Your Ex-Sammy is Dead
Title: Your Ex-Sammy is Dead
Summary: Heaven is forcing the Winchesters' hands. So they're going to force Heaven's.
Warnings/Spoilers: This is the Season 5 finale, Sammyverse-style, so through then.
Wordcount: 4,375
Author's Note: Sammyverse. Mmmmhmmm. Not a ton to say about this one. Title is from "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" by Stars. ETA: there's a 500-odd word section in the middle that didn't get copied over the first time. Sorry about that. It's there now.
It's not an important day, you know? It's this regular, inauspicious fucking day in the middle of April and then all of a sudden it's the beginning of the goddamn (hahahahahaha get it, God, hahahahaha) end.
It starts with nothing, with Dean waking up a quiet-chested Sam with a squeeze to the ankle on his way to the bathroom. "Up, kid. Shit to do."
He hears Sam stirring as he plugs in his razor. "Exciting infestation down in Reno,” he tells the kid. “Dozens of demons, and those bitches sound maaaad. Bobby needs backup." He runs the blades down his throat. It doesn't make him shiver anymore.
Sam's too quiet for Dean to hear over the razor--he's often weak-voiced in the mornings, especially after nights last the exciting one they just had, where Dean was an insensitive fuck and pulled the pillow over his head the eighth time Sam woke him up coughing instead of getting up to help him, so yeah, he's going to be buying the kid a fucking muffin or something today, because sorry, Sam, really, but he's tired. He's just so fucking tired.
Anyway, Sam's quiet, so Dean lets him get his bearings and waits until he's done shaving to turn to the bedroom and start a “You listening, Princess?" that dies in his mouth when he looks at Sammy still on his side, palm pressed against his chest, breath coming out in stuttered, forced whistles.
"Holy shit. What the hell happened?"
Sam shakes his head, barely.
"Are you okay?"
Another headshake, and Dean's heartbeat doesn't feel fast as much as hard, like it's pushing oxygen into his blood as emphatically as it can, like it somehow be strong enough to force it all the way to Sam, and yeah, Dean wishes he could, Dean has wished for as long as he can fucking remember and now is not the time to be fucking philosophizing because his little brother can't fucking breathe.
"You need a hospital?"
This fucking desperate nod, Jesus.
"Okay, Sammy. Okay." He's at the bed, pulling Sam (he's lost so much weight lately, been so fucking stressed ever since the goddamn angels tugged him away from Jess and back to this shithole where there is little fucking promise of either of them ever, ever going back to Heaven because Heaven is for people who don't--who aren't fucking forced--to make waves) into his arms and and out the door and into the fucking air, breathe, Sammy, breathe, breathe.
**
They leave the hospital that evening, and Sam's lightheaded and exhausted and breathing loudly like he always is after bad attacks. He leans his head against the window and blinks slowly at the dashboard. Dean keeps one hand in his hair.
"I want you to stay in the car, and I'm gonna grab our stuff and get us to a different motel. There's got to be something in that one that set you off."
Sam gives this small nod.
"Anything I can say that will convince you to talk a little?"
"Sorry." He's so hoarse. "I'm okay."
"How do you feel? Scale of one to ten."
"Negative three." He coughs into his elbow and Dean checks his forehead for a fever for the seven-hundredth time. Nothing. “Sorry,” Sam says. “I'm whining.”
“Yeah, you should have stayed quiet if all you were going to do was bitch.”
Sam grins.
“Anything hurt?” Dean says.
“Heyyy. This is a trap.”
“Smart kid.”
They made a fortune in pool last week, so Dean's going to take them to the nicest fucking place they can find that will take cash and blow it all on a room tonight for his kid and give him cool sheets and warm water and all the fucking drugs and push hot washcloths into his back and if all else fails call Cas and see if he can help, can maybe open anything up.
Sam's moving some air now so Dean's not that worried, but it fucking sucks that Sam feels this shitty, and it's been a long time since an attack came on that suddenly. It sucks, but it's not scary, it's just this wheezy thing in his passenger seat who's now bitching at him with his eyes rather than his mouth because that's easier and now he's hitching himself up on the seat to get his feet into Dean's lap, and oh, charming, Sam, thank you so much for that, enormous fucking freezing cold feet, and it's like three minutes before Dean notices he's been driving with one hand and cradling one foot wit the other, fucking sick kids think they can get away with anything just because they can turn blue at a moment's goddamn notice, and then there's Sam smiling at him and poking him in the ribs with those frozen toes and telling him he's a sap.
So anyway, this isn't exactly scary.
When Sam wakes up barely breathing for the next three mornings, when each day starts with another breathless and terrified trip to the hospital, that's not really the case anymore, and they don't exactly goof around on the car rides home. That's not what's going on now.
**
I just need you to look stuff up," Dean says, whispering because Sam is finally, finally sleeping. "Make some phone calls."
Bobby says, "This isn't my usual line of work, kid."
"Yeah, it's a hell of a lot easier. Seeing me on the laptop all the time is stressing him out and he just...needs me, I don't have time to read every fucking website on asthma attacks."
"You know more than I do. I'll be playing catch-up for days."
"Just call some doctors and sift through some links and figure out if there's anything we haven't thought of. Why are you arguing with me about this, Jesus?"
"Because you're being a fucking fool, that's why. You know what he's allergic to, you know how his lungs react, you know what you've tried and I'm assuming it's fucking everything, and you know just as well as I do that no amount of medicine is going to have him breathing if Lucifer doesn't want him to."
"Fuck off."
"Jesus, Dean. I'll make some calls."
**
There's a section in John's journal about Sam, and whenever Dean starts to get too bitter, too angry at their father, he remembers that and thinks that John's endless pursuit of Sam's asthma might be his hunt that amazes Dean the most.
It's out of date, now, dosages all wrong, medications changed, nebulizers described ancient and clunky and tossed into dumpsters now. But the basic things--pk flow >60% = 1 hour on/off neb until he's breathing; rub his shoulders when he's tight; tea if coffee is too hard on his stomach; protect him--all hold true.
But they're all things Dean already knew, so he just opens the notebook and lays it next to Sam and lets Sam and his one hour off/one hour on the nebulizer run his fingers over the words and feel them and think about other things.
Please, Sam, think about other things
Don't let them fucking bury you with this.
This is not your fucking legacy. (Do you see this kid? Do you see that fucking smile? Do you see him twisting up Dean's hands and throwing a fucking temper tantrum when gas prices are too high for his fucking uselessly fiscal mind and teasing Dean when he outruns them when they're hoofing it across a graveyard-he was a little distracted looking out for his little brother, you are not welcome, Sammy-and snoring too loud for either of them to sleep and crashing with his head on Dean's knee after long days and holding a cool hand against Dean's temple for fucking hours when he has a fever and gripping him by the neck and the shoulder after nightmares that make him feel like he doesn't have a fucking body and this is Sam's fucking legacy, when Sam dies twenty billion years from now in some boring, normal way just like he deserves, his gravestone is going to say SAM WINCHESTER: BEST LITTLE BROTHER EVER and haha fuck you Sammy you don't even get to die unconnected to Dean, and you are welcome. You are so fucking welcome, you fantastic goddamn thing, now don't you dare die from a fucking asthma attack, and you goddamn fucking angels you are fucking with the wrong lungs, do you know how long they can deal with Sam not breathing? It's the fucking family business.)
(God, he can't fucking breathe.)
(They are not going to win this fight. They are not going to get to pick their fucking legacy.)
(SAM WINCHESTER: SUFFOCATED AND ENDED THE WORLD.)
Dean buries his face in Sam's hair and listens to the wheezing get worse.
**
"Feeling a little better," Sam says, on the afternoon of the fifth day of this bullshit, and he's forty-eight hours out of the hospital and not suffocating so he's obviously feeling better and wow, what an exciting new standard for their lives.
"Good. Then you're eating something, fuck."
Sam nods, but then he says, "We've got to talk about this, Dean."
Dean definitely does not look at him, no fucking way. "Talk about what? You want soup? All the soups with actual fucking calories have shellfish. Fuck this shit."
"You think he's giving me a break to breathe so I can eat soup? Dean, come on. He wants us to talk about this."
"Which is why we're not going to fucking talk about it."
"He can't hear us. All he can do is torture me from afar, I don't know. Just because we talk doesn't mean we have to...say what he wants us to."
Dean doesn't say anything (because Lucifer fucking wants him to say something).
"Dean," Sam says. "We know the endgame here. You've actually seen the endgame here."
"That's not going to happen."
"Of course it's not, but his method of trying to get me to say yes? We've got exactly zero reason to believe it's not going to play out just like that. The only difference is whether or not you're here to hold my hand."
"Or whether or not you say yes."
Sam looks at him like he's so fucking stupid. "Dean."
"What?"
"You agreed to torture Alistair because Zachariah broke my arm. This is why we're having this conversation."
"What kind of soup do you want?"
"Damn it, Dean, listen to me. I don't care how the fuck sick I am, don't you dare do anything stupid, you understand me? You sit here and you hold my damn hand and the only time I want to hear the word yes out of your mouth is if I'm asking you for another fucking blanket, you understand me?"
"That's really fucking adorable, Sam. Who do you think gets hurt when you martyr out like this?"
"You don't want to go there. I know asthma looks like a blast, but it's actually my lungs that end up on lockdown, and anything it does to you--"
"Is what? Incidental?"
Sam watches him steadily. "Yes."
"Oh, awesome, the next time I throw myself into Hell, you tell me how that feels for you. Because you loved that the first time, didn't you? You had a ball and a half thinking about me being torn to pieces."
"Which is why we're fucking not jumping into Hell, how is this so fucking hard for--"
"Because my little brother isn't fucking breathing, Sam! And you don't love you anymore but guess what the fuck, because Jesus, yeah, your little self-destructive streak as of late certainly fucking does make me think that I give more of a shit about what happens to you, and I get it, it's tough, things are hard, but that means that I get fucking custody of you for a while, you understand me?"
"I hate that."
Dean closes his eyes and swallows. "I know, kid. I know."
Dean's kid, Dean's fucking baby, pinches his tattoo and twists it around.
"I can't watch this," Dean says. "Not forever."
"That's the point, Dean."
"Yeah. I know."
"They want to break us."
"I know."
Sam laughs his way into a few tears and says, "Fuck, we weren't going to have the conversation they wanted us to have, and here we are fighting."
**
Sam's breathless and upset, desperately whispering "No hospital no hospital Dean" and Dean doesn't fucking blame him, because the stays are getting longer and longer and less and less helpful. He plays with Sam's hair and whispers "shh shh shh"s and Sam, bless him, calms a little.
"Sammy," Dean says, softly.
Sam, who's been lying still on his side for the past hour, raises his head a little.
Dean says, "I'm going to talk, okay? And it's just talking. No one's doing anything. So you stay calm and keep getting air in, okay?"
A slow nod. Not cautious. Just sluggish. This sick fucking kid.
"If we decide--if you decide--that we're getting cornered and we need to do this and there are enough people dying and that you can't do this anymore...I just want you to know, I've given this a lot of fucking thought, okay, and it's none of us or both of us."
"Neither," Sam croaks.
"What?"
"Neither of us. Not none."
"None sounds better."
"'s wrong."
But Sam gives him this goofy smile. He's fucking with him. Right the fuck now, Sam is fucking with him.
Jesus, Sam.
“You always...said I'm not allowed to give up,” Sam wheezes.
“Don't throw that in my face now. Don't you do that. That was shit I said to keep my blue ten-year-old brother conscious, you know that.”
“Yeah.”
"Look." Dean tucks Sam under his arm. "Obviously you're this useless weak wheezy sack of human."
"Obviously."
"So if you're...if we decide to do this, and you want to overpower Lucifer and jump in...well, I figure you're going to have an easier time if you're not staring at Michael in someone else's body, y'know? So. We beat them together, staring each other down."
"And then."
"Yeah. And then we jump into Hell together."
Sam frowns, just a little, like Dean's telling him he can't have a bite of his muffin because it May Contain Traces of Peanut.
"That sounds like a shitty ending," he says, quietly.
Dean decides to lie to him.
He doesn't do it very often, because Sam's really fucking good at catching him, and then he gets anxious and upset and wheezy and it's just not good, but sometimes he has to, sometimes he had to tell six-year-old Sammy that nothing could ever hurt Dad or tell eight-year-old Sammy that there was no way he'd stop breathing in his sleep.
Sometimes he has to tug his twenty-six year old brother into his chest and tell him, "It can only be so bad if we're together."
It's the biggest lie he's ever told, absofuckinglutely, because Hell laughs in the face of only so bad, Hell defines what is bad and Hell isn't limited by any fucking phrasing or any fucking brothers, Hell is the only thing bigger than them, but this is the lie that Sam seems to believe.
And Sam is so damn sick.
"But I'm not gonna say yes," Sam wheezes.
"Okay. But...I just need you to understand how important it is that we go together if one of us goes."
"Yeah."
"So that if one of us says yes, the other one has to say yes."
Sam nods sleepily and moves in closer to Dean. "Can't breathe." He hacks out a few coughs and sucks in a breath. "Want to fucking breathe."
"I know, buddy."
"I can't go to Hell, Dean. Jess is...she's waiting for me. I have to stay here. Have to get good. Have to earn it.”
Dean squeezes his eyes shut. "I know. You're so fucking good, Sam.”
"Was it hard to breathe in Hell? Smoky and stuff?"
He pushes his lips against Sam's forehead and mumbles "Yeah," into his hairline.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
This tiny whistle of a sigh. "That's no good."
**
Shopping for a sick Sam means endless label reading and arguing with pharmacists and lots of other shit Dean doesn't feel comfortable letting anyone else do (especially after asking Bobby for asthma help turned into a fucking bust, and he can't shake the feeling that if it were Dean--good, sweet, vessel-of-the-good-guy Dean--suffocating on that bed Bobby would be trying a little fucking harder to get his hands on some miracle cure) so he's away from Sam for almost two hours and it makes him dizzy and sweaty (they'll be together forever. That's the important thing to remember: however this shakes out, they'll be together forever).
Dean unlocks the motel room door and gives a small nod to Cas, who's still at his post next to Sam's bed.
"How is he?"
"Asleep still." Cas fingers the tubing for the nebuilzer. "I set it up like you said."
Dean checks it, and everything looks fine (except for the part where it's not helping his sick kid breathe, but whatever the fuck, apparently that's optional at this point, and thanks for that, universe).
He says, "I wish he'd fuck with something else."
Cas nods a little.
"Like break his bones. Fuck, break my bones. Hurt is in some way that isn't...this. This is just mean."
"I'm sorry, Dean."
"This was ours. Asthma. It was ours, and now they're taking it."
"Well. It was always theirs."
Dean breathes out. "I know."
"Sam was always sick for a reason."
"Thank you very fucking much, I think we've all caught onto that by now.”
Cas shrugs, eyes on Sam. "They wanted to make him tough. And angry.”
"Yeah, well, right now he's not either one.”
Cas pushes Sam's hair off his forehead. "Sam isn't what they wanted him to be," he says, and fuck but does he sound proud.
"He's cute still when he sleeps," Dean says.
"He isn't Lucifer's kid anymore."
"No."
"Maybe he never was."
Dean claps his hand on Cas's shoulder. "Hey. Thanks."
"For what?"
"Everything. You know.” He watches Sam stir. “Caring about him.”
"I like Sam," Cas says. "But I care about him because you do."
Dean shakes his head a little.
"You are my lens," Cas says.
"What?"
"You are how I see humans."
Sam's lungs clamp down, suddenly, and yeah, they know how this is going to shake out.
They can't stop fate.
They can just clasp hands and close eyes and make its job a little fucking harder.
(That's the fucking family business. We miss you, John. We're coming.)
**
It's a vigil. Dean feels like lighting candles.
He's sitting by the bed just holding Sam's hand between his.
Cas is waiting outside the door. They don't need him right now.
Sam is dying.
"He'll bring me back," Sam whispers, sucking in a breath between each word. "Don't be scared."
"Sam."
Sam pushes his hand, closed except for his pinky and index fingers, into Dean's palm.
It's almost I love you.
"You forgot the thumb," Dean says.
Sam shakes his head and forces in some more air. "Antlers," he whispers.
When Sam drops out, when Sam has fucking minutes left, when every instinct in Dean is screaming help him, help him, breathe for him, dying, he kisses Sam's forehead and rubs one more circle on his back and ducks outside the room where Cas is waiting.
“Okay. Remember how to do the Epi?”
Cas nods.
“All right. Go in there, do it. It'll open his lungs for a little while. Tell him what's going on, remind him what he promised. He'll be brave. He'll make the right call.”
"He'll be brave. He'll make the right call."
"Dean," Cas says softly. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I...fuck. Cas?"
"Yes, Dean."
"Get us out, okay?"
"I don't know if--"
"Try? For him? For...me."
Cas gives him a hug that's made of pressure and light and soft screaming. Dean wants to wear it like a coat.
"I will."
Dean watches Cas go inside, and then he steps into the parking lot and screams Yes at the sky.
**
Sammy, Dean has never fucking forgotten, has done this before. He was twenty-three, locked inside his body while Meg had her little playdate, and it shook him to his golden fucking core, this kid. He told Dean afterwards that he saw everything, that he could have been awake for all of it, but that by the end he was so tired and so sick and so scared that he just went to sleep.
Dean curls up in the base of his stomach and listens to Michael's words in his voice and decides to sleep, to save his energy, until Sam wakes him up.
**
Part of him thinks that Sam won't say yes.
He doesn't know how he feels about that until the second he hears his kid's voice and wakes up and sees Lucifer's expression on his brother's face, narrowed eyes, small smile, rough bursts of air pushed out of scarred lungs.
And he realizes that, fuck, he didn't want Sam to say yes.
He wanted Sam to run away.
He wanted Sam safe.
But he's not, he so fucking isn't, and Dean fucking signed them up for this shit.
Michael and Lucifer banter and bitch and are shitty brothers and Dean thinks Dean Dean Dean, thinks Sammy, thinks go rescue your baby brother and waits and begs, fucking begs the Sam bunched up inside Lucifer to come and get him.
It isn't two minutes later when he sees it.
It's a twitch, a flicker of desperate, human uncertainty behind Lucifer's eyes, and he sees Sam (Lucifer) immediately shake it off and continue with his monologue, but a few words later he's stalled off, coughing, and Dean forces himself to listen to that cough and concentrate and come back to his brother get control get control and Michael's fucking words are still pouring out of him.
But Michael is stupid, and Michael says the word brother too many times, and then Lucifer collapses into wide eyes and wheezes and shivering, and then there's that voice, there's his boy.
"I've got him. I've got him. Dean, it's me. It's Sammy, okay? Dean, I know you're in there, buddy."
Michael won't shut up. "You fucking thing, what the fuck did you do with my brother?"
"Shut up, Michael. This has nothing to do with you." Sam takes a few steps forwards, swallowing, visibly fighting, God, Sam, Sam, and he threads his fingers through Dean's and squeezes tightly. "Hey. I know you can feel that. It's me. Come back to me, Dean. I..."
He takes Dean's hand and presses it into his chest. That sick fucking chest.
"Come back to me."
Dean feels a rush of air, an impossible pressure in his head, and his own tongue saying "Sammy Sammy fuck."
Sam smiles, huffs out a laugh. "Hey."
Dean gets his hands on Sam's cheeks and says, "You ready to go?"
"Lead the way, big brother."
**
So Dean does.
Down down down
down
down
down down
**
It's dark, and it's still, and Sammy clings too hard.
There is laughter and fingernails in his skin and smoke in his lungs and a breathless little brother attached to his shirt.
They tug them apart and to separate corners and Michael holds Dean's arms behind his back and makes him listen to wheezy screams and unbreakable attacks of dry coughing as Lucifer cuts slits between Sam's ribs and reaches his fingers in and plays Sam like an organ.
They find their way back to each other, the monsters get bored, the monsters yell at each other, the monsters want to see what they will do.
What they will do is cling, and it is never too hard anymore.
Dean sings lullabies in Sammy's hair and wipes his cheeks off and keeps Sam's head tucked under his chin so his kid can hear his heart.
"You're my joy," Dean whispers over and over into his ear. "You're my joy."
Sam can't breathe well enough to talk, but he grips Dean under his arms and turns his cheek to Dean's mouth, silently begging for more kisses and sweet words and Dean will give them to Sam until he is broken.
Sam soothes him with hands cupped to the back of his neck and with dimples that he helps Dean find with his fingertips.
And they yank Sammy away again and Dean's tied up and listening while they rape Dean's fucking kid and Michael says youthink we're doing this to hurt you, you think this is torture for you, how fucking sweet, it's so dark you can't see poor Sammy shatter, you can't even imagine what we're doing and once they're back together Dean holds cool hands to his face and lets Sam cry ragged useless half-breaths into his hair and he whispers that Sam is still beautiful and still whole and Dean will always be here and not so long ago, six days of hell time, two fucking minutes of real time, they were up there and their biggest problem was an asthma attack that couldn't kill him and he made a mistake me made all the fucking mistakes fuck Cas get Sammy out get them out.
The angels tease Sam with asthma attacks that bring him to the brink (of what?) and suddenly let go and hives that cover him from his eyes to his feet that are gone as quickly as they came. They hurt Dean in the same mindless, unforgettable ways he remembers (never fucking forgot) from his last stay here, and Sam grabs for his hand and they laugh and they fuck with Sam. They just fuck with him.
Hell makes Dean taste tendons and fluids and he soothes Sam into sleep while the monsters laugh and gnash their teeth and then one morning they drag him away from Sam and there is a rush of light and sound and confusion on Sam's face and Dean blinks and opens his eyes in a field.
With Cas.
"Hello, Dean."
He's scrambling up to his feet, throwing himself around him (the air is so cool and thin and there is water--water--on the grass and there are clouds) and whispering thank-yous and Cas gives him cautious pats on the back.
Dean pulls back. "Where's Sam?"
Cas says, "Dean, I..."
"He needs like all the fucking medicine, we have to...he..." He's fucking spinning around, looking.
Even after he's figured out the fucking punchline, he's looking.
And there's nothing.
.
Nothing.
No hole in the ground leading to the cage.
No wheezing.
No laughing.
No body to grab and shake and cry over.
No temper tantrums, no teasing, no head on his knee.
He swallows again and again. "Where's Sam?"
"Dean, I only had enough grace for one--"
"Then you chose the wrong fucking one!"
"Dean."
"How did you not choose Sam!"
And he's going to lose it, going to fucking lose it,because his sun his joy his heart is broken, broken and breaking a hundred miles and a hundred lifetimes underground alone afraid cold hurting and screaming you picked the wrong one you picked the wrong brother, Sam cannot be alone, Sam cannot be in Hell.
He moves to punch Cas but Cas anticipates it and the next thing he knows he's lying on the ground (wet grass, fucking alive) with his hands pinned and Cas growling in his ear, "Because I couldn't live without you, you useless son of a bitch," and Dean cries so hard it hurts his throat and he screams apologies to Jess until he can't fucking breathe (borrowed your boy, promised I'd bring him back, broke him, left him behind).
**
Four hours later, they're in a fucking library, and Dean throws one eighty-pound hoodoo book at Cas and keeps the other to himself. He pulls out a chair and forces the letters to stop swimming. He needs to read.
“We've got work to do,” he says.
(We're coming, Sam. And we're pissed.)
Summary: Heaven is forcing the Winchesters' hands. So they're going to force Heaven's.
Warnings/Spoilers: This is the Season 5 finale, Sammyverse-style, so through then.
Wordcount: 4,375
Author's Note: Sammyverse. Mmmmhmmm. Not a ton to say about this one. Title is from "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" by Stars. ETA: there's a 500-odd word section in the middle that didn't get copied over the first time. Sorry about that. It's there now.
It's not an important day, you know? It's this regular, inauspicious fucking day in the middle of April and then all of a sudden it's the beginning of the goddamn (hahahahahaha get it, God, hahahahaha) end.
It starts with nothing, with Dean waking up a quiet-chested Sam with a squeeze to the ankle on his way to the bathroom. "Up, kid. Shit to do."
He hears Sam stirring as he plugs in his razor. "Exciting infestation down in Reno,” he tells the kid. “Dozens of demons, and those bitches sound maaaad. Bobby needs backup." He runs the blades down his throat. It doesn't make him shiver anymore.
Sam's too quiet for Dean to hear over the razor--he's often weak-voiced in the mornings, especially after nights last the exciting one they just had, where Dean was an insensitive fuck and pulled the pillow over his head the eighth time Sam woke him up coughing instead of getting up to help him, so yeah, he's going to be buying the kid a fucking muffin or something today, because sorry, Sam, really, but he's tired. He's just so fucking tired.
Anyway, Sam's quiet, so Dean lets him get his bearings and waits until he's done shaving to turn to the bedroom and start a “You listening, Princess?" that dies in his mouth when he looks at Sammy still on his side, palm pressed against his chest, breath coming out in stuttered, forced whistles.
"Holy shit. What the hell happened?"
Sam shakes his head, barely.
"Are you okay?"
Another headshake, and Dean's heartbeat doesn't feel fast as much as hard, like it's pushing oxygen into his blood as emphatically as it can, like it somehow be strong enough to force it all the way to Sam, and yeah, Dean wishes he could, Dean has wished for as long as he can fucking remember and now is not the time to be fucking philosophizing because his little brother can't fucking breathe.
"You need a hospital?"
This fucking desperate nod, Jesus.
"Okay, Sammy. Okay." He's at the bed, pulling Sam (he's lost so much weight lately, been so fucking stressed ever since the goddamn angels tugged him away from Jess and back to this shithole where there is little fucking promise of either of them ever, ever going back to Heaven because Heaven is for people who don't--who aren't fucking forced--to make waves) into his arms and and out the door and into the fucking air, breathe, Sammy, breathe, breathe.
**
They leave the hospital that evening, and Sam's lightheaded and exhausted and breathing loudly like he always is after bad attacks. He leans his head against the window and blinks slowly at the dashboard. Dean keeps one hand in his hair.
"I want you to stay in the car, and I'm gonna grab our stuff and get us to a different motel. There's got to be something in that one that set you off."
Sam gives this small nod.
"Anything I can say that will convince you to talk a little?"
"Sorry." He's so hoarse. "I'm okay."
"How do you feel? Scale of one to ten."
"Negative three." He coughs into his elbow and Dean checks his forehead for a fever for the seven-hundredth time. Nothing. “Sorry,” Sam says. “I'm whining.”
“Yeah, you should have stayed quiet if all you were going to do was bitch.”
Sam grins.
“Anything hurt?” Dean says.
“Heyyy. This is a trap.”
“Smart kid.”
They made a fortune in pool last week, so Dean's going to take them to the nicest fucking place they can find that will take cash and blow it all on a room tonight for his kid and give him cool sheets and warm water and all the fucking drugs and push hot washcloths into his back and if all else fails call Cas and see if he can help, can maybe open anything up.
Sam's moving some air now so Dean's not that worried, but it fucking sucks that Sam feels this shitty, and it's been a long time since an attack came on that suddenly. It sucks, but it's not scary, it's just this wheezy thing in his passenger seat who's now bitching at him with his eyes rather than his mouth because that's easier and now he's hitching himself up on the seat to get his feet into Dean's lap, and oh, charming, Sam, thank you so much for that, enormous fucking freezing cold feet, and it's like three minutes before Dean notices he's been driving with one hand and cradling one foot wit the other, fucking sick kids think they can get away with anything just because they can turn blue at a moment's goddamn notice, and then there's Sam smiling at him and poking him in the ribs with those frozen toes and telling him he's a sap.
So anyway, this isn't exactly scary.
When Sam wakes up barely breathing for the next three mornings, when each day starts with another breathless and terrified trip to the hospital, that's not really the case anymore, and they don't exactly goof around on the car rides home. That's not what's going on now.
**
I just need you to look stuff up," Dean says, whispering because Sam is finally, finally sleeping. "Make some phone calls."
Bobby says, "This isn't my usual line of work, kid."
"Yeah, it's a hell of a lot easier. Seeing me on the laptop all the time is stressing him out and he just...needs me, I don't have time to read every fucking website on asthma attacks."
"You know more than I do. I'll be playing catch-up for days."
"Just call some doctors and sift through some links and figure out if there's anything we haven't thought of. Why are you arguing with me about this, Jesus?"
"Because you're being a fucking fool, that's why. You know what he's allergic to, you know how his lungs react, you know what you've tried and I'm assuming it's fucking everything, and you know just as well as I do that no amount of medicine is going to have him breathing if Lucifer doesn't want him to."
"Fuck off."
"Jesus, Dean. I'll make some calls."
**
There's a section in John's journal about Sam, and whenever Dean starts to get too bitter, too angry at their father, he remembers that and thinks that John's endless pursuit of Sam's asthma might be his hunt that amazes Dean the most.
It's out of date, now, dosages all wrong, medications changed, nebulizers described ancient and clunky and tossed into dumpsters now. But the basic things--pk flow >60% = 1 hour on/off neb until he's breathing; rub his shoulders when he's tight; tea if coffee is too hard on his stomach; protect him--all hold true.
But they're all things Dean already knew, so he just opens the notebook and lays it next to Sam and lets Sam and his one hour off/one hour on the nebulizer run his fingers over the words and feel them and think about other things.
Please, Sam, think about other things
Don't let them fucking bury you with this.
This is not your fucking legacy. (Do you see this kid? Do you see that fucking smile? Do you see him twisting up Dean's hands and throwing a fucking temper tantrum when gas prices are too high for his fucking uselessly fiscal mind and teasing Dean when he outruns them when they're hoofing it across a graveyard-he was a little distracted looking out for his little brother, you are not welcome, Sammy-and snoring too loud for either of them to sleep and crashing with his head on Dean's knee after long days and holding a cool hand against Dean's temple for fucking hours when he has a fever and gripping him by the neck and the shoulder after nightmares that make him feel like he doesn't have a fucking body and this is Sam's fucking legacy, when Sam dies twenty billion years from now in some boring, normal way just like he deserves, his gravestone is going to say SAM WINCHESTER: BEST LITTLE BROTHER EVER and haha fuck you Sammy you don't even get to die unconnected to Dean, and you are welcome. You are so fucking welcome, you fantastic goddamn thing, now don't you dare die from a fucking asthma attack, and you goddamn fucking angels you are fucking with the wrong lungs, do you know how long they can deal with Sam not breathing? It's the fucking family business.)
(God, he can't fucking breathe.)
(They are not going to win this fight. They are not going to get to pick their fucking legacy.)
(SAM WINCHESTER: SUFFOCATED AND ENDED THE WORLD.)
Dean buries his face in Sam's hair and listens to the wheezing get worse.
**
"Feeling a little better," Sam says, on the afternoon of the fifth day of this bullshit, and he's forty-eight hours out of the hospital and not suffocating so he's obviously feeling better and wow, what an exciting new standard for their lives.
"Good. Then you're eating something, fuck."
Sam nods, but then he says, "We've got to talk about this, Dean."
Dean definitely does not look at him, no fucking way. "Talk about what? You want soup? All the soups with actual fucking calories have shellfish. Fuck this shit."
"You think he's giving me a break to breathe so I can eat soup? Dean, come on. He wants us to talk about this."
"Which is why we're not going to fucking talk about it."
"He can't hear us. All he can do is torture me from afar, I don't know. Just because we talk doesn't mean we have to...say what he wants us to."
Dean doesn't say anything (because Lucifer fucking wants him to say something).
"Dean," Sam says. "We know the endgame here. You've actually seen the endgame here."
"That's not going to happen."
"Of course it's not, but his method of trying to get me to say yes? We've got exactly zero reason to believe it's not going to play out just like that. The only difference is whether or not you're here to hold my hand."
"Or whether or not you say yes."
Sam looks at him like he's so fucking stupid. "Dean."
"What?"
"You agreed to torture Alistair because Zachariah broke my arm. This is why we're having this conversation."
"What kind of soup do you want?"
"Damn it, Dean, listen to me. I don't care how the fuck sick I am, don't you dare do anything stupid, you understand me? You sit here and you hold my damn hand and the only time I want to hear the word yes out of your mouth is if I'm asking you for another fucking blanket, you understand me?"
"That's really fucking adorable, Sam. Who do you think gets hurt when you martyr out like this?"
"You don't want to go there. I know asthma looks like a blast, but it's actually my lungs that end up on lockdown, and anything it does to you--"
"Is what? Incidental?"
Sam watches him steadily. "Yes."
"Oh, awesome, the next time I throw myself into Hell, you tell me how that feels for you. Because you loved that the first time, didn't you? You had a ball and a half thinking about me being torn to pieces."
"Which is why we're fucking not jumping into Hell, how is this so fucking hard for--"
"Because my little brother isn't fucking breathing, Sam! And you don't love you anymore but guess what the fuck, because Jesus, yeah, your little self-destructive streak as of late certainly fucking does make me think that I give more of a shit about what happens to you, and I get it, it's tough, things are hard, but that means that I get fucking custody of you for a while, you understand me?"
"I hate that."
Dean closes his eyes and swallows. "I know, kid. I know."
Dean's kid, Dean's fucking baby, pinches his tattoo and twists it around.
"I can't watch this," Dean says. "Not forever."
"That's the point, Dean."
"Yeah. I know."
"They want to break us."
"I know."
Sam laughs his way into a few tears and says, "Fuck, we weren't going to have the conversation they wanted us to have, and here we are fighting."
**
Sam's breathless and upset, desperately whispering "No hospital no hospital Dean" and Dean doesn't fucking blame him, because the stays are getting longer and longer and less and less helpful. He plays with Sam's hair and whispers "shh shh shh"s and Sam, bless him, calms a little.
"Sammy," Dean says, softly.
Sam, who's been lying still on his side for the past hour, raises his head a little.
Dean says, "I'm going to talk, okay? And it's just talking. No one's doing anything. So you stay calm and keep getting air in, okay?"
A slow nod. Not cautious. Just sluggish. This sick fucking kid.
"If we decide--if you decide--that we're getting cornered and we need to do this and there are enough people dying and that you can't do this anymore...I just want you to know, I've given this a lot of fucking thought, okay, and it's none of us or both of us."
"Neither," Sam croaks.
"What?"
"Neither of us. Not none."
"None sounds better."
"'s wrong."
But Sam gives him this goofy smile. He's fucking with him. Right the fuck now, Sam is fucking with him.
Jesus, Sam.
“You always...said I'm not allowed to give up,” Sam wheezes.
“Don't throw that in my face now. Don't you do that. That was shit I said to keep my blue ten-year-old brother conscious, you know that.”
“Yeah.”
"Look." Dean tucks Sam under his arm. "Obviously you're this useless weak wheezy sack of human."
"Obviously."
"So if you're...if we decide to do this, and you want to overpower Lucifer and jump in...well, I figure you're going to have an easier time if you're not staring at Michael in someone else's body, y'know? So. We beat them together, staring each other down."
"And then."
"Yeah. And then we jump into Hell together."
Sam frowns, just a little, like Dean's telling him he can't have a bite of his muffin because it May Contain Traces of Peanut.
"That sounds like a shitty ending," he says, quietly.
Dean decides to lie to him.
He doesn't do it very often, because Sam's really fucking good at catching him, and then he gets anxious and upset and wheezy and it's just not good, but sometimes he has to, sometimes he had to tell six-year-old Sammy that nothing could ever hurt Dad or tell eight-year-old Sammy that there was no way he'd stop breathing in his sleep.
Sometimes he has to tug his twenty-six year old brother into his chest and tell him, "It can only be so bad if we're together."
It's the biggest lie he's ever told, absofuckinglutely, because Hell laughs in the face of only so bad, Hell defines what is bad and Hell isn't limited by any fucking phrasing or any fucking brothers, Hell is the only thing bigger than them, but this is the lie that Sam seems to believe.
And Sam is so damn sick.
"But I'm not gonna say yes," Sam wheezes.
"Okay. But...I just need you to understand how important it is that we go together if one of us goes."
"Yeah."
"So that if one of us says yes, the other one has to say yes."
Sam nods sleepily and moves in closer to Dean. "Can't breathe." He hacks out a few coughs and sucks in a breath. "Want to fucking breathe."
"I know, buddy."
"I can't go to Hell, Dean. Jess is...she's waiting for me. I have to stay here. Have to get good. Have to earn it.”
Dean squeezes his eyes shut. "I know. You're so fucking good, Sam.”
"Was it hard to breathe in Hell? Smoky and stuff?"
He pushes his lips against Sam's forehead and mumbles "Yeah," into his hairline.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
This tiny whistle of a sigh. "That's no good."
**
Shopping for a sick Sam means endless label reading and arguing with pharmacists and lots of other shit Dean doesn't feel comfortable letting anyone else do (especially after asking Bobby for asthma help turned into a fucking bust, and he can't shake the feeling that if it were Dean--good, sweet, vessel-of-the-good-guy Dean--suffocating on that bed Bobby would be trying a little fucking harder to get his hands on some miracle cure) so he's away from Sam for almost two hours and it makes him dizzy and sweaty (they'll be together forever. That's the important thing to remember: however this shakes out, they'll be together forever).
Dean unlocks the motel room door and gives a small nod to Cas, who's still at his post next to Sam's bed.
"How is he?"
"Asleep still." Cas fingers the tubing for the nebuilzer. "I set it up like you said."
Dean checks it, and everything looks fine (except for the part where it's not helping his sick kid breathe, but whatever the fuck, apparently that's optional at this point, and thanks for that, universe).
He says, "I wish he'd fuck with something else."
Cas nods a little.
"Like break his bones. Fuck, break my bones. Hurt is in some way that isn't...this. This is just mean."
"I'm sorry, Dean."
"This was ours. Asthma. It was ours, and now they're taking it."
"Well. It was always theirs."
Dean breathes out. "I know."
"Sam was always sick for a reason."
"Thank you very fucking much, I think we've all caught onto that by now.”
Cas shrugs, eyes on Sam. "They wanted to make him tough. And angry.”
"Yeah, well, right now he's not either one.”
Cas pushes Sam's hair off his forehead. "Sam isn't what they wanted him to be," he says, and fuck but does he sound proud.
"He's cute still when he sleeps," Dean says.
"He isn't Lucifer's kid anymore."
"No."
"Maybe he never was."
Dean claps his hand on Cas's shoulder. "Hey. Thanks."
"For what?"
"Everything. You know.” He watches Sam stir. “Caring about him.”
"I like Sam," Cas says. "But I care about him because you do."
Dean shakes his head a little.
"You are my lens," Cas says.
"What?"
"You are how I see humans."
Sam's lungs clamp down, suddenly, and yeah, they know how this is going to shake out.
They can't stop fate.
They can just clasp hands and close eyes and make its job a little fucking harder.
(That's the fucking family business. We miss you, John. We're coming.)
**
It's a vigil. Dean feels like lighting candles.
He's sitting by the bed just holding Sam's hand between his.
Cas is waiting outside the door. They don't need him right now.
Sam is dying.
"He'll bring me back," Sam whispers, sucking in a breath between each word. "Don't be scared."
"Sam."
Sam pushes his hand, closed except for his pinky and index fingers, into Dean's palm.
It's almost I love you.
"You forgot the thumb," Dean says.
Sam shakes his head and forces in some more air. "Antlers," he whispers.
When Sam drops out, when Sam has fucking minutes left, when every instinct in Dean is screaming help him, help him, breathe for him, dying, he kisses Sam's forehead and rubs one more circle on his back and ducks outside the room where Cas is waiting.
“Okay. Remember how to do the Epi?”
Cas nods.
“All right. Go in there, do it. It'll open his lungs for a little while. Tell him what's going on, remind him what he promised. He'll be brave. He'll make the right call.”
"He'll be brave. He'll make the right call."
"Dean," Cas says softly. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I...fuck. Cas?"
"Yes, Dean."
"Get us out, okay?"
"I don't know if--"
"Try? For him? For...me."
Cas gives him a hug that's made of pressure and light and soft screaming. Dean wants to wear it like a coat.
"I will."
Dean watches Cas go inside, and then he steps into the parking lot and screams Yes at the sky.
**
Sammy, Dean has never fucking forgotten, has done this before. He was twenty-three, locked inside his body while Meg had her little playdate, and it shook him to his golden fucking core, this kid. He told Dean afterwards that he saw everything, that he could have been awake for all of it, but that by the end he was so tired and so sick and so scared that he just went to sleep.
Dean curls up in the base of his stomach and listens to Michael's words in his voice and decides to sleep, to save his energy, until Sam wakes him up.
**
Part of him thinks that Sam won't say yes.
He doesn't know how he feels about that until the second he hears his kid's voice and wakes up and sees Lucifer's expression on his brother's face, narrowed eyes, small smile, rough bursts of air pushed out of scarred lungs.
And he realizes that, fuck, he didn't want Sam to say yes.
He wanted Sam to run away.
He wanted Sam safe.
But he's not, he so fucking isn't, and Dean fucking signed them up for this shit.
Michael and Lucifer banter and bitch and are shitty brothers and Dean thinks Dean Dean Dean, thinks Sammy, thinks go rescue your baby brother and waits and begs, fucking begs the Sam bunched up inside Lucifer to come and get him.
It isn't two minutes later when he sees it.
It's a twitch, a flicker of desperate, human uncertainty behind Lucifer's eyes, and he sees Sam (Lucifer) immediately shake it off and continue with his monologue, but a few words later he's stalled off, coughing, and Dean forces himself to listen to that cough and concentrate and come back to his brother get control get control and Michael's fucking words are still pouring out of him.
But Michael is stupid, and Michael says the word brother too many times, and then Lucifer collapses into wide eyes and wheezes and shivering, and then there's that voice, there's his boy.
"I've got him. I've got him. Dean, it's me. It's Sammy, okay? Dean, I know you're in there, buddy."
Michael won't shut up. "You fucking thing, what the fuck did you do with my brother?"
"Shut up, Michael. This has nothing to do with you." Sam takes a few steps forwards, swallowing, visibly fighting, God, Sam, Sam, and he threads his fingers through Dean's and squeezes tightly. "Hey. I know you can feel that. It's me. Come back to me, Dean. I..."
He takes Dean's hand and presses it into his chest. That sick fucking chest.
"Come back to me."
Dean feels a rush of air, an impossible pressure in his head, and his own tongue saying "Sammy Sammy fuck."
Sam smiles, huffs out a laugh. "Hey."
Dean gets his hands on Sam's cheeks and says, "You ready to go?"
"Lead the way, big brother."
**
So Dean does.
Down down down
down
down
down down
**
It's dark, and it's still, and Sammy clings too hard.
There is laughter and fingernails in his skin and smoke in his lungs and a breathless little brother attached to his shirt.
They tug them apart and to separate corners and Michael holds Dean's arms behind his back and makes him listen to wheezy screams and unbreakable attacks of dry coughing as Lucifer cuts slits between Sam's ribs and reaches his fingers in and plays Sam like an organ.
They find their way back to each other, the monsters get bored, the monsters yell at each other, the monsters want to see what they will do.
What they will do is cling, and it is never too hard anymore.
Dean sings lullabies in Sammy's hair and wipes his cheeks off and keeps Sam's head tucked under his chin so his kid can hear his heart.
"You're my joy," Dean whispers over and over into his ear. "You're my joy."
Sam can't breathe well enough to talk, but he grips Dean under his arms and turns his cheek to Dean's mouth, silently begging for more kisses and sweet words and Dean will give them to Sam until he is broken.
Sam soothes him with hands cupped to the back of his neck and with dimples that he helps Dean find with his fingertips.
And they yank Sammy away again and Dean's tied up and listening while they rape Dean's fucking kid and Michael says youthink we're doing this to hurt you, you think this is torture for you, how fucking sweet, it's so dark you can't see poor Sammy shatter, you can't even imagine what we're doing and once they're back together Dean holds cool hands to his face and lets Sam cry ragged useless half-breaths into his hair and he whispers that Sam is still beautiful and still whole and Dean will always be here and not so long ago, six days of hell time, two fucking minutes of real time, they were up there and their biggest problem was an asthma attack that couldn't kill him and he made a mistake me made all the fucking mistakes fuck Cas get Sammy out get them out.
The angels tease Sam with asthma attacks that bring him to the brink (of what?) and suddenly let go and hives that cover him from his eyes to his feet that are gone as quickly as they came. They hurt Dean in the same mindless, unforgettable ways he remembers (never fucking forgot) from his last stay here, and Sam grabs for his hand and they laugh and they fuck with Sam. They just fuck with him.
Hell makes Dean taste tendons and fluids and he soothes Sam into sleep while the monsters laugh and gnash their teeth and then one morning they drag him away from Sam and there is a rush of light and sound and confusion on Sam's face and Dean blinks and opens his eyes in a field.
With Cas.
"Hello, Dean."
He's scrambling up to his feet, throwing himself around him (the air is so cool and thin and there is water--water--on the grass and there are clouds) and whispering thank-yous and Cas gives him cautious pats on the back.
Dean pulls back. "Where's Sam?"
Cas says, "Dean, I..."
"He needs like all the fucking medicine, we have to...he..." He's fucking spinning around, looking.
Even after he's figured out the fucking punchline, he's looking.
And there's nothing.
.
Nothing.
No hole in the ground leading to the cage.
No wheezing.
No laughing.
No body to grab and shake and cry over.
No temper tantrums, no teasing, no head on his knee.
He swallows again and again. "Where's Sam?"
"Dean, I only had enough grace for one--"
"Then you chose the wrong fucking one!"
"Dean."
"How did you not choose Sam!"
And he's going to lose it, going to fucking lose it,because his sun his joy his heart is broken, broken and breaking a hundred miles and a hundred lifetimes underground alone afraid cold hurting and screaming you picked the wrong one you picked the wrong brother, Sam cannot be alone, Sam cannot be in Hell.
He moves to punch Cas but Cas anticipates it and the next thing he knows he's lying on the ground (wet grass, fucking alive) with his hands pinned and Cas growling in his ear, "Because I couldn't live without you, you useless son of a bitch," and Dean cries so hard it hurts his throat and he screams apologies to Jess until he can't fucking breathe (borrowed your boy, promised I'd bring him back, broke him, left him behind).
**
Four hours later, they're in a fucking library, and Dean throws one eighty-pound hoodoo book at Cas and keeps the other to himself. He pulls out a chair and forces the letters to stop swimming. He needs to read.
“We've got work to do,” he says.
(We're coming, Sam. And we're pissed.)