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So he’s been shot, big fucking deal, not like it hasn’t happened before. The fact that it’s making breathing somewhat difficult is new, though, but whatever. Sam’s been through worse. He’ll get through this, it’s just a flesh wound, just another addition to the collection he’s got on his torso, he’s gonna be fine.
He briefly considers telling Dean about it as they head back to the Impala, but one look at the thunderous expression on Dean’s face is enough to put that idea to rest. Dean looks supremely pissed off — from his own injuries or at Sam, maybe both — and as they reach the car, he snaps, “Thanks a lot for having my back, Sam.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam says automatically, too weary to argue. They’ve been down this road a million times ever since he’s got Dean back, and by now he’s just exhausted. Better just to give Dean what he wants to hear, and keep the peace whatever way he can.
Dean just makes a snarling sound in the back of his throat, and doesn’t reply till they’re both seated in the car. “What were you thinking, anyway?” he demands. “Were you even thinking? Or has it been so long that you were last on a hunt that you’ve gone soft?”
Sam doesn’t bother defending himself, knowing there is no point because Dean just won’t listen. Instead he just discreetly presses his hand over the wound, bites his lip to stop crying out loud, and thanks whoever is listening that his jacket is too dark for blood to be visible on it.
Dean gives up when Sam refuses to be provoked, and just turns the music up so high that Sam can’t even hear himself think. Which is just fine by him. It’s a welcome distraction from the pain in his side, steadily rising to a crescendo with every passing second.
The motel is just a few minutes away. He just has to last till then, and when he’s there he can go into the bathroom and patch himself up and be back to normal. Dean won’t ever need to know. Not that he’d want to, anyway.
They’re not exactly at their best. Hell, Sam thinks maybe this is the worst they’ve ever been, and that includes the fucking Apocalypse. He just doesn’t know what he can do to make it better. He doesn’t know how to explain to Dean that he’d fallen apart afterwards, that she’d kept him alive, saved him from himself and his mind and the knives in his kitchen. He doesn’t know how to explain that he’d thought Dean was in heaven and didn’t want to pull him out, because Dean was finally at peace, and his heaven was good, and Sam was not going to be the one to take that away from him. He’d been selfish enough already.
And then it turns out Dean wasn’t in heaven, was fighting for his life, much like Sam but realer, and Sam has no right to even feel sorry for himself. He knows that. He hadn’t even looked, because he’d thought he didn’t need to. He hadn’t followed Dean because he was too scared of going back to hell after he died, even though there was no worse hell than knowing he was well and truly all alone in the world. He’d sat on his ass and settled down and he’d hated himself every single second of it, but he had nothing else. If it hadn’t been for her, he thinks he might have just gone and eaten a bullet anyway, and not given a shit where he was going after. God knows he’d thought of it enough times.
But Dean doesn’t know that, and Dean hasn’t yet seen the long scars on the inside of Sam’s arms (even though it’s only a matter of time, but that’s future Sam’s problem), and Dean hadn’t been there when Sam had woken up in a sterile-smelling hospital and forced to spend two days under suicide watch. Dean hadn’t been there when Sam had bullshitted his way through the psych eval that followed, and Dean hadn’t been there when Sam had considered downing a bottle of sleeping pills and washing it down with alcohol. Dean doesn’t know shit, and that’s exactly the way Sam wants it. He doesn’t think he can handle Dean thinking he’s weak on top of being a disloyal coward and the world’s shittiest brother.
He’s broken out of his thoughts when Dean parks the Impala haphazardly in front of their motel room, but before he can get out, Dean is saying, “Stay here” in the sort of curt tone reserved for an unruly dog, and slamming the car door on his way to reception. Sam watches, heart sinking, as Dean checks them out and then goes in to grab their shit from their room.
He’s back in two minutes, throwing bags into the back of the car and getting into the front. Sam waits for him to say something, anything, but he doesn’t. In the end it’s Sam who speaks, asking, tone cautious, “Uh, Dean? Where are we going?”
Dean just shrugs. Clearly his foul mood hasn’t dissipated. Sam watches him for a few more seconds, waiting on an answer, and when he received none he just turns and rests his head against the cool glass of the window.
The pain is excruciating now, and it takes everything in Sam to stay quiet. He knows he should tell Dean, just weather his anger and deal with it later, but right now he just can’t bring himself to speak. His throat seems to have closed up, breathing is more difficult now than before, and if there was anything in his stomach he’s sure he would have thrown it up.
But he knows from experience that this is nothing, he will survive this, and at some point he will become numb to the pain. So what if they aren’t stopping? He’ll hang in there till they do, and take care of it then. He doesn’t need to bother Dean and risk his ire over something so insignificant.
He closes his eyes. It’s probably gonna be a long drive, going by the look on Dean’s face and the determination of his foot on the pedal. Better settle in and get some rest while he can.
He wakes a couple times, both when Dean drives over a pothole by mistake, jarring Sam’s wound. It’s a miracle he doesn’t cry out, but the second time it happens the jolt is enough to make him reconsider his previous position on waiting till they stop.
“Dean,” he tries, voice hoarse and weak, almost inaudible over the loud music. “Dean,” he repeats, more insistently, when his brother gives no indication of having heard him.
“What?” Dean asks eventually, not looking at him, not even turning the music down.
“Hurts,” Sam tells him.
At first he thinks Dean didn’t hear him, but then his brother says, “Well, that’s bound to happen when you don’t use your gigantic head on a hunt, Sam.”
Any other time, any other tone, and the words would have been gentle, teasing, perhaps accompanied by Dean’s hands on his skin. Any other time, and Dean would have stopped the car, come over to Sam’s side, checked him over for injuries no matter how angry he was. Any other time and Dean would have patched him up regardless of how bad things were between them.
But this is now, and Dean hates him, hates his cowardice and betrayal and weakness, and so he doesn’t do anything.
“Dean,” Sam tries one more time, ineffectual, hurting, needing him to help despite knowing it isn’t going to happen.
Dean just turns the volume even higher. Sam hadn’t known it could go that high. Getting the message loud and clear, he just presses his hand a bit more firmly into his side, wincing a little at how tacky and sticky-warm everything is, and then closes his eyes again. It’s fine. Whatever. He’ll deal with it on his own later.
They’ve crossed two state lines before Dean feels he’s had enough, and that he can stop driving now without feeling the urge to hit something instead. He acknowledges this newfound calmness by pulling into a gas station at a truck stop; there’s still half a tank left but he’d rather refuel now when he can, and get some snacks while he’s at it. It's when he finally turns off the car (and the loud blaring music that's earning him annoyed glares from the truckers nearby) that he realizes he's been white knuckling the steering wheel the whole way.
Sam is still fast asleep in the passenger seat, propped against the window, left arm held to his right side. It occurs to Dean that this is where his bullet must have grazed Sam, and the thought brings with it a fresh wave of irritation. He still can’t believe Sam would be stupid enough to decide to shove the werewolf right as Dean is shooting at it. Kid’s lucky it’s just a graze and nothing more serious.
Who the fuck thinks that shoving a werewolf and then stepping directly into the line of fire is the smart thing to do? Sam knows better than that. Dean's taught him better than that. But of course, the kid went and settled down with a fucking girl and a dog while Dean was fighting for his life every damn day, so yeah, he’s probably gone soft. And yeah, they'd agreed to stop looking for each other if either of them bit the bullet but Dean can't have been the only one that thought that they said so, just for the sake of it. Dean knows he wouldn't have rested even a damn second if he knew Sam was in Purgatory.
Maybe he didn't think you were in Purgatory, says a small voice in his brain, which he decides to ignore. Sam's smart. He'd have figured it out, if he'd actually tried.
Dean parks the car next to the fueling station and gets out, tapping on Sam’s window as he passes by it. Sam doesn’t stir. Must be more tired than he’d let on earlier. Shrugging to himself, Dean begins refueling, humming to himself as he waits for the tank to fill.
He moves the car to the parking lot in front of the gas station store when he’s done. Sam still hasn’t moved from his position, and it’s beginning to annoy Dean a little now. They would have saved some time if Sam had bothered to get up and go get snacks while Dean refueled, but he seems much more interested in sleeping like he’ll never see a bed again.
Part of him wants to ignore it, but for some reason, his brain is screaming at him. Something is off. Half concerned, half irritated, Dean hurries over to Sam's side of the car, rapping hard at the glass. "Sam," he calls out.
Again, not even a flinch.
"Dude, are you kidding—”
He stops midsentence; Sam is listing over dangerously, and without thinking Dean moves forward quickly and catches him before he can fall out of the car. Now that there’s some light to see by, Sam’s pallor is obvious, as is the dark stain on his shirt just over his right side. His hand is still clamped there, and with a wave of nausea Dean realizes that it’s blood, there’s a wound, and Sam’s been holding his hand over it so long it’s just sort of stuck to his shirt.
“Fuck,” he mutters, pulse picking up as he carefully pushes Sam back into the car. His hands fumble around Sam’s neck for a moment, fingers pressing under the left side of his jaw, till he finds a thready, stuttering pulse, and realizes with another sharp wave of nausea that he can barely feel Sam’s breath on his hand.
“Fuck,” he repeats again, louder this time, and pulls Sam’s hand away from his side. It comes away sticky and brown with dried blood, and Dean can taste bile in the back of his throat as he kneels and lifts Sam’s shirt to reveal — well, that definitely isn’t just a graze. No, that’s definitely a bullet wound, the bullet itself so deep that Dean can’t see it.
Crap, shit, fuck, what in the hell had Sam been thinking, not telling him about this?
Dean puts his ear to his brother’s face, hears an alarming whistling sound, and immediately makes a decision. Carefully putting Sam’s hand back over the wound, he closes the door and heads over to the driver’s side, programming in directions to the nearest hospital into his phone as he does so. Within a few seconds he’s got the car running again, wheels squealing against asphalt as he peels out of the parking lot, not giving a shit that he hasn’t even paid for gas.
He keeps one hand on Sam’s neck as he drives, fingers resting against his pulse point as he attempts to reassure himself that Sam’s still alive, that he’s going to be just fine as long as Dean hurries. He puts the pedal to the metal, ignores his baby’s protests, and doesn’t let his hand stray from Sam’s neck for even a second. All the while he’s cursing under his breath, at werewolves and Sam and himself and the universe and whoever else he can think of, nausea achingly ever-present, and his eyes are stinging as well though there are no tears for now.
Before he knows it the Impala is growling into an ER parking lot. Dean turns the car off and practically runs round the hood to Sam’s side, opening the door and gathering his giant brother into his arms as well as he can, making sure Sam’s hand is still stuck over the wound even though his fingers are cold and his hand is limp. The car door slams; Sam’s head lolls alarmingly onto Dean’s shoulder, overgrown hair falling into his face, and fuck, when had it become this easy to carry him, when had he gotten so light?
“Help!” he shouts, voice hoarse from panic and sheer terror. “Someone—“
And then there are orderlies, and a gurney, and they’re taking his brother from him, wheeling him away, and all Dean can do is run after Sam for as long as he can before he’s stopped and told, not unkindly, to wait for an update. He can still hear the staff, though, calling out numbers and words that make no sense, passing Sam’s vitals back and forth, and suddenly the hospital lights are too damn bright and the air is too damn cold.
The waiting area looks like all waiting areas in all hospitals do — hurriedly put together from an IKEA manual, almost as an afterthought, crowded with crying children and pale adults and the occasional bar fight victim. Dean finds an empty seat next to a hollow-looking woman who’s holding a blood-stained silk scarf in her hands and staring off into space. She doesn’t show any indication that she’s noticed him, even when he collapses into the seat with a rather loud thump.
It’s only when he’s sitting with nothing to do but wait that he lets himself evaluate his own condition — there is a rather spectacular cut on his forehead, but it stopped bleeding a while ago and probably looks too old to attract suspicion by now. He’s got Sam’s blood on his hands, though, and on his shirt, and it’s flaky and dry now, and when Dean looks at it he wants to scream.
What the hell had Sam been thinking? How could he hide something like this, what did he think that would achieve? Dean doesn’t understand, it just doesn’t make sense to him. It’s not like Sam to keep something so serious a secret, especially when it involves such a large risk to his life. And if there’s one thing that Dean knows, it’s that Sam wants to live, and he doesn’t care whether it’s with Dean or without.
Okay, fuck, maybe now isn’t the time to be bitter about this, not when Sam is who knows where, fighting for his life. The moment plays out in Dean’s mind with hateful clarity — the werewolf, poised to pounce, Dean’s gun aimed at his heart, finger tightening on the trigger. And then Sam, suddenly, out of nowhere, shoving the werewolf so that it’s too far to hurt Dean, and the bullet racing by him instead and missing the werewolf. Now that he thinks about it he can remember the small grunt of pain Sam had made, but he’d put it down to a graze and focused his energies on shooting at the werewolf again. This time he hadn’t missed.
Sam had remained quiet as they salted and burned the werewolf, even though Dean was snarling half-curses and insults at him, every damn name in the book that he could think of. He’d apologized once, when they were at the car, and then he’d just sat down and clammed up and not spoken again even when Dean, in his search for someone to take his anger out on, had done his best to provoke him. Dean had given up eventually, putting the music on high, and Sam had settled against the window and gone to sleep.
Except, now that Dean thinks of it, the likelier explanation is that he’d passed out from the blood loss and pain. He can’t remember when Sam got so good at hiding when he was hurt, can’t figure out why Sam would think he needed to. And then he recalls Sam waking up once and telling him it hurt, and him brushing it off with thinly-veiled sarcasm and a wave of annoyance. The thought he’d had, “so fucking childish,” stands out in his mind, and suddenly Dean staggers to his feet, locates the men’s room, and barely makes it to an empty stall before he’s emptying the meager contents of his stomach into the toilet.
Fuck, he thinks with no small amount of desperation as he rinses his mouth out afterwards. Oh God, oh God please let Sam be okay. Please let him survive, so that Dean can kick his ass and demand to know why he didn’t just fucking tell him when it happened, why he would let it get this far.
There’s someone waiting for him when he gets back to the waiting area, a nurse in pink scrubs that Dean would have hit on had it been any other time. Instead he just wordlessly takes the clipboard she offers him, scribbles in the insurance details of whichever poor son of a bitch they’re scamming this month, and then hands it back to her. She takes it from him, sympathetic expression on pretty features, and then asks, “What happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Dean tells her, voice painfully cracked from disuse and the vomiting. “I found him like this when I woke up in the morning,” he lies. “He’d gone out last night, said he’d be home late and not to wait up, so I went to bed. Found him passed out on the porch when I woke up to take a piss, and brought him here.”
Not the strongest story, but it’ll hold up for a while, until he can think of something to make it sound more believable. She writes it down and then gestures to his forehead. “And what happened to you?”
“Bar fight a day or so ago,” he tells her listlessly, leaning back in the chair and resting his head against the wall behind it, the very picture of weariness and stress. None of it is faked.
She nods, and then offers him a small smile. “Okay, Mr. Young. I’ll update you on your brother as soon as we have any news, all right?”
He nods. “Thank you, uh—” he leans forwards, reads her badge before slumping again. “Beth.”
She smiles at him once more and then turns on her heel, depositing the clipboard with the receptionist before making her way back to the OR. Dean watches her go, eyes unfocused, mind anywhere but here.
God, he’s going to kill Sam.
It just seems so stupid now, he thinks. All his anger, all the fighting, the cold shoulder he’s been giving Sam. Because if Sam doesn’t survive this, there’s no point, is there? He’s the reason Dean fought so hard in Purgatory, made deals with vampires to come crawling out, and yeah, it hurt to see that while he’d been fighting to get back to him, Sam had moved on and settled down, girl, house, dog, the whole deal. He had gone on with Dean barely as an afterthought, and fuck, but that hurts, and Dean can’t bring himself to feel too bad for the way things are between him and Sam. Sam’s the one who left him behind, he can deal with some silent treatment.
But what is the point, if he’s not alive for it? What is the point in wanting to fight through this, knowing they’ll make up eventually, if Sam won’t live? God, what even was the point of leaving Purgatory then?
That’s a dangerous road to go down, though; Dean stops that particular train of thought before it can hurtle out of his control, and instead decides to plan all the ways he’s going to kick his little brother’s ass when Sam is okay again.
The lady next to him shifts, and her arm rubs against his, jolting him back to reality. She looks half a corpse herself; pale, waxy skin, bloodless lips, cheekbones sharp against her hollow cheeks. She has worked the scarf in her hands into a messy bunch of knots, and doesn’t even seem aware of it. She doesn’t look like she’s present here mentally, or so Dean assumes, which is why it’s a little jarring when she turns her head and looks right at him.
“Who?” she asks, voice soft and at odds with her haggard appearance. It’s clear she’s been here awhile.
Dean starts a little. “Uh,” he says. “My brother.” He doesn’t elaborate further.
She doesn’t ask, just nods.
“You?” he asks, feeling like it would be impolite not to.
She leans back and rests her head against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. “My cousin,” she tells him. “I found her in the bathtub with her guts inside out, arms sliced open.”
Dean inhales sharply. “I’m sorry,” he says, quiet.
She just shrugs. “Not the first time it’s happened. It’s definitely going to be the last, though, whatever happens.”
Dean hums in response, thinking her words over in his mind. Then, again, because it seems appropriate, “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” is all she says, distant again, and so Dean returns to his own thoughts.
Out of nowhere he thinks of how Sam looked earlier, asleep in the car — or passed out, if Dean’s being honest. He should have paid closer attention, he thinks. Should have looked at his brother, really looked. Any other time and he would have known in seconds if something was wrong with Sam, but this time he’d been so immersed in his anger that he hadn’t even thought about it. And Sam had stayed quiet too, chosen to suffer in silence, hoping — what? That he’d take care of it on his own? Somehow dig out a silver bullet and stitch himself up and hope he didn’t die? Or that he’d bleed out before Dean even realized he wasn’t all right? And what then, leave Dean to mourn and make deals and bring him back? Or salt and burn him? He hadn’t bothered to look for a way to bring Dean back; did he really think Dean would do it for him?
He would. Of course he would. That isn’t even a question. Dean knows, has always known, that the intensity of what he feels for his brother is unquantifiable, immeasurable, unmatchable. Up until a few weeks ago, he’d had the luxury of assuming that it was reciprocated in kind, reciprocated equally — until he’d crawled topside to a rude awakening.
But God, even then. Even in spite of that. Dean can’t not do anything. It’s Sam.
“Mr. Young?”
Dean blinks and looks up to see Beth, standing before him with the kind of look that says he’s not going to like what she’s got to say. “Yeah?” he prompts her, leaning forward.
“He’s still in surgery,” she says, and he feels his hopes come crashing down even though he’d known from her face that there wasn’t much to hope for. “The bullet grazed his lung, causing it to collapse, we’ve had to fix that first and then focus on repairing the rest of the damage. It just barely missed his liver, he got real lucky. You say you don’t know how this happened?”
Dean shakes his head, numb, brain struggling to process what she’s telling him. “I — no,” he mumbles. “He’s going to be okay, though, right?” He has to be.
“He’s still in surgery,” Beth repeats, and gives him a reassuring smile. “We’ll take care of him, Mr. Young, don’t you worry. And I’ll keep you posted.”
“Okay,” says Dean, sitting back again. “Right. You do that.”
She nods at him, once, and then turns to go. Dean thinks that’s the end of it, but she’s only taken a couple of steps when she turns back and asks, “By the way, Mr. Young — does your brother have any history of mental illness?”
The question takes Dean by surprise. The obvious answer is yes — what hunter doesn’t, and especially someone who’s been through what Sam has been through? But it isn’t like he can go more in-depth than that without making shit up, and getting caught in a lie is the last thing he needs right now.
“Uh, not that I know of,” is what he says in the end. “Why do you ask?”
She gives him a peculiar look. “There is scarring on his arm that seems consistent with self-harm patterns, perhaps even a suicide attempt. Are you sure there’s no history of mental illness?”
“Like I said, not that I know of,” Dean repeats, feeling kind of dazed. Scars on his arms? But he wouldn’t have – would he? And if he has – which it looks like – why wouldn’t he tell Dean? For that matter, how could Dean not have noticed?
“Are you two close, Mr. Young?” Beth asks, frowning at him.
Are they? Dean doesn’t know how to answer this. What can he even tell her? I’m mad at my brother for having a girlfriend when he thought I was dead. Even he knows how dumb it sounds out loud to someone who has no context, so in the end he just goes with, “We’ve had a falling out recently, so we don’t talk as much as we used to.”
“Uh huh,” says Beth. “You live together?”
Dean nods. “Yeah.”
“Okay,” she says, and then turns back to leave once more. “I’ll keep you updated, Mr. Young.”
He gives her a cursory smile and returns to his thoughts, none of which are pleasant. Mostly his brain feels overwhelmed, burdened – he can’t rid himself of the mental image of scars on Sam’s arms. He’s pretty sure what he’s imagining can’t be worse than the reality of it, though – that Sam has been hurting himself. That Sam has maybe tried to kill himself.
He can see in his mind’s eye – Sam, alone in a nondescript motel in a nondescript town, and maybe he’s drunk, and he’s crying, silent, hiccupping a little, but he’s purposeful, and they’ve got all these knives, he doesn’t even have to look far, and he’s such a geek, he’d know how to cut, and—
Dean stops himself right there. No point, none, in imagining this, what’s done is done, and by thinking about it all he’s going to do is make himself sicker, make himself angrier, make his heart clench even more.
But fuck, it’s Sam, and he should never, ever, get to the point where he feels he has no way out. Out of the two of them, he’s the one who’s always wanted normal, who’s always been able to build himself up from scratch and fight his way through anything, the one who’ll do whatever it takes to get what he wants. If there’s anyone who should be giving up, it’s Dean – always left behind, always left alone, always having to fight his way to the surface only to be submerged in some fresh shit again. And yet Dean hasn’t ever taken a knife to his wrists.
“Hey,” says the lady next to him, and Dean takes a break from his thoughts to look at her.
“Yeah,” he says.
“I know it’s hard,” she tells him. “Especially when it doesn’t seem like something they’d do.”
Dean nods. “Yeah.”
“I mean, it was like that with my cousin, you know? If you saw her you’d never know she tries to kill herself, like, four times a year. And it’s always when she seems the most okay.” The lady shrugs. “Therapy isn’t doing shit for her, either. But then I guess for therapy to work, you have to want to get better.”
“Doesn’t she want to?” Dean asks. He wonders if Sam wants to. Maybe he’s better already, though, since he seemed to be doing just fucking fine with Amelia when Dean had decided to return and ruin it for him.
The lady shrugs. “Sometimes she seems really receptive to the idea. Sometimes she acts like nothing is wrong with her and therapy is for weak people who can’t cut it in the real world. You never know which one it’ll be this time. Though I think this time, I’m making her go for inpatient treatment.”
“Do you think it’ll help?”
“I hope it will,” the lady answers, and suddenly looks about ten years older. “I mean, I love her, God, I do, but she’s… I’m tired, you know? It’s always me and my girlfriend left to pick up the pieces, and it’s taking a toll, you know? I’m scared to leave her alone because it’s always me that has to come home and worry if I’m gonna find her dead in the bathtub or hanging from the ceiling. Fuck, I think I might end up needing therapy too, actually.”
Dean hums thoughtfully at that, leans back in his chair, and thinks, well, at least he doesn’t have to worry about that with Sam.
Or does he? Is he going to return to a motel room someday to find his brother’s body in the tub or hanging from a ceiling? Is he going to have to be the one to call an ambulance someday, because his brother downed a whole bottle of pills and isn’t breathing?
It scares him that suddenly, he’s not sure about the answer.
Dean doesn’t know he’s dozed off, not until someone nudges him in the side, and then instantly he’s shooting upright, hand making an aborted motion towards the knife in his boot. “What—“
“Relax, Mr. Young,” comes Beth’s voice from above him, and he forces his body to calm down as much as possible.
“Is my brother all right?” he asks, getting to his feet.
Beth nods. “Surgery’s over, he’s being moved to a ward right now. He’s going to be off his feet for a while, but he’ll be okay. Mr. Young, before you see him — I just want you to know that he might not be in the best place, mentally, right now. I think maybe, when he’s better, you could see about therapy?”
“Uh, yeah, okay,” Dean says after a moment, already knowing it won’t happen. “Sure.”
Beth looks like she knows what he’s thinking. “Mental health is just as important as physical, Mr. Young — maybe more. I urge you to take this seriously.”
“I am, of course I am,” Dean tells her, a little stung that she would assume he’s taking it lightly. Just because therapy isn’t in the cards for them doesn’t mean he won’t find a way to deal with this.
Beth considers him for a moment and then nods, evidently accepting his answer. “All right, Mr. Young. Would you like to see him now?”
“Yeah, of course,” he says at once. God, there’s so much to unpack with Sam. So much he wants to ask.
“Um, ma’am?” comes a tired voice just to the side of Dean, and they both turn to see the lady with the bloodstained scarf. “Any updates on, uh, my cousin?”
Beth puts her hands in her pockets, pursing her lips. “Not yet,” she says kindly. “I’ll check in as soon as I’m back from dropping Mr. Young off, all right?”
The lady nods. “Okay, thank you,” she says, sinking back into the chair. She looks like she hasn’t moved since she came in.
Dean affords her one last glance before he goes off after Beth. Their journey to Sam’s ward is a silent one; occasionally she checks her watch or her beeper, but mostly she just remains quiet. It’s starting to get to Dean, but before he can comment on it she’s holding open a door and saying, “Here he is, Mr. Young. Take care not to touch anything. Dr. D’Souza will be up to speak with you soon.”
Dean mutters “thanks,” not bothering with more courtesy than that. All of his brainpower is currently taken up by the fact of Sam lying in the hospital bed, hooked up to lines and wires, IVs and transfusions and heart monitors and whatnot, and he looks so fucking young, so tired, and for the first time in a long time Dean feels the return of that old, overpowering urge — grab him, hold him, protect him—
“I’ll leave you to it,” says Beth. Dean doesn’t pay her any mind except to make sure she’s left the room before he walks up to his brother.
There’s a plastic chair next to Sam’s bed – Dean looks at it before he properly looks at Sam. Then he sits in it, and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and looks down at his interlocked fingers in the space between his knees. Then he tells himself to quit being a coward and just fucking look at Sam, dammit, because delaying it isn’t gonna make it any easier.
Sam’s face is the most relaxed he’s seen it in a very long time – maybe since before the Apocalypse, or even longer, now that he thinks of it. And it’s not even because Sam feels secure, it’s the fucking drugs, and suddenly Dean feels exhausted. He’s tired of the kind of life that means his kid brother goes to sleep every night with a V between his eyebrows and no way to get rid of it.
Unbidden, he wonders if Sam still slept like that when he was with Amelia, and then realizes it doesn’t matter, because that V is back, and Sam can say whatever he wants but it’s clear he still doesn’t sleep well.
Dean looks away, tracks the outline of the IV to Sam’s hand, and then—
There it is. A thin, straight line, so faint he might not have noticed it if he hadn’t been looking for it. It’s almost to Sam’s elbow, so goddamn clinical, and there’s nothing left in Dean’s stomach or he’s damn sure he’d be hurling again. It’s the final piece to the mental image he’s been trying so hard to ignore, and all he wants to do right now is shake Sam awake and ask him what the fuck he’d been thinking, what the hell, why would he do something like that—
And then it hits him, so fast he feels a little winded, that he was in Purgatory, and Cas was with him, and Bobby was gone, and Sam had no one. For whatever reason, Sam didn’t know where to find him, and he was all alone, and he’d just recovered from the hallucinations he’d been having, and then – all of it, up in smoke, because he was all alone, and he didn’t have anyone.
God, oh God, Sam had tried to kill himself, and now Dean’s wondering what would have happened if he’d succeeded. What would have happened if Dean had come back topside just to find no sign of Sam, to search for him high and low, and then hear on the grapevine that he’d died? And – and who’d have taken care of it, who’d have given him a funeral, there was no one, and maybe Dean would have come back to find his brother’s spirit haunting the Impala, scared and alone, and then he’d have to—
He’s not aware he’s gasping for breath, not until he feels a heavy hand on his shoulder and almost decks the elderly man who’s attached to it, Dr. D’Souza presumably. “Sorry,” he manages, and realizes he’s got Sam’s hand in a vice grip. He lets go, flexing his fingers painfully, and repeats, almost on autopilot, “Sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” says Dr. D’Souza kindly. “It must be hard, I know.” He removes his hand from Dean’s shoulder. “Your brother, right, Mr. Young?”
Dean nods, not trusting himself to speak.
“Well, I’m sure Beth told you about the extent of his injuries, so I won’t worry you too much by repeating them,” the doctor says. “He’s going to be all right, so that’s what you should focus on. We’ll keep him in for a while, and once we’re sure he’ll be okay you can take him home. And—” He pauses, glances at Dean’s hand resting near Sam’s scarred forearm, “and I can recommend a good psychiatrist, if you want.”
“Right,” says Dean after a pause. He swallows, and then adds, “Okay. Right. I just…” He trails off, not sure what to say.
“Not just for your brother,” the doctor clarifies with a sympathetic smile. “For you too, Mr. Young. It’s okay to need help, you know. Especially after something like this.”
Dean nods again. “Okay,” he says, wooden.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” says Dr. D’Souza a moment later, when he realizes that’s all he’s going to get out of Dean. “If you need anything, or if he wakes up, just ring up a nurse, all right?”
“Okay,” repeats Dean.
And then he’s alone with Sam again.
The scar on Sam’s other arm fucking matches. Dean wants to trace his fingers over it, but is too afraid that if he does it he’ll never ever forget the sensation, will replay it every moment of his life, every time he touches Sam, till he goes insane. Dean wants – God, he wants to grab Sam, wants to hold him, wants to demand promises and oaths to never ever do something like this again, wants him to know that Dean can’t, won’t live without him—
Instead he just takes Sam’s hand again in both of his, presses it to his forehead, and closes his eyes, one of his fingers resting on Sam’s pulse point. God, this kid is going to be the death of him.
He wakes with a start a few hours later, and opens his eyes to find a nurse noting down Sam’s vitals. She smiles at him when she sees him and he returns it automatically, before putting his head back down on his arms and keeping his eyes on her. Sam’s hand is still clutched in one of his.
The moment she leaves Dean straightens, releasing Sam’s hand so he can look at his brother. Sam looks pale, and Dean can't help but trace all the wires and tubes connected to Sam once again before finally settling on his face. Dark bags are prominent under Sam's closed eyes, his face looks slightly sunken, like he's lost weight and even in his sleep, Dean can see furrows of pain and stress prominent over Sam's forehead. Looks like the drugs are wearing off then.
Dean's eyes then lock onto Sam's exposed arms and all he wants to do is look away but he can't. All he wants to do is break everything in this room. He wants to scream and yell at Sam and at the same time he wants to protect him, hold him, hug him, and fuck, but he’s never going to get used to those scars, ever.
How did things get so screwed up?
What did Sam face when Dean was gone that he'd decided killing himself was even a solution?
Dean's hands hover over Sam's left arm, which seem to have the most scars, but he can't bring himself to touch them. Two of them are deep and upraised and Dean immediately knows that these were the ones that Sam probably almost died from.
Sam almost died.
Why did Sam never say anything? Why did he let Dean berate and belittle and rant at him? Why didn't he stick up for himself?
Every word, every nasty jab, every negative statement he's ever thrown at Sam comes rushing back to Dean and suddenly, tears sting his eyes. Fuck, he never even gave Sam a chance to explain. Sam apologized, again and again and again. Even after the hunt, just before they got in, all Sam did was apologize.
Hurts.
Dean's stomach bottoms out as he stumbles backwards. Dean had thought Sam was whining a few hours ago. After all these years, Dean should have been able to tell that Sam was in pain. Sam had actually tried to tell Dean that something was wrong and Dean had just...dismissed it?
When had it come to that?
When did Dean let it come to that?
Sam's hand twitches in his just then, and Dean's eyes immediately lock onto Sam's face. "De'n?" Sam croaks.
Dean’s heart almost stops. "Ri—” he clears his throat, "right here, Sammy."
The moment their eyes meet, Dean can tell that Sam knows that he knows. It's confirmed for him when the first thing Sam does after looking away is glance at his uncovered arms and curse under his breath, pulling his hand out of Dean’s. The slight dilation of Sam's eyes and his sluggish movements tell Dean that the painkillers are still working, at least.
His mouth opens and closes, resembling a fish, and it'd be funny if it isn't for the circumstances. "I'm sorry," he finally manages.
Sam nods but doesn't say a word, still not meeting eyes with Dean since looking away.
"Sammy," Dean pleads, undeterred by the lack of acknowledgment. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"About what?" Sam grunts. He then reaches over for the cup of ice chips, slapping Dean's hand away when Dean tries to get it for him. That stings. Dean watches as Sam winces but manages to get the cup and deposit a few into his mouth.
"Let's start with you getting shot."
"You were pissed. I thought it wasn't bad." Sam pauses, as he takes in a shaky breath, wincing. "Tried to tell you but you just turned the music up."
Dean's hands fly to his hair in frustration. "Then you could have yelled!" he snaps, unable to stop himself. His eyes brim over with unshed tears as he stares at his brother. He almost lost his brother because he hid his injury. He almost lost his brother because he'd tried to off himself and he hadn't known because he'd been in Purgatory.
Honestly, Dean doesn't know why he snaps. All he knows is that anger, sorrow, pain, hurt, every negative emotion is building within him like a violent storm. He doesn't know how to stop it.
"Sam, you almost died! And then while you're in surgery the nurse comes and tells me you tried to kill yourself?! And then I see these fucking scars on your arms—" Dean doesn't miss how Sam immediately tries to turn his arms inwards in an attempt to hide them, a gesture that pulls at Dean's heart. "Sam, talk to me, please," Dean pleads, the fight draining out of him as suddenly as it came.
Sam visibly flinches and it strikes Dean deeply. Sam bites his lips, his eyes closed tightly and Dean recognizes Sam's attempt to reign in his emotions. "I can't do this," he finally says, his voice thick, and Dean is alarmed to see that tears are streaming down Sam's face the minute he opens his eyes.
"What?"
"Get out," Sam says, more loudly.
"Sammy—” Dean tries.
To his horror, Sam flinches, and that’s when he realizes it’s the first time he’s used Sam’s nickname in – well, just about forever.
"Dean, if you give a crap about me right now, you'll – you’ll fuckin' listen to me. I can't do this. I just can't. Please just leave."
It's the desperation, the plea, in Sam's tone that undoes Dean completely. His own tears finally make their escape and for once, he doesn't bother hiding them. "Okay, Sam. Okay." He doesn’t know what else he can fucking say, not when his brother is looking at him like he’s personally responsible for tearing Sam’s heart out of his chest.
And well, maybe he is.
Without another word, he quietly steps out of the room, feet on autopilot, brain numb, making his way to the nearest bathroom. Once there, he hunches over the basin, gazing at himself in the mirror.
He hates what he sees. He fucking hates it.
He’s the reason Sam’s in a hospital bed right now, probably crying his eyes out now that Dean’s no longer there to see. He’s the reason for those scars on Sam’s arms, because he wasn’t there, because he never noticed, he didn’t think enough to ask once he was back, he didn’t listen to what Sam had to say, or even try to understand him, and this is where it’s led to. His baby brother’s too fucking afraid to tell him he’s hurt even when he’s about to fucking die.
A guttural scream escapes him as he raises his left fist and smashes the mirror, over and over and over and over, until it’s in pieces by his feet and his hand is hurting something awful.
Sliding down onto the floor with his back against the basin wall, hands resting on either side of him, Dean doesn't bother to look at what he knows is going to be a very cut up, very sore and very bloody hand covered in shattered glass. He eyes the thin rivulet of red that mixes with the water on the ground.
A part of him wonders if Sam eyed the blood the same way when he cut up his arm to...
Dean can't even bring himself to say it anymore.
Everything is so fucked up.
He used to pride himself on being able to help Sam, fix all of his problems, be the best big brother in the world, and now…
Dean doesn't know how to fix this. And a small part of him wonders if he ever will. If there’s anything left to fix. He can’t make those scars go away, he can’t make Sam’s hurt go away this time. This time, the monster is something deep inside Sam, something broken into so many pieces that Dean wonders if it can ever be put back together. Some fundamental part of Sam is cracked right down the middle, and Dean doesn’t know how to fix that.
Everything is so fucked up.
Sam cried at being called by the nickname he’s always loved no matter how much he pretends he doesn’t. Sam cried, and Dean knows he never would have if he hadn’t been under the influence of the good shit, and maybe he won’t remember this (but Dean knows he will, because Sammy never forgets), but God. Every time Dean closes his eyes he’s going to see Sam flinching at the sound of his favorite nickname.
Suddenly tired, exhausted beyond measure, Dean wonders dully if there’s anything left to fix between them. Monsters he can fight, humans hurting Sam he can fight, Sam’s own brain he can fight. But himself? He doesn’t know how. He can’t leave Sam, but they can’t go back to what they were, and he has himself to blame for it. And yeah, Sam shacked up with a girl while he was gone, and it hurt, but even that doesn’t warrant the way Dean’s been behaving, and what it’s led to.
It’s a good thing he’s got no more tears left in him, he thinks. If he starts now he’ll never stop.
They deem Sam fit to leave three days later, during which he doesn’t speak to Dean and Dean gives up trying after the fourth time Sam turns away from him to hide his tears. He wordlessly hands Sam clothes to change into and then leads him down to the Impala, hyperaware of the way Sam alternates between staring at him, and down at his feet as he walks.
God, he hates this so fucking much.
They’re ninety-four miles off when Dean finally gets tired of the way Sam’s sitting in the front seat like he’s afraid of being told he doesn’t belong. This car is Sam’s home as much as his, and no matter what happens between them, Sam will always belong by his side, and nothing will change that. The fact that Sam would ever doubt it makes Dean’s heart bleed.
“Sam,” he says.
Sam flinches. Dean suppresses a sigh.
He’s so tired.
“Stop doing that,” he says.
“Doing what?” Sam asks. The sleeves of his shirt are down to his wrists, not folded up to his elbows like they usually are, and the sight rankles Dean more than he’d like to admit.
“Acting like I’m going to throw you out of the car,” he says.
There’s a pause. Then Sam says, “You want to, though.” His voice is weary, resigned, like he’s already accepted it’s only a matter of time before Dean leaves him for good.
“Why would you think that?” demands Dean. What the fuck.
In response, Sam just raises an eyebrow at him, expression absolutely flat.
“Sam, I don’t want you to leave,” Dean snaps, glaring at him for a second before turning his eyes back to the road. He’s angry, yes, but not enough to get them both killed because he crashed into a wayward deer or something.
“Okay,” is all Sam says, and turns back to the window as if the stupid cacti outside are the most interesting thing he’s ever looked at.
And because Dean can be petty too, he turns down the aircon in the car. They’re in the middle of Texas and it’s hot, but he’s wearing a T-shirt, he should be fine. Sam, on the other hand…
Sure enough, a few minutes later, Sam begins picking at the sleeves of shirt, but, maddeningly enough, they remain cuffed at his wrists even though Dean’s sure it must be uncomfortable as all hell. Sam looks like he’s well-aware of what Dean’s doing, and even more determined to ignore it and pretend he’s fine.
“Are you hot?” Dean asks, almost innocently. “Because if you are, you can always roll up your sleeves—”
“No, thank you,” Sam replies through clenched teeth.
Dammit, this kid is so fucking stubborn.
Dean sighs. “Sam, come on, you don’t have to sit there and pretend you’re okay, just roll up your damn sleeves, it’s fine—”
“No,” snaps Sam. “I don’t want to.”
“If this is about the scars,” begins Dean, but Sam cuts him off with a bitter snort.
“What the hell else would it be about?”
“Sam, come on,” Dean says, floundering, “I mean – they’re scars, Sam, it’s nothing like – fuck’s sake, seeing them won’t kill me—”
“I don’t want you to, okay?” Sam says suddenly, hands tightening into fists. “I don’t want you to see them, and I don’t want to talk about them, or about what happened, okay?”
“You don’t have to talk about it now,” Dean says after a moment. “We can always talk later—”
“Not ever,” Sam says flatly, and looks away again. “I don’t want to talk about what happened, ever.”
“Sam, come on,” Dean repeats, frustrated. “It obviously must’ve been bad—”
“You know what,” Sam says, looking at Dean again, jaw set. “It was. It really was, Dean, I’m not gonna lie. But I do not want to fucking talk about it, ever, and if you ask me one more time I swear I’m getting out of the car, and I don’t care that it’s moving. Text me where you’re going and I’ll get there. Or not, I don’t care.”
“Sam,” Dean tries again, and he’s not sure what to say but fuck, he’s got to say something, anything—
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sam says once more, and then crosses his arms and turns back to the window.
The conversation is clearly over. Dean sighs to himself and goes back to focusing on driving, his hands so tight on the steering wheel his knuckles hurt, especially the barely-healed left one.
They’re at a hundred and fifty miles when Dean tries once more, because Sam’s sleeves are still down and his fists are clenched so tightly he’s got to be hurting himself. “Listen to me,” he says, and Sam just sighs.
“Dean…”
“No, listen, you don’t have to say anything,” Dean says, determined. “Look, Sam, I screwed up, okay? I should have listened to you, I should have known you weren’t okay. But I let my anger get the better of me, and you suffered for it, and for that, I’m sorry. It should never have happened, but it did, and I swear to you, Sam, it won’t happen again. And maybe you don’t wanna forgive me just yet, and you know what, you’d be right. But all the same… that?” He gestures towards Sam’s arms. “That I can’t ignore, and I don’t want to, okay? And I know you said you don’t want to talk about it,” he adds when Sam opens his mouth. “I know, and I get it. But if you ever do, I’m here, all right? And I promise that I won’t get mad at you, I won’t yell or freak out too much, or anything. I’ll listen to you, and I’ll try to understand, and I’ll do my best to help, okay? I’ll do whatever you need me to. Just…”
He hesitates. But Sam is looking at him, finally looking at him, and his expression is softening a little, hands unclenching, and he looks like the sweet child Dean remembers, the sweet kid Dean will always think of him as, and so he steels himself, and he continues.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. “And I’m sorry that you got so used to me being mad at you that you got upset when I called you Sammy. And I’m sorry that I made you feel like I don’t want you here with me. Because I do, Sam. I always will. That’s not going to change, ever. And I’m – I’m going to try to be better, because this, what we are now?” He gestures to the air between them as if it can encompass everything wrong that’s happened between them. “Sam, I can’t live like this. I don’t want to. And I know you don’t, either.”
Sam blinks at him, hands fidgeting with the edge of his shirt. Dean turns away under the pretext of looking at the road, but the reality is that he can’t handle the way Sam looks right now, soft eyes and uncertain hands, the lovely boy he used to be, the man he is now, held together with butterfly stitches and scar tissue.
God. Dean’s heart hurts.
And then Sam says, voice so soft Dean almost misses it below the purr of the engine, “Okay, Dean.”
He turns to look at Sam so fast his neck creaks in protest. “Yeah, Sammy?” he says, daring to smile, daring to hope.
Sam nods at him, still serious, but he hasn’t objected to the use of his nickname, and his hands have stilled. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”
Dean smiles at him again. Sam’s lip twitches, like he wants to smile back, but then he turns back to the window again, hands in his lap, and the moment’s gone.
That’s okay, though. They’ll get there eventually.
A few miles later, Sam leans forward to switch the aircon back on, and then rolls his sleeves up. Dean pretends not to notice, but out of the corner of his eye he can see Sam watching him, so he just nods and keeps his eyes on the road, and tries not to smile again.
It’s just sleeves, and yet, it’s also hope.
They’re going to fix this, eventually. Dean’ll make sure of it.