fic: they shoot werewolves, don't they? 2/? (sam/dean, R)
title: they shoot werewolves, don't they? pt. 2
rating: R
pairing: sam/dean
summary: pre-S6. six months later, Sam is free from hell. there's a catch. it's painful. Dean is not going to like the fine print.
warnings: gross and disturbing imagery, first time, hurt!Sam
A/N: (forgive me for the title. I swear it's relevant.) this became a little longer than I thought it would, but the last installment will be up shortly. once again beta'd by Zacky, who is just wonderful.
special note: this is not a death fic, even if it seems like it might become one.
The neon Budweiser clock on the wall says it's 11:26, he thinks, though it's hard to tell when both hands are shaped like tiny beer bottles. He picked some dive a few miles out in Arcadia called Donovan's, hoping no one from work or the PTA or whatever would recognize him. All that really matters is that a Maker's neat is only four bucks and nobody's doing karaoke.
Sam's gone sullen, hands gripped tight around his tumbler, staring into his third whiskey like it's got a TV screen. He'd picked a corner table in the back, away from the throng of chatty old guys in trucker hats and their cackling wives, and when they'd sat down Sam had immediately turned his chair so his back was to the wall, giving him a clear view of the door. Classic post-traumatic stuff, and he should know. It's actually kind of reassuring, because if Sam's being defensive it means he still gives a crap about his own life. Dean wouldn't have priced his at a nickel when he was fresh from the pit.
"So. Nothing like the good stuff, huh?" he says cheerfully, hoping to stir up a couple of sentences from his brother.
Sam makes an almost imperceptible shrug. "I can't really taste the difference." He takes a long draw from the whiskey, shudders when he swallows. He's always done that for some reason, like he hates the taste of it, even though it's Maker's Mark and Dean is pretty sure that's physically impossible. But then he always used to swear he'd never grow up to be a drinker like Dad, so who even knows what's going on in his head anymore.
"Blasphemy," Dean scoffs in mock outrage. "Anyway, I'm buyin', so you better like it."
"I like the fact that it'll get me drunk," Sam offers, a little smile turning up the corner of his mouth. That's good. That's what Dean wants to see more of.
"Not just get you drunk. Drunk with class." He taps the table for emphasis.
"Yeah, real classy." Now he's smiling for real as far as Dean can tell, since he's still hanging his head and visually interrogating his whiskey, loose strands of hair tracing the edges of the tumbler. "We're the only ones here without Deere hats."
"Well, Sam," Dean says, leaning his arm over the top of the chair, "true leaders lead by example."
"So - did you feel sick when you got out?" Sam says abruptly to his whiskey. "I mean … like, physically?"
That came out of nowhere. First Hell question of the night. Had to happen sooner or later. Dean bites his upper lip, nods a little. He can field this one.
"Honestly?"
Sam looks up for the first time in a while, his eyes wide, interested. It's not something Dean's ever gone and shared, except for the whole torture part. Back then it was about protecting Sam from the details, from what it was like to be the star of your own 30-year-long vivisection, but there's no point in hiding it now.
"I got dizzy real bad for the first couple of weeks. A little nauseous, but that's about it." He grins awkwardly, shrugs. "I mean, I couldn't get to sleep without a pint of hooch before bed. You remember that. And lookin' in mirrors freaked me out pretty good, but that stuff's all … mental, I guess," he says, making a 'cuckoo' gesture by his ear.
"Mirrors? Really?" Sam swallows, tries to look like he's just asking because he's curious, even though Dean can tell by the way his jaw is tensing that there have got to be some dark, freaky thoughts going through his head right now. "Why?"
"Well, I saw stuff."
"Stuff? Like … torture stuff?" He says the word hesitantly. It's almost adorable, Dean thinks, like saying it nice is going to make it any less ugly.
Dean finishes his drink, pouring the last remnants with his head tilted back, and stays there for a moment with his eyes closed after setting the glass down. Sam is asking him to go to a place in his head that he's kept in lockdown for so long, he can barely remember how to get there. He'd rather be disemboweled than admit this, but once, just once, sometime last year, he slipped into a used bookstore and found this stupid book on how to recover from a traumatic experience. It was crazy how much he had in common with the stories in there, even though he was a hunter who had literally gone through Hell and these were 40-something women talking about being mugged or raped or whatever. He'd thrown it away after a week, too embarrassed even to hide it at the bottom of his duffel anymore, but there was this one chapter that stuck with him, all about how to put your worst memories inside a box, lock it up and hide it in the attic of your brain. Craziest thing on earth, but it worked. It worked so well he can honestly say he has not thought about Hell in months, outside of the nightmares. But he owes it to Sam to open up the attic, look inside that box.
"Yeah. Torture stuff."
"Was it … you doing the torture, or were you … being …" Sam's voice is so soft he can barely hear it over the bass rumble and the shouting, drunken conversations in the background.
"Tortured." Dean opens his eyes. Sam's brows are furrowed in that old, familiar expression of honest concern he hasn't seen for a while. He can't stand it when he looks at him like that - makes him feel twisted up inside, guilty, horrible. He has to look away. "It's okay, Sam, you can say it. Ask me anything."
Sam leans over the table on his elbows, and Dean's gaze moves up over his head to the vintage metal Coke sign behind him, just so he doesn't have to deal with the eye contact.
"What did you see in the mirror?" he asks quietly, intensely.
"Mostly it was the kids." He looks down, focuses on the tiny slick of whiskey at the bottom of his glass. Great, now he's doing it too. "Couldn't have been much older than you when you left for college," he continues, keeping his voice flat and level. "Gotta wonder what they did to end up down there. They like to talk, you know? Always trying to bargain, trying to persuade you not to cut them open, as if I had any say once they were up on that rack. I kept telling them it didn't matter, I'm not your mom, I'm not your dad, I don't make the rules." He has never, ever put these memories into words. It feels amazing and horrible, like a full-body rush of adrenaline, kind of like driving a car off a cliff. "Tried to figure that if I was the one doing it, at least I had a conscience, you know? I wasn't doing it because I wanted to. It just had to be that way. I wasn't gettin' off on it like, like Alastair, not the kids. But I thought it would make a difference … if they were bein' tortured by someone who wanted to let them go." His voice cracks on the last word but he doesn’t let it show on his face.
"Dean?"
He can barely hear him. He takes a deep breath, curls his hand over his mouth and puts the lid back on that box, shuts the attic, nods to himself when he's sure the memory's gone. When he looks up, Sam's drink is empty and he's staring at him, not with that unbearable concerned face or anything, thank god, just kind of mutely accepting. He doesn't even want to imagine if this is because Sam can relate to anything he just said.
"So, uh," he finishes weakly, "I see them behind me in the mirror. Saw. Saw them in the mirror. And it sucked." He gets up, scoots the chair back and takes his empty glass with a bullshit grin. "And now, I need Maker's number two."
Without looking back, Dean elbows his way up to the bar, sets his glass down and raises his eyebrows at the bald, heavily muscled bartender. It's a hectic night in here but the pour comes fast and stiff, the way it should be, swirling golden brown against the thick, cold tumbler. He takes it back to their table, four dollars lighter, and sets his whiskey down. Sam is sitting with his back straight as a board, his shoulders set, neck muscles all tensed up.
"Dude, you look like you've seen a-"
Before he can finish, Sam claps his hands over his mouth, staggers up from the table and runs.
"Sam?"
Dean bolts from his chair and chases after him, shoving through the crowded tables, half-tripping over some biker's foot before catching himself, and in the dimly lit hallway in the back of the bar he sees the men's room door is half open, drifting shut. He runs to catch it at the last second, slams it behind him, just as Sam bends over the toilet and hurls, hands shaking on the porcelain lid. Dean suddenly realizes he has no idea what he's doing in here. He watches, pressed against the door, as Sam goes into another wave of nausea, falling onto his knees and coughing, a horrible wet sound.
"You followed me?" he gasps between breaths, still gripping the toilet.
"I, I don't know, I just freaked, okay?" Dean shoots back defensively.
Sam's panting, his breath thick and ragged. "It just came out of nowhere," he moans. "Oh god-"
Another gag cuts him off, grating, and he's hyperventilating now, hands curling into fists on the seat, before it comes again for real.
"I'm gonna leave now," Dean announces. He shuts the door abruptly behind him, leans against the poster-covered wall across from the bathroom. It's nothing he hasn't seen before, but it keeps hitting that same note of worry he's been feeling all night, first with the coughing, how thin he looks, and now this.
"You been feelin' dizzy? Any vertigo, stuff like that?"
"No, I was okay, and then one second I just …"
He hears the toilet flush and the faucet turn on behind him, followed by another burst of wet coughing.
"I think it's gone," he hears, strained, over the sound of the faucet running.
"So what do you say we call it a night, go find someplace to stay?"
The handle turns and Dean moves aside. Sam's face is flushed and pale, wet with tap water, strands of hair sticking to his forehead, his eyes red-rimmed. He looks like a huge, wet St. Bernard. It's almost cracking Dean up. There's this small, stupid part of him that's been planning for the day Sam would come back, where they'd go, the things he wanted to say to him. So far, tonight's not happening like he'd imagined it at all - way less strippers, way more puking - but he's just so goddamn happy to have Sam, even if it's awkward, even if it means digging up some old shit from the past. When has anything ever gone like they've planned?
* * *
Dean drives slow, easing into turns and braking gently. Sam's eyes are shut and his lips are pressed tight, a highlight of sweat shining across his face. He's pretty used to this - Lisa gets seriously carsick if he goes above 45, and she always tells him to pretend there's a full glass of water on the dashboard. If he drives smoothly enough to keep the imaginary water from spilling, she's fine. It would be a lot easier to pull that off in the Impala, though, that's for sure.
"So I heard about this place that makes a hamburger with anchovies and Tabasco sauce on it," he announces, glancing over at Sam, who's curled up against the door.
Sam makes a long, low noise in the back of his throat, and Dean grins. "Yeah, you can even get it with blue cheese. The really moldy, sticky kind, all smashed in on top of the meat." He lifts a hand off the wheel to pantomime smearing it in.
"Do you want me to throw up all over your front seat," Sam manages to get out.
"Wouldn't be the first time," Dean deadpans. "You know how kids are at birthday parties. All that fruit punch."
"Please stop talking."
"Yeah, I'm thinking Taco Bell and whiskey wasn't the greatest combo."
"I'm gonna aim for your shoes."
This is more like it. This is what he was missing more than anything. This is what it feels like to actually have his brother back - no apocalypse, no Ruby, no psychic bullshit. They don't have to do a goddamn thing. Maybe they can even go back to fighting about stupid stuff again instead of the fate of the world. He'll let him win this time.
"Dean," he hears, Sam's voice shaky and breathless.
"Yeah?" He's smiling like an idiot, just watching the road curve in front of him.
"Pull over."
Startled, he looks over and rivulets of blood are pouring from both of Sam's nostrils, Sam desperately trying to cup it with his hand under his chin, his lips already soaked. Dean freezes in panic for a millisecond, then veers off the road onto the shoulder, dirt flying against the window. He grabs a handkerchief from the glove compartment, leaning over to try and sop up the blood but it keeps flowing, Sam cupping it with both hands now, bright red streaks running across his fingers, dripping onto his shirt. Sam's pupils are tight and he's shaking, staring straight at Dean, who gives up on trying to wipe the blood off and just shoves the handkerchief over his nose.
"Put pressure on it," he barks, and Sam reaches up to take it but his hand is shaking so hard he can't even find a grip, and when their eyes meet Dean realizes that Sam is completely losing it, barely breathing, gaze drifting out of focus, mouth slackened and dribbling blood, and he's probably flashing back to Hell oh Jesus Christ he didn't even think of that, just sitting there acting like everything was all back to normal but it's not and now he's losing him again, Jesus Christ Dean what were you thinking?
Dean crawls over the seat, knees on the console, and holds the blood-soaked handkerchief over his nose, pinching it hard. He can hear himself talking, just rattling off words blindly. "Hey, hey Sam, it's all right, it's just a nosebleed. You're good, you're safe, okay?"
Sam goes limp, hands falling into his lap, head lolling to the side against the seat cushion, leaving a livid stain on the fabric, his eyes wide open and staring through him. Dean has no idea what he's supposed to do. His lungs are locked up with panic, mind drawing a total blank, but he knows this is his fault somehow. It's something he did or didn't do, because Sam came to him first and he should have seen this coming.
"Come on, Sammy, you're safe, man. I got you. You're not goin' back there. I won't let-" Dean swallows hard, his chin quivering, and pulls himself forward until his knees are up against Sam's leg. The blood flow seems like it's dropping off, and when he pulls the handkerchief away there's just a thin trickle. He throws it on the floor, climbs over and straddles his brother, completely on instinct, leaning over him to stroke his temples, smooth the sweat-matted hair back behind his ears like he's six years old with the flu.
"Come on, man, wake up. Wake up."
He's totally useless, cradling his brother's blood-mottled face like it'll make any difference, his throat so constricted he can barely breathe. "Sam," he chokes out, pathetic. "Don't do this to me, man."
Sam's eyes drift shut. Dean makes a frustrated, scared noise and presses his forehead against Sam's, jaw clenched, his whole back shaking. Then he feels a hand on his hip, the lightest touch, gripping his jacket. He sits up and Sam is starting to rouse, blinking as his eyes readjust, and Dean realizes he must look like a complete psycho with his shirt spattered in blood, sitting on top of his little brother with this choked-up look of total relief washing over his face.
"Dean, what..." Sam shifts under Dean's weight, pulls himself up in the seat using Dean's shoulder for support. "Did - did I just ... "
Dean can feel with painful awkwardness where his own body is pressed up against his brother's, his crazy heartbeat rebounding off all the places where they come into contact, his knees digging into Sam's sides, Sam's legs solid underneath him, hand tight on his shoulder. It's the weirdest feeling. He can't describe it. He knows he should get up, but he really doesn't want to move.
Sam reaches up with his other hand to touch his bloody nose, then his lips, looking down at his fingers and the still-wet stains all over his shirt.
"I blacked out, didn't I?"
"Yeah, something like that."
He doesn't seem to think it's weird that he's pinned under his brother or that he hasn't climbed off yet. When he looks up at him, Dean flinches, bites his lip, looks away at the driver's seat.
"I should, uh..."
He disengages carefully, climbs back behind the wheel, leaving bloody smudges all over the upholstery. There's not too much blood on Sam's seat, just a patch where his cheek was touching the headrest and a little on the door handle. Almost all of the damage is on his shirt, which looks like tie-dye now, and the wide blotches on his jeans. He can maybe get the stains out of the car fabric with a little hydrogen peroxide and water before they settle. He can't believe he's thinking about this when just half a minute ago his brother was passed out and bleeding.
"Wow," Dean says a little too loud with an uncomfortable laugh, "that was one mother of a nosebleed."
Sam doesn’t say anything in response, just turns his head and looks out the window. Outside the car is a dark expanse of flat fields punctuated with the shadows of trees in the distance, the shape of a farmhouse against the horizon. No one's passed them the entire time they've been parked. It's so still outside that their breathing is almost the only audible sound.
"It's getting worse," he says after a minute.
"What is?" Dean's heart is still racing, pulse heavy in his ears. "You have another nosebleed before this one?"
Sam's mouth twists up and he stares at his lap, a strand of dark, sticky hair coming loose and brushing against his cheek. "I'm getting worse," he whispers.
That's it. He can't stand this. Dean turns on the ignition, takes a deep breath and shoots Sam a hard, determined look. "Okay. You know what? Whatever it is you're not telling me, I want to hear it, and don't even try to pretend you don't know what I'm talking about because I know you're hiding something from me. But first, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm driving to the closest store that's open and buying you some goddamn Gatorade, and then I'm getting us a room for the night, you're taking a shower, and then you're gonna tell me what's going on here, because you're back from the dead and puking and bleeding all over my car and there's obviously something wrong and I need to know why, Sam. You don't just show up out of nowhere and expect me to believe that everything's okay. You owe me the truth, man. And I wanna help you." He swallows, takes a breath, his voice coming out pathetically strained now. "You gotta let me help you, Sam."
He punches the steering wheel in frustration, biting down on his lips, breathing hard through his nose.
"Okay. Sounds fair." Sam's voice is faint, congested.
It's not exactly what he wanted to hear, but it's close enough. He hits the gas, pulls off the shoulder and onto the road, tires squealing, hoping there's a 7-11 and a motel close by so he can get this over with before he loses his mind.
part 3
rating: R
pairing: sam/dean
summary: pre-S6. six months later, Sam is free from hell. there's a catch. it's painful. Dean is not going to like the fine print.
warnings: gross and disturbing imagery, first time, hurt!Sam
A/N: (forgive me for the title. I swear it's relevant.) this became a little longer than I thought it would, but the last installment will be up shortly. once again beta'd by Zacky, who is just wonderful.
special note: this is not a death fic, even if it seems like it might become one.
The neon Budweiser clock on the wall says it's 11:26, he thinks, though it's hard to tell when both hands are shaped like tiny beer bottles. He picked some dive a few miles out in Arcadia called Donovan's, hoping no one from work or the PTA or whatever would recognize him. All that really matters is that a Maker's neat is only four bucks and nobody's doing karaoke.
Sam's gone sullen, hands gripped tight around his tumbler, staring into his third whiskey like it's got a TV screen. He'd picked a corner table in the back, away from the throng of chatty old guys in trucker hats and their cackling wives, and when they'd sat down Sam had immediately turned his chair so his back was to the wall, giving him a clear view of the door. Classic post-traumatic stuff, and he should know. It's actually kind of reassuring, because if Sam's being defensive it means he still gives a crap about his own life. Dean wouldn't have priced his at a nickel when he was fresh from the pit.
"So. Nothing like the good stuff, huh?" he says cheerfully, hoping to stir up a couple of sentences from his brother.
Sam makes an almost imperceptible shrug. "I can't really taste the difference." He takes a long draw from the whiskey, shudders when he swallows. He's always done that for some reason, like he hates the taste of it, even though it's Maker's Mark and Dean is pretty sure that's physically impossible. But then he always used to swear he'd never grow up to be a drinker like Dad, so who even knows what's going on in his head anymore.
"Blasphemy," Dean scoffs in mock outrage. "Anyway, I'm buyin', so you better like it."
"I like the fact that it'll get me drunk," Sam offers, a little smile turning up the corner of his mouth. That's good. That's what Dean wants to see more of.
"Not just get you drunk. Drunk with class." He taps the table for emphasis.
"Yeah, real classy." Now he's smiling for real as far as Dean can tell, since he's still hanging his head and visually interrogating his whiskey, loose strands of hair tracing the edges of the tumbler. "We're the only ones here without Deere hats."
"Well, Sam," Dean says, leaning his arm over the top of the chair, "true leaders lead by example."
"So - did you feel sick when you got out?" Sam says abruptly to his whiskey. "I mean … like, physically?"
That came out of nowhere. First Hell question of the night. Had to happen sooner or later. Dean bites his upper lip, nods a little. He can field this one.
"Honestly?"
Sam looks up for the first time in a while, his eyes wide, interested. It's not something Dean's ever gone and shared, except for the whole torture part. Back then it was about protecting Sam from the details, from what it was like to be the star of your own 30-year-long vivisection, but there's no point in hiding it now.
"I got dizzy real bad for the first couple of weeks. A little nauseous, but that's about it." He grins awkwardly, shrugs. "I mean, I couldn't get to sleep without a pint of hooch before bed. You remember that. And lookin' in mirrors freaked me out pretty good, but that stuff's all … mental, I guess," he says, making a 'cuckoo' gesture by his ear.
"Mirrors? Really?" Sam swallows, tries to look like he's just asking because he's curious, even though Dean can tell by the way his jaw is tensing that there have got to be some dark, freaky thoughts going through his head right now. "Why?"
"Well, I saw stuff."
"Stuff? Like … torture stuff?" He says the word hesitantly. It's almost adorable, Dean thinks, like saying it nice is going to make it any less ugly.
Dean finishes his drink, pouring the last remnants with his head tilted back, and stays there for a moment with his eyes closed after setting the glass down. Sam is asking him to go to a place in his head that he's kept in lockdown for so long, he can barely remember how to get there. He'd rather be disemboweled than admit this, but once, just once, sometime last year, he slipped into a used bookstore and found this stupid book on how to recover from a traumatic experience. It was crazy how much he had in common with the stories in there, even though he was a hunter who had literally gone through Hell and these were 40-something women talking about being mugged or raped or whatever. He'd thrown it away after a week, too embarrassed even to hide it at the bottom of his duffel anymore, but there was this one chapter that stuck with him, all about how to put your worst memories inside a box, lock it up and hide it in the attic of your brain. Craziest thing on earth, but it worked. It worked so well he can honestly say he has not thought about Hell in months, outside of the nightmares. But he owes it to Sam to open up the attic, look inside that box.
"Yeah. Torture stuff."
"Was it … you doing the torture, or were you … being …" Sam's voice is so soft he can barely hear it over the bass rumble and the shouting, drunken conversations in the background.
"Tortured." Dean opens his eyes. Sam's brows are furrowed in that old, familiar expression of honest concern he hasn't seen for a while. He can't stand it when he looks at him like that - makes him feel twisted up inside, guilty, horrible. He has to look away. "It's okay, Sam, you can say it. Ask me anything."
Sam leans over the table on his elbows, and Dean's gaze moves up over his head to the vintage metal Coke sign behind him, just so he doesn't have to deal with the eye contact.
"What did you see in the mirror?" he asks quietly, intensely.
"Mostly it was the kids." He looks down, focuses on the tiny slick of whiskey at the bottom of his glass. Great, now he's doing it too. "Couldn't have been much older than you when you left for college," he continues, keeping his voice flat and level. "Gotta wonder what they did to end up down there. They like to talk, you know? Always trying to bargain, trying to persuade you not to cut them open, as if I had any say once they were up on that rack. I kept telling them it didn't matter, I'm not your mom, I'm not your dad, I don't make the rules." He has never, ever put these memories into words. It feels amazing and horrible, like a full-body rush of adrenaline, kind of like driving a car off a cliff. "Tried to figure that if I was the one doing it, at least I had a conscience, you know? I wasn't doing it because I wanted to. It just had to be that way. I wasn't gettin' off on it like, like Alastair, not the kids. But I thought it would make a difference … if they were bein' tortured by someone who wanted to let them go." His voice cracks on the last word but he doesn’t let it show on his face.
"Dean?"
He can barely hear him. He takes a deep breath, curls his hand over his mouth and puts the lid back on that box, shuts the attic, nods to himself when he's sure the memory's gone. When he looks up, Sam's drink is empty and he's staring at him, not with that unbearable concerned face or anything, thank god, just kind of mutely accepting. He doesn't even want to imagine if this is because Sam can relate to anything he just said.
"So, uh," he finishes weakly, "I see them behind me in the mirror. Saw. Saw them in the mirror. And it sucked." He gets up, scoots the chair back and takes his empty glass with a bullshit grin. "And now, I need Maker's number two."
Without looking back, Dean elbows his way up to the bar, sets his glass down and raises his eyebrows at the bald, heavily muscled bartender. It's a hectic night in here but the pour comes fast and stiff, the way it should be, swirling golden brown against the thick, cold tumbler. He takes it back to their table, four dollars lighter, and sets his whiskey down. Sam is sitting with his back straight as a board, his shoulders set, neck muscles all tensed up.
"Dude, you look like you've seen a-"
Before he can finish, Sam claps his hands over his mouth, staggers up from the table and runs.
"Sam?"
Dean bolts from his chair and chases after him, shoving through the crowded tables, half-tripping over some biker's foot before catching himself, and in the dimly lit hallway in the back of the bar he sees the men's room door is half open, drifting shut. He runs to catch it at the last second, slams it behind him, just as Sam bends over the toilet and hurls, hands shaking on the porcelain lid. Dean suddenly realizes he has no idea what he's doing in here. He watches, pressed against the door, as Sam goes into another wave of nausea, falling onto his knees and coughing, a horrible wet sound.
"You followed me?" he gasps between breaths, still gripping the toilet.
"I, I don't know, I just freaked, okay?" Dean shoots back defensively.
Sam's panting, his breath thick and ragged. "It just came out of nowhere," he moans. "Oh god-"
Another gag cuts him off, grating, and he's hyperventilating now, hands curling into fists on the seat, before it comes again for real.
"I'm gonna leave now," Dean announces. He shuts the door abruptly behind him, leans against the poster-covered wall across from the bathroom. It's nothing he hasn't seen before, but it keeps hitting that same note of worry he's been feeling all night, first with the coughing, how thin he looks, and now this.
"You been feelin' dizzy? Any vertigo, stuff like that?"
"No, I was okay, and then one second I just …"
He hears the toilet flush and the faucet turn on behind him, followed by another burst of wet coughing.
"I think it's gone," he hears, strained, over the sound of the faucet running.
"So what do you say we call it a night, go find someplace to stay?"
The handle turns and Dean moves aside. Sam's face is flushed and pale, wet with tap water, strands of hair sticking to his forehead, his eyes red-rimmed. He looks like a huge, wet St. Bernard. It's almost cracking Dean up. There's this small, stupid part of him that's been planning for the day Sam would come back, where they'd go, the things he wanted to say to him. So far, tonight's not happening like he'd imagined it at all - way less strippers, way more puking - but he's just so goddamn happy to have Sam, even if it's awkward, even if it means digging up some old shit from the past. When has anything ever gone like they've planned?
* * *
Dean drives slow, easing into turns and braking gently. Sam's eyes are shut and his lips are pressed tight, a highlight of sweat shining across his face. He's pretty used to this - Lisa gets seriously carsick if he goes above 45, and she always tells him to pretend there's a full glass of water on the dashboard. If he drives smoothly enough to keep the imaginary water from spilling, she's fine. It would be a lot easier to pull that off in the Impala, though, that's for sure.
"So I heard about this place that makes a hamburger with anchovies and Tabasco sauce on it," he announces, glancing over at Sam, who's curled up against the door.
Sam makes a long, low noise in the back of his throat, and Dean grins. "Yeah, you can even get it with blue cheese. The really moldy, sticky kind, all smashed in on top of the meat." He lifts a hand off the wheel to pantomime smearing it in.
"Do you want me to throw up all over your front seat," Sam manages to get out.
"Wouldn't be the first time," Dean deadpans. "You know how kids are at birthday parties. All that fruit punch."
"Please stop talking."
"Yeah, I'm thinking Taco Bell and whiskey wasn't the greatest combo."
"I'm gonna aim for your shoes."
This is more like it. This is what he was missing more than anything. This is what it feels like to actually have his brother back - no apocalypse, no Ruby, no psychic bullshit. They don't have to do a goddamn thing. Maybe they can even go back to fighting about stupid stuff again instead of the fate of the world. He'll let him win this time.
"Dean," he hears, Sam's voice shaky and breathless.
"Yeah?" He's smiling like an idiot, just watching the road curve in front of him.
"Pull over."
Startled, he looks over and rivulets of blood are pouring from both of Sam's nostrils, Sam desperately trying to cup it with his hand under his chin, his lips already soaked. Dean freezes in panic for a millisecond, then veers off the road onto the shoulder, dirt flying against the window. He grabs a handkerchief from the glove compartment, leaning over to try and sop up the blood but it keeps flowing, Sam cupping it with both hands now, bright red streaks running across his fingers, dripping onto his shirt. Sam's pupils are tight and he's shaking, staring straight at Dean, who gives up on trying to wipe the blood off and just shoves the handkerchief over his nose.
"Put pressure on it," he barks, and Sam reaches up to take it but his hand is shaking so hard he can't even find a grip, and when their eyes meet Dean realizes that Sam is completely losing it, barely breathing, gaze drifting out of focus, mouth slackened and dribbling blood, and he's probably flashing back to Hell oh Jesus Christ he didn't even think of that, just sitting there acting like everything was all back to normal but it's not and now he's losing him again, Jesus Christ Dean what were you thinking?
Dean crawls over the seat, knees on the console, and holds the blood-soaked handkerchief over his nose, pinching it hard. He can hear himself talking, just rattling off words blindly. "Hey, hey Sam, it's all right, it's just a nosebleed. You're good, you're safe, okay?"
Sam goes limp, hands falling into his lap, head lolling to the side against the seat cushion, leaving a livid stain on the fabric, his eyes wide open and staring through him. Dean has no idea what he's supposed to do. His lungs are locked up with panic, mind drawing a total blank, but he knows this is his fault somehow. It's something he did or didn't do, because Sam came to him first and he should have seen this coming.
"Come on, Sammy, you're safe, man. I got you. You're not goin' back there. I won't let-" Dean swallows hard, his chin quivering, and pulls himself forward until his knees are up against Sam's leg. The blood flow seems like it's dropping off, and when he pulls the handkerchief away there's just a thin trickle. He throws it on the floor, climbs over and straddles his brother, completely on instinct, leaning over him to stroke his temples, smooth the sweat-matted hair back behind his ears like he's six years old with the flu.
"Come on, man, wake up. Wake up."
He's totally useless, cradling his brother's blood-mottled face like it'll make any difference, his throat so constricted he can barely breathe. "Sam," he chokes out, pathetic. "Don't do this to me, man."
Sam's eyes drift shut. Dean makes a frustrated, scared noise and presses his forehead against Sam's, jaw clenched, his whole back shaking. Then he feels a hand on his hip, the lightest touch, gripping his jacket. He sits up and Sam is starting to rouse, blinking as his eyes readjust, and Dean realizes he must look like a complete psycho with his shirt spattered in blood, sitting on top of his little brother with this choked-up look of total relief washing over his face.
"Dean, what..." Sam shifts under Dean's weight, pulls himself up in the seat using Dean's shoulder for support. "Did - did I just ... "
Dean can feel with painful awkwardness where his own body is pressed up against his brother's, his crazy heartbeat rebounding off all the places where they come into contact, his knees digging into Sam's sides, Sam's legs solid underneath him, hand tight on his shoulder. It's the weirdest feeling. He can't describe it. He knows he should get up, but he really doesn't want to move.
Sam reaches up with his other hand to touch his bloody nose, then his lips, looking down at his fingers and the still-wet stains all over his shirt.
"I blacked out, didn't I?"
"Yeah, something like that."
He doesn't seem to think it's weird that he's pinned under his brother or that he hasn't climbed off yet. When he looks up at him, Dean flinches, bites his lip, looks away at the driver's seat.
"I should, uh..."
He disengages carefully, climbs back behind the wheel, leaving bloody smudges all over the upholstery. There's not too much blood on Sam's seat, just a patch where his cheek was touching the headrest and a little on the door handle. Almost all of the damage is on his shirt, which looks like tie-dye now, and the wide blotches on his jeans. He can maybe get the stains out of the car fabric with a little hydrogen peroxide and water before they settle. He can't believe he's thinking about this when just half a minute ago his brother was passed out and bleeding.
"Wow," Dean says a little too loud with an uncomfortable laugh, "that was one mother of a nosebleed."
Sam doesn’t say anything in response, just turns his head and looks out the window. Outside the car is a dark expanse of flat fields punctuated with the shadows of trees in the distance, the shape of a farmhouse against the horizon. No one's passed them the entire time they've been parked. It's so still outside that their breathing is almost the only audible sound.
"It's getting worse," he says after a minute.
"What is?" Dean's heart is still racing, pulse heavy in his ears. "You have another nosebleed before this one?"
Sam's mouth twists up and he stares at his lap, a strand of dark, sticky hair coming loose and brushing against his cheek. "I'm getting worse," he whispers.
That's it. He can't stand this. Dean turns on the ignition, takes a deep breath and shoots Sam a hard, determined look. "Okay. You know what? Whatever it is you're not telling me, I want to hear it, and don't even try to pretend you don't know what I'm talking about because I know you're hiding something from me. But first, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm driving to the closest store that's open and buying you some goddamn Gatorade, and then I'm getting us a room for the night, you're taking a shower, and then you're gonna tell me what's going on here, because you're back from the dead and puking and bleeding all over my car and there's obviously something wrong and I need to know why, Sam. You don't just show up out of nowhere and expect me to believe that everything's okay. You owe me the truth, man. And I wanna help you." He swallows, takes a breath, his voice coming out pathetically strained now. "You gotta let me help you, Sam."
He punches the steering wheel in frustration, biting down on his lips, breathing hard through his nose.
"Okay. Sounds fair." Sam's voice is faint, congested.
It's not exactly what he wanted to hear, but it's close enough. He hits the gas, pulls off the shoulder and onto the road, tires squealing, hoping there's a 7-11 and a motel close by so he can get this over with before he loses his mind.
part 3