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Seeing Dean get shoved down the rickety old staircase feels like a fucking nightmare wrapped up in a day dream. Sam’s head is swimming, and he can’t really hold it up with all the damn drugs Toni’s dosed him with, but. But.
Dean’s right there, Dean’s alive, and Sam can feel the first few droplets of clarity seep back into his bloodstream.
Dean’s staring at him too, all wide-eyed and big-brother-protective, and Sam’s cheeks sting as he tries to smile.
Bedsheets. Sam blinks. Frowns. Candlelight. Clinking wine glasses, soft skin, whispered betrayal, and Sam stops breathing, stops thinking, stops glowing. He hears the dull smack of Toni clipping Dean’s jaw, the muted groan that slips past Dean’s lips.
Toni’s asking for information, information that she only knows to ask for because of him. His gaze flickers away.
“Sammy,” Dean breathes as soon as Toni’s gone, and Sam’s throat ties itself up in a giant knot, holding his vocal cords hostage. The chair feels unforgiving under him now, and Sam can feel his weak muscles tremble in protest, but he doesn’t move. Can’t convince himself that he deserves to.
“Sam, look at me.”
There’s not a bone in his body that’s strong enough to resist that desperate undertone, so he turns, jerky and reluctant, and stares at Dean with wet-rimmed eyes, watches his big brother soften and strain forward in his chains.
“I thought you were dead,” Sam whispers, croaks out, wanting with his entire soul to be out of this dark basement and in the safety of their bedroom, swaddled up in thick sheets and not blood-stained gauze. He feels dirty in every possible way; physical, mental, biblical, and he chokes up at the flood of hate rushing in his ears; towards himself, towards Toni, towards this shitty turn of events that nobody saw coming.
“Dean, fuck, I-I let them do whatever because I thought. I thought you--”
“Sammy,” Dean interrupts, coughs a little, but there’s a grin on his face all the same. “I’m here now. S’okay, big brother’s here, yeah?”
“De.” And Sam finally pitches his head forward and lets out a low sob, one that digs its way out painfully through his throat. His face hurts, his foot hurts, his neck hurts, every single part of him wants to put a bullet through his head but Dean’s here and somehow that trumps everything.
“Sammy,” Dean says, tugs against his chains hard, falters back with a muffled shout. His eyes narrow, and he tips his head back to growl low in his throat at the ceiling. “Fuck, I’m gonna kill that bitch the second I’m out.”
The door creaks open and Toni steps down the stairs, slow, chin held high, and for the first time since being captured, Sam’s glad she’s still here because that means she’s going to lose. Dean’s here now, and fuck if that doesn’t give him one hell of a shot of adrenaline.
She’s babbling on about books and intelligence and all he can hear are Dean’s mocking retorts, and then Sam hears the safety click off of a gun and he swears he’s still hallucinating, but there’s something about the blonde of her hair and the glint in her eyes that can’t be fake.
“Get away from my boys,” she says, and oh, how real her voice sounds. Her hands are sure and strong as she points the barrel into the back of Toni’s head, and Sam feels it when Dean exhales, explanation on the tip of his tongue, but Sam shakes his head; tells him not now, not yet.
Dean nods back. Understands.
Dean’s free right as Toni isn’t, and there’s a heart-stopping moment in between where Mary’s legs give out under her and she clutches desperately at her throat, but then Dean’s knocking Toni out cold and Sam can feel the veins unravel from around his heart.
Then Dean's stumbling towards him, doped-up grin on his face, clutching hard at keys, at freedom, and Sam shakes, trembles when the locks click and his limbs pop free.
Choice, movement, need, all of it surges up, blooms in Sam’s chest, leaves his lungs without air. He’s wrapping aching limbs around Dean without thinking, moving on stupefied fumes, and he would think it’s a dream when Dean hugs him back just as tightly, but his foot still burns and his cheek still stings and, and, and fuck, Dean.
Sam laughs a little wildly, presses chapped lips to the soft skin of Dean’s neck, can’t bring himself to stop for long enough to think about what he’s doing. Dean was dead, Dean was fucking dead, but it turns out he never was. And now he’s here, right here, heart pounding against his, veins pulsing against his lips. He can count his heartbeats here, tries to and then doesn’t bother. Dean’s in his arms, right where he belongs, and Sam can finally feel himself breathe.
“Sammy,” Dean sighs out, soft like a prayer, and Sam shudders hard, tucks himself closer. “Jesus, Sam, lemme look at you.”
Sam pulls back, hates to do it, but then he sees the way Dean’s staring at him, green eyes glittering and eyelids draped low, gaze passing over his cuts and bruises and scrapes, and it’s a sweet fucking burn when Dean leans in to kiss his cheek, kiss his forehead, lips pillowy and gentle. Reciprocal.
Sam smiles.
--
Castiel fusses a little (a lot) on the way home, but it’s nothing compared to the way Dean single-mindedly takes care of him.
Dean lets Mary drive. Castiel grudgingly takes the passenger seat, and Dean clambers in after Sam, pulls him immediately to his side and ducks under the seats to grab the first aid kit.
“Lay back, Sammy,” Dean says, cups his shoulder carefully to maneuver him sideways. Sam’s back hits the window and his legs are shaking as he pulls them into Dean’s lap, into Dean’s searching hands.
Dean pours water over the bandages first, wetting the gauze liberally, and then he gently peels it off, exposing the charred, raw flesh of his foot.
Dean inhales sharply and hovers a hand over Sam’s burnt skin, glances over at him with this broken look on his face that Sam would give anything to erase.
“S’not as bad as it looks,” Sam tries to joke, and Dean chews his bottom lip half-heartedly, doesn't respond. Sam goes silent, watches Dean’s fingertips brush across his shin, his ankle, even up to his knee, but he always stops just short of the burns, pauses to just look at them.
“Who did this?” It’s not a question or a request, it’s a quiet demand. Sam swallows thickly.
“Not Toni,” he says. “She had some kind of assistant, someone who did most of the dirty work for her.”
“Most?” This time it is a question, thick with piercing concern. Sam shifts, winces when it jostles his foot.
“Can we talk about this later?” Dean purses his lips, gives a tight nod, and then he’s leaning over to pop the first aid kit open, grabbing a few supplies and laying them out beside him.
“Gotta fix up your foot first, Sammy,” he says. “It’s gonna hurt like a bitch.”
Sam nods, tenses his jaw. Pain is good, pain is a distraction from the fizzing pressure building up behind his eyes and in his throat, pain numbs out the torrent in his chest that crashes and groans every time he thinks about Amara and Chuck and Dean fading away into shadows and ash and nothing.
Dean pours a splash of rotgut over the burns and Sam jerks hard, slack-jawed, and it burns, settles deep in his bones and burrows deeper, sharp like acid, and he feels rather than hears the shriek that rips out of him. The car swerves, the whole world shifts and spins on its side, and Sam swears his brain is beating around the inside of his skull. He gags, throat convulsing, hand flying up to his mouth, and he thinks he hears Dean yell, “Pull over!”
He’s shoved out the door, and he feels a hand fist in his shirt and another press flat on his chest, holding him above the ground, and then all awareness fades away when he heaves, vision spotting out as the vomit erupts out of his mouth.
It feels like it’ll never end, this deep, racking, painful discomfort, but Sam soon gasps and blinks his way into consciousness, trembling and spitting out bile. The hand on his chest moves back and forth, up and down, and Sam focuses on that instead, takes deep breaths and urges his stomach to settle.
“Okay,” he rasps, once his gut stops swooping. “‘M good, let’s go.”
“Cool it, sweetheart,” Dean mumbles, right against his ear. “Give yourself a minute.”
Sam doesn’t have the energy to argue, which is probably a valid indicator of how exhausted he really is, but Dean holds him up steady and Sam takes a moment to just shut his eyes and breathe.
“Alright,” Dean whispers once he’s satisfied. “Let’s get you back in the car.”
It’s a little bit of a group effort; Dean grabs him under the armpits and Castiel takes his legs, careful to avoid his foot. They shuffle him into the backseat, and Dean pats Castiel’s shoulder in thanks before sliding in beside Sam. Castiel rounds the car and gets into the front, and Mary spares a tense glance in the rearview before shifting gears and pulling back onto the road.
Sam’s floating in thick molasses, head heavy and lolling back against the glass, and he barely feels it when Dean slathers a thick layer of Neosporin on his wound and wraps fresh gauze around it. His stomach twists in warning and his cheek still stings, but then Dean rests a hand on his thigh and rubs slow patterns over his jeans, effectively snatching his attention away from the pain and onto the pressure building up steady behind his eyes.
Dean’s not dead.
Dean’s not dead.
It’s not quite shock that runs through him; it’s disbelief. Disbelief that they’d ever get the easy way out, that they’d ever get what they want. He stares at Dean and finds faith in the sharpness of his jaw, strength in the curl of his lip, and then he just… can’t.
Sam chokes, grabs for Dean’s hand. Dean gives it to him readily, shuffles him down to gather him up in his arms, pushing Sam’s face into his neck right as he begins to cry for the second time that day.
“That’s right, just let it all out,” Dean soothes, rubs down his back, gentle like he used to be when Sam was still a little kid. That somehow makes it worse, punching at the bruise of his gut, but Sam burrows deeper and breathes in the grounding scent of Dean: gun oil, deodorant, curious whiff of cinnamon. When he exhales, it comes out shaking.
“You’re really here,” Sam whimpers. “Fuck, Dean, I thought you died.”
“C’mon, when has death ever stopped a Winchester?”
Sam pulls away just to laugh, just to watch Dean’s eyebrows pull up in surprise and then lower back down, tempered by fondness.
“You’re an idiot,” Sam says, just because he can. Dean grins and knocks their foreheads together. Sam feels something strong surge up in his chest and it’s not fear or guilt or grief. Dean chuckles, lets his eyes flutter closed, and Sam traces the familiar pattern of his freckles with wide-eyed awe.
“Don’t leave me again,” Sam whispers. Dean opens his brilliant green eyes and Sam is stuck dumb.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Settling back into Dean’s neck, Sam can finally put a name to the feeling leaping in his chest.
It’s love.
--
Once they reach the bunker, Castiel opens the door for them.
“May I?” he asks, looking at Dean. Sam sees Dean nod sharply, and then Castiel kneels in front of them.
Castiel glances up at Dean for a second before pressing his fingers to Sam’s temple. It’s like feeling dappled sunlight for the first time after a long, bitter winter, warmth flooding into his body and coaxing his muscles to move, his organs to function. Sam moans, cants his head into it, eyes flying open once Castiel pulls his hand away.
“Better?” he asks Sam. Sam flexes his ankle and notes that his foot feels nothing more than sore from disuse. His cheek no longer stings, and his limbs are tight with stiffness rather than pain.
“Much better,” he says. “Thanks, Cas.” Castiel nods once, and then he stands and steps out of the way for Dean to exit the car. Sam follows after him, stumbling a little as he sets both feet on the ground for the first time since he’d been kidnapped.
Dean clutches at his arm, a stubborn set to his jaw, and Sam lets Dean help him into the bunker. Mary’s already inside, staring around at the books and shelves with an interested tilt to her head.
This isn’t the first time she’s seen it. Sam can tell. Castiel approaches her slowly, and Mary’s half-smiling by the time Dean shoulders him into the hallway.
“How is Mom here?” he asks Dean as they shuffle to his room.
“Amara,” Dean says, jostles the doorknob and swings the door open. He steps inside first, pulls Sam in after him, pushes him towards the bed. Sam doesn’t need any more coaxing to fall into the soft sheets. “She gave me what I wanted most, which was apparently Mom.”
“Huh,” Sam says. Dean snorts.
“Yeah,” he says.
Sam rolls a little, stiffens up as his body reacts to his surroundings. He looks around, can’t find melting candles or sparkling wine, and tries to tell himself as much, but it does nothing to temper the piercing stab in his chest or stop the clammy cold sweat from beading up over his skin.
“Sam?” Dean calls, crawling onto the bed with a faint furrow in his brow. “You okay?”
“Toni, she, uh,” Sam pauses to clutch at the sheets. “She gave me something. Something that made me hallucinate.” Dean’s hackles go up at the word, and Sam knows his mind is going back to Hell and the Cage and Lucifer, so he grabs Dean’s biceps and shakes him out of it.
“It’s okay, De, I’m fine,” he says, and then he stops. He lets go of Dean’s arms, curls his hands back down to his sides.
“But she, uh, made me sleep with her. To get information.” Dean turns wide eyes on Sam, lips parting soundlessly, and Sam looks away with a grimace.
“I’m sorry, Dean, I tried to fight back but it messed with me and I thought it was right, I thought it was okay to tell her things. This is on me, and I understand if you wanna leave--”
“Now, hold on,” Dean demands, drags Sam’s attention back to him. Dean looks livid, but he softens around the edges when their eyes meet.
“How is that your fault?”
Sam blinks, opens his mouth. Shuts it.
“What?”
“She drugged you. How the hell were you supposed to know? She practically raped you, Sammy, why would I hold this against you?”
“Because I told her what she wanted to hear. I told her about Benny, about other hunters, I told her everything just to get back to-- get back to…”
“Sam,” Dean barks. Sam looks at him.
“Listen to me, she raped you. The only thing I’m gonna do is kill her the next time I see her. I’m not mad about any of that and I never will be, I swear.”
Sam feels the weight lift a little off his shoulders. Dean smiles at him then, small and genuine, and it makes his stomach burn pleasantly.
“C’mere, little brother,” Dean says, spreads his arms open and gestures for Sam to come closer. He does, pressing up against Dean from chest to foot, and it feels like a key locking into place when Dean tosses his arm over his waist, hand pushing at his back to urge him as close as possible.
“Jerk,” Sam says, reverent. He kisses Dean’s collarbone, fluttery and chaste, and he feels it when Dean smiles into his hair.
“Bitch,” Dean shoots back. He tilts his head to kiss the top of Sam’s head, and Sam feels whole for the first time since Dean left to take care of the Darkness.
He falls asleep tangled up in Dean, and he’s smiling, soft and unhurried. He feels the first few trickles of hope flow into his chest, wrapping up snug around his heart even as Dean hums and traces warding sigils on his back.
Their world will inevitably crash and burn around them because they’re the Winchesters and Sam knows this time won’t be any different.
But for right now?
Dean’s here.
Dean’s alive.
They’ve got time.
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