Save Me From the Dark
Title: Save Me From the Dark
Summary: Season 5 AU. After the events of 'The End' Castiel manages to get Dean away from Zachariah, but when Dean returns he finds that nine months have gone by and, more importantly, that Sam has all but disappeared from the face of the planet. When he does find him, he discovers that Sam has been permanently altered during his absence.
Characters: Dean, Sam, OCs, minor appearance by Bobby.
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 9,829
Disclaimer: I'm waiting for the show to end so I can get 'em on sale.
Warnings: Permanent injury. Swearing.
Neurotic Author's Note: Yeah, I'm not sure where this came from, but it wanted to be written. I'm not 100% happy with it, but short of a total re-write I think it's as good as it's going to get.
It's not like Dean was expecting to find Sam here, of all places. Not that he hasn't been looking, of course. He's been looking ever since he got back, but apparently once Sam decided to really hide from him, he was actually pretty good at it. It makes Dean wonder if Sam hadn't really been leaving a trail for him to follow, back when he escaped from the panic room and ended up freeing Lucifer. It's a depressing thought, that Sam had wanted, had maybe even been hoping, that Dean would come through and stop him, or maybe come with him and stand by him even then.
Sam's gone now, been missing for months according to Bobby. Cas' ability to time-travel is a little skewed these days, what with being cut off from Heaven and all that, and while he did pull Dean out of a really fucking tight spot with Lucifer and Zachariah and all those other winged douchebags who enjoy mind games way too much for their own good, he couldn't exactly pull it off with all the finesse he'd previously displayed. Dean kind of longs for the days when Cas was able to move him around in space and time in the blink of an eye without so much as breaking a sweat, but by the time they landed back in the present day Cas looked like he'd been on the receiving end of a Mack truck, metaphorically speaking, anyway. He hadn't answered any of Dean's questions, either, about what had happened or anything else, just made sure Lucifer hadn't harmed Dean, and then flapped off again in search of God. Dean made him recharge his phone first, though, and added a whole bunch of minutes on there just in case, because the last time Cas had tried to argue with 'the voice' on the other end of the line, it had resulted in some sort of weird technical glitch that forced them to replace the whole damned phone. To this day, Dean still doesn't know how he managed it.
Dean found the Impala in an impound lot, covered in dust, but luckily still unsold at auction. It was easy enough to get her out of there, since he still had the keys, and he stroked a hand lovingly over her dashboard. "I'm sorry I left you, baby," he murmured to her. "I promise I will never, ever let you rust away like that ever again, okay?"
She'd needed a lot of TLC after that, so he'd driven almost straight to Bobby's, after dialling Sam's number over and over again in the hopes that, maybe this time he'd get a number that wasn't out of service. Bobby was waiting for him on the front porch by the time he got there, stiff from the long drive.
"What the hell, Bobby?"
Bobby had rolled his eyes. "That's how you greet me after all this time?"
He'd had the grace to look a bit sheepish after that, and gave the old hunter a hug and a thump on the back, but it didn't negate his question. "What the hell's been going on? I get zapped out of here by angels, and I come back to Sam's number getting disconnected. Did he change phones?"
Bobby shrugged. "Beats me. You have any idea how long you've been gone for, boy? It's been months. Nearly nine months, to be precise. I couldn't find hide nor hair of either of you. Thought you might be dead, except I was pretty sure I'd have heard of that. Couldn't even get your car back-I see you took care of that, though."
"Nine months?"
That's what it was. Cas and his weakened powers fighting against Zachariah and all the powers of Heaven. Cas had succeeded, but there was a lot of damage control to be done. Sam was gone, had fallen right off the face of the planet right after that last conversation he'd had with Dean. Dean remembers it like it was yesterday, because that's exactly when it was for him. 'Pick a hemisphere,' he'd told him, and it sounds like that's exactly what Sam did.
The trail's long since gone cold, but it doesn't prevent Dean from trying to follow it anywhere. Now that Dad's gone, Dean's the best hunter there is out there. He doesn't think it's bragging to say as much-he's gone up against demons and now angels and won every single time, or at least come out alive, and that's more than any other hunter on the planet can say apart from Sam. So if anyone can find Sam, it's his own brother. Except for the fact that Sam doesn't appear to want to be found.
Dean spends the better part of six weeks following dead end after dead end, going down trails that are colder than a witch's teats. He finds a girl named Lindsey who knew Sam for a couple of days when he went by the name of Keith, and she tells him about a bunch of rough-looking guys who cuffed her to the bar she worked at and threatened her because of Sam, threatened to hurt her unless he drank demon blood and copped to starting the Apocalypse. She thinks it's all crazy, that the guys were crazy and that 'Keith' only did what they asked to save her life. She's still shaken, months afterward, but she tells him that Sam saved her life, that he left town the same day and left her all the money he'd made at the bar and said he was sorry he'd brought all this down on her.
"He seemed really lonely," she says to Dean. "I thought we might be friends. I dunno, stay in touch. Are you his brother?"
Dean was a little startled by the question, but he nodded. "Yeah."
"Good. He missed you, you know. He told me a little about it, how he hurt you. I don't know if he ever joined a program, but... Look, it's not really my place, but he really is sorry, and if he ever tries to make amends, you think you could try to give him another shot?"
It takes him a minute to figure out that she's talking about Sam like he's a drug addict, like he's just going to join one of those twelve-step groups and make himself all better. She's talking about atonement, like anything Sam could ever do could make up for ending the damned world. But he nods.
"It's why I'm trying to find him."
It's not exactly that, but he needs Sam, he knows that now. He's seen what the world became when Sam wasn't with him. More importantly, he saw what he himself became when Sam wasn't around to remind him that he was human, to remind him that he was more than what Alastair made of him in Hell.
But after that, the trail went cold almost immediately. Sam started hunting again, that much he knows. Apparently when Sam called him and told him he wanted back in, he wasn't kidding. Dean finds a few cases that Sam solved-a couple of vengeful spirits, a small nest of vampires, a water spirit-all taken care of within a couple of days of his coming into town. It sounds like he didn't spend any more time than necessary talking to the people locally, just did what he had to do and got out, but people remembered him anyway. Sam is pretty memorable, so people tell Dean all about the tall young man with the sad eyes who came to town and asked about their recent troubles. Then, when the young man left, the troubles mysteriously disappeared. They're grateful, even if they're not sure what for.
"Keeping up the family business, eh Sammy?" Dean says to no one in particular, driving away from the last town.
The last sign of Sam is in a remote area that looks like it might have been the hunting grounds of a skin walker or maybe a Black Dog. It's hard to tell. The people in town remember Sam too, but they don't know what happened to him. He left his car here, they tell Dean, but it was a dilapidated old clunker that couldn't even be sold except for the scrap metal, so it's long gone. The local sheriff's office kept some of his stuff for a while, and they tell him it's probably in storage by now, because he just up and disappeared and left all his things behind in the motel room he'd rented for a week. When he goes to the sheriff's office and introduces himself as Sam's brother, the sheriff just hands him a short list inventorying what he left behind: three changes of clothes, a Swiss Army knife, several boxes of ammunition, a toiletry kit, and a wallet with what Dean recognizes must be a fake I.D. That's all that's left of Sam in this place: a half-empty duffel bag with a name that isn't even his own.
Dean doesn't even know where to look after that. He goes up into the woods to see if the creature is still there, but he already knows it's either dead or moved on, since there haven't been reports of any deaths for months. There's no sign of Sam, either. It's been seven months since Sam was here hunting. There's no body, nothing to indicate anything at all. It's just an empty stretch of woods, nothing but trees and the sound of birds to tell him that whatever supernatural entity was here, it's long since gone.
It's not that Dean stops looking, after that. It's that he simply doesn't know where to go from there.So he starts out slow, moves his way in concentric circles starting from that little town and working his way out. He starts taking hunts along the way, tries not to feel even more isolated when Cas pops in and pops back out almost immediately after. He's not sure if Cas is checking up on him or just keeping him updated on the total, absolute fuck-all that he's found while searching for God. At least he still has Dean's amulet-Dean doesn't like the idea of his having it and maybe losing it, because it's nowhere safer than around his own neck-but he's willing to bet that it's in the second-safest pair of hands out there, and that's going to have to be enough for now.
Dean salt and burns the remains of a schoolteacher murdered by her abusive husband, doesn't stay in his motel room longer than it takes for him to shower and change into clothes that don't smell of kerosene, heads on to the next town. He's not even sure what he's going to find there, except that he doesn't like staying in one place too long. For one thing, he's pretty sure Zachariah has his little evangelising buddies on the lookout for him at all times, and it's not a comforting thought. He's been going non-stop for almost four days, though, and eventually this is going to knock him out, but he's not ready to call it quits just yet, so he stops at the first coffee shop he sees. Most gas stations won't add several shots of espresso to your coffee, but a coffee shop is a different story entirely, and he's willing to spend the extra few bucks he has in his pocket right now if it means he'll be able to go another hundred miles or so.
He parks out front, even feeds the meter in case the line-up is longer than he anticipated¿no use attracting attention with a parking ticket-and heads to the counter without bothering to even look up at the barista. He doesn't know why coffee shops decided they needed a fancy name for the girls who serve coffee, but whatever, as long as he gets his coffee.
"What can I get you?"
Dean's head jerks up at the sounds of the voice. It can't be, he tells himself even as he feels electricity thrumming all the way through his body, but it is. He'd know that voice anywhere. It's Sam, standing behind the cash, but he's not looking at Dean, maybe hasn't even seen who it is, because how else would he be acting so casual? Like his long-lost brother hadn't even walked through the front door of this shop to find him standing behind the counter, hair cut considerably shorter than it was the last time Dean saw him, wearing one of those stupid-looking aprons with the shop's logo stencilled on the front, white shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbow.
"Did you want a coffee?" Sam repeats, turning his head, and that's when Dean feels his heart leap right into his mouth, because Sam's eyes don't focus on him at all. His gaze lands somewhere to Dean's left, fixed in mid-air, because he's not seeing anything at all.
"Sammy?"
There's a crash as Sam starts violently and knocks one of the ceramic coffee cups to the floor.
"Shit!" Sam all but disappears, crouching down presumably to try and pick up the pieces, and immediately there's a small flurry of activity as a much younger guy and girl both appear seemingly out of nowhere to help.
"Hey, Sam, I got it," the guy kneels next to Sam on the floor, and the girl, a very pretty brunette with green-grey eyes, flashes Dean a brilliant smile even as she casts an uneasy glance toward Sam.
"Sorry, sir, did you want a coffee?"
Dean shakes his head, utterly bewildered by how fast this is all happening. "No, I... Sam?"
He leans forward, only to find himself blocked by the girl, whose smile has been instantly replaced with a scowl. "You know each other?"
"Uh, yeah. I mean, he's... yeah, I know Sam." He has no idea what's going on, nor why she's suddenly staring at him like he's the goddamned Spanish Inquisition. Her name tag reads 'Ivy,' which Dean thinks is kind of a stupid name. Makes him think of poison ivy, especially the way she's looking at him now.
"We don't want trouble, here," she says pointedly. "You want a coffee, or are you going to go?"
He raises both hands. "Hey, no. No trouble. Sammy, you want to tell them it's okay, here?"
Sam picks himself up off the ground, keeps his head ducked a little, like he'd be trying to avoid looking at Dean even if he could still see. "Sorry. No, it's, uh, it's fine. He's my brother."
The guy who's been helping Sam stands up too, holding a dustpan Dean hadn't spotted before with the remains of the coffee mug. "You're Dean?"
"Jesus, Sam, what happened to keeping a low profile?"
Sam shrugs and doesn't say anything. Ivy scowls harder. "You have a hell of a nerve, waltzing in here after all this time. You going to buy a coffee, or are you going to leave?"
Dean matches her glare. "Neither, sweetheart. I'm going to borrow my brother for a few minutes and you are going to back the hell off!"
She bristles, but Sam gropes for her arm. "Vee, it's fine. It's fine, I'll just-I'll just talk to him for a minute. Is that okay? I've got a break coming up. I'm sorry about the cup."
"Don't worry about the cup. You sure you want to do this? I can get the sheriff over here, have her kick him out..."
"Hey!"
"Jesus, no," Sam sputters. "Really, it's fine. I'll be right back, okay?"
"Fine. You say the word, though, and he's out of here."
Dean steps away from the counter, thankful that looks can't actually kill, because judging by the looks he's getting from Ivy and the other guy whose name he didn't catch, he'd be dead five times over by now. Sam makes his way around the counter slowly, the tips of his fingers dragging along the edge of the counter so he can feel his way to the end. He unfolds one of those white canes once he's there, slides the tip along the floor until Dean feels it tap very lightly against the toe of his boot.
"You, uh, you want to take this outside, Sammy?"
"Table's fine," Sam says curtly. "Pick one by a wall."
"Yeah, okay. You, uh... you need help?"
"I'll follow. Don't worry about me."
The implication that he hasn't worried about Sam before is pretty clear in the words, but Dean doesn't say anything to that. He pulls out a chair for himself, watches as Sam carefully feels his way along the edge of the table and puts out a hand to find his chair, then eases himself into it before folding his cane again and holding it in his lap.
"Okay, why are you here? Did something happen?" Sam asks, his gaze firmly trained on the table that he can't see.
"No. I mean, yes, something happened, but... I was looking for you, Sammy."
Sam stiffens. "What happened to different hemispheres?"
Shit. "I was wrong, okay? I... we-we're better together. I was flat-out wrong, I should have stuck with you. Should never have let you go."
"Yeah, well." Sam shrugs, fiddles with the cane in his lap. "I can't come with you now."
Dean doesn't know what to say to that. "Why not?"
Sams head snaps up at that. "I don't suppose you noticed there's something different about me?" he says nastily. And, okay, Dean deserved that.
"I didn't know," he says softly. "And it doesn't change anything. I still want us to be together again."
"No."
"Sam..."
"I said no!" Sam snaps. "Jesus, Dean. You didn't even pick up the goddamned phone when the hospital tried to call you! What, now that you've decided you were wrong I'm just supposed to drop everything and go back to being your fuck-up of a little brother? What, you think if you're not watching me every second of every day I'll end the world more?"
"Sam..."
"No," Sam interrupts again. "No, that's not how it's going to work. I want to you to fuck off and leave me the hell alone. It's bad enough you think I'm a screw-up, but if you think I'm going to let you drag me around like your little blind project..."
"Sam, shut up for a minute!"
Sam subsides at that, like a balloon that's had all the air sucked out of it. "What?" he asks, and fuck if he doesn't just sound tired, now. Defeated.
"I never said any of that. And... I couldn't answer the phone, before. I never even knew anyone called. It was Zachariah. The fucker yanked me out of my hotel room and it took everything Cas had to bring me back. And when he did, it was too late."
Sam stays silent for a few beats. "How late?" he asks quietly.
"Like, nine months late. I got yanked right after I hung up the phone with you, or practically. It was really fucked up, and when I got back, you were gone. I've been looking for you for nearly two months."
Sam lets out a mirthless laugh at that. "God."
"You can say that again. Sam... what the hell happened to you?" Dean reaches over the table to put a hand over Sam's, doesn't pull away when his brother flinches at the unexpected contact. But Sam doesn't pull away either, which is a relief.
"Nothing complicated. I just... I kept going. I didn't really have enough money to switch hemispheres," he says. The bitterness is still there in his voice, and Dean's pretty sure he's never going to forgive himself for making his kid brother sound like that. "So I kind of hoped maybe you'd be the one to pick a different hemisphere even if you hate planes, and I decided to just maybe stay out of your way. I couldn't, though. I mean... I did, but I couldn't go far. I found some hunts, tried to keep myself busy. You know, try to do some good."
"And the angels didn't bother you at all?"
Sam shrugs. "Not really. I mean, unless you count Lucifer, and I can mostly ignore him. He can't find me. None of them can, because of what Cas did, you know," he gestures vaguely to his ribcage, and Dean nods, then feels immediately foolish because Sam can't see him nodding. "So I'm safe, for the most part."
"So what happened?"
"Black Dog. Thought there was only one, but there were two. I killed one, was salting the corpse when the second one came at me, knocked me against a rock. I have no idea what happened, because I thought for sure I was dead, and even after that I thought I must have been unconscious the whole time, but some hikers found me, and both dogs were dead."
"So you killed them both?"
Sam shakes his head. "I don't know. I mean, maybe? I must have. Or something or someone else did and then just left me there. I don't know," he repeats, clasping his hands more tightly around his folded cane until his knuckles turn white from the strain. "I try not to think about it too hard."
"I was in that town," Dean tells him. "There's nothing in those woods now."
Sam just nods. "I never went back to check after I woke up. They didn't know anything about me except my first name and your name. I hadn't taken you out of my phone contacts yet. Stupid, isn't it? But they said they couldn't get hold of you, that your voicemail was full and that you weren't picking up the phone. I got rid of it afterward, once they let me out of the hospital."
"How long?" Dean swallows, isn't sure he wants to know the answer.
"Six months, give or take, I guess. Maybe closer to eight, now. I don't know. I try not to count, it drives me a little crazy."
"And you can't-" he stops, can't bring himself to say the words.
"No, not a thing. Damaged the optic nerve beyond repair. I guess it could be worse. I'm not dead," Sam says, and damned if he doesn't sound even more bitter about that. "And until today no one we know has so much as come within fifteen miles of here."
"Why didn't you call Bobby?"
"And tell him what? He's better off anyway. Trouble follows me around, you know that. Even when I'm not inviting it in myself. I still don't know why you're here. I haven't said 'yes' to Lucifer, as you can see, and I'm not going to. So, you know, you can rest your mind about that."
Dean leans back in his chair and blows out an exasperated breath. "Can you stop playing the martyr for two seconds, please? That's not why I'm here!"
Sam's mouth twists. "Oh, sorry, I forgot. Martyr is your role."
"Fuck you, Sam. I'm not the one who walked out again and again and left a fucking mess behind to clean up." The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them, and if Dean thought before that it wasn't possible to hate himself more, well, he's just proven himself wrong.
"Consider me reformed," Sam retorts, but he still just sounds tired rather than angry. "Would you like me to repent some more, Dean? I can apologize again for being a screw-up, if that's what it'll take for you to just go, already. I just... fuck, what will it take to get you to leave?"
"Is that what you want, Sammy? You want me to go?"
Sam shrugs, chews on his lip, turns his head away, but not before Dean sees that his eyes have gone a little brighter, like he's holding back tears.
"Sam, come on."
"What?" Sam's voice wavers a little, then strengthens. "What do you want from me? I've got nothing left to give you. Nothing at all."
"I don't want anything from you, either."
"Then why are you here?"
"Why do you think? God, you think I spent all this time looking for you just so I could put you under watch again? I just... I missed you. I want us to be like before."
"We can't be like before. You're the one who told me that, remember? And now it's even more true than it was back then. You don't trust me, and that's fine. I get it, I get that you can't trust me. But at least now you'll always know where I am. Hell, I'll even give you my new number if you want to call and check that I haven't said 'yes.' How's that?"
"Why the fuck are you being like this? I'm trying to extend a fucking olive branch here, and you're spitting in my face. I want you back, Sammy, is that so fucking hard to believe?"
"Actually, it kind of is. Am I supposed to be grateful, here?"
"A little gratitude wouldn't hurt."
Sam nods. "Fine. Thank you, Dean, for being willing to take me back."
"You don't need to be an asshole about it."
Sam reaches up to rub at the bridge of his nose with two fingers. His face is pinched, and now that Dean has a chance to just look at him without worrying about whatever it is they're saying, he can see just how much weight his brother has lost. All that muscle he gained over the past couple of years is almost gone, leaving behind nothing but a pale spectre of the brother he thought he knew.
"Sam, what is it?"
"Nothing."
"You look like you're in pain."
Sam shrugs. "Headache. I get them all the time. It's because I can sometimes still make out light and dark. Doctor says it's because my eyes are still trying to make out what's out there, so it causes strain. You don't have to worry about it."
"What if I want to worry about it?"
"Your choice, I guess." But Sam's shoulders have relaxed a bit, and Dean chooses to take that as a good sign.
"You think your co-workers would mind if you took the rest of the day off? It doesn't look like business is really hopping, here."
"I get off work in a couple of hours anyway. Think you can wait that long? I don't want to leave them short."
Dean snorts. "Always so responsible, Sammy."
"You in town on business?" Sam changes the subject without really changing it.
"Actually, no. Was just passing through. I really was just stopping for coffee. But... I could spend the night."
Sam fiddles with his cane. "I have a pull-out sofa. You can always... I mean, you don't have to... there are plenty of good motels around, but..."
"No, it's cool." Dean rubs the back of his neck and wonders just how it became awkward to ask to sleep in the same place as his brother when they've done it all their lives. "You'll just have to show me. I mean, you have a system, right?"
Sam nods. "Yeah, so I don't trip over shit and whatever. I like knowing where everything is. Having dinner be an adventure every night kind of gets old after a while, you know?" he smiles ruefully, and Dean chuckles.
"I'll bet. We could order out, if you wanted."
Sam's too busy twisting his folded-up cane in his lap. "I just..." he stops, keeps twisting his hands. "Do you mean it?" he asks finally.
"What? Yeah. I mean, it's not like we've never ordered out before," Dean drums his fingers on the table for a moment.
"No," Sam hesitates, like he doesn't want to make himself form the words, and for a moment Dean finds himself wishing Sam wouldn't, anyway. "Dean, I can't... I can't do this. Not if you don't mean it. You don't know, okay? You don't know what it's been like."
"So tell me."
"No!" Sam says sharply. "That's not the point. That's not the point," he repeats, his face a mask of misery. "I just... I spent months hoping, you know? I thought... every day I thought, maybe today would be the day you'd call. Maybe today would be the day you'd come through the door. And it was stupid, I knew it was stupid, and every day I'd tell myself it was stupid to hope for it and I did anyway, and... and God, you know, I stopped. I stopped hoping and I thought-I thought maybe I'd be okay."
"Sam..."
"And I am, you know?" Sam looks up, and his eyes are shining again, staring right over Dean's shoulder at the wall behind him. "I mean, I'm not great, but I'm okay. I'm dealing. One day at a time. And so I have to know if you mean it, because I swear to God if you walk out at the end of this it's going to fucking destroy me. So you need to tell me right now, right now, if you mean it, if this is what you want, because you can't fucking change your mind."
"Sam... fuck."
Dean doesn't know what the fuck to say, so he just shoves his chair back, ignores the way Sam flinches, because he knows that his brother has just convinced himself he's going to leave. He shoves the chair back, goes around the table and hauls Sam into his arms, because that's the only language Sam has really understood when it comes to them, when it's down to just Sam and Dean and Dean and Sam, and words don't have any real meaning anyway. Sam goes rigid in his grasp at first, hands trapped between them because he's still holding onto that damned cane, but slowly, very slowly he brings up one hand tentatively to rest on Dean's back, just under his shoulder blade, and Dean feels him relax, ever so slightly.
"I'm not going anywhere, you hear me? I mean it," Dean says into his ear, just loud enough for him to hear and not mistake it for anything else. "You understand me, Sammy?"
Sam just nods, and Dean feels his breath hitch a little. "Good," he says. "Just so we're clear. I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you."
A moment later, though, Sam pulls away, cuffs at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. "I gotta finish my shift. You good to wait here?"
Dean lets him go. "Way to ruin my moment, sport."
Sam lets out a watery chuckle at that. "Wouldn't want you to spontaneously grow a uterus, would we? Just... stay put, okay? I'm going to finish up my shift. Ivy and Tim need someone to back them up for when the after school crowd comes in. Just... stay here, okay?" he sounds a little desperate, and Dean has no idea how to even begin reassuring him that he's not just going to melt away into thin air.
"I promise, I'm not going anywhere, except maybe to feed the meter. I wasn't really expecting to stay in here all that long."
Sam just nods, threads his way back through the maze of tables back to the counter, where Ivy and the guy whose name is apparently Tim are both watching for him. At least Sam hasn't been entirely alone, Dean thinks as he watches the girl move over to Sam and put a hand on his shoulder, leaning in to talk to him anxiously. He can't hear what she asks or what Sam answers, but he can guess that he must be the topic of discussion. Both Tim and Ivy shoot him a dark look, but it doesn't go any further than that, and Dean decides he's going to count it as a win and leave it at that. He does go up to the counter a couple of minutes later after leaving to feed the parking meter, orders himself a coffee and some sort of thing that seems like a really expensive danish, and settles back at the same table in order to wait for Sam.
It turns out that Sam was right, and there is a small rush of people about half an hour later. The little crowd keeps the three of them busy for a while, and Dean watches, fascinated, as Sam navigates his way around the cups and various coffee machines with practiced ease and even serves out the various flavours of pastries without hesitating once. The broken cup was a fluke, then, he figures, just the result of being shocked out of his skin by the unexpected appearance of his brother. Sam's doing well for himself here, is obviously used to the routine, and it's something of a relief to know that he hasn't spent the last ten months alone and miserable.
During a lull in the afternoon rush, while Sam is busy wiping down the counter, Tim saunters over casually, making a show of wiping off the tables as he comes over, as if talking to Dean isn't the first thing on his list of stuff to do today. He does stop at the table, though, and Dean looks up expectantly.
"You wanna sit?" he asks. "Or is this going to be a more formal thing?"
Tim slides into the seat Sam was occupying a few minutes before. "So. You're Sam's brother."
"In the flesh."
Tim nods. "Ivy kind of wants to kick your ass into next week, but Sam seems to think you had a really good reason for not picking up your phone, back in the day. No," he raises a hand to forestall anything Dean might have to say. "That part, that's between you and your brother. I just wanted to tell you-and I'm pretty sure Sam wouldn't thank me for this, but I think it's important for you to know-that what you're seeing here is the result of months of work. Sam's... he's been through a lot. And yes, I get that you've both been through the wringer. He won't talk about it, but I can read between the lines."
Dean feels his eyes narrow. "You going anywhere with this?"
Tim's lips press into a thin line. "I can't pretend to know what's gone on between you. I won't speak to that. All I can tell you is that Sam's recovery is still ongoing. You don't just walk away from a two-month coma, you understand me?"
Two months? Dean figures his astonishment must show on his face, because Tim looks a bit surprised.
"I guess he didn't tell you."
He shakes his head "No, no he didn't. He just said he got knocked out."
Tim looks rueful at that. "That's one way of putting it. Ivy was the one who found him, when she was out hiking with her brother and some friends. She's the one who tried calling you, who tried every number she could find in his phone, and there weren't many, let me tell you. All of them were disconnected, except for yours, and you never picked up. She's a good person," he says, looking over at her fondly. "And it was hard for her to think that a man could lie unconscious in the woods and there was no one in the whole world who cared if he lived or died."
Dean swallows, trying to rid himself of the lump in his throat that's trying to choke him. "I, uh... I didn't know. It's not true that no one cares."
Tim lifts one shoulder. "Sam's not going to tell you all of it. That much I've learned. He keeps things to himself a lot, but there are some bad days. He gets headaches, bad ones, and once or twice I've stayed the night, just to be on the safe side. And there are nightmares. If you're going to stick around, I figure you should know."
Somehow Dean isn't surprised to hear that. "Got it."
"You probably shouldn't let on I told you. Let him come to you, if you want."
Dean bites his tongue, because as much as he wants to snap at this guy that he knows how to handle his own brother, thanks, he knows that it's not true, not anymore. Tim just gives him a nod, then gets up and goes back to work, wipes off the rest of the tables, and leaves him alone with his thoughts.
Sam comes to find him an hour later. He's shed his apron, is wearing just his white button-down shirt over a pair of dark jeans. It's a good look on him, better than the overly baggy pants he would get at the Salvation Army or whatever other thrift store they happened to hit whenever they were running short on clothes. The only problem with thrift stores is that they rarely carry anything in Sam's size, and even more rarely anything in his size that fits him well.
"You ready to go?" Sam asks softly, and Dean nods again before realising-again-that Sam can't see him.
"Yeah, I'm ready. Uh, you want to tell me where we're going?"
Sam jerks his head toward the door. "Left, two blocks. Right, one block, then third door on the right. I'm one floor up."
"Okay, then. Let's go."
There's a moment of confusion outside when it's obvious Sam means to walk, until Dean catches him by the elbow. "Car, dude. Any reason I can't park outside your apartment?"
"Oh. Uh, actually, I don't know. It's never really been an issue, you know?"
"Fair enough. Hop in, I'll see when we get there."
He parks right in front of Sam's place, goes around and opens the door for Sam while his brother is still fumbling with the handle, grabs his arm to pull him to his feet. Sam unfolds his cane, reaches out with his free hand until his fingers brush against the car. He looks tense, uncomfortable, but it's not until he opens his mouth that Dean figures out why.
"Uh... I don't know where we are."
"We're right in front of your door. You're number twelve, right? Third door, second floor?"
Sam looks relieved. "Yeah, that's it. Um," he shoves his cane out in front of him, feeling for the stoop, walks forward carefully as soon as the tip of the cane comes into contact with it, takes his keys out of his pocket and runs his fingers along the doorjamb until he finds the lock.
He's thrown Sam off his game, Dean realizes. He has a routine, one he probably follows every single day, and now he's been completely thrown for a loop and doesn't know what to do about it anymore. It's better now that he's found what he's looking for and is back on familiar territory, but it's a little disheartening to see how even a three-block drive can knock him off-balance like that. Sam goes up the stairs ahead of him with confidence, obviously familiar with each twist and turn of the staircase, reaches his own front door without so much as a hitch in his step and unlocks it, stepping inside and holding the door for his brother.
The apartment itself is sparsely furnished, much the way all the apartments they've occupied in their lives have never held much of the comforts of home. There's a queen-sized bed in a tiny bedroom on the far side of the apartment, and the rest all fits into one room: a kitchenette that has the bare necessities for cooking along one wall, and the sofa-bed that Sam mentioned occupying the center of the living space, along with a small coffee table. There's no television, which sort of makes sense now that Dean thinks about it, except that he kind of expected there to be one. There are no books at all, and that's probably what makes him saddest, because Sam used to fucking love to read, and now he can't even do that.
Sam moves along his kitchen counter until his fingers brush up against a small radio, which he switches on, then immediately switches off again. "Oh, uh, sorry. Force of habit."
"Oh, hey, no need to keep it off on my account. It's your place, right?"
"Right," Sam leaves the radio silent, though. "Do you, uh, do you want anything? I have some beers in the fridge."
"Sure, thanks. You want me to-"
"It's fine, I'll get it," Sam moves back along the counter, takes two careful steps to the fridge and opens the door. He pulls out a bottle, hands it to Dean. "There's a bottle opener under the counter, right in the middle there."
Dean pops the top off his bottle, goes back to settle on one end of the sofa, watches as Sam fills a glass with water for himself from the sink. "You're not having any?"
Sam moves very gingerly back toward the sofa, trying to keep his glass steady, even though he hasn't filled it remotely close to the brim. "I don't really drink anymore."
"You doing the twelve-step thing?" Dean teases, and immediately regrets the words, but Sam just shrugs.
"Not for alcohol. I just have a lot of meds to take, and alcohol doesn't mix well with some of them. I keep a couple of beers around just for when Tim comes by, or Ivy, but she doesn't drink much either."
"How many meds?"
"More'n I'd like."
Dean blows out a breath. "Sam, level with me... how bad was it? I mean, you're making out like it's not a big deal, but..."
"But it is a big deal, right?" Sam smiles ruefully. "I don't know what you want me to tell you. I'm dealing. It sucks, but I'm dealing. And it could be worse, right? I don't know. Sometimes I can't help thinking maybe this is just karma, like a punishment for all I did. Except it doesn't really feel like enough to be a real punishment, so I figure it's just bad luck. And sometimes I wonder if it wasn't good luck, in a way."
Dean swallows a mouthful of beer. "How the hell do you figure that?"
Sam rubs a thumb along his glass until it squeaks. "I was in a coma, for a while. Two months. And while I was in a coma, nothing happened at all. I was just gone. Just blackness, with nothing at all. You can't say 'yes' when you're in a coma, turns out. It's all about informed consent, with Lucifer."
He can't believe he's hearing this. "Informed consent?"
Sam grimaces. "Like, he can't roofie me like some girl at a frat party and then say I consented just because I didn't say 'no.' I have to be awake and alert and in possession of all my faculties, or it doesn't count."
"That is some kind of seriously fucked-up." It makes sense, though. It makes sense because it explains why the hell Zachariah and everyone else have been going out of their way to make Dean see the light and accept his role as Michael's personal condom.
"Well, since when is anything in our lives not seriously fucked-up?" Sam points out, and yeah, he really does have a point there.
"So... two months?"
Sam nods. "Ivy came to see me every day. She's the one who found me, you know."
"Yeah, Tim said that."
"She probably saved my life. Well, sort of."
"Sort of?"
"Lucifer wants to keep me around. Since I'm his vessel and all. So he has a vested interest in my not dying. Or, at least, not staying dead," he says, so calmly that Dean feels his blood run cold.
"Sam... what are you saying?"
"It's not important. The point is, Ivy's been good to me."
"Okay, I get it." And Dean thinks he does. He doesn't exactly know what he's supposed to do with the knowledge-maybe get Ivy some thank-you-for-not-letting-my-brother-be-alone-and-friendless-while-he-was-in-a-coma flowers, or something. That might be called for, although he doesn't exactly know what those flowers might be. Roses? Daffodils? "So... what now, anyway?"
"I don't know, man," Sam laughs nervously, wipes his palms on his jeans. "You're the one who kind of landed on top of me. You tell me."
"What do you usually do after work?"
"Honestly? I usually take a nap. I get pretty tired these days."
It takes a minute for Dean to process that, but it makes sense. People don't just get up and walk away from comas, and that's what Tim was trying to tell him. Sam's still recovering, still needs a lot of rest, a lot of care.
"Okay. You tired now?" It comes out a bit more bluntly than he'd intended, a bit more harsh, and Sam jerks back a little.
"I... a little, yeah. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster today, in case you hadn't noticed."
Because apparently getting back your brother is exhausting. "So, take a nap. I can keep myself busy for a little while, you know. Maybe pull out this sofa bed you've been bragging about. Or take a walk or something."
"Right," Sam doesn't move from where he's been sitting. "Why don't you figure out what you want for dinner? There's a couple of menus in the second drawer from the top in the kitchen, see if there's anything you like. If not, you're on your own to go out and find something for takeout."
Obediently Dean makes himself at home in Sam's kitchen. Everything's labelled, he sees after a while. Every cupboard door, and all the buttons on the microwave have a little piece of ribbon stuck to them with what must be Braille, even though Dean's never bothered to look at it up close before. He runs his fingers over the labels experimentally, shuts his eyes to see if he can tell the little dots apart, but they just feel like random little bumps to him.
"So, how well do you read Braille?"
"Badly," Sam grimaces at the question. "It's hard when you're just learning. The people at the rehab centre told me it's harder for adults to learn-kids' brains are just better suited for learning. I can tell which cupboard is which, though, so I guess that's something."
Sam's obviously not planning on taking a nap, even if the circles under his eyes look like they're getting circles themselves. He's standing by the counter, one hand flat on the cold surface, his head cocked to the side, like he's listening for something. He's listening for Dean, is the conclusion Dean comes to a moment later, listening to make sure he's still there, that he's not just a figment of his imagination. At least that, Dean can do something about.
"Right. So since I can't read Braille at all, I'm just going to explore a bit, see what's where so I don't get things mixed up for you, okay? I promise not to move anything out of place."
He keeps up a running stream of commentary as he goes, moving from cupboard to cupboard, watching Sam's face the whole time, making sure Sam knows where he is at all times, and is rewarded when some of the tension starts to slowly leech from his brother's posture, when he starts talking back even when he's not being questioned directly. Eventually he grabs the delivery menus from the drawers, settles on pizza as something they can eat without Sam's having to worry about stupid things like chopsticks, and uses his own cell phone to order two large all-dressed pizzas.
"That's way outside my budget," Sam protests mildly when he's hung up.
"Not outside mine. Besides, this way there'll be leftovers."
"You're the one who likes cold pizza."
"Yeah, but since I'm planning on sticking around a while, I'll be the one eating it, too. Your argument is invalid."
"Have you been hanging out in those internet chat rooms again?"
"Shut up," Dean grins, because it's nice to have some confirmation that Sam is still in there, somewhere, even if he's buried under several layers of trauma.
They settle back down on the sofa when the pizza gets here, and they don't talk, but the silence is easier this time, more like before when it was just the two of them on the road, hanging out in a motel room once the hunt was over and there was nothing left to do but just eat and catch some sleep before the next hunt. After a while Sam diffidently starts asking questions, about Cas, about what Dean was doing all that time, and Dean decides that there have been enough lies to last them both several lifetimes, and so he tells him an abridged version of Zachariah's mindfuckery, concluding with 'and that's when Cas pulled me right the fuck out of there and into six weeks ago.'
Sam's trying unsuccessfully to wipe pizza grease off his fingers with a paper towel that's reached its capacity. "So, you're saying that sometime in the future, I say 'yes?'"
Dean shakes his head-force of habit-then clears his throat. "No. I'm saying that Zachariah was playing mind games with me and trying to make me believe you would say 'yes' so that I would say it first and, you know, save the world from the evils of Lucifer and all that crap. I don't think you'd say 'yes.' I mean, you're living proof right here."
Sam nods carefully. His face looks drawn again, lines of pain pulling at his mouth and at the corners of his eyes, and it's not a look Dean likes on him. It's still light outside but the sun is dipping lower on the horizon, and it's not like Sam can tell what time of day it is anyway.
"Look, I don't know about you, but I'm kind of done in. I've been going at it for four days straight now and I never did get that triple shot of espresso I was going to use to keep me fuelled. You mind if I turn in?"
Sam looks a little startled, but he gets up immediately from where he's been sitting. "Sure. I mean, I don't mind. Let me help you with the bed."
"I got it," Dean waves him off-another gesture Sam can't see, unfortunately-until he gently takes Sam by the elbow and steers him toward his tiny bathroom. "Why don't you do what you have to do before bed, and if I need help pulling out a sofa bed, I'll ask?"
"Stubborn," Sam huffs, but he does as he's told, and a moment later Dean hears the water running in the bathroom sink and the unmistakable sounds of Sam brushing his teeth, the clink of a glass as he swallows his pills.
The pull-out bed isn't nearly as uncomfortable as some of the beds Dean has had the misfortune to sleep on, including the crappy cots at Camp Chitaqua, and Sam has a bunch of nice sheets and warm blankets to go with it, and Dean sinks into the first entirely dreamless sleep he's had in a long time, only to be awoken hours later by a sound he can't identify at first. He sits up blearily, scrubbing at his face, searches around for a clock in the darkness and is a little perplexed not to find one until he remembers where he is. He hears the sound again, and this time he recognizes it as Sam's voice, distorted by what sounds like a moan of pain or fear. Whatever it is, he knows distress when he hears it, and that's enough to propel him out of bed and across the floor, stumbling around in the dark until his hands hit the wall by Sam's door, and he wonders if this is how Sam feels all the time, hurtling in the empty darkness until he hits a solid surface.
Sam is thrashing on his bed, still making that same low moaning noise at the back of his throat like a terrified animal, and when Dean sits next to him and tries to shake him awake he lashes out at him with a closed fist that Dean only barely manages to duck. He grabs both of Sam's hands, tries to hold him still.
"Sam. Sammy, wake up! You're having a nightmare, wake up! It's just a bad dream, dude."
It's easy to reach over and switch on the light. Sam doesn't react in the slightest to the abrupt switch from light to dark, just keeps struggling against something Dean can't see at all, until he comes awake with a start, sitting bolt upright in his bed and clutching at his head with both hands.
"Hey, Sammy," Dean rubs circles on his back with the flat of his hand. "You okay?"
Sam shakes his head. "Can you... pills are in the medicine cabinet, second shelf, fourth bottle from the right. Please?"
"Sure, Sammy, you got it."
Dean forces himself not to run, keeps his movements to a minimum to make sure he doesn't drop or spill anything. The pills are exactly where Sam said they'd be, in a little bottle labelled in Braille and in the regular pharmacist's print. Take one every six hours as needed for pain, do not exceed recommended dose. His heart sinks a bit, but he fills a glass with cold water, wets a washcloth while he's at it, brings everything back with him through the darkened living room and sits back on the bed. Sam still hasn't moved, both hands pressed to his temples, eyes screwed shut in pain. He's breathing carefully, controlled, even breaths, and Dean can practically hear him counting inside his head.
"Here you go. I got a glass of water at your four o'clock. You need a hand?" He doesn't wait for Sam to answer, just gently pries his right hand away from his head and drops one of the pills into his palm. Sam pops the pill, reaches wordlessly for the water, downs it in a few swallows, lets himself lie back slowly on the bed.
"Sorry I woke you."
"Not the issue, dude. You want to tell me what that was? Here," he folds the washcloth into thirds. "Got you a cloth, okay? It's going to be cold, just warning you," he says, laying it over Sam's eyes.
He's rewarded with a small sigh of relief, and he lets his hand linger for a second on Sam's forehead in a show of checking for fever. "Better?"
"Yeah."
"So?"
"'s just a nightmare."
"Uh-huh, I remember your nightmares, they didn't used to look like that. What's changed?"
Sam swallows visibly. "Lucifer."
Dean has a sudden vision of Sam in a white suit, standing in a rose garden, only the eyes looking out of Sam's face aren't his own anymore. (Hello, Dean.) "Tell me, Sam."
Sam laughs mirthlessly. "He won't leave me alone. He only comes when I'm asleep, and he talks to me. I think he can't find me when I'm awake, but... I don't know, when I'm asleep it's like it leaves a window open."
"And he just talks?"
"He wants me to let him in. To say 'yes.' And he talks, tells me all the things he wants to give me, all the stuff he wants to do for the Earth. Thing is, I think he really believes it, you know? I think he really believes that he wants to preserve what's here... oh, except for the humans, he doesn't like them. Except for me, he likes me," Sam adds bitterly, then winces as the movement jars his head.
"Hey, easy," Dean smooths a hand over his hair, feels a twinge of guilt at how much he enjoys the fact that Sam still responds to his touch, still relaxes under his hands after all this time, after everything that's come between them. "It's over for now, okay?"
Sam nods and sniffs, and for a moment Dean wonders if he's not trying not to cry again. His voice is rougher when he speaks again. "It gets worse when he's here. I... the pain does. It's stupid, it's all in my head, it's not real, but it gets so bad, it's like there's a million hammers pounding at the inside of my skull. And-and he says he'll make it stop. All of it."
"He's lying to you."
Sam's breath hitches. "He's not exactly lying. He's just... he makes it hurt worse so that it won't be a lie. If he stops, then it won't hurt, right? It's... he promised me he'd never lie to me, but that doesn't mean he promised never to hurt me."
"Jesus."
"It's so fucking stupid and awful. I can't say 'yes' like this, you know? I mean, I go into work every day, and Ivy and Tim are there and all the people who come in, and all I can think is that I might end up fucking up all their lives just because my goddamned head hurts? It's ludicrous. It's not even real pain, it's just... it's like phantom pain. All in my head."
Sam's slurring his words a little now, but Dean can't tell if it's the meds kicking in or if he's just tired and in pain. He doesn't have a good answer for him, either, so he just keeps petting Sam's hair, because they're alone and Sam can't watch him as he does it, and somehow that makes it all a little more okay in his books.
"I'll talk to Cas," he says finally. "Maybe there's a way of keeping him out of your head, too. I mean, if he can keep the angels from finding us just with their usual magic, there must be a way of denying them access to your dreams."
Sam just turns onto his side, curling into a ball and dislodging the cloth. "I don't know." It comes out more as a moan than anything else. "I just want it to stop."
"I know you do."
Sam's definitely crying, he can see it now, tear tracks glistening along his nose, and it's the worst thing Dean has ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on, the sight of his kid brother crying because just lying still hurts too much.
"Aw, Sammy..." he breathes, doesn't know what else to say, but he tries anyway. "We'll figure this out, I promise. I'll talk to Cas, or Bobby, or whoever, and we'll figure it out. I'm not going to let him keep doing this to you, okay?"
"You won't leave?" Sam turns a little in his direction, but his eyes are fixed on a point a little to Dean's left.
Dean squeezes his shoulder. "No, I won't leave. I promise, I'm not going anywhere."
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Summary: Season 5 AU. After the events of 'The End' Castiel manages to get Dean away from Zachariah, but when Dean returns he finds that nine months have gone by and, more importantly, that Sam has all but disappeared from the face of the planet. When he does find him, he discovers that Sam has been permanently altered during his absence.
Characters: Dean, Sam, OCs, minor appearance by Bobby.
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 9,829
Disclaimer: I'm waiting for the show to end so I can get 'em on sale.
Warnings: Permanent injury. Swearing.
Neurotic Author's Note: Yeah, I'm not sure where this came from, but it wanted to be written. I'm not 100% happy with it, but short of a total re-write I think it's as good as it's going to get.
It's not like Dean was expecting to find Sam here, of all places. Not that he hasn't been looking, of course. He's been looking ever since he got back, but apparently once Sam decided to really hide from him, he was actually pretty good at it. It makes Dean wonder if Sam hadn't really been leaving a trail for him to follow, back when he escaped from the panic room and ended up freeing Lucifer. It's a depressing thought, that Sam had wanted, had maybe even been hoping, that Dean would come through and stop him, or maybe come with him and stand by him even then.
Sam's gone now, been missing for months according to Bobby. Cas' ability to time-travel is a little skewed these days, what with being cut off from Heaven and all that, and while he did pull Dean out of a really fucking tight spot with Lucifer and Zachariah and all those other winged douchebags who enjoy mind games way too much for their own good, he couldn't exactly pull it off with all the finesse he'd previously displayed. Dean kind of longs for the days when Cas was able to move him around in space and time in the blink of an eye without so much as breaking a sweat, but by the time they landed back in the present day Cas looked like he'd been on the receiving end of a Mack truck, metaphorically speaking, anyway. He hadn't answered any of Dean's questions, either, about what had happened or anything else, just made sure Lucifer hadn't harmed Dean, and then flapped off again in search of God. Dean made him recharge his phone first, though, and added a whole bunch of minutes on there just in case, because the last time Cas had tried to argue with 'the voice' on the other end of the line, it had resulted in some sort of weird technical glitch that forced them to replace the whole damned phone. To this day, Dean still doesn't know how he managed it.
Dean found the Impala in an impound lot, covered in dust, but luckily still unsold at auction. It was easy enough to get her out of there, since he still had the keys, and he stroked a hand lovingly over her dashboard. "I'm sorry I left you, baby," he murmured to her. "I promise I will never, ever let you rust away like that ever again, okay?"
She'd needed a lot of TLC after that, so he'd driven almost straight to Bobby's, after dialling Sam's number over and over again in the hopes that, maybe this time he'd get a number that wasn't out of service. Bobby was waiting for him on the front porch by the time he got there, stiff from the long drive.
"What the hell, Bobby?"
Bobby had rolled his eyes. "That's how you greet me after all this time?"
He'd had the grace to look a bit sheepish after that, and gave the old hunter a hug and a thump on the back, but it didn't negate his question. "What the hell's been going on? I get zapped out of here by angels, and I come back to Sam's number getting disconnected. Did he change phones?"
Bobby shrugged. "Beats me. You have any idea how long you've been gone for, boy? It's been months. Nearly nine months, to be precise. I couldn't find hide nor hair of either of you. Thought you might be dead, except I was pretty sure I'd have heard of that. Couldn't even get your car back-I see you took care of that, though."
"Nine months?"
That's what it was. Cas and his weakened powers fighting against Zachariah and all the powers of Heaven. Cas had succeeded, but there was a lot of damage control to be done. Sam was gone, had fallen right off the face of the planet right after that last conversation he'd had with Dean. Dean remembers it like it was yesterday, because that's exactly when it was for him. 'Pick a hemisphere,' he'd told him, and it sounds like that's exactly what Sam did.
The trail's long since gone cold, but it doesn't prevent Dean from trying to follow it anywhere. Now that Dad's gone, Dean's the best hunter there is out there. He doesn't think it's bragging to say as much-he's gone up against demons and now angels and won every single time, or at least come out alive, and that's more than any other hunter on the planet can say apart from Sam. So if anyone can find Sam, it's his own brother. Except for the fact that Sam doesn't appear to want to be found.
Dean spends the better part of six weeks following dead end after dead end, going down trails that are colder than a witch's teats. He finds a girl named Lindsey who knew Sam for a couple of days when he went by the name of Keith, and she tells him about a bunch of rough-looking guys who cuffed her to the bar she worked at and threatened her because of Sam, threatened to hurt her unless he drank demon blood and copped to starting the Apocalypse. She thinks it's all crazy, that the guys were crazy and that 'Keith' only did what they asked to save her life. She's still shaken, months afterward, but she tells him that Sam saved her life, that he left town the same day and left her all the money he'd made at the bar and said he was sorry he'd brought all this down on her.
"He seemed really lonely," she says to Dean. "I thought we might be friends. I dunno, stay in touch. Are you his brother?"
Dean was a little startled by the question, but he nodded. "Yeah."
"Good. He missed you, you know. He told me a little about it, how he hurt you. I don't know if he ever joined a program, but... Look, it's not really my place, but he really is sorry, and if he ever tries to make amends, you think you could try to give him another shot?"
It takes him a minute to figure out that she's talking about Sam like he's a drug addict, like he's just going to join one of those twelve-step groups and make himself all better. She's talking about atonement, like anything Sam could ever do could make up for ending the damned world. But he nods.
"It's why I'm trying to find him."
It's not exactly that, but he needs Sam, he knows that now. He's seen what the world became when Sam wasn't with him. More importantly, he saw what he himself became when Sam wasn't around to remind him that he was human, to remind him that he was more than what Alastair made of him in Hell.
But after that, the trail went cold almost immediately. Sam started hunting again, that much he knows. Apparently when Sam called him and told him he wanted back in, he wasn't kidding. Dean finds a few cases that Sam solved-a couple of vengeful spirits, a small nest of vampires, a water spirit-all taken care of within a couple of days of his coming into town. It sounds like he didn't spend any more time than necessary talking to the people locally, just did what he had to do and got out, but people remembered him anyway. Sam is pretty memorable, so people tell Dean all about the tall young man with the sad eyes who came to town and asked about their recent troubles. Then, when the young man left, the troubles mysteriously disappeared. They're grateful, even if they're not sure what for.
"Keeping up the family business, eh Sammy?" Dean says to no one in particular, driving away from the last town.
The last sign of Sam is in a remote area that looks like it might have been the hunting grounds of a skin walker or maybe a Black Dog. It's hard to tell. The people in town remember Sam too, but they don't know what happened to him. He left his car here, they tell Dean, but it was a dilapidated old clunker that couldn't even be sold except for the scrap metal, so it's long gone. The local sheriff's office kept some of his stuff for a while, and they tell him it's probably in storage by now, because he just up and disappeared and left all his things behind in the motel room he'd rented for a week. When he goes to the sheriff's office and introduces himself as Sam's brother, the sheriff just hands him a short list inventorying what he left behind: three changes of clothes, a Swiss Army knife, several boxes of ammunition, a toiletry kit, and a wallet with what Dean recognizes must be a fake I.D. That's all that's left of Sam in this place: a half-empty duffel bag with a name that isn't even his own.
Dean doesn't even know where to look after that. He goes up into the woods to see if the creature is still there, but he already knows it's either dead or moved on, since there haven't been reports of any deaths for months. There's no sign of Sam, either. It's been seven months since Sam was here hunting. There's no body, nothing to indicate anything at all. It's just an empty stretch of woods, nothing but trees and the sound of birds to tell him that whatever supernatural entity was here, it's long since gone.
It's not that Dean stops looking, after that. It's that he simply doesn't know where to go from there.So he starts out slow, moves his way in concentric circles starting from that little town and working his way out. He starts taking hunts along the way, tries not to feel even more isolated when Cas pops in and pops back out almost immediately after. He's not sure if Cas is checking up on him or just keeping him updated on the total, absolute fuck-all that he's found while searching for God. At least he still has Dean's amulet-Dean doesn't like the idea of his having it and maybe losing it, because it's nowhere safer than around his own neck-but he's willing to bet that it's in the second-safest pair of hands out there, and that's going to have to be enough for now.
Dean salt and burns the remains of a schoolteacher murdered by her abusive husband, doesn't stay in his motel room longer than it takes for him to shower and change into clothes that don't smell of kerosene, heads on to the next town. He's not even sure what he's going to find there, except that he doesn't like staying in one place too long. For one thing, he's pretty sure Zachariah has his little evangelising buddies on the lookout for him at all times, and it's not a comforting thought. He's been going non-stop for almost four days, though, and eventually this is going to knock him out, but he's not ready to call it quits just yet, so he stops at the first coffee shop he sees. Most gas stations won't add several shots of espresso to your coffee, but a coffee shop is a different story entirely, and he's willing to spend the extra few bucks he has in his pocket right now if it means he'll be able to go another hundred miles or so.
He parks out front, even feeds the meter in case the line-up is longer than he anticipated¿no use attracting attention with a parking ticket-and heads to the counter without bothering to even look up at the barista. He doesn't know why coffee shops decided they needed a fancy name for the girls who serve coffee, but whatever, as long as he gets his coffee.
"What can I get you?"
Dean's head jerks up at the sounds of the voice. It can't be, he tells himself even as he feels electricity thrumming all the way through his body, but it is. He'd know that voice anywhere. It's Sam, standing behind the cash, but he's not looking at Dean, maybe hasn't even seen who it is, because how else would he be acting so casual? Like his long-lost brother hadn't even walked through the front door of this shop to find him standing behind the counter, hair cut considerably shorter than it was the last time Dean saw him, wearing one of those stupid-looking aprons with the shop's logo stencilled on the front, white shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbow.
"Did you want a coffee?" Sam repeats, turning his head, and that's when Dean feels his heart leap right into his mouth, because Sam's eyes don't focus on him at all. His gaze lands somewhere to Dean's left, fixed in mid-air, because he's not seeing anything at all.
"Sammy?"
There's a crash as Sam starts violently and knocks one of the ceramic coffee cups to the floor.
"Shit!" Sam all but disappears, crouching down presumably to try and pick up the pieces, and immediately there's a small flurry of activity as a much younger guy and girl both appear seemingly out of nowhere to help.
"Hey, Sam, I got it," the guy kneels next to Sam on the floor, and the girl, a very pretty brunette with green-grey eyes, flashes Dean a brilliant smile even as she casts an uneasy glance toward Sam.
"Sorry, sir, did you want a coffee?"
Dean shakes his head, utterly bewildered by how fast this is all happening. "No, I... Sam?"
He leans forward, only to find himself blocked by the girl, whose smile has been instantly replaced with a scowl. "You know each other?"
"Uh, yeah. I mean, he's... yeah, I know Sam." He has no idea what's going on, nor why she's suddenly staring at him like he's the goddamned Spanish Inquisition. Her name tag reads 'Ivy,' which Dean thinks is kind of a stupid name. Makes him think of poison ivy, especially the way she's looking at him now.
"We don't want trouble, here," she says pointedly. "You want a coffee, or are you going to go?"
He raises both hands. "Hey, no. No trouble. Sammy, you want to tell them it's okay, here?"
Sam picks himself up off the ground, keeps his head ducked a little, like he'd be trying to avoid looking at Dean even if he could still see. "Sorry. No, it's, uh, it's fine. He's my brother."
The guy who's been helping Sam stands up too, holding a dustpan Dean hadn't spotted before with the remains of the coffee mug. "You're Dean?"
"Jesus, Sam, what happened to keeping a low profile?"
Sam shrugs and doesn't say anything. Ivy scowls harder. "You have a hell of a nerve, waltzing in here after all this time. You going to buy a coffee, or are you going to leave?"
Dean matches her glare. "Neither, sweetheart. I'm going to borrow my brother for a few minutes and you are going to back the hell off!"
She bristles, but Sam gropes for her arm. "Vee, it's fine. It's fine, I'll just-I'll just talk to him for a minute. Is that okay? I've got a break coming up. I'm sorry about the cup."
"Don't worry about the cup. You sure you want to do this? I can get the sheriff over here, have her kick him out..."
"Hey!"
"Jesus, no," Sam sputters. "Really, it's fine. I'll be right back, okay?"
"Fine. You say the word, though, and he's out of here."
Dean steps away from the counter, thankful that looks can't actually kill, because judging by the looks he's getting from Ivy and the other guy whose name he didn't catch, he'd be dead five times over by now. Sam makes his way around the counter slowly, the tips of his fingers dragging along the edge of the counter so he can feel his way to the end. He unfolds one of those white canes once he's there, slides the tip along the floor until Dean feels it tap very lightly against the toe of his boot.
"You, uh, you want to take this outside, Sammy?"
"Table's fine," Sam says curtly. "Pick one by a wall."
"Yeah, okay. You, uh... you need help?"
"I'll follow. Don't worry about me."
The implication that he hasn't worried about Sam before is pretty clear in the words, but Dean doesn't say anything to that. He pulls out a chair for himself, watches as Sam carefully feels his way along the edge of the table and puts out a hand to find his chair, then eases himself into it before folding his cane again and holding it in his lap.
"Okay, why are you here? Did something happen?" Sam asks, his gaze firmly trained on the table that he can't see.
"No. I mean, yes, something happened, but... I was looking for you, Sammy."
Sam stiffens. "What happened to different hemispheres?"
Shit. "I was wrong, okay? I... we-we're better together. I was flat-out wrong, I should have stuck with you. Should never have let you go."
"Yeah, well." Sam shrugs, fiddles with the cane in his lap. "I can't come with you now."
Dean doesn't know what to say to that. "Why not?"
Sams head snaps up at that. "I don't suppose you noticed there's something different about me?" he says nastily. And, okay, Dean deserved that.
"I didn't know," he says softly. "And it doesn't change anything. I still want us to be together again."
"No."
"Sam..."
"I said no!" Sam snaps. "Jesus, Dean. You didn't even pick up the goddamned phone when the hospital tried to call you! What, now that you've decided you were wrong I'm just supposed to drop everything and go back to being your fuck-up of a little brother? What, you think if you're not watching me every second of every day I'll end the world more?"
"Sam..."
"No," Sam interrupts again. "No, that's not how it's going to work. I want to you to fuck off and leave me the hell alone. It's bad enough you think I'm a screw-up, but if you think I'm going to let you drag me around like your little blind project..."
"Sam, shut up for a minute!"
Sam subsides at that, like a balloon that's had all the air sucked out of it. "What?" he asks, and fuck if he doesn't just sound tired, now. Defeated.
"I never said any of that. And... I couldn't answer the phone, before. I never even knew anyone called. It was Zachariah. The fucker yanked me out of my hotel room and it took everything Cas had to bring me back. And when he did, it was too late."
Sam stays silent for a few beats. "How late?" he asks quietly.
"Like, nine months late. I got yanked right after I hung up the phone with you, or practically. It was really fucked up, and when I got back, you were gone. I've been looking for you for nearly two months."
Sam lets out a mirthless laugh at that. "God."
"You can say that again. Sam... what the hell happened to you?" Dean reaches over the table to put a hand over Sam's, doesn't pull away when his brother flinches at the unexpected contact. But Sam doesn't pull away either, which is a relief.
"Nothing complicated. I just... I kept going. I didn't really have enough money to switch hemispheres," he says. The bitterness is still there in his voice, and Dean's pretty sure he's never going to forgive himself for making his kid brother sound like that. "So I kind of hoped maybe you'd be the one to pick a different hemisphere even if you hate planes, and I decided to just maybe stay out of your way. I couldn't, though. I mean... I did, but I couldn't go far. I found some hunts, tried to keep myself busy. You know, try to do some good."
"And the angels didn't bother you at all?"
Sam shrugs. "Not really. I mean, unless you count Lucifer, and I can mostly ignore him. He can't find me. None of them can, because of what Cas did, you know," he gestures vaguely to his ribcage, and Dean nods, then feels immediately foolish because Sam can't see him nodding. "So I'm safe, for the most part."
"So what happened?"
"Black Dog. Thought there was only one, but there were two. I killed one, was salting the corpse when the second one came at me, knocked me against a rock. I have no idea what happened, because I thought for sure I was dead, and even after that I thought I must have been unconscious the whole time, but some hikers found me, and both dogs were dead."
"So you killed them both?"
Sam shakes his head. "I don't know. I mean, maybe? I must have. Or something or someone else did and then just left me there. I don't know," he repeats, clasping his hands more tightly around his folded cane until his knuckles turn white from the strain. "I try not to think about it too hard."
"I was in that town," Dean tells him. "There's nothing in those woods now."
Sam just nods. "I never went back to check after I woke up. They didn't know anything about me except my first name and your name. I hadn't taken you out of my phone contacts yet. Stupid, isn't it? But they said they couldn't get hold of you, that your voicemail was full and that you weren't picking up the phone. I got rid of it afterward, once they let me out of the hospital."
"How long?" Dean swallows, isn't sure he wants to know the answer.
"Six months, give or take, I guess. Maybe closer to eight, now. I don't know. I try not to count, it drives me a little crazy."
"And you can't-" he stops, can't bring himself to say the words.
"No, not a thing. Damaged the optic nerve beyond repair. I guess it could be worse. I'm not dead," Sam says, and damned if he doesn't sound even more bitter about that. "And until today no one we know has so much as come within fifteen miles of here."
"Why didn't you call Bobby?"
"And tell him what? He's better off anyway. Trouble follows me around, you know that. Even when I'm not inviting it in myself. I still don't know why you're here. I haven't said 'yes' to Lucifer, as you can see, and I'm not going to. So, you know, you can rest your mind about that."
Dean leans back in his chair and blows out an exasperated breath. "Can you stop playing the martyr for two seconds, please? That's not why I'm here!"
Sam's mouth twists. "Oh, sorry, I forgot. Martyr is your role."
"Fuck you, Sam. I'm not the one who walked out again and again and left a fucking mess behind to clean up." The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them, and if Dean thought before that it wasn't possible to hate himself more, well, he's just proven himself wrong.
"Consider me reformed," Sam retorts, but he still just sounds tired rather than angry. "Would you like me to repent some more, Dean? I can apologize again for being a screw-up, if that's what it'll take for you to just go, already. I just... fuck, what will it take to get you to leave?"
"Is that what you want, Sammy? You want me to go?"
Sam shrugs, chews on his lip, turns his head away, but not before Dean sees that his eyes have gone a little brighter, like he's holding back tears.
"Sam, come on."
"What?" Sam's voice wavers a little, then strengthens. "What do you want from me? I've got nothing left to give you. Nothing at all."
"I don't want anything from you, either."
"Then why are you here?"
"Why do you think? God, you think I spent all this time looking for you just so I could put you under watch again? I just... I missed you. I want us to be like before."
"We can't be like before. You're the one who told me that, remember? And now it's even more true than it was back then. You don't trust me, and that's fine. I get it, I get that you can't trust me. But at least now you'll always know where I am. Hell, I'll even give you my new number if you want to call and check that I haven't said 'yes.' How's that?"
"Why the fuck are you being like this? I'm trying to extend a fucking olive branch here, and you're spitting in my face. I want you back, Sammy, is that so fucking hard to believe?"
"Actually, it kind of is. Am I supposed to be grateful, here?"
"A little gratitude wouldn't hurt."
Sam nods. "Fine. Thank you, Dean, for being willing to take me back."
"You don't need to be an asshole about it."
Sam reaches up to rub at the bridge of his nose with two fingers. His face is pinched, and now that Dean has a chance to just look at him without worrying about whatever it is they're saying, he can see just how much weight his brother has lost. All that muscle he gained over the past couple of years is almost gone, leaving behind nothing but a pale spectre of the brother he thought he knew.
"Sam, what is it?"
"Nothing."
"You look like you're in pain."
Sam shrugs. "Headache. I get them all the time. It's because I can sometimes still make out light and dark. Doctor says it's because my eyes are still trying to make out what's out there, so it causes strain. You don't have to worry about it."
"What if I want to worry about it?"
"Your choice, I guess." But Sam's shoulders have relaxed a bit, and Dean chooses to take that as a good sign.
"You think your co-workers would mind if you took the rest of the day off? It doesn't look like business is really hopping, here."
"I get off work in a couple of hours anyway. Think you can wait that long? I don't want to leave them short."
Dean snorts. "Always so responsible, Sammy."
"You in town on business?" Sam changes the subject without really changing it.
"Actually, no. Was just passing through. I really was just stopping for coffee. But... I could spend the night."
Sam fiddles with his cane. "I have a pull-out sofa. You can always... I mean, you don't have to... there are plenty of good motels around, but..."
"No, it's cool." Dean rubs the back of his neck and wonders just how it became awkward to ask to sleep in the same place as his brother when they've done it all their lives. "You'll just have to show me. I mean, you have a system, right?"
Sam nods. "Yeah, so I don't trip over shit and whatever. I like knowing where everything is. Having dinner be an adventure every night kind of gets old after a while, you know?" he smiles ruefully, and Dean chuckles.
"I'll bet. We could order out, if you wanted."
Sam's too busy twisting his folded-up cane in his lap. "I just..." he stops, keeps twisting his hands. "Do you mean it?" he asks finally.
"What? Yeah. I mean, it's not like we've never ordered out before," Dean drums his fingers on the table for a moment.
"No," Sam hesitates, like he doesn't want to make himself form the words, and for a moment Dean finds himself wishing Sam wouldn't, anyway. "Dean, I can't... I can't do this. Not if you don't mean it. You don't know, okay? You don't know what it's been like."
"So tell me."
"No!" Sam says sharply. "That's not the point. That's not the point," he repeats, his face a mask of misery. "I just... I spent months hoping, you know? I thought... every day I thought, maybe today would be the day you'd call. Maybe today would be the day you'd come through the door. And it was stupid, I knew it was stupid, and every day I'd tell myself it was stupid to hope for it and I did anyway, and... and God, you know, I stopped. I stopped hoping and I thought-I thought maybe I'd be okay."
"Sam..."
"And I am, you know?" Sam looks up, and his eyes are shining again, staring right over Dean's shoulder at the wall behind him. "I mean, I'm not great, but I'm okay. I'm dealing. One day at a time. And so I have to know if you mean it, because I swear to God if you walk out at the end of this it's going to fucking destroy me. So you need to tell me right now, right now, if you mean it, if this is what you want, because you can't fucking change your mind."
"Sam... fuck."
Dean doesn't know what the fuck to say, so he just shoves his chair back, ignores the way Sam flinches, because he knows that his brother has just convinced himself he's going to leave. He shoves the chair back, goes around the table and hauls Sam into his arms, because that's the only language Sam has really understood when it comes to them, when it's down to just Sam and Dean and Dean and Sam, and words don't have any real meaning anyway. Sam goes rigid in his grasp at first, hands trapped between them because he's still holding onto that damned cane, but slowly, very slowly he brings up one hand tentatively to rest on Dean's back, just under his shoulder blade, and Dean feels him relax, ever so slightly.
"I'm not going anywhere, you hear me? I mean it," Dean says into his ear, just loud enough for him to hear and not mistake it for anything else. "You understand me, Sammy?"
Sam just nods, and Dean feels his breath hitch a little. "Good," he says. "Just so we're clear. I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you."
A moment later, though, Sam pulls away, cuffs at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. "I gotta finish my shift. You good to wait here?"
Dean lets him go. "Way to ruin my moment, sport."
Sam lets out a watery chuckle at that. "Wouldn't want you to spontaneously grow a uterus, would we? Just... stay put, okay? I'm going to finish up my shift. Ivy and Tim need someone to back them up for when the after school crowd comes in. Just... stay here, okay?" he sounds a little desperate, and Dean has no idea how to even begin reassuring him that he's not just going to melt away into thin air.
"I promise, I'm not going anywhere, except maybe to feed the meter. I wasn't really expecting to stay in here all that long."
Sam just nods, threads his way back through the maze of tables back to the counter, where Ivy and the guy whose name is apparently Tim are both watching for him. At least Sam hasn't been entirely alone, Dean thinks as he watches the girl move over to Sam and put a hand on his shoulder, leaning in to talk to him anxiously. He can't hear what she asks or what Sam answers, but he can guess that he must be the topic of discussion. Both Tim and Ivy shoot him a dark look, but it doesn't go any further than that, and Dean decides he's going to count it as a win and leave it at that. He does go up to the counter a couple of minutes later after leaving to feed the parking meter, orders himself a coffee and some sort of thing that seems like a really expensive danish, and settles back at the same table in order to wait for Sam.
It turns out that Sam was right, and there is a small rush of people about half an hour later. The little crowd keeps the three of them busy for a while, and Dean watches, fascinated, as Sam navigates his way around the cups and various coffee machines with practiced ease and even serves out the various flavours of pastries without hesitating once. The broken cup was a fluke, then, he figures, just the result of being shocked out of his skin by the unexpected appearance of his brother. Sam's doing well for himself here, is obviously used to the routine, and it's something of a relief to know that he hasn't spent the last ten months alone and miserable.
During a lull in the afternoon rush, while Sam is busy wiping down the counter, Tim saunters over casually, making a show of wiping off the tables as he comes over, as if talking to Dean isn't the first thing on his list of stuff to do today. He does stop at the table, though, and Dean looks up expectantly.
"You wanna sit?" he asks. "Or is this going to be a more formal thing?"
Tim slides into the seat Sam was occupying a few minutes before. "So. You're Sam's brother."
"In the flesh."
Tim nods. "Ivy kind of wants to kick your ass into next week, but Sam seems to think you had a really good reason for not picking up your phone, back in the day. No," he raises a hand to forestall anything Dean might have to say. "That part, that's between you and your brother. I just wanted to tell you-and I'm pretty sure Sam wouldn't thank me for this, but I think it's important for you to know-that what you're seeing here is the result of months of work. Sam's... he's been through a lot. And yes, I get that you've both been through the wringer. He won't talk about it, but I can read between the lines."
Dean feels his eyes narrow. "You going anywhere with this?"
Tim's lips press into a thin line. "I can't pretend to know what's gone on between you. I won't speak to that. All I can tell you is that Sam's recovery is still ongoing. You don't just walk away from a two-month coma, you understand me?"
Two months? Dean figures his astonishment must show on his face, because Tim looks a bit surprised.
"I guess he didn't tell you."
He shakes his head "No, no he didn't. He just said he got knocked out."
Tim looks rueful at that. "That's one way of putting it. Ivy was the one who found him, when she was out hiking with her brother and some friends. She's the one who tried calling you, who tried every number she could find in his phone, and there weren't many, let me tell you. All of them were disconnected, except for yours, and you never picked up. She's a good person," he says, looking over at her fondly. "And it was hard for her to think that a man could lie unconscious in the woods and there was no one in the whole world who cared if he lived or died."
Dean swallows, trying to rid himself of the lump in his throat that's trying to choke him. "I, uh... I didn't know. It's not true that no one cares."
Tim lifts one shoulder. "Sam's not going to tell you all of it. That much I've learned. He keeps things to himself a lot, but there are some bad days. He gets headaches, bad ones, and once or twice I've stayed the night, just to be on the safe side. And there are nightmares. If you're going to stick around, I figure you should know."
Somehow Dean isn't surprised to hear that. "Got it."
"You probably shouldn't let on I told you. Let him come to you, if you want."
Dean bites his tongue, because as much as he wants to snap at this guy that he knows how to handle his own brother, thanks, he knows that it's not true, not anymore. Tim just gives him a nod, then gets up and goes back to work, wipes off the rest of the tables, and leaves him alone with his thoughts.
Sam comes to find him an hour later. He's shed his apron, is wearing just his white button-down shirt over a pair of dark jeans. It's a good look on him, better than the overly baggy pants he would get at the Salvation Army or whatever other thrift store they happened to hit whenever they were running short on clothes. The only problem with thrift stores is that they rarely carry anything in Sam's size, and even more rarely anything in his size that fits him well.
"You ready to go?" Sam asks softly, and Dean nods again before realising-again-that Sam can't see him.
"Yeah, I'm ready. Uh, you want to tell me where we're going?"
Sam jerks his head toward the door. "Left, two blocks. Right, one block, then third door on the right. I'm one floor up."
"Okay, then. Let's go."
There's a moment of confusion outside when it's obvious Sam means to walk, until Dean catches him by the elbow. "Car, dude. Any reason I can't park outside your apartment?"
"Oh. Uh, actually, I don't know. It's never really been an issue, you know?"
"Fair enough. Hop in, I'll see when we get there."
He parks right in front of Sam's place, goes around and opens the door for Sam while his brother is still fumbling with the handle, grabs his arm to pull him to his feet. Sam unfolds his cane, reaches out with his free hand until his fingers brush against the car. He looks tense, uncomfortable, but it's not until he opens his mouth that Dean figures out why.
"Uh... I don't know where we are."
"We're right in front of your door. You're number twelve, right? Third door, second floor?"
Sam looks relieved. "Yeah, that's it. Um," he shoves his cane out in front of him, feeling for the stoop, walks forward carefully as soon as the tip of the cane comes into contact with it, takes his keys out of his pocket and runs his fingers along the doorjamb until he finds the lock.
He's thrown Sam off his game, Dean realizes. He has a routine, one he probably follows every single day, and now he's been completely thrown for a loop and doesn't know what to do about it anymore. It's better now that he's found what he's looking for and is back on familiar territory, but it's a little disheartening to see how even a three-block drive can knock him off-balance like that. Sam goes up the stairs ahead of him with confidence, obviously familiar with each twist and turn of the staircase, reaches his own front door without so much as a hitch in his step and unlocks it, stepping inside and holding the door for his brother.
The apartment itself is sparsely furnished, much the way all the apartments they've occupied in their lives have never held much of the comforts of home. There's a queen-sized bed in a tiny bedroom on the far side of the apartment, and the rest all fits into one room: a kitchenette that has the bare necessities for cooking along one wall, and the sofa-bed that Sam mentioned occupying the center of the living space, along with a small coffee table. There's no television, which sort of makes sense now that Dean thinks about it, except that he kind of expected there to be one. There are no books at all, and that's probably what makes him saddest, because Sam used to fucking love to read, and now he can't even do that.
Sam moves along his kitchen counter until his fingers brush up against a small radio, which he switches on, then immediately switches off again. "Oh, uh, sorry. Force of habit."
"Oh, hey, no need to keep it off on my account. It's your place, right?"
"Right," Sam leaves the radio silent, though. "Do you, uh, do you want anything? I have some beers in the fridge."
"Sure, thanks. You want me to-"
"It's fine, I'll get it," Sam moves back along the counter, takes two careful steps to the fridge and opens the door. He pulls out a bottle, hands it to Dean. "There's a bottle opener under the counter, right in the middle there."
Dean pops the top off his bottle, goes back to settle on one end of the sofa, watches as Sam fills a glass with water for himself from the sink. "You're not having any?"
Sam moves very gingerly back toward the sofa, trying to keep his glass steady, even though he hasn't filled it remotely close to the brim. "I don't really drink anymore."
"You doing the twelve-step thing?" Dean teases, and immediately regrets the words, but Sam just shrugs.
"Not for alcohol. I just have a lot of meds to take, and alcohol doesn't mix well with some of them. I keep a couple of beers around just for when Tim comes by, or Ivy, but she doesn't drink much either."
"How many meds?"
"More'n I'd like."
Dean blows out a breath. "Sam, level with me... how bad was it? I mean, you're making out like it's not a big deal, but..."
"But it is a big deal, right?" Sam smiles ruefully. "I don't know what you want me to tell you. I'm dealing. It sucks, but I'm dealing. And it could be worse, right? I don't know. Sometimes I can't help thinking maybe this is just karma, like a punishment for all I did. Except it doesn't really feel like enough to be a real punishment, so I figure it's just bad luck. And sometimes I wonder if it wasn't good luck, in a way."
Dean swallows a mouthful of beer. "How the hell do you figure that?"
Sam rubs a thumb along his glass until it squeaks. "I was in a coma, for a while. Two months. And while I was in a coma, nothing happened at all. I was just gone. Just blackness, with nothing at all. You can't say 'yes' when you're in a coma, turns out. It's all about informed consent, with Lucifer."
He can't believe he's hearing this. "Informed consent?"
Sam grimaces. "Like, he can't roofie me like some girl at a frat party and then say I consented just because I didn't say 'no.' I have to be awake and alert and in possession of all my faculties, or it doesn't count."
"That is some kind of seriously fucked-up." It makes sense, though. It makes sense because it explains why the hell Zachariah and everyone else have been going out of their way to make Dean see the light and accept his role as Michael's personal condom.
"Well, since when is anything in our lives not seriously fucked-up?" Sam points out, and yeah, he really does have a point there.
"So... two months?"
Sam nods. "Ivy came to see me every day. She's the one who found me, you know."
"Yeah, Tim said that."
"She probably saved my life. Well, sort of."
"Sort of?"
"Lucifer wants to keep me around. Since I'm his vessel and all. So he has a vested interest in my not dying. Or, at least, not staying dead," he says, so calmly that Dean feels his blood run cold.
"Sam... what are you saying?"
"It's not important. The point is, Ivy's been good to me."
"Okay, I get it." And Dean thinks he does. He doesn't exactly know what he's supposed to do with the knowledge-maybe get Ivy some thank-you-for-not-letting-my-brother-be-alone-and-friendless-while-he-was-in-a-coma flowers, or something. That might be called for, although he doesn't exactly know what those flowers might be. Roses? Daffodils? "So... what now, anyway?"
"I don't know, man," Sam laughs nervously, wipes his palms on his jeans. "You're the one who kind of landed on top of me. You tell me."
"What do you usually do after work?"
"Honestly? I usually take a nap. I get pretty tired these days."
It takes a minute for Dean to process that, but it makes sense. People don't just get up and walk away from comas, and that's what Tim was trying to tell him. Sam's still recovering, still needs a lot of rest, a lot of care.
"Okay. You tired now?" It comes out a bit more bluntly than he'd intended, a bit more harsh, and Sam jerks back a little.
"I... a little, yeah. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster today, in case you hadn't noticed."
Because apparently getting back your brother is exhausting. "So, take a nap. I can keep myself busy for a little while, you know. Maybe pull out this sofa bed you've been bragging about. Or take a walk or something."
"Right," Sam doesn't move from where he's been sitting. "Why don't you figure out what you want for dinner? There's a couple of menus in the second drawer from the top in the kitchen, see if there's anything you like. If not, you're on your own to go out and find something for takeout."
Obediently Dean makes himself at home in Sam's kitchen. Everything's labelled, he sees after a while. Every cupboard door, and all the buttons on the microwave have a little piece of ribbon stuck to them with what must be Braille, even though Dean's never bothered to look at it up close before. He runs his fingers over the labels experimentally, shuts his eyes to see if he can tell the little dots apart, but they just feel like random little bumps to him.
"So, how well do you read Braille?"
"Badly," Sam grimaces at the question. "It's hard when you're just learning. The people at the rehab centre told me it's harder for adults to learn-kids' brains are just better suited for learning. I can tell which cupboard is which, though, so I guess that's something."
Sam's obviously not planning on taking a nap, even if the circles under his eyes look like they're getting circles themselves. He's standing by the counter, one hand flat on the cold surface, his head cocked to the side, like he's listening for something. He's listening for Dean, is the conclusion Dean comes to a moment later, listening to make sure he's still there, that he's not just a figment of his imagination. At least that, Dean can do something about.
"Right. So since I can't read Braille at all, I'm just going to explore a bit, see what's where so I don't get things mixed up for you, okay? I promise not to move anything out of place."
He keeps up a running stream of commentary as he goes, moving from cupboard to cupboard, watching Sam's face the whole time, making sure Sam knows where he is at all times, and is rewarded when some of the tension starts to slowly leech from his brother's posture, when he starts talking back even when he's not being questioned directly. Eventually he grabs the delivery menus from the drawers, settles on pizza as something they can eat without Sam's having to worry about stupid things like chopsticks, and uses his own cell phone to order two large all-dressed pizzas.
"That's way outside my budget," Sam protests mildly when he's hung up.
"Not outside mine. Besides, this way there'll be leftovers."
"You're the one who likes cold pizza."
"Yeah, but since I'm planning on sticking around a while, I'll be the one eating it, too. Your argument is invalid."
"Have you been hanging out in those internet chat rooms again?"
"Shut up," Dean grins, because it's nice to have some confirmation that Sam is still in there, somewhere, even if he's buried under several layers of trauma.
They settle back down on the sofa when the pizza gets here, and they don't talk, but the silence is easier this time, more like before when it was just the two of them on the road, hanging out in a motel room once the hunt was over and there was nothing left to do but just eat and catch some sleep before the next hunt. After a while Sam diffidently starts asking questions, about Cas, about what Dean was doing all that time, and Dean decides that there have been enough lies to last them both several lifetimes, and so he tells him an abridged version of Zachariah's mindfuckery, concluding with 'and that's when Cas pulled me right the fuck out of there and into six weeks ago.'
Sam's trying unsuccessfully to wipe pizza grease off his fingers with a paper towel that's reached its capacity. "So, you're saying that sometime in the future, I say 'yes?'"
Dean shakes his head-force of habit-then clears his throat. "No. I'm saying that Zachariah was playing mind games with me and trying to make me believe you would say 'yes' so that I would say it first and, you know, save the world from the evils of Lucifer and all that crap. I don't think you'd say 'yes.' I mean, you're living proof right here."
Sam nods carefully. His face looks drawn again, lines of pain pulling at his mouth and at the corners of his eyes, and it's not a look Dean likes on him. It's still light outside but the sun is dipping lower on the horizon, and it's not like Sam can tell what time of day it is anyway.
"Look, I don't know about you, but I'm kind of done in. I've been going at it for four days straight now and I never did get that triple shot of espresso I was going to use to keep me fuelled. You mind if I turn in?"
Sam looks a little startled, but he gets up immediately from where he's been sitting. "Sure. I mean, I don't mind. Let me help you with the bed."
"I got it," Dean waves him off-another gesture Sam can't see, unfortunately-until he gently takes Sam by the elbow and steers him toward his tiny bathroom. "Why don't you do what you have to do before bed, and if I need help pulling out a sofa bed, I'll ask?"
"Stubborn," Sam huffs, but he does as he's told, and a moment later Dean hears the water running in the bathroom sink and the unmistakable sounds of Sam brushing his teeth, the clink of a glass as he swallows his pills.
The pull-out bed isn't nearly as uncomfortable as some of the beds Dean has had the misfortune to sleep on, including the crappy cots at Camp Chitaqua, and Sam has a bunch of nice sheets and warm blankets to go with it, and Dean sinks into the first entirely dreamless sleep he's had in a long time, only to be awoken hours later by a sound he can't identify at first. He sits up blearily, scrubbing at his face, searches around for a clock in the darkness and is a little perplexed not to find one until he remembers where he is. He hears the sound again, and this time he recognizes it as Sam's voice, distorted by what sounds like a moan of pain or fear. Whatever it is, he knows distress when he hears it, and that's enough to propel him out of bed and across the floor, stumbling around in the dark until his hands hit the wall by Sam's door, and he wonders if this is how Sam feels all the time, hurtling in the empty darkness until he hits a solid surface.
Sam is thrashing on his bed, still making that same low moaning noise at the back of his throat like a terrified animal, and when Dean sits next to him and tries to shake him awake he lashes out at him with a closed fist that Dean only barely manages to duck. He grabs both of Sam's hands, tries to hold him still.
"Sam. Sammy, wake up! You're having a nightmare, wake up! It's just a bad dream, dude."
It's easy to reach over and switch on the light. Sam doesn't react in the slightest to the abrupt switch from light to dark, just keeps struggling against something Dean can't see at all, until he comes awake with a start, sitting bolt upright in his bed and clutching at his head with both hands.
"Hey, Sammy," Dean rubs circles on his back with the flat of his hand. "You okay?"
Sam shakes his head. "Can you... pills are in the medicine cabinet, second shelf, fourth bottle from the right. Please?"
"Sure, Sammy, you got it."
Dean forces himself not to run, keeps his movements to a minimum to make sure he doesn't drop or spill anything. The pills are exactly where Sam said they'd be, in a little bottle labelled in Braille and in the regular pharmacist's print. Take one every six hours as needed for pain, do not exceed recommended dose. His heart sinks a bit, but he fills a glass with cold water, wets a washcloth while he's at it, brings everything back with him through the darkened living room and sits back on the bed. Sam still hasn't moved, both hands pressed to his temples, eyes screwed shut in pain. He's breathing carefully, controlled, even breaths, and Dean can practically hear him counting inside his head.
"Here you go. I got a glass of water at your four o'clock. You need a hand?" He doesn't wait for Sam to answer, just gently pries his right hand away from his head and drops one of the pills into his palm. Sam pops the pill, reaches wordlessly for the water, downs it in a few swallows, lets himself lie back slowly on the bed.
"Sorry I woke you."
"Not the issue, dude. You want to tell me what that was? Here," he folds the washcloth into thirds. "Got you a cloth, okay? It's going to be cold, just warning you," he says, laying it over Sam's eyes.
He's rewarded with a small sigh of relief, and he lets his hand linger for a second on Sam's forehead in a show of checking for fever. "Better?"
"Yeah."
"So?"
"'s just a nightmare."
"Uh-huh, I remember your nightmares, they didn't used to look like that. What's changed?"
Sam swallows visibly. "Lucifer."
Dean has a sudden vision of Sam in a white suit, standing in a rose garden, only the eyes looking out of Sam's face aren't his own anymore. (Hello, Dean.) "Tell me, Sam."
Sam laughs mirthlessly. "He won't leave me alone. He only comes when I'm asleep, and he talks to me. I think he can't find me when I'm awake, but... I don't know, when I'm asleep it's like it leaves a window open."
"And he just talks?"
"He wants me to let him in. To say 'yes.' And he talks, tells me all the things he wants to give me, all the stuff he wants to do for the Earth. Thing is, I think he really believes it, you know? I think he really believes that he wants to preserve what's here... oh, except for the humans, he doesn't like them. Except for me, he likes me," Sam adds bitterly, then winces as the movement jars his head.
"Hey, easy," Dean smooths a hand over his hair, feels a twinge of guilt at how much he enjoys the fact that Sam still responds to his touch, still relaxes under his hands after all this time, after everything that's come between them. "It's over for now, okay?"
Sam nods and sniffs, and for a moment Dean wonders if he's not trying not to cry again. His voice is rougher when he speaks again. "It gets worse when he's here. I... the pain does. It's stupid, it's all in my head, it's not real, but it gets so bad, it's like there's a million hammers pounding at the inside of my skull. And-and he says he'll make it stop. All of it."
"He's lying to you."
Sam's breath hitches. "He's not exactly lying. He's just... he makes it hurt worse so that it won't be a lie. If he stops, then it won't hurt, right? It's... he promised me he'd never lie to me, but that doesn't mean he promised never to hurt me."
"Jesus."
"It's so fucking stupid and awful. I can't say 'yes' like this, you know? I mean, I go into work every day, and Ivy and Tim are there and all the people who come in, and all I can think is that I might end up fucking up all their lives just because my goddamned head hurts? It's ludicrous. It's not even real pain, it's just... it's like phantom pain. All in my head."
Sam's slurring his words a little now, but Dean can't tell if it's the meds kicking in or if he's just tired and in pain. He doesn't have a good answer for him, either, so he just keeps petting Sam's hair, because they're alone and Sam can't watch him as he does it, and somehow that makes it all a little more okay in his books.
"I'll talk to Cas," he says finally. "Maybe there's a way of keeping him out of your head, too. I mean, if he can keep the angels from finding us just with their usual magic, there must be a way of denying them access to your dreams."
Sam just turns onto his side, curling into a ball and dislodging the cloth. "I don't know." It comes out more as a moan than anything else. "I just want it to stop."
"I know you do."
Sam's definitely crying, he can see it now, tear tracks glistening along his nose, and it's the worst thing Dean has ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on, the sight of his kid brother crying because just lying still hurts too much.
"Aw, Sammy..." he breathes, doesn't know what else to say, but he tries anyway. "We'll figure this out, I promise. I'll talk to Cas, or Bobby, or whoever, and we'll figure it out. I'm not going to let him keep doing this to you, okay?"
"You won't leave?" Sam turns a little in his direction, but his eyes are fixed on a point a little to Dean's left.
Dean squeezes his shoulder. "No, I won't leave. I promise, I'm not going anywhere."
This entry was originally posted at http://ratherastory.dreamwidth.org/217533.html, where there are
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