he knew what was happening. He lost his father, right after he found him, he died and as consequence of coming back from death, he lost Dean for a year. They lost Bobby; probably the hardest hit outside of losing each other and Sam still didn’t feel as empty inside as he does today. Maybe because Dean was standing right there beside him or maybe the fact that he was bat shit crazy at the time, either way, Dean was alive and right there beside him. Even when Dean disappeared for a year, there was always something eating at him that Dean wasn’t actually dead and he’d be back.
Sam swirls the amber liquid in the bottle and thinks about finishing it off but his gut protests and rolls with the three fourths he’d already consumed in just under the two hours he’s been sitting here.
“You’d have finished this bottle off,” he says to Dean. “You’d have drank every drop then went for a few beers before passing out into a dreamless slumber,” he knew Dean had a problem. He never drank like that before hell and he never hated sleeping until after coming back either. He knew that the dreams were terrible. That Dean hated the things he’d done, and he wasn’t sure if he could ever forgive himself or get over them, either. He just drank until he was incoherent and if he couldn’t do that, he grabbed Sam and they fucked until they both passed out from satiation and exhaustion. Either way, he was high when he closed his eyes.
“I fucking can’t,” Sam cries out as he doubles over and puts his head between his knees. He’s crying again but this time, the tears won’t come. He’s angry more than sad. His rage for everything that’s happened, for everything he couldn’t do to save his brother is rushing to the surface. “I just can’t,” he says again, his teeth clenched tight, lips snarling with the words.
He sits up and throws the bottle across the room; it smashes against the wall, shattering into tiny pieces that tinkle to the cement floor like sparkling fireflies as they catch the light on their descent. The dark whiskey is streaking down the wall from the giant wet circle of impact. Sam stares at it but doesn’t feel any better for the outburst.
“How am I,” he leans over Dean’s body. “Going to go on without you?” his words are broken and dark. “You’re selfish,” he grits his teeth again. “Always have been selfish,” his voice is deeper and full of anger.
“Wouldn’t come with me to Stanford, wouldn’t let me live my own life without you, brought me back into this world of death and loneliness, then you leave me here, all alone,” he’s gripping Dean’s shirt tightly in his fists. “He’s sobbing again, his heart breaking with the realization that Dean is actually gone.
He’s curled up on the floor, hands clutching the bedspread, head resting on the side of the mattress. He’s hungry and he hates his body for betraying him like this and wanting sustenance when he’s grieving.
“I could really go for one of your hamburgers right now,” he gives a tiny smile.
“I never knew you could cook. Well, spaghetti O’s and soup, were our mainstay as kids,” he actually chuckles a little bit. “And, Lucky Charms,” he thinks about all the fights they’d had about the toy surprise on the inside. “Thumb wars and rock paper scissors used to be the way we’d solve everything,” he smiles wide. “You, always with the scissors,” he rolls his eyes, “So predictable.”
His stomach growls and turns with nausea. “I guess Lisa was good for your domestic skills.”
He stands up and moves back into the chair. “I know that you loved her and Ben, in your own special way. That they started out filling the void I made and then became more of a family to you. I hate that you felt the need to have Cas erase you from their memories. They’d deserve to know this,” he fumbles with his hands, an awkward feeling coming over him, a tinge of jealousy about Dean’s otherfamily.
“I guess this is as close as we ever got to domestic life. The bunker, our only true home,” he looks around. “We would end up with an underground fortress, complete with dungeon.”
“You know that you are the reason I started to feel at home here. To me this was just another place to lay my head, a giant research library- but to you, it’s our home. You found happiness in the stability it had, the permanence of it and in a way I envied that about you,” he takes a deep breath. “It wasn’t until Dorothy explained to me about a home that I actually started to understand that, this- the bunker, had become our home and I let myself believe in something permanent in my life.”
He straightens Dean’s lapel from where he had gripped it and pulled it askew. “But now I realize that permanence is only a façade and that you have what you can touch, the rest is all pretend for people who don’t know any better.”
His gut clenches and he knows that he has to get food inside of himself or he’s going to puke up every ounce of whiskey he drank and that doesn’t appeal to him.
There’s pie sitting on the counter next to the cold coffee from this morning. The pie’s been there for two days and he should have known something was wrong when there hadn’t even been a slice taken out within the first few minutes of it being in the door.
“Dude, pie, it’s a staple. It’s like the fifth food group, right,” Dean’s smiling ear to ear with a mouthful of blueberry pie.
He should have known that the mark was affecting Dean in such a powerful way. He was addicted to it, he needed it and even if he didn’t like it, he couldn’t stand to live without it. Sam understands this feeling because the power that came with demon blood for him infected every inch of who he was until he almost wasn’t anymore.
He cuts a slice of apple pie and nukes a cup of black coffee. He eats like it has no taste, like he can’t savor any flavors, everything is just there and that’s all.
The coffee is hot and he hopes that it might warm the cold places spreading throughout his body but it doesn’t, it only burns his throat where the whisky and endless sobbing made it raw.
He thinks about the last few months, how they were so distant, how he let Dean believe that they weren’t brothers anymore. He wishes he could take it back; tell him how much it hurt him to turn his back on them. He’d love to show him, tell him how much the two drunken nights together meant to him. How he only pretended to be drunk so that he could be with him again and not have to admit that he was lying all along.
All the nights he laid in his room and dreamt of holding Dean, feeling his warmth, inhaling his scent, knowing that he can never love another like he loves Dean.
He can feel his heart splitting even farther apart. The lump in his throat grows bigger and it’s impossible to swallow now, it’s getting harder to breath and his knees want to give out from under him again.
He braces himself against the back of a chair to keep on his feet. There’s a soft cotton material under his fingers and he looks down at it. It’s Dean’s blue flannel shirt. The soft cotton he’s felt under his fingertips so many times before when he was stripping it off of his shoulders or grasping it for purchase as they plundered each other’s mouths.
Every inch of air is sucked out of the room and he starts to gasp like a fish out of water. His head spins and he swoons with lack of oxygen. He falls to his knees, he’s faint and before he goes out, he realizes he’s holding his breath. He opens his mouth and sucks in air in big gulps. His face falls into the flannel shirt thrown over the back of the chair and it still smells like Dean. Soft woodsy aftershave, gun oil and leather, he drinks it in, is afraid he’ll never smell it again and pulls the shirt from the chair to hold it tight to his face so that he can always remember it. He’s ingraining the smell that he took for granted so much before, into his brain forever.
When he comes to his senses, he feels trapped like an animal inside a cage. He makes his way to the door and has to have fresh air. He can’t be in here, can’t be in this place with his dead brother another second longer.
The sun hits him in the face when he opens the door and he squints against its bright fire. He throws himself outside like he’s been imprisoned his entire life. He leans against the wall, wishes he had a cigarette to smoke but then remembers he doesn’t smoke. It’s all so consuming, like fire and ice. He wishes he could just burn this place to the ground and forget the last year even happened. His hands are shaking as he wipes his dry lips and wanders what it would feel like to just have his memory erased like in that movie with Jim Carrey, just have Dean erased, like Lisa and Ben. Never have to think about the love, the pain, the joy, the hurt, all the lies and how much he can’t live without him.
He slouches down against the wall, knees to his chest and buries his face in his folded arms.
“Cas,” he thinks. He’s grasping at straws now. Then he remembers that his grace is borrowed and burning out but he knows that he’d give all he had left to save Dean, but he won’t ask him to do that.
When he finally goes back in, it’s been less than fifteen minutes since he left for food but it feels like hours.
________________________________________________________________________
Sam stops at the bathroom and he washes his hands. He catches his face in the mirror and he looks like he’s been put through the ringer more than once, rode hard and put away wet. How someone can get dark circles under their eyes in one day is beyond his comprehension but he has them. Swollen, dark bloodshot eyes full of pain and grief. He opens the medicine cabinet door just so he won’t have to look at himself again.
He stands in the doorway looking at Dean, wishing he’d just sit up and say, Gotcha! then start laughing like the fiend he is. He loves a good prank no matter what the consequences might be. But he doesn’t, he just lays there.
There weren’t many times that Sam didn’t think about wanting a normal life. He always wanted more than he had in the way of normalcy. More than once he tried to convince Dean to leave hunting, go away with him and just live like civilians in the real world.
“We know what goes bump in the night Sammy, can’t just ignore what we know.” Is what he’d say and completely dismiss any notion of normalcy. “Normal is for civilians, we are hunters, soldiers who protect them from things they can’t see.” And that would be the end of the conversation, every single time.
“When you were in purgatory for that time, when I was with Amelia. I felt like for the first time I was normal. I had a job, she was a respected vet. We had an apartment, a life, a dog, two cars and a future that didn’t include hunting things or killing things,” he rubs his hands over his jeans, his palms are sweating profusely. “I felt normal but you know what I didn’t feel,” he doesn’t even want to say it but he does. “Whole. I needed you, I needed what we had. Dysfunctional, needy, broken, lustful, hidden, painful, us,” he lowers his head in admission. “I never wanted normal, I never wanted anything but what we had. I needed you, wanted you, and couldn’t stand to live without you. You are my drug, an addiction. I love you, I will always love you and there will be no other that will cause me to follow them to the ends of the earth just because they ask me too. Only you have that hold on me, and I’ll never give it to anyone else.”
“When you came back, I dropped everything, I left my apple pie life with her and ran as fast as I could back to you,” he’s never opened up like this and in a strange way it feels right to say it out loud. “To Rufus’s cabin, to your arms, there wasn’t anything that would have kept me away once I knew you were back.” There’s a peace coming over his soul as he lets it all out. “I’d forsake anyone or anything for you Dean- and I have.”
Everything is silent, his thoughts ringing loudly in his head as he goes through the catalogs of memories stashed there.
He starts his reminiscing with “Remember,” then follows it with the stories.
“The time we worked that case in Seneca New York and we got to see the falls. How we slipped unnoticed into the Canadian side on foot just so you could kiss me in another country. That was kinda romantic,” he smiles sweetly as he wrings his hands nervously.
“Or when we were on that movie set in Hollywood and you ended up with the star, what’s her name,” he conveniently forgets. “I told you I was totally fine with it, but you know she was a skank, right,” he’s laughs a little. “Yeah, I know you did,” his eyes smile a little. “I always knew that you just had to be you, no matter what we said to each other or how much we proclaimed our love, Dean Winchester had to have the hetero forefront appearance.”
“Sometimes I think about all the things you’ve given up for me. How you practically raised me, how you gave your life and soul up for me. You gave up a normal childhood to come back and take care of me. Keep me from knowing all of the things you went through, sheltered me from all of the things that you had to learn at a very early age.”
He leans back in the chair again, and takes a deep breath.
“My sixth birthday, you got me that transformers cake. It was so big; enough sheet cake for thirty people, only because you couldn’t remember that Optimus Prime was my favorite character and you had them put all of the major characters on it for me. I was sick for days from over eating cake all day long. But, I wouldn’t have had that if it wasn’t for you. Dad was on a hunt, we were in a motel and you spent most of our food money on that cake, I guess we had to eat all of it,” he swallows hard. “Thanks for being a big brother to a spoiled brat.”
“My first time driving the Impala, you took me out on that dirt road in Utah while dad was passed out in the motel. What was I, fourteen,” he shakes his head. “You wanted me to feel so grown up that weekend. First full beer, our first kiss and you took the blame for the ding in the door from when I hit that big rock because I was too busy concentrating on the fact that I wanted to kiss your lips again,” he sighs hard.
“We couldn’t be like normal siblings, we had to be special, had to be soul mates,” he looks down at the floor. “All the times I pined for you, watching you date these girls and wanting to be them,” his mouth turns up into a smirk. “That awkward fight we had when I told you that you didn’t need girls when you had me. The way you bit your lower lip and glared at me like I was saying the dirtiest words you’d ever heard, then you punched me and then kissed me right after. That was the thing, which started everything.”
“All the perfect times, all the times we fought each other, everything came down to how much we needed each other. I knew it, you knew it but we just couldn’t say it, just couldn’t ever give in and tell each other how desperately we needed one another.”
He moves over and sits on the edge of the bed, it gives under his weight and Dean’s arm falls to the side into Sam’s hip. He takes his hand and puts it back in place, rubs his thumb over the pulse point before drawing away again.
He studies the serene look on Dean’s face. The not really pleasant but peaceful non expression he has. He runs his index finger over the smooth line of his forehead. “No more worry wrinkles,” he says. “No more worries, Dean,” he straightens his lapel and t-shirt collar. “That’s better,” he’s trying not to break down again.
He’s quiet as he just sits there, sits there and lets the entire gamut of emotion flood over him. There isn’t anything he can do about it, so he just lets it wash over him, cover him and engulf him. He’s not resigning to anything but accepting that right now, he can’t change anything that’s happened. He can’t go back in time, can’t take anything back. He has to let all the good and all of the bad, be a part of what they were.
There’s no crossroads deal, no spells, no curses, no angel that can change this.
Everything is deafeningly quiet. Every sound in the world has disappeared as he runs his hands down over Dean’s body. He’s smoothing out the wrinkles, adjusting his legs, memorizing how his shape feels one last time.
He closes his eyes and runs a finger around the shape of his jaw, over the shell of his ear, along his hairline that shapes his face. He remembers it when it was soft, warm and pliable. The shape of his brow line, his eyes, and he takes notice to the one that draws down just a little bit more than the other, the soft tickle of his lashes as he caresses the smooth fleshy skin beneath the eyes. Sliding a finger down his nose, over the bridge with its ever so tiny bump and tracing around each nostril. That small space of upper lip then diving into the cupid’s bow of the upper lip, along one side and down along that fuller more plush lower lip then back up over the other side of the upper lip. He’s fingering the indentation under the mouth as he maps every inch of his brother’s face. He wants to always remember it, always know how it felt under his fingers.
This all feels so surreal now. The empty pit swallowing him up has stopped eating away at him. All he feels is loss, a vacant space where once there was his brother. There’s an empty driver’s seat, a vacant space in the bed, and an unfilled chair at their restaurant table. There’s one less beer to buy, one less dish to wash, and one load of laundry to do.
It’s a lonely feeling, something Sam never thought he’d feel, knowing that the other half of his partnership, sibling, his brother, his soul mate isn’t there anymore. He doesn’t want to forget what it feels like with him by his side and he won’t. It’s a silent promise to Dean, to keep his memory alive for always. It’s one he’s sure he can keep.
He opens his eyes as he finishes memorizing the lines of his face. He knows he can’t stay in here forever. He has to prepare things, make things ready and eventually have the funeral pyre. He shudders to think of it. Hates the idea of it all ending like this and his heart comes completely apart. The strong thudding of it makes his neck pulse with each beat as he tries hard to stifle the tears welling up in his eyes again.
He’s leaning over Dean, his hands cupping his face as he makes sure that he knows exactly how it’s always been, how he’s always felt, not matter what.
For of all the things you did, for all of the things you’ve done, for all those things that you’ve said, and that I’ve said. All of the times we’ve walked away from each other, or when things came to fisticuffs, I never stopped loving you. I never stopped wanting you. You were always the center of my world and I hope that you knew it.
He runs his thumb over Dean’s cheek, and then kisses him softly on the forehead. There are rivers of tears wetting his face and he leaves a few behind on Dean’s skin, the wet smear glistening in the dim light.
When Sam turns to leave, he has to steel himself, take a deep breath, close his eyes and swallow hard to summon the courage he needs to walk away.
He fights the urge to turn back around, climb into bed and wrap himself around Dean’s lifeless body, letting himself slip away too. He’s afraid this time, life will be too hard to bear without him but he walks out the door anyway.
________________________________________________________________________
Crowley watches as Sam walks past him. For all of the times he’s pretended to be their ally, this time, he actually feels something broken for Sam Winchester. He blames it on the slightest humanity still coursing through his demon veins.
He walks into the room and sits down on Sam’s straight back chair, makes himself corporal and takes a deep breath.
“Hello, Dean.”
The End
Author: Dolavine
Artist: justmep2
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Word Count: 10,036
Warnings: Major Character Death, Spoilers for Season 9 finale
Disclaimer: I own nothing; if I did the boys wouldn’t hurt like they do.
Summary: This is the story of Sam and Dean as Sam recounts them to his brother after his death. Sam's grieving, doesn't want to let go of Dean and can barely bring himself to move on. One night in the bunker alone with Dean's body, he tells Dean everything he's ever wanted to say to him and reminisces about their life together.
A/N: Written for the samdean_otp minibang. Thank you to my lovely artist justmep2, whom it's has been an absolute pleasure to work with. Her video is amazing and you NEED too watch it. Thank you to all of the encouragement from firesign10, the beta by memoonster and all of the love from my friend shawndi who cried for a day after reading it.
PDF: AO3
Link to Art: The wonderful video
It’s a cold empty feeling, the kind you have when everything you’ve ever known disappears from your life. That thing, that pit that lives inside of your soul, you know the one that makes you sad or lonely. It’s that thing that keeps you from ever knowing true happiness in a lifetime. This is what opens up and swallows Sam whole as Dean dies in his arms and he’s not sure if it’s ever going to go away.
This time is different, this time it feels more real than the other times. Somehow, he knew Dean would be back, somehow he just knew he wasn’t gone, but this time, this time feels so different that he can’t explain it.
He never thought that anything could feel worse than watching his brother be torn apart by hellhounds, watching him die a hundred different ways on a hundred Tuesdays and when he was gone, just gone for an entire year after disappearing. There was still some strange tug at his heart, like Dean was out there but he just didn’t know where.
The tears have dried bloody on Sam’s face. The sticky mess from Dean’s final touch is pulling tight over his cheeks as he’s lifting Dean up and cradling him close.
“We’re going home now.” The words are soft, a quiet sob still in his tone. He sniffles hard as he gains the courage to take that first step towards the exit and he has to shift Dean a little so that he’s more balanced in his grip.
Dean’s body is limp in Sam’s arms, heavier than he’s ever been as it hangs bowed across Sam’s forearms. Dean’s head is lulled against Sam’s chest, the sticky blood smearing over Sam’s jacket. Sam’s on a mission, he’s not thinking about anything else but getting Dean home. Taking him to the bunker where, where, he’s not sure what he’ll do. Not yet anyway, but he’ll come up with a plan before it’s too late.
“It’s not too late,” he whispers with heavy breath as he makes his way back to the Impala.
When he lays Dean out across the back seat, he blinks and has to look twice because the reality of the situation is trying to take hold, but he refuses to let it. Sam’s a rational man but this is no time for rational, this is a time for… something else.
“Almost home,” he mutters as he looks at Dean’s crumpled body, his reflection is slumped sideways in the rearview mirror.
The keys jangle against the bullet when Sam turns the engine off. He looks at Dean’s keychain for a second before he stuffs it into his pocket and gets out of the car. The backdoor creek’s with its usual groan as it’s opened. Sam just stands there for a moment, frozen in place. One of Dean’s eyes is half lidded and he just can’t deal with that sight right now. He turns away and swallows hard; his hands clutching the door frame as he gets control of himself. He takes several deep breaths before he has the strength to turn back around and gently push the eyelid back down over Dean’s eye. Once it’s done Sam rubs his bloody fingers over the hem of his jacket, like a little kid wiping away something they didn’t want to touch.
Once inside, he kicks the bunker door shut with his foot. It’s dark, they didn’t leave any lights on but he knows his way by heart.
Down the stairs and to the left, through the door way, past the control room, right turn, down the hallway.
The first door is Dean’s. He stops. Turns and faces the doorway. The thought of Dean’s unmade bed and the smell of his cologne still on the pillowslip make Sam start to tear up again. His heart aches even worse now. He can’t bring himself to go inside.
Dean’s getting heavier by the second but Sam would find the strength to carry him forever if he didn’t have to lose him.
Its two more doors down to Sam’s room, his footsteps are heavy as he makes his way there. The bed covers are still crisp and tight, a testament to Sam’s insomnia as he spent countless nights researching the Mark of Cain and the first blade. What little sleep he did get was usually slumped over one of the great tables or propped up in one of the chairs.
He hits the light switch with his elbow and the bright bulb sears his tired red eyes. He really wasn’t ready for the gravity of what he would see once the light was on.
Dean’s head has fallen back, his mouth agape and lulled off to the side. His heart sinks and this time the tears do come again. He isn’t sure how much is the light and how much is sheer grief but he really doesn’t care.
When he lays Dean down and gently stretches out his body, he fixes his jaw so that his mouth is closed. There’s a pleasant expression of slumber on his face and not an ounce of worry across his brow. Sam sighs quietly, just taking in the somber view before going into the bathroom to get a wet washcloth.
He’s running the water to make it warm, his blood tinged fingers running pink as the water cascades over them. He’s numb, the water temperature isn’t registering and before he knows it, it’s scalding hot.
“OUCH,” he hisses, pulling his hand out and shaking it off. He looks up into the mirror and sees his blood shot swollen eyes still wet with tears. He runs the wet hand over his blood stained cheek and then down his face, smearing the dried dregs of his brother’s life blood. He lingers at his jaw as he remembers the touch and the words. “I have to tell you something. I’m proud of us” Sam’s lip quivers, he clenches his jaw to try and stop it but it persists until his entire jaw finally gives in and shakes uncontrollably.
He closes his eyes and turns on the cold water to splash his face with it. His soaking wet bangs fall over his eyes. He pushes them back, the water spraying off of them in large droplets. The sound of the water is deafening as it rushes into the porcelain bowl.
He wets the washcloth and shuts the water off.
There’s a straight back chair in the corner of the room, he pulls it over and sits down beside the bed. Dean’s face is bloody; there are wounds along his mouth and eyes. His nose was bleeding but it’s all dry now. Sam gently wipes away most of the blood. He’s tender as he swipes over Dean’s eyes then down his cheeks, across his upper lip and over his nose. He’s even more careful with the large gash in Dean’s lower lip, the plush flesh split open caked with dried blood.
Dean’s knuckles are next, his hands are covered in it as Sam straightens each digit and wipes over it with the once white washcloth. Over each finger, in the webbing and across the palm. Even around the wrists and the face of Dean’s cheap digital watch. He drops the cloth on the floor once he’s done cleaning his brother up and he straightens his arms at his side again.
“There, that’s better,” he says softly.
The room is quiet, deafeningly quiet. The only sounds are the ones resonating from the control room and water dripping in the bathroom shower.
Sam’s thirsty, not for water, not for soda pop, tea or coffee but whiskey. Something dark and alcoholic that will take the edge off, kill the sting, erase the numbness. He remembers Dean’s bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and heads for a drink.
The bottle’s in Dean’s room. He’d never leave it out for anyone to drink. It had been Bobby’s after all. He’s standing in the doorway of Dean’s room again just looking inside. It’s dark, only the softest of outlines from the dim light traveling up the hall from his room. He looks back down the hallway and then back into Dean’s room.
He takes a step inside. Right away it’s the scents that hit him, woodsy aftershave- Dean’s favorite gas station scent or whatever they had that didn’t smell like rubbing alcohol or motor oil. And then there is the gun oil, it’s the next scent to blend in and make itself known and last but not least there’s the leather. Even though Dean didn’t have his leather jacket anymore his jeans always smelled of it from the car seats. You can’t drive for days and not smell like Baby once you’ve stopped. He’s afraid to breath deep, afraid he’ll suck all of them out of the air and be left with nothing once they’re gone.
He turns on the light. There’s a blue scarf over the lamp to mute the bulb and cast a soft glow over everything. Sam smiles, that’s Dean’s way of making the room romantic for… He swallows hard and steels his shoulders.
The bottle is under the nightstand, he bends down, puts one hand on the bed and reaches under to grab the bottle. The cool sheets on his fingertips send chills through his body. He does this as quickly as possible. Once he has the bottle, he’s out of the room again.
Out in the great room he sets the alcohol down on one of the long tables and turns on the lamp, it’s the only light in the room, it casts a faint yellow glow--just enough to see by-- not enough to do anything else by.
He grabs two glasses out of habit and pulls a chair out to sit at the table. He slides one glass across the wooden surface then cracks the bottle and pours half a tumbler in the other. The amber liquid glints as it sloshes in the glass, Sam stares at it, swirling it around as he’s turning the glass between his fingers before taking a drink. The hot burn coating his throat as it glides down. The first real thing he’s felt in hours. He takes another drink and relishes the lesser burn as the bitter smooth alcohol numbs his senses.
He scrubs his palm down over his face, Dean’s broken body bleeding and mortally wounded by an angel blade keeps playing in his mind. The look in his fading eyes as he tells Sam he needs to get out before Metatron gets back. The resolve in his voice when he asks Sam what happened to him being okay with letting him die and the semi snarky remark of “Ain’t that a bitch.” after Sam admits he lied. He keeps hearing the words in his head, seeing the images, and smelling all those dark aromas of death. He can’t seem to break free of them and he’s not sure if he wants to.
The last few months have been dark; Sam knows most of everything that happened is his fault. He knows that the decision to try and make Dean pay for the betrayal of tricking him into being possessed by Ezekiel aka Gadreel by being distant and cold was the wrong choice to make but it’s too late now and he can’t take it back no matter how much he wants too.
He never stopped loving Dean, still showed him in many ways but Dean, he wouldn’t see it, too consumed with his own guilt and need to beat himself up for what he did. In the end, he punished himself more than Sam ever could have no matter what he did in retaliation. It’s something that their dad had ingrained in Dean. Good little soldier, everything rests on your shoulders and if you do something wrong, mea culpa, mea culpa.
Four whiskies later and Sam’s thinking about how he can get Dean back. Crossroads won’t work, he already tried that and once they have Dean, Sam’s unnecessary. All deals are off and his soul is safe but there is Crowley, he got Dean into this, maybe he can get him out.
Everything is already set up for summoning Crowley; Dean made sure of that when he summoned him earlier to help get him out of the dungeon. Sam lights the herbs and does the ritual and then waits.
Crowley never comes.
“You fucking bastard,” Sam sobs. He’s out of options.
He makes his way back to the bedroom with the bottle of whiskey in one hand and his glass in the other. He smells like stinky incense and blood. He pulls his jacket off and throws it over the back of the chair before sitting down.
“You know I tried to summon that fucking bastard,” his speech is a little slurred. “He won’t come,” he sloshes his drink on his lap with an emphatic movement of his arm. “He got you into this, took you to Cain knowing that you’d accept that fucking mark,” he reaches out and turns Dean’s arm until the mark is exposed. “That fucking mark.”
He pours himself a sixth glass. The bottle is over half empty now. He doesn’t know what time it is, he doesn’t care, he just sits with Dean and talks about how things were and how they should have been.
“You know you should’ve come with me to Stanford like I asked you too,” he’s thinking about the night he told Dean he was leaving.
They were lying in bed, basking in the afterglow of sex when Sam decided to tell Dean he was accepted to Stanford.
“I got my letter the other week,” he says snuggling into Dean’s chest, listening to the contented purr he always made after a good romp.
“What letter?” Dean asks sleepily.
“I’ve been accepted to Stanford University, full scholarship,” he rubs Dean’s chest softly.
Dean looks down with a confused expression. “Wait, what?”
Sam looks up innocently. “I’m going to college in California, I leave in two weeks,” he sits up a little.
“When did all this happen?” Dean sits up pushing Sam off of himself.
“I’ve always wanted to go to college. Did you think I was going to stay here and be a hunter?”
“What about me- us- what about this?” Dean’s clearly upset.
“Come with me,” Sam urges, he’s smoothing over Dean’s back as he presses against him.
“I’m not college material, barely got my GED. I’m street suave you know that,” he won’t look at Sam.
“I’m not telling you to go to college, I’m asking you to come with me, get away from this. We can start a life together somewhere where no one knows us, away from hunting.”
“You mean away from dad,” Dean finally looks at Sam.
“It would be away from dad and his obsession,” Sam doesn’t deny it. “I’m going Dean, with our without you but I’d rather it was with,” he kisses Dean’s shoulder.
“Let me think about it.”
Several days pass and they don’t mention it again. One night they’re just sitting watching TV and Dean pulls Sam in close.
“I’m in,” is all he says.
“To what?” Sam asks with confusion.
“Stanford, I’m going with you.”
“Really,” Sam’s so excited he could burst. “Next week, I’ll get us two tickets on the greyhound. You’ll see, it’s the right thing to do,” he kisses Dean on the mouth. It’s a needy kiss, an all encompassing deep kiss.
Sam buys the tickets with money he’s squirreled away and gives Dean his.
The night before they’re to leave Sam tells John. He’s waited so long because he knows that it won’t be met with joyful pride for his son’s accomplishments but as a betrayal to the family.
He’s right, there is a huge fight and they come to fisticuffs. John strikes Sam’s eye and Sam retaliates with a strike to John’s mouth. It ends with an ultimatum.
“If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back,” John yells at Sam.
“Don’t worry I won’t,” Sam says as he grabs his backpack and heads for the door. He looks over at Dean who’s standing behind their father.
Dean doesn’t say anything he just stands there with a scared look on his face as Sam walks out the door alone.
Sam waits at the station for Dean, he never comes and the bus pulls away.
He’s leaning back in the chair, eyes full of half shed tears as he pours himself another drink.
“I don’t blame you for not coming, it was a hard choice for you and somehow I knew you’d choose dad, I just had to have that hope.”
Sam touches Dean’s hand, it’s cooler than before, he doesn’t mind, he just smoothes over it with his thumb and takes another drink of his whiskey.
“You know, I wasn’t going to come with you when you came to Stanford for me. I had a different life there and even though that life desperately needed you in it, instead of Jess. I was going to choose Jess over you. I used to sometimes wish I had chosen her, but now, I'll always be grateful that I didn’t.”
They’re fighting in the dark. Sam’s wrestling with the intruder when he’s topped and pinned down.
“Easy there tiger.”
“Dean?” The light hits his brother’s face and he’s surprised to see him. “What are you doing here?”
Dean helps Sam up. “Looking for a beer,” he gives him a smart ass grin.
Jess comes into the room and Sam introduces her. She’s wearing a tight blue Smurfs t-shirt. Dean makes an inappropriate comment.
“I love the Smurfs.” Then he smiles wide and bites his lower lip flirtatiously.
The banter goes on from there.
“Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been back for a few days,” Dean gives Sam a knowing look.
“Can I talk to you outside?” Sam takes Dean’s arm and leads him into the hallway.
“Dude, she’s hot,” Dean slaps Sam on the shoulder. “You little dawg.”
“What do you want from me? You don’t call or write and no visits for the past three years and now you show up here with this lame excuse,” Sam’s both upset and elated to see Dean again.
“Like you kept in contact,” Dean rolls his eyes.
“What do you want?” Sam’s tone is edgy.
“For you to come find dad with me, he’s been missing now for a few weeks with no contact at all and he won’t answer my calls.”
“I have an interview on Monday for law school, I can’t miss it,” Sam’s trying to make Dean understand that he can’t just leave this life, it’s not pretend because he’s not hunting monsters, this is his real life now, the monster hunting is the pretend one.
“I’ll have you back by Monday, scouts honor,” he holds up his fingers in the scout salute.
Sam rolls his eyes and exhales exasperatedly. “Why do I let you talk me into these things?”
“Because I’m hot and you love me,” Dean’s smiling wide, his green eyes glinting with joy to be with his brother again.
He smacks Sam’s ass as they walk back inside and Sam gives him a dark glare then a sly smirk to let him know that he’s missed him on all levels.
Sam’s bent forward, slumped over, elbows on his knees as he waves the empty glass around, his mind dipping into the corners of their past that he hasn’t thought about in years.
“When you took me back to Stanford I was relieved to be going back to Jess,” he swallows hard as the edges of his words are curling up in his throat. “I had to fight every urge to stay with you. To let myself go back to us, to the very thing that drove me away in the first place, dad,” he pours more whiskey in his glass but he doesn’t drink it. “God, how I wanted you, to feel you on top of me again, letting you love me with everything you had,” he sighs deep. “You always had control of me, even when we were at odds; you had me in the palm of your hand.”
He leans back in the chair, runs his hands through his hair and then takes another drink of the warm liquor.
“I guess that the Angels were right when they said that everything is predestined for us. Jess burning on the ceiling, me running back to you, us happening all over again. Don’t get me wrong, you are all I ever wanted but that is when I learned, that we belong together. Good or bad, evil or saintly, right or wrong, in the end, it’s always been only us.”
Sam’s leaning forward, hands on his knees, he feels sick, like he might vomit. The bile is rising up in his throat and he tries to contain it. He’s breathing shakily as he swallows against the burn. He coughs, grabs the bottle and drinks several big glugs from it, pushing down all of the fear and pain trying to find its way out.
He calms himself and leans back again. Mind wandering to a time when they were younger, much simpler and the small things brought them the most joy.
“Remember the fourth of July when I was like twelve. We bought all of those fireworks and hid them from dad. He would have killed us of he knew we had them. Guns and ammo were fine but something like fireworks just didn’t fit into the hunter’s criteria.”
“Once dad passed out, you drove us out to that field in the middle of nowhere, that place where we found the Wendigo and dad killed it.”
“While we waited for it to get dark enough, we ate cheeseburgers, drank chocolate malts and cranked up Quiet Riot’s, Metal Health album.”
“When it was finally pitch black outside and the stars were out fully, we popped open the trunk and pulled out that huge box of fireworks. I was so excited,” his hands are clasped in his lap and he picks at his fingers.
“The first one was a dud, barely went high enough and just popped instead of exploding. The next, a bottle rocket, went straight up, exploded and burst into vibrant blue. You were as excited as me when the sparks rained down on us. Pulled me tight and danced with me in the glowing embers,” he looks over at Dean. “We had so much fun. One right after the other, exploding, and bursting, raining showers of color down on us like an electric storm.”
“I loved those sparklers too, the ones that looked like they were shooting sparkling lava that hissed when ignited.”
“And then we noticed the leaves burning, the cascades of smoke billowing out of the thickly brushed area. You freaked out, grabbed the gallon jugs of holy water and high tailed it into the brush screaming, Holy Fuck!!! at the top of your lungs. When you came running out, no jugs and more fire than smoke chasing you, we got out of there faster than Flash,” he chuckles. “I never knew your foot was so heavy. Making me watch out the rearview window for police lights all the way back to the motel.”
“Dad was waiting on the porch with his shotgun between his knees when we pulled in. To this day I don’t think it was loaded but you never know with him,” he shakes his head and goes back to looking at his fingers.
“I guess being grounded for three weeks was worth it though, we didn’t complain about it- much, and we got to watch the free HBO for the entire time, since dad skipped out for most of it.”
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
“You took on a lot at sixteen. I wasn’t exactly the easiest twelve year old to deal with sometimes. Taking off and rebelling about a lot of things. I can’t help it that I didn’t see eye to eye with dad, like you did,” he worries his lower lip between his teeth. “You were always there for me and even though I never said it, it meant a lot to me- when I got older.”
He looks up from under his brow, his bangs hanging down like a fringe around his vision. “I guess I should just say thanks for always having my back, even when I wasn’t returning the favor.”
Sam’s hands start to shake; he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stands up. He puts the glass on the chest of drawers against the wall. He notices a small photo lying on top, it’s of the two of them, arms over each others shoulders, huge smiles on their faces and he remembers that they were at Bobby’s place.
Probably a movie night since they were on the couch and Dean has licorice hanging out of his mouth.
They always have to have guy flicks since Dean can’t handle emotional chick flicks, as he calls them. They usually end up arguing at the rental place because they can never settle on one classic superhero. Dean’s a Batman fan and Sam, well he’s into the X-men, which Dean always teases him about.
“Sure Sammy, X men, stud muffins, xxx porn dudes in tights with x-ray vision and cod pieces to make their junk look bigger,” Dean’s snickering as Sam blushes.
They’d usually end up renting either a scifi movie or an action flick so that the movie rental dude stops staring at them like a bickering old married couple.
He sits on the edge of the bed and rubs his hand over Dean’s stiff thigh. “Even though you teased me about everything I liked, I know that you secretly enjoyed a good chick flick now and again. I mean you watched The Black Swan after all,” he lets a smile crease the edges of his mouth.
“You watched The Black Swan?”
“Twice,” he holds up two fingers while smiling mischievously. “Hot girl on girl action,” Dean waggles his eyebrows. “I mean, she’s bat shit crazy but…”
“There were good times. We never really talked about them much but they were always there on the fringe of everything that was going wrong with us. I just wish we had focused more on them and less on all of the things that ended up tearing us apart.”
It feels like he’s been sitting here forever, like days have gone by. “Maybe this is how it feels when your heart breaks,” he thinks.
“I don’t know if you know this or not but when you came back to me from hell. When you walked through that door with Bobby, I thought I’d gone crazy. I couldn’t believe it was you.”
Sam’s expecting the pizza guy at the door when he walks into the room but instead he sees Dean and Bobby standing in the doorway.
“Who the Fuck,” Sam says under his breath as he pulls a knife and lunges at Dean.
“Sammy, Sammy,” Dean’s fending off the attack.
“It’s him Sam, it’s Dean,” Bobby says pushing Sam backwards away from Dean.
“Like you didn’t do this,” Dean says expecting Sam to admit to having done a spell or something to raise him from hell.
“What, no, I… I tried,” Sam looks confused and frightened, “but not for a while now.”
“Well I look great,” Dean smiles and holds up his hands like Sam’s supposed to inspect them.
Sam just stands there for a second before it all registers in his head and his eyes fill with tears as he pulls Dean in for a tight embrace. He doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t want to ever let go.
After his guest leaves they talk. Sam can barely control his emotions, his hands are unsteady and all he wants to be doing is cradling Dean in his arms.
“So, how’s Baby?” Dean asks with a grin.
“Uh.. fine,” Sam can’t believe he wants to talk about the car.
“Good… good.” It feels awkward but he tries not to show it.
“Look boys, you have some catching up to do, so I’m going to just… you know- find a room,” Bobby bows out.
“Oh yeah, sure,” Dean hugs him good-bye.
“Thanks Bobby,” Sam squeezes him tight before he walks out the door.
After the door is closed and Dean has a beer in his hand, things loosen up.
“God, I’ve missed you,” Sam says sitting close to Dean, his body pushed as tight to him as possible.
“You can’t even imagine,” Dean responds by putting his arm around Sam’s shoulders.
They sit like this for a long time, neither talking, just reveling in the other’s warmth.
Sam’s back in the chair again, another glass of whiskey poured and he knows he’s feeling the effects because he’s light headed. He wants to forget everything he’s remembering but he can’t and he won’t.
“I don’t think anyone could ever love someone as much as I loved you at that very moment.”
He leans his head back and stares up at the ceiling.
“You thought I didn’t have any memories of you in Heaven, that you weren’t in my heaven but you were. Me and you in the Impala, the open road ahead of us and your annoying classic rock blaring as we rolled down it. That’s what I was doing when I first got to heaven, you just popped in at an awkward moment when I was flashing back to my teenage years,” he takes a deep breath. “My heaven was filled with you. But once you came and found me, we shared heaven like soul mates do. Ash even told us that only special people, like soul mates can share a heaven and still you thought you weren’t in my heaven, even though you were there the whole time.”
“You’ve been my life since I was born. You carried me safe from fire and helped to raise me, how could you think that you wouldn’t be in my heaven,” he starts to cry again. It’s more of a sob that he can’t control.
There’s a noise in the hall and Sam jerks quickly towards the doorway. His eyes are cloudy with tears and everything looks blurry.
Walking over to the doorway he calls out, “Who’s there?” hand on the gun still tucked into the back of his jeans.
His hands are shaky, his fingers twitchy, and he’s a lot drunk, but if Metatron’s come looking for him or anything else, he’s pretty damned sure he’s taking him down, cloudy vision or not.
He listens intently at the door. No more sounds. He puts his fingers around the gun handle and pulls it out, holding it close to his body, thumb on the safety and finger resting against the trigger cage. He leans into the doorjamb, his body poised to propel himself around the corner in the direction of the next sound.
He waits, but hears nothing.
He gingerly peeks around the corner, then steps into the hallway looking in both directions, but nothing. He relaxes, puts the gun back in place under his waistband and sighs.
He’s heading back into the room and as he rounds the corner, he feels a cold spot. He stops suddenly, chills pimpling his skin. He thinks about Kevin and how he was roaming around the bunker watching them for weeks and tears fill his eyes again. His mouth goes dry, his heart skips a few beats and he can’t breath. He makes a choked sound then swallows what saliva has thickly gathered in his mouth.
“Dean,” he says weakly, his eyes squinting as he searches the hallway in both directions. “Come on dude,” he’s not sure if he wants it to be Dean. He wonders if he could handle ghost Dean. He takes another deep breath.
“If it’s you,” he pauses to think about what he really wants. “Give me a sign,” the hair on the back of his neck stands up at the thought. “Touch me,” he braces himself for an icy touch that never comes. He waits patiently for a minute but nothing happens.
He turns to go back into the room but he can’t quite shake the feeling that something or someone is here.
Crowley’s been holding his preverbal breath since Sam stepped out of the room. He’s invisible, like a ghost, watching Sam pour his heart out to Dean. He’s taking no pleasure in this but Sam summoned him and he comes when a Winchester beckons, he just doesn’t have to appear or do what’s asked of him. He’s not a genie, he doesn’t give out three wishes and he has other business he needs to attend to when Sam’s done.
Sam sits in the chair again; his knees touching the side of the bed, his elbows perched on his knees, clasped hands tucked under his chin as he stares down into his brother’s expressionless face.
“Remember the Christmas I gave you the amulet?” he smiles. “I never saw you smile like that, and when you put it on, I was filled with joy to see that you liked it,” his gaze wanders as his slight smile fades into the background of what he’s going to say next.
“All of those years, that was the one pure thing between us. The one thing that was always there letting me know that you never forgot who we were. What we were to each other,” he rubs over his forehead and closes his eyes.
“Then, you gave it to Cas. I understood that, I got it; it was an important amulet that could lead us to God. The fact that you told Cas he couldn’t let anything happen to it, that you wanted it back safe and he promised it’s safe return made it easier to watch you hand it off.” Both hands come over his face and he slowly slides them down over it as if trying to wipe away a feeling.
“When Cas kept up his end of the deal and handed it back safe and sound, I was relieved but then I had to watch you drop it into the trash can.” Tears gather in his eyes again. His lip quivers as he finishes.
“Something broke between us that night. You might not have seen it, hell you probably weren’t even paying attention being as you were in obsessive Dean mode at the time. But watching you drop that into the trash can helped me to distance myself from you. It changed how we were. I don’t know if you even noticed the change between us at that point, when you’ve got your blinders on, you are truly blind to everything around you,” he wipes the tears with the sleeve of his shirt.
“That was the beginning of our crack. Everything else that came after that, that would drive a wedge between us, was rooted in that tiny hairline fracture,” he reaches into his pocket and pulls something out that he keeps clasped in his palm.
“I don’t know, I guess I just hoped that things would get better, especially after the church proclamation. The promise that we were going to do this together, nothing was ever going to get between us again. No Benny’s, no demons, nothing to stand between us ever again. No more lies, no more hiding things, just us, the truth and our love to hold us together till the end,” he clenches his fist tighter as he stares at it.
“That didn’t happen. As always with us, there had to be a wedge,” he shakes his head and gives a faint scoffing chuckle. “We weren’t able to get along since you came back from hell. I tried, I really, really tried to go back to what we were but then Castiel and my blood addiction,” he looks up at the ceiling and takes a deep breath. “Then the angel, demon war, the apocalypse, me being Lucifer’s vessel and going soulless for over a year. We just let it all come between us. Our bodies were there, the love was there but we just didn’t let, us, be there,” he scoots closer to the bed; he’s half sitting on the edge, half on the chair.
“I’m not really sure what I thought I was going to do with this,” he opens his hand and the golden glistening amulet face is lying on top of the tangled up black cord. “I took it out of the trash can,” his words are quiet. “When you weren’t looking,” he looks down at Dean’s chest. “I’d imagine it around your neck; worry it between my fingers when things weren’t going so swift. All the while waiting for the day when I’d be able to put it around your neck again, see it there for real, and feel it between us when we’d kiss.”
He unfurls the cord. “I guess there isn’t anything between us now, no wedge to separate us, no one or thing to pull us apart anymore,” he slips the necklace over Dean’s head and adjusts it around his neck so that the amulet is over his heart. “Well, nothing but death that is.”
The bottle isn’t empty yet and Sam takes a long swig from it. It burns his raw throat and he’s disgusted that he’s sobering up enough to feel pain again. He wants to be numb; it goes better with the empty feeling gnawing at his insides.
He can’t help but go through the list of people he’s lost in his short lifetime.
He knows everyone says, It’s the hunter’s life to lose everyone you love. That’s why you don’t love anyone. He never agreed with that because he always had Dean. He thinks about losing his mother before he knew what was happening. He lost his father, right after he found him, he died and as consequence of coming back from death, he lost Dean for a year. They lost Bobby; probably the hardest hit outside of losing each other and Sam still didn’t feel as empty inside as he does today. Maybe because Dean was standing right there beside him or maybe the fact that he was bat shit crazy at the time, either way, Dean was alive and right there beside him. Even when Dean disappeared for a year, there was always something eating at him that Dean wasn’t actually dead and he’d be back.
Sam swirls the amber liquid in the bottle and thinks about finishing it off but his gut protests and rolls with the three fourths he’d already consumed in just under the two hours he’s been sitting here.
“You’d have finished this bottle off,” he says to Dean. “You’d have drank every drop then went for a few beers before passing out into a dreamless slumber,” he knew Dean had a problem. He never drank like that before hell and he never hated sleeping until after coming back either. He knew that the dreams were terrible. That Dean hated the things he’d done, and he wasn’t sure if he could ever forgive himself or get over them, either. He just drank until he was incoherent and if he couldn’t do that, he grabbed Sam and they fucked until they both passed out from satiation and exhaustion. Either way, he was high when he closed his eyes.
“I fucking can’t,” Sam cries out as he doubles over and puts his head between his knees. He’s crying again but this time, the tears won’t come. He’s angry more than sad. His rage for everything that’s happened, for everything he couldn’t do to save his brother is rushing to the surface. “I just can’t,” he says again, his teeth clenched tight, lips snarling with the words.
He sits up and throws the bottle across the room; it smashes against the wall, shattering into tiny pieces that tinkle to the cement floor like sparkling fireflies as they catch the light on their descent. The dark whiskey is streaking down the wall from the giant wet circle of impact. Sam stares at it but doesn’t feel any better for the outburst.
“How am I,” he leans over Dean’s body. “Going to go on without you?” his words are broken and dark. “You’re selfish,” he grits his teeth again. “Always have been selfish,” his voice is deeper and full of anger.
“Wouldn’t come with me to Stanford, wouldn’t let me live my own life without you, brought me back into this world of death and loneliness, then you leave me here, all alone,” he’s gripping Dean’s shirt tightly in his fists. “He’s sobbing again, his heart breaking with the realization that Dean is actually gone.
He’s curled up on the floor, hands clutching the bedspread, head resting on the side of the mattress. He’s hungry and he hates his body for betraying him like this and wanting sustenance when he’s grieving.
“I could really go for one of your hamburgers right now,” he gives a tiny smile.
“I never knew you could cook. Well, spaghetti O’s and soup, were our mainstay as kids,” he actually chuckles a little bit. “And, Lucky Charms,” he thinks about all the fights they’d had about the toy surprise on the inside. “Thumb wars and rock paper scissors used to be the way we’d solve everything,” he smiles wide. “You, always with the scissors,” he rolls his eyes, “So predictable.”
His stomach growls and turns with nausea. “I guess Lisa was good for your domestic skills.”
He stands up and moves back into the chair. “I know that you loved her and Ben, in your own special way. That they started out filling the void I made and then became more of a family to you. I hate that you felt the need to have Cas erase you from their memories. They’d deserve to know this,” he fumbles with his hands, an awkward feeling coming over him, a tinge of jealousy about Dean’s otherfamily.
“I guess this is as close as we ever got to domestic life. The bunker, our only true home,” he looks around. “We would end up with an underground fortress, complete with dungeon.”
“You know that you are the reason I started to feel at home here. To me this was just another place to lay my head, a giant research library- but to you, it’s our home. You found happiness in the stability it had, the permanence of it and in a way I envied that about you,” he takes a deep breath. “It wasn’t until Dorothy explained to me about a home that I actually started to understand that, this- the bunker, had become our home and I let myself believe in something permanent in my life.”
He straightens Dean’s lapel from where he had gripped it and pulled it askew. “But now I realize that permanence is only a façade and that you have what you can touch, the rest is all pretend for people who don’t know any better.”
His gut clenches and he knows that he has to get food inside of himself or he’s going to puke up every ounce of whiskey he drank and that doesn’t appeal to him.
There’s pie sitting on the counter next to the cold coffee from this morning. The pie’s been there for two days and he should have known something was wrong when there hadn’t even been a slice taken out within the first few minutes of it being in the door.
“Dude, pie, it’s a staple. It’s like the fifth food group, right,” Dean’s smiling ear to ear with a mouthful of blueberry pie.
He should have known that the mark was affecting Dean in such a powerful way. He was addicted to it, he needed it and even if he didn’t like it, he couldn’t stand to live without it. Sam understands this feeling because the power that came with demon blood for him infected every inch of who he was until he almost wasn’t anymore.
He cuts a slice of apple pie and nukes a cup of black coffee. He eats like it has no taste, like he can’t savor any flavors, everything is just there and that’s all.
The coffee is hot and he hopes that it might warm the cold places spreading throughout his body but it doesn’t, it only burns his throat where the whisky and endless sobbing made it raw.
He thinks about the last few months, how they were so distant, how he let Dean believe that they weren’t brothers anymore. He wishes he could take it back; tell him how much it hurt him to turn his back on them. He’d love to show him, tell him how much the two drunken nights together meant to him. How he only pretended to be drunk so that he could be with him again and not have to admit that he was lying all along.
All the nights he laid in his room and dreamt of holding Dean, feeling his warmth, inhaling his scent, knowing that he can never love another like he loves Dean.
He can feel his heart splitting even farther apart. The lump in his throat grows bigger and it’s impossible to swallow now, it’s getting harder to breath and his knees want to give out from under him again.
He braces himself against the back of a chair to keep on his feet. There’s a soft cotton material under his fingers and he looks down at it. It’s Dean’s blue flannel shirt. The soft cotton he’s felt under his fingertips so many times before when he was stripping it off of his shoulders or grasping it for purchase as they plundered each other’s mouths.
Every inch of air is sucked out of the room and he starts to gasp like a fish out of water. His head spins and he swoons with lack of oxygen. He falls to his knees, he’s faint and before he goes out, he realizes he’s holding his breath. He opens his mouth and sucks in air in big gulps. His face falls into the flannel shirt thrown over the back of the chair and it still smells like Dean. Soft woodsy aftershave, gun oil and leather, he drinks it in, is afraid he’ll never smell it again and pulls the shirt from the chair to hold it tight to his face so that he can always remember it. He’s ingraining the smell that he took for granted so much before, into his brain forever.
When he comes to his senses, he feels trapped like an animal inside a cage. He makes his way to the door and has to have fresh air. He can’t be in here, can’t be in this place with his dead brother another second longer.
The sun hits him in the face when he opens the door and he squints against its bright fire. He throws himself outside like he’s been imprisoned his entire life. He leans against the wall, wishes he had a cigarette to smoke but then remembers he doesn’t smoke. It’s all so consuming, like fire and ice. He wishes he could just burn this place to the ground and forget the last year even happened. His hands are shaking as he wipes his dry lips and wanders what it would feel like to just have his memory erased like in that movie with Jim Carrey, just have Dean erased, like Lisa and Ben. Never have to think about the love, the pain, the joy, the hurt, all the lies and how much he can’t live without him.
He slouches down against the wall, knees to his chest and buries his face in his folded arms.
“Cas,” he thinks. He’s grasping at straws now. Then he remembers that his grace is borrowed and burning out but he knows that he’d give all he had left to save Dean, but he won’t ask him to do that.
When he finally goes back in, it’s been less than fifteen minutes since he left for food but it feels like hours.
________________________________________________________________________
Sam stops at the bathroom and he washes his hands. He catches his face in the mirror and he looks like he’s been put through the ringer more than once, rode hard and put away wet. How someone can get dark circles under their eyes in one day is beyond his comprehension but he has them. Swollen, dark bloodshot eyes full of pain and grief. He opens the medicine cabinet door just so he won’t have to look at himself again.
He stands in the doorway looking at Dean, wishing he’d just sit up and say, Gotcha! then start laughing like the fiend he is. He loves a good prank no matter what the consequences might be. But he doesn’t, he just lays there.
There weren’t many times that Sam didn’t think about wanting a normal life. He always wanted more than he had in the way of normalcy. More than once he tried to convince Dean to leave hunting, go away with him and just live like civilians in the real world.
“We know what goes bump in the night Sammy, can’t just ignore what we know.” Is what he’d say and completely dismiss any notion of normalcy. “Normal is for civilians, we are hunters, soldiers who protect them from things they can’t see.” And that would be the end of the conversation, every single time.
“When you were in purgatory for that time, when I was with Amelia. I felt like for the first time I was normal. I had a job, she was a respected vet. We had an apartment, a life, a dog, two cars and a future that didn’t include hunting things or killing things,” he rubs his hands over his jeans, his palms are sweating profusely. “I felt normal but you know what I didn’t feel,” he doesn’t even want to say it but he does. “Whole. I needed you, I needed what we had. Dysfunctional, needy, broken, lustful, hidden, painful, us,” he lowers his head in admission. “I never wanted normal, I never wanted anything but what we had. I needed you, wanted you, and couldn’t stand to live without you. You are my drug, an addiction. I love you, I will always love you and there will be no other that will cause me to follow them to the ends of the earth just because they ask me too. Only you have that hold on me, and I’ll never give it to anyone else.”
“When you came back, I dropped everything, I left my apple pie life with her and ran as fast as I could back to you,” he’s never opened up like this and in a strange way it feels right to say it out loud. “To Rufus’s cabin, to your arms, there wasn’t anything that would have kept me away once I knew you were back.” There’s a peace coming over his soul as he lets it all out. “I’d forsake anyone or anything for you Dean- and I have.”
Everything is silent, his thoughts ringing loudly in his head as he goes through the catalogs of memories stashed there.
He starts his reminiscing with “Remember,” then follows it with the stories.
“The time we worked that case in Seneca New York and we got to see the falls. How we slipped unnoticed into the Canadian side on foot just so you could kiss me in another country. That was kinda romantic,” he smiles sweetly as he wrings his hands nervously.
“Or when we were on that movie set in Hollywood and you ended up with the star, what’s her name,” he conveniently forgets. “I told you I was totally fine with it, but you know she was a skank, right,” he’s laughs a little. “Yeah, I know you did,” his eyes smile a little. “I always knew that you just had to be you, no matter what we said to each other or how much we proclaimed our love, Dean Winchester had to have the hetero forefront appearance.”
“Sometimes I think about all the things you’ve given up for me. How you practically raised me, how you gave your life and soul up for me. You gave up a normal childhood to come back and take care of me. Keep me from knowing all of the things you went through, sheltered me from all of the things that you had to learn at a very early age.”
He leans back in the chair again, and takes a deep breath.
“My sixth birthday, you got me that transformers cake. It was so big; enough sheet cake for thirty people, only because you couldn’t remember that Optimus Prime was my favorite character and you had them put all of the major characters on it for me. I was sick for days from over eating cake all day long. But, I wouldn’t have had that if it wasn’t for you. Dad was on a hunt, we were in a motel and you spent most of our food money on that cake, I guess we had to eat all of it,” he swallows hard. “Thanks for being a big brother to a spoiled brat.”
“My first time driving the Impala, you took me out on that dirt road in Utah while dad was passed out in the motel. What was I, fourteen,” he shakes his head. “You wanted me to feel so grown up that weekend. First full beer, our first kiss and you took the blame for the ding in the door from when I hit that big rock because I was too busy concentrating on the fact that I wanted to kiss your lips again,” he sighs hard.
“We couldn’t be like normal siblings, we had to be special, had to be soul mates,” he looks down at the floor. “All the times I pined for you, watching you date these girls and wanting to be them,” his mouth turns up into a smirk. “That awkward fight we had when I told you that you didn’t need girls when you had me. The way you bit your lower lip and glared at me like I was saying the dirtiest words you’d ever heard, then you punched me and then kissed me right after. That was the thing, which started everything.”
“All the perfect times, all the times we fought each other, everything came down to how much we needed each other. I knew it, you knew it but we just couldn’t say it, just couldn’t ever give in and tell each other how desperately we needed one another.”
He moves over and sits on the edge of the bed, it gives under his weight and Dean’s arm falls to the side into Sam’s hip. He takes his hand and puts it back in place, rubs his thumb over the pulse point before drawing away again.
He studies the serene look on Dean’s face. The not really pleasant but peaceful non expression he has. He runs his index finger over the smooth line of his forehead. “No more worry wrinkles,” he says. “No more worries, Dean,” he straightens his lapel and t-shirt collar. “That’s better,” he’s trying not to break down again.
He’s quiet as he just sits there, sits there and lets the entire gamut of emotion flood over him. There isn’t anything he can do about it, so he just lets it wash over him, cover him and engulf him. He’s not resigning to anything but accepting that right now, he can’t change anything that’s happened. He can’t go back in time, can’t take anything back. He has to let all the good and all of the bad, be a part of what they were.
There’s no crossroads deal, no spells, no curses, no angel that can change this.
Everything is deafeningly quiet. Every sound in the world has disappeared as he runs his hands down over Dean’s body. He’s smoothing out the wrinkles, adjusting his legs, memorizing how his shape feels one last time.
He closes his eyes and runs a finger around the shape of his jaw, over the shell of his ear, along his hairline that shapes his face. He remembers it when it was soft, warm and pliable. The shape of his brow line, his eyes, and he takes notice to the one that draws down just a little bit more than the other, the soft tickle of his lashes as he caresses the smooth fleshy skin beneath the eyes. Sliding a finger down his nose, over the bridge with its ever so tiny bump and tracing around each nostril. That small space of upper lip then diving into the cupid’s bow of the upper lip, along one side and down along that fuller more plush lower lip then back up over the other side of the upper lip. He’s fingering the indentation under the mouth as he maps every inch of his brother’s face. He wants to always remember it, always know how it felt under his fingers.
This all feels so surreal now. The empty pit swallowing him up has stopped eating away at him. All he feels is loss, a vacant space where once there was his brother. There’s an empty driver’s seat, a vacant space in the bed, and an unfilled chair at their restaurant table. There’s one less beer to buy, one less dish to wash, and one load of laundry to do.
It’s a lonely feeling, something Sam never thought he’d feel, knowing that the other half of his partnership, sibling, his brother, his soul mate isn’t there anymore. He doesn’t want to forget what it feels like with him by his side and he won’t. It’s a silent promise to Dean, to keep his memory alive for always. It’s one he’s sure he can keep.
He opens his eyes as he finishes memorizing the lines of his face. He knows he can’t stay in here forever. He has to prepare things, make things ready and eventually have the funeral pyre. He shudders to think of it. Hates the idea of it all ending like this and his heart comes completely apart. The strong thudding of it makes his neck pulse with each beat as he tries hard to stifle the tears welling up in his eyes again.
He’s leaning over Dean, his hands cupping his face as he makes sure that he knows exactly how it’s always been, how he’s always felt, not matter what.
For of all the things you did, for all of the things you’ve done, for all those things that you’ve said, and that I’ve said. All of the times we’ve walked away from each other, or when things came to fisticuffs, I never stopped loving you. I never stopped wanting you. You were always the center of my world and I hope that you knew it.
He runs his thumb over Dean’s cheek, and then kisses him softly on the forehead. There are rivers of tears wetting his face and he leaves a few behind on Dean’s skin, the wet smear glistening in the dim light.
When Sam turns to leave, he has to steel himself, take a deep breath, close his eyes and swallow hard to summon the courage he needs to walk away.
He fights the urge to turn back around, climb into bed and wrap himself around Dean’s lifeless body, letting himself slip away too. He’s afraid this time, life will be too hard to bear without him but he walks out the door anyway.
________________________________________________________________________
Crowley watches as Sam walks past him. For all of the times he’s pretended to be their ally, this time, he actually feels something broken for Sam Winchester. He blames it on the slightest humanity still coursing through his demon veins.
He walks into the room and sits down on Sam’s straight back chair, makes himself corporal and takes a deep breath.
“Hello, Dean.”
The End