New SPN Fic: The Sky Will Fall, We Will Rise
The Sky Will Fall, We Will Rise
SPN Sam/Dean
6,753 words
Notes: Down to the End 'verse, companion piece -- of sorts -- to Prayers to Summon the Destroying Angel; probably a good idea to read that first, though it's not strictly necessary. Spoilers for Devil's Trap, unabashed angst.
Huge thanks to ladyjaida and maygra for thorough, excellent betas. Further notes at the end of the story.
Eliot got it wrong, it turns out. The world ends with a bang after all.
***
Dad's neck snaps when the truck hits. Even through the noise and shock and fear and pain, Sam is always sure, afterwards, that he heard the sharp, dry crack.
***
He comes back to consciousness slowly, brain sluggish and confused. The Impala is a twisted wreck around him, and he smells hot metal and blood. Dad is beside him, not moving, not breathing, and Sam knows that means something, but his mind shies away when he gets too close. He wants to touch Dad, shake him awake and make him tell Sam what to do. He wants Dean, because he's beginning to suspect this is all wrong even on the Winchester scale, and there's never been anything Dean can't fix.
But his arms are too heavy to lift, and he can't remember where Dean is. Sam wonders if he went for help.
***
It's dark and it's cold. Dad's not moving and Dad's not breathing, and Sam almost has it now, fragments coming together in his head like puzzle pieces. I'm surprised at you and No, sir, not before everything and Dean slumped over like a broken toy, pale and bloody and almost unrecognizable.
The rearview mirror and the back seat, and Sam twists because he has to see, because Dad's not moving and Dad's not breathing and Dean... and Dean... but there's a brick wall after that instead of words, like he's physically unable to process the thought. Pain rips through his shoulder as he turns and then there's nothing but dark and quiet.
***
He wakes again to light and loud voices, flat Midwestern accents. He hears, Are they dead? and Oh, my god, Steve, call an ambulance, and he wants to ask if they can see his brother, if Dean is alive or... not alive anymore. He wants to ask if they have something to cover his father's face, because Sam can't see him dead again and Dean should never have to see it at all. But he can't make his voice work, and the scream that pierces his skull when he forces his eyes open makes him wish he hadn't been able to manage that either.
The two people staring at Sam are a matched set, pale and chunky and bland. The woman who screamed has glasses and a bad perm; her mouth is hanging open and her hand is pressed over it. The man is balding and unkempt, barking into a cell phone, and he moves protectively in front of his wife as if Sam is some sort of threat. "They're on their way," he says as he clicks the phone off. "What happened here?"
It is, bar none, the most idiotic question Sam's ever been asked, and he thinks he's never hated anyone as much he hates these two stupid little people who keep gaping like it's the Dead and Dying Winchesters sideshow, admission one thin dime. But beggars can't be choosers, and maybe it's not too late. "Back seat," he rasps out, and the words feel like sandpaper in his raw throat. "My brother. Is he--?" and the man moves forward and peeps into the back window.
There was never room for God in the Winchester family philosophy, and Sam knows too much, has seen too much, to extend his attempts at normalcy that far. But he prays anyway: Let Dean be alive. Let me keep my brother and, because one isn't possible without the other, Don't let this break him, please god let him get through this.
"Looks like he's breathing," the man says. "Can't tell for sure. Guy next to you isn't so lucky." His voice is casual, like he's discussing the weather or the price of gasoline. "You're lucky we came along, son," he adds. "You could have been out here all day."
Sam thinks, I'm not your son. And then, I'm no one's son, anymore.
The sun is coming up, and the sky is painted in bold streaks of red and gold. Dad's dead and Dean might be, moving hurts and so does breathing, but the world is always beautiful. Sam's pretty sure there's a joke in there somewhere.
He closes his eyes again.
***
When the EMTs try to pull him from the car, Sam says, "My brother... please, my brother," but they don't seem to hear. It's not until he sees someone fitting an oxygen mask over Dean's face that Sam knows for sure he's alive, and the relief is so strong it steals the air from his lungs.
When he asks again, they say grave things like "internal bleeding" and "possible coma." They put Sam through the standard concussion rigmarole in the ambulance -- Do you know your name? What year is it? Who's the president? -- while he sits by Dean's stretcher holding his hand. He says, "I don't know if it's Cheney or Rove this week," and the EMT shoots him a dirty look and doesn't ask any more questions.
Fucking red states.
***
They jam a needle in Sam's hand and make him lie in bed for three hours while they pump him full of fluids. When they say, all smarmy faux regret, that they hate to ask but, he hands them a credit card. When they ask if there's anyone to call, he gives them Bobby's number.
And then they give him codeine for the torn muscle in his shoulder and stern warnings about avoiding strenuous physical activity and let him go. He takes the elevator two floors up, collapses into a chair by Dean's bed, and tries very hard to stop thinking.
***
Sam hates hospitals, has hated them since he was six and Dad left him with the nurses in the emergency room waiting room while doctors stitched up the hole a black dog had ripped in Dean's right thigh. They're all the same: the ugliness, the sterility, the heavy cleanser fumes never quite able to mask the sweet rankness of illness and death. The blank, limping hours, broken only by the quiet steady beeps of monitors and the undifferentiated hum of the televisions bolted to the walls. The helpless, hopeless knowledge that there's nothing he can do.
He's never seen Dean so still, so lifeless. When Dean's asleep, he looks like a kid, hair mussed and features angelic in repose, but right now he looks old: gray and tired and worn. It hurts to look at him, but Sam's afraid to look away, somehow irrationally sure that his presence is the only thing keeping Dean tethered to the world. He holds one of Dean's hands in both of his and talks until his throat is sore, about everything, about nothing, repeating stories from their childhood and recounting particularly successful hunts, reciting memorized poems and lyrics and bits of movie dialogue, saying, "Wake up, please," and "You have to," and "I can't," again and again until the words have lost all meaning.
He doesn't talk about Dad. The words taste like ashes in his mouth, but more, he doesn't know what Dean can hear, doesn't want to say the one thing that might make him let go.
When the doctor -- a small, dark-skinned man named Patel who speaks with an indeterminate accent -- checks Dean during rounds, Sam asks for more information, though his mind rebels against the possibilities. He's been here before, and he's not sure he can bear We've done all we can and We can keep him comfortable at this point ever again.
Dr. Patel is blunt. "There was a fair amount of internal bleeding that we can't account for, given his injuries. He's stabilized now, the bleeding's stopped, and there's no reason he shouldn't recover from that. But the head trauma is much harder to predict."
"What--" Sam's voice is strangled, and he makes himself take several breaths before continuing. "Do you have any idea what his chances are?"
"Impossible to say. He could wake up tomorrow or he could never wake up, and it's not certain, if and when he does, what the extent of the damage will be."
"Can he hear me?" Sam whispers. His breath is hitching, suddenly, a sharp, deep gasp, and as hard he tries he can't look Patel in the face.
"We don't know that either," Patel says. "I'm sorry." His voice is kind, if brusque, and he shuts the door when he leaves.
Dean's hand is limp and cold in Sam's, and his face is bruised and pale. When Sam can't stand it anymore, he climbs onto the bed, feet still resting on the floor, and buries his head in Dean's neck.
Dean never moves.
***
Bobby arrives as it's getting dark.
Sam's back in the chair, fingers twined with Dean's, reciting things he's never said aloud and never planned to. The first year at Stanford, all the nights he lay awake in bed, missing Dean so hard he ached. Dean's 23rd birthday, when Sam sat by the dorm pay phone for hours, too afraid that he'd break and go running back at the sound of his brother's voice to pick up the phone. The shoebox in the closet in his and Jessica's apartment, filled with postcards and notes on motel scratch-pad paper in Dean's surprisingly neat handwriting. There was never a return address, and by the end of Sam's sophomore year, they'd stopped coming. But even now, years later and the notes long since reduced to ashes, Sam remembers every word: Bagged a werewolf today, Sammy, you'd have shit yourself, and Twins, Sam, Swedish! I never thought it would happen to me, and Never mix Jagermeister with Bud Light, bro. Words of wisdom from me to you.
Sam jumps when Bobby clears his throat, and Bobby shifts uncomfortably, taking in the scene. "He used to sit with you like that when you got sick," Bobby says. "Never seen such a thing. Uncanny in a child that age."
Bobby's solid presence is almost too much; it makes the whole thing real in a way Sam's not ready for quite yet. His throat closes up, and he's suddenly sure he's going to cry, can feel his eyes watering and his lower lip trembling like he's about five years old.
Bobby grimaces, moves forward and puts a steadying hand on Sam's shoulder. "I'm sorry, son," he says, and somehow, coming from Bobby, Sam doesn't mind so much. He doesn't -- can't -- reply, but Bobby doesn't seem to expect one.
***
Bobby books a motel room, and when he can't convince Sam to do the same, he brings Sam dinner, which Sam doesn't eat, and convinces the nurses to bring in a cot, which Sam doesn't sleep in. He eyes the untouched sandwich as he leaves for the night, says, "You're no good to anyone if you keel over." Sam just shrugs.
He spends the night in the chair. It's uncomfortable and it's hell on his shoulder, but he's slept in far worse places, and he can't reach Dean from the cot and he's not about to let go. He dreams, a dark tangle of demons and smoke and raw, burned flesh, and he wakes gasping, crying his brother's name. He's used to the protective circle of Dean's arms after nightmares, Dean's bare skin sleep-warm against his and Dean's voice low and rough as he murmurs indistinct comfort -- You're okay, Sammy, and Just a dream, and, the only one that matters, I'm here -- and the lack of it is worse than the dream.
A million never-agains flood through his head. If Dean is... if Dean doesn't... Dean will never touch him again. Never tease him again, never again flush the toilet when Sam's in the shower just to hear him yell. Never kiss him again, never shoot him a look so filled with dark, honeyed promise that Sam is absolutely sure he could come from that alone. He'll never hear Dean's voice again, never see that bright, wicked smile. He tries to imagine it, a world without Dean in it, but it's too big. His imagination doesn't stretch that far; his mind reels at the impossibility.
He crawls in beside Dean again as the first gray dawn light filters through the blinds, presses against him gently. They're too big to comfortably fit in the narrow confines of the bed, but Sam finally relaxes, if only a fraction, for the first time since the truck hit.
***
Bobby comes back with a bag filled with pure fast-food grease -- Dean's idea of heaven -- and the Colt, retrieved from the garage holding the Impala. Sam stutters his thanks, and Bobby just nods.
When a morgue attendant comes to talk about Dad, Sam lets Bobby stay with Dean as he hustles the thoughtless prick out of the room. "We need an autopsy for an official cause of death," Morgue Boy says once they're in the hall and Sam's firmly shut the door behind them. He looks distinctly annoyed at Sam's none-too-gentle relocation. "The pathologist won't be in until Thursday, and we can't release the body until then."
Sam nods silently. He knows his father's wishes, though only because one night when Dad was drunk and maudlin he'd waxed poetic about his ashes living in the wind long after he's gone. Death might have been a fact of life for the Winchesters, but it was one they rarely talked about.
There's only one funeral home in town, and Morgue Boy -- who might not be quite so bad after all -- offers to arrange for the body to be picked up once the pathologist has finished. Sam surrenders his cell number to be contacted for arrangements and walks back to Dean's room unsure if he hopes Dean will wake in time to say goodbye or that he'll stay dead to the world until it's over. That these are the best possible scenarios makes Sam laugh a little, if the hard, bitter sound that comes from his throat can be called laughter.
"He had some life insurance, your daddy," Bobby says once Sam's positioned by Dean's bed again. "Nothing big, but he kept it up since you two were kids. Wanted to make sure you were taken care of if anything happened. I've got the info."
Sam looks at him, confused, but Bobby doesn't make him ask. "Caleb and Jim had it all, too," he says. "John worried about you boys like you wouldn't believe." Sam thinks, I probably wouldn't, and then shrinks from the disloyalty of the thought. The truth of it only makes it harsher.
***
He downs a palmful of codeine and sleeps for a few hours in the afternoon, curled on the cot while Bobby sits by Dean's bed, but when Bobby leaves for the night he moves to the chair again, sleeps hunched forward with his head pressed against Dean's side. There are no dreams.
***
It's mid-morning on the third day and Sam's dozing in the chair when Dean's hand moves in his. Sam sits up, hardly daring to hope, and Dean's eyes blink open, wide and unfocused.
"Dean," Sam says, "Dean." He can't keep his voice from trembling and he can't bring himself to care; his heart is in his throat as he watches his brother for a reaction.
Dean blinks again, shivers. The skin around his eyes is dark and bruised, his lips pale and bloodless. He's never looked more beautiful, and Sam moves forward without thought, hand tightening around Dean's as he reaches for his brother with his other arm.
Then Dean says, "Dad?" His voice is barely a whisper, so hoarse it's nearly unrecognizable, but the word is impossible to miss, and all the grief Sam's buried beneath layers of fear and worry about his brother comes bubbling to the surface, hot and overpowering.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. "Dean, I'm so sorry..."
And Dean's face shatters.
***
It takes hours -- or it seems to -- for the nurses to take Dean's vitals and draw blood, for Dr. Patel to examine him and ask the same clichéd questions Sam had to answer. Dean's face is shell-shocked and blank, but he manages one-word answers and quietly submits to the poking and prodding, and finally they leave, muttering about more tests and observation periods.
Sam moves back to Dean's bedside, tries to take his hand again, but Dean just makes a fist and looks away. "Dean, I--" Sam starts, and Dean shakes his head, a single sharp jerk.
"I need to see him," Dean says. There's no emotion in his tone; he could be announcing his desire to buy a quart of milk.
"I don't think--"
"Need to see him, Sammy," Dean repeats. "Take me or I'll go myself." His voice is still flat and uninflected, but Sam has no doubt he means every word.
"All right," he says, and he hates how defeated his voice sounds. "All right, Dean, let me talk to the doctor."
Patel is less than pleased with the idea of letting his recently awakened coma patient with massive unexplained internal trauma get out of bed so soon. Sam alternately wheedles and threatens, standing outside Dean's room and hoping Dean can't hear through the plate glass. Finally, he says, "Look, you can let him go, or he can kill himself trying. That's pretty much what it comes it down to," and Patel huffs and rings for a wheelchair.
It takes ten minutes to get Dean unhooked from all his monitoring equipment, another five to maneuver him from the bed. He submits to the chair silently, though he flinches when Sam puts a hand on his shoulder.
***
Dean says, "Daddy," when the nurse Patel conscripted pulls open the tray. His voice is broken and small, his face a study in grief. He can barely walk, and the nurse squawks when he tries to get out of the chair, but Sam is already there, steadying him, bearing his weight. "Dad," Dean says, "Dad," and Sam thinks he's not even aware he's speaking. Sam holds him up, Dean's back pressed to Sam's chest and Sam's arms locked around him, and Dean touches their father's face with shaking hands.
When the nurse insists that Dean return to bed, he goes quietly. He doesn't speak again for nearly a day.
***
Bobby goes home the day after Dean wakes up, protesting at first, but yielding when Sam insists. He takes the Colt with him, promises to return when Dean's released, offers his house for as long as they need it. "One of my boys in Lincoln found your daddy's truck," he says as he leaves. "Tires were slashed, but he's fitting it with new ones and he'll drive it out here."
"I can't ask--" Sam says, but Bobby cuts his off.
"John saved his baby girl, a few years back," he says. "Let him pay his debt."
The garage manager suggests junking the Impala. When Sam asks Dean what he wants to do, Dean just shrugs and keeps eating gloppy hospital oatmeal as if it isn't the one food he hates above all others.
Sam can't bear to just leave it, though, not something Dean loves so much, and he pays the exorbitant fee to have it towed the two hundred miles to Bobby's, thankful once again for the miracle of no-spending-limit credit.
***
They keep Dean for three days longer, keep him hooked to monitors and IVs, grill him again and again about what happened, what could possibly account for the bleeding they can't begin to understand. Dean shrugs and says, "I don't know," over and over again, but he never snaps or shouts. He eats when they tell him to eat, sleeps when they tell him to sleep, extends his arms silently when they need blood samples.
Sam sits in the chair during the day, showers in the tiny bathroom off Dean's room, and sleeps on the cot at night. It's a traitorous thought, mean and small, but sometimes he thinks it was easier when Dean was out. Dean lies in his bed silently, staring at the ceiling or out the window, never looking at Sam. He jerks away when Sam tries to touch him, offers monosyllabic answers to direct questions and not always even that. When Sam turns on the TV, he turns it off again. The first time Sam says something about Dad, Dean says, "Don't," and turns his face to the wall.
Sam goes back to the steady flow of words he kept up when Dean was unconscious, talking on and on, saying whatever pops into his head without stopping to think first. Most of the time, Dean doesn't even seem to notice, but he seems worse, somehow, more agitated, when Sam is quiet, so Sam talks until his throat is raw.
When Dean sleeps, Sam walks to the cafeteria and makes himself eat. It's days since he's felt hungry, and the food is cheap, greasy, and bland, but keeping himself going is about the only thing he can do. He calls Bobby daily, calls the mortuary to arrange for cremation and to pay the bill, and once, in a fit of masochism, calls his father's cell phone. The sound of Dad's voice, real as anything, slams into Sam like a freight train, and it's all he can do to keep from sliding to the floor. It's the first time he thinks he could cry, really cry for his father and his family and Dean's lost dreams, but he doesn't want Dean to see that, to worry about Sam on top of everything else. So he bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood, then finds a bathroom and splashes water onto his face until he looks almost normal again.
It's the first time he fails to get back before Dean wakes, and the look on Dean's face -- barely concealed panic morphing into deep-seated relief -- makes Sam's chest constrict. Sam knows better than to try to touch him, but he drags the chair as close it will go, and starts talking again, systematically repeating every dirty joke Dean's ever taught him and a few he's learned on his own. He doesn't stop until Dean's eyes fall shut again and his breathing goes deep and even, and when he's sure Dean's asleep, he stands quickly, presses a guilty kiss against his brother's mouth.
***
Bobby comes for them the day they finally release Dean, stopping first at the mortuary to pick up Dad's ashes. It's a plain brown paper bag, a plain brown cardboard box lined with plastic, small to hold all that's left of a man as big as Dad, but Sam knows better than anyone should what flames will do a human body. Dean hasn't asked about the body, hasn't mentioned Dad at all since he watched an impatient nurse push him back into a refrigerated drawer, and Sam is distantly grateful for that. He's not sure Dean could stand a three-hour drive knowing what remains of their father is tucked amongst the luggage.
Bobby's driving Dad's truck -- his own's not big enough to comfortably seat the three of them. Dean's breath catches when he sees it, but he says nothing, and he doesn't fight when Sam helps into the cab. He sleeps -- or pretends to -- for most of the drive, slumping against the unyielding metal of the door instead of Sam's willing shoulder.
***
It's late by the time they reach Bobby's. The room he gives them is small and Spartan; the floor is plywood, the walls bare. There's a full-sized futon on a rickety frame in the middle of the room, a battle-scarred desk and a creaky chair in one corner and a narrow army cot in the other.
Dean, so wordlessly selfless where Sam is concerned that Sam sometimes wants to scream, moves to the cot, but he takes the futon easily enough when Sam snaps at him. Sam hasn't touched Dean, really touched him, since they stood in the morgue, and they haven't shared a bed -- not with both of them conscious, anyway -- since before Dad found them in Manning. He wants nothing more than to crawl in beside Dean, wrap himself around his brother and hold on until he can finally believe Dean's still here. But Dean's already on his side, curled away from where Sam's standing, and Sam doesn't need to see Dean's face to know he isn't welcome.
The cot's too small by far, and Sam has to pull his knees up nearly to his chest to fit. It's hours before he falls asleep, and the pattern of Dean's quiet breaths tells him Dean's as awake as he is.
***
Sam's shoulder is throbbing when he wakes. The pain had settled -- he hasn't taken a pill since Dean woke up -- but he's far too tall for a bed that's nearly child-sized, and clearly twisting his body to fit isn't doing him any favors.
The futon is empty, neatly made, and Sam smiles, a little ruefully, at Dean's effortless, almost certainly unnoticed slip into company manners. He finds his last pair of cleanish jeans and plucks a black t-shirt from Dean's pack.
Dean and Bobby are at the kitchen table. There's a stack of toast between them, and Dean's clutching a coffee mug like it's got all the answers in the universe.
"Morning," Sam says, and Dean nods at him, rises silently and pours another cup of coffee. He reaches for milk and sugar -- Dean takes his own coffee black, but he always could fix Sam's perfectly -- but Sam stops him, takes the mug. "Sit," he says. "I got it," and Dean shrugs and sits down again.
"Told Dean about the insurance," Bobby says. "Should be enough for a new car, or to fix the old one if you want, maybe let you restock the artillery some. Unless you want to use your daddy's truck, put the money in the bank."
Sam takes a chair, sipping at his coffee, and looks askance at Dean. "What do you think?"
"Whatever you want," Dean says. Then, "Money'd be nice to have around when you go back to school."
Sam stares. "Christ, Dean, you think I'm thinking about that right now?"
Dean just shrugs again.
***
Sam takes the last of the codeine and sleeps through the afternoon, leaving Dean in Bobby's library poking listlessly through a book on demonic possession. When he wakes, it's full dark and he manages to trip twice before he can get the light on.
He hadn't meant to sleep so long, would never have purposefully left Dean on his own for such a stretch, not when he's like this. But what's done is done, and he tries not to worry too much as he goes to look for his brother.
He finds Dean sitting alone in the kitchen. Dean's posture is unnaturally stiff and he's breathing strangely, short, shallow gasps. Sam jerks forward, but strong hands pull him back before he can take a step. "Let him be, son," Bobby says. He nods towards the table, and Sam can see it now, a plain brown paper bag, a plain brown cardboard box. "He wanted to see."
Every cell in Sam's body is screaming, straining towards his brother like he's made of iron and Dean is magnetic north, but Bobby holds him fast, pulls him inexorably backwards into the dim light of the workroom. "Kindest thing you can do now is let him alone," Bobby says softly. "He'd never want you to see him like this."
"He shouldn't--"
"He shouldn't, but he does." Bobby's voice is lilting and gentle, like he's talking to a wild animal, and Sam wonders when this turned around, when he became the one who needed soothing. "You stomp in there now and he won't forgive you."
"I can't just leave him alone," Sam whispers. "He needs me."
Bobby shakes his head. "He needs his daddy, Sam. Unless you can give him that, let him be."
***
Dean doesn't come upstairs until nearly three. Sam's wide awake, lying on the edge of the futon, leaving as much as room as possible for Dean. He sits up when Dean opens the door, despite all his careful plans to feign sleep, says, "You okay?" and immediately wishes he could pull his tongue out. Such a stupid fucking question, the kind of overt query Dean would never answer even at the best of times, but Dean's not so much Dean these days, and he doesn't snap or snarl or snort.
He just says, "I'm tired, Sammy," says it like it's something profound. He looks toward the cot, and Sam wonders if he's going to have to fight him on this, but then Dean sighs and crawls into bed next to Sam, buries his face in the pillow.
Sam lies awake most of the night, watching Dean's still form and clenching his hands to keep from touching him.
***
It's late morning when he wakes, and Dean's already gone again. Bobby just says, "Out back," when Sam walks into the workroom, and Sam thinks he could get used to Bobby.
He finds Dean sitting on a picnic table near the back fence, staring out at the miles of emptiness surrounding them. "Hey," he says. Dean says nothing, but he shifts over a little, and Sam drops to the bench beside him, careful not to sit too close. "We need--" Sam says, and his voice cracks, just a little. He starts again. "Dad. I know he wanted to be scattered, but I don't know--"
"He didn't care," Dean says. He's looking at the ground, and his voice is dull.
"Bobby said, if Dad never... he said there's a stream not too far from here," Sam offers. "Quiet, just wind and rain, no pavement. I thought maybe..."
"Doesn't matter," Dean says. "It's not him."
***
Sam tries to keep it together, tries with everything in him, but in the end he's not strong enough. He'd holding a box full of ashes that used to be the only parent he's ever known; his brother, who's the bravest person Sam's ever met, who never cracks and never misses and never even loses his cool, is battered and broken, barely able to stand. Sam can't hold back -- he cradles the box to his chest and sobs, and then he can't stop. He cries like a child, messy and helpless, as he scatters the ashes into the stream and across the bank, and he's still crying when the box is empty and Dad is gone.
Dean hasn't moved since they walked to the stream. He's standing stock-still looking at the ground, taking short, careful breaths. His feet are planted firmly and his arms slightly outstretched, like the earth is moving too fast and he's just trying to hold on. When Sam lowers the box at last, Dean makes a hollow little sound in the back of his throat and his knees buckle.
Sam surges forward, catches him before he can fall, holds him fast as he shudders against Sam's chest. "Dean," he says, "Dean, Dean," and his voice is thick and distorted, but he can feel Dean reacting, feel Dean's arms tighten around him and Dean's face press harder into his neck. "We'll get through this," Sam says. "You and me, Dean, we can do this, I promise," and Dean sags in Sam's arms. Sam rocks him slowly, strokes his hair, says his name over and over again. When Sam finally pulls away, the only tears on Dean's face are Sam's own.
He has to nearly carry Dean back to the truck. Dean never lifts his head, and he never fights Sam's guiding hands.
***
Bobby's got chili on the stove when they get back, but Sam's stomach clenches at the thought of food, and Dean's still moving slowly, gingerly, like the air is filled with broken glass, like the simple act of breathing is cutting him to pieces.
Sam shepherds him upstairs, undresses him, pushes him gently into bed and then climbs in after him. When he pulls Dean towards him, Dean moves obediently, his body limp and pliant, and he lies still and quiet in Sam's arms. Sam wants Dean, suddenly, his Dean, not this silent, hollowed shell. His Dean, who takes care of Sam instead of needing to be cared for, who holds him together and fixes what's broken. It's perhaps the most selfish thought he's ever had, and it shames him a little, but his whole life Dean's been the one to make things better, and Sam wants that so badly his body aches with it.
But he shoves the thought down, rubs Dean's back carefully, murmurs quiet nonsense until he can't stay awake any longer. When he wakes, Dean's lying on his back on the other side of the bed, the dark shadows around his eyes making Sam wonder if he slept at all.
***
Sam spends the morning on the phone with a claims adjuster, sorting through the whys and wherefores of collecting Dad's life insurance while Dean sits outside with Bobby's puppy sleeping on his lap. Dean's legally dead -- a fact Sam forgets most of the time, and which never fails to make him shiver when he remembers -- so the money's due to Sam alone, which makes things easier, if only because it spares Dean the bureaucratic headache.
He spends the afternoon going over the Impala with Bobby. It took a hell of a beating, but Bobby thinks it might be salvageable -- "If anyone could do it, it's your brother" -- if they want to try.
Sam, to Dean's eternal disgust, has never been anything more than vaguely embarrassed by the car. It's big and old and loud and flashy; it guzzles gas like peak oil is something that happens to other people; it stands out when they should be trying to blend in. But Dean loves it like he's loved few things in his life, and if he can have it back...
Sam smiles for the first time in days.
***
"No," Dean says. "It's dead. It's pointless. No."
"Bobby said--"
"It's a waste of time," Dean says flatly.
"Why not try, though?" Sam asks. "If we fail, we fail, but why not try?"
Dean's fists are clenched at his sides, and he looks like he's trying very hard not hit something. "I fucking can't, Sammy," he says. "I can't."
"All right," Sam says. "All right, I'm sorry." Dean says nothing, but a bit of the tension drains from his shoulders, and he drops to the bed, breathing hard.
The lights are out and they've lying in bed, still carefully not touching, when Sam says, "Dean? Will you let me?"
***
He knows the basics, nothing more, just what Dad and Dean thought it was a disgrace for any man not to know. Bobby knows cars, though, and he knows a guy -- Sam is beginning to suspect Bobby's network of "boys" is infinite -- who deals with classics and is happy to come out and assess the damage once he sees the color of Sam's money.
Bobby's friend -- Jacob -- spends the better part of an afternoon examining the car, inside and out, before he delivers his verdict. "It can be done," he says, "but it won't be easy, and you're not going to find parts cheap, even if you want to do the work yourself. And she'll never run the same, no matter how well you fix her up."
"But it will run," Sam says.
"You do it right, she'll run well enough."
Jacob spends the evening at Bobby's kitchen table, detailing what they need to get the Impala running again. He's got his own list of boys, and he leaves with an inventory and a promise to start tracking it all down.
Dean's already in bed when Sam comes in, turned on his side with the lights off. Sam undresses and slips in beside him. "I think I can do this, Dean," he says. "I really think I can."
***
He wakes at 4 a.m. to an empty bed. It's been long enough that there's no moment of blind panic, but Sam knows damn well he won't sleep again until he knows where Dean is, so he pulls on his jeans and pads down the stairs. He finds Dean on the back stoop, facing the dark hulk of the Impala.
Dean looks up at him, lifts one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "Couldn't sleep," he says.
"Me neither, obviously," Sam says. "Can I...?"
"Knock yourself out," Dean says, and Sam drops down beside him. "Nice way out here," Dean says after a few moments. "Quiet."
"I thought 'nice' and 'quiet' made you go stir-crazy," Sam says.
"Not all the time, Sammy," Dean says softly. They don't talk after that, and they sit together until the sun comes up.
***
Sam spends days working from sunup to sundown, poring over the book Jacob sent, trying to follow the detailed instructions in the pages of handwritten notes. It's a glacially slow process, it's hell on his shoulder, and nothing ever works right the first time he tries it. It all comes to Dean as naturally as breathing, and Sam is occasionally tempted throw things when he looks up and sees Dean watching from the window.
But Jacob nods encouragingly when he brings out more parts, and it's enough to keep him going.
***
He falls into bed, aching and exhausted, after dinner. It's barely 8 p.m., but Dean crawls in after him a few minutes later.
"Hey," Sam says drowsily. "Early for you..."
Dean shrugs, but he rolls a little closer to Sam. Sam hums, already half-sleep, risks laying a hand on Dean's arm.
"How is it coming?" Dean asks, and there's a guilty little lilt in his voice, like he doesn't want to ask but can't quite help himself.
"I don't know," Sam says honestly. And then, "Slowly."
Dean nods like that's an answer. "Okay," he says. "Okay."
***
They drive into town for groceries, eat dry rub and blueberry pie at a little diner with dirty mustard-colored walls. Their waitress has teased bottle-blonde hair, acid-washed Daisy Dukes, and a halter that leaves nothing to the imagination; she snaps her gum as she tries to flirt with Dean. Dean rolls his eyes when she sashays away, and Sam grins.
"Just your type," he says, and it's easy, so easy, to fall back into this, to tease his brother like nothing's changed.
"My type got taller," Dean says. He's looking studiously at his plate, and his expression stays carefully blank, but Sam's breath catches, and he thinks his face will split if he smiles any harder.
***
It's humid and sticky and miserable, and Sam's buried under the hood, trying for the third goddamn time to connect a part he's absolutely certain was created for the sole purpose of making him suffer, when Dean appears behind him.
"I brought you a--" Dean begins, and then he makes an inarticulate, strangled sound. "What the hell are you doing? That's not how you install a carburetor, Sam, I taught you better than that."
Sam emerges, hot and frustrated. "You want to do this?" he snaps.
Dean is glaring, but his face goes thoughtful. "I do, actually," he says after a moment, and shoves Sam aside.
***
After twenty minutes Dean's barking orders, which Sam obeys more meekly and instantaneously than he ever has in his life. After an hour, he's bitching about everything Sam's done so far; after two, he tells Sam darkly that from now on he can stay in the kitchen where he belongs.
When he finally comes up for air four hours later, he's sweaty and filthy and annoyed, too-long hair sticking up in odd directions and grease smeared across his cheek. "Dude, you're not allowed to touch my car ever again."
He looks for all the world like a sulky four-year-old, and Sam can't help it; he bursts out laughing. Dean looks surprised and not a little pissed off, but Sam just keeps laughing, and finally Dean's face softens.
"Shut up, Sammy," he says, but his lips quirk up, a ghost of a smile, and when Sam reaches for him, he doesn't move away.
Notes, pt. 2: My knowledge of auto repair is dwarfed by Dean's knowledge of the French Romantic poets; the extreme vagueness is very deliberate. The same can be said for my medical knowledge. It's not terribly unusual for people to wake from comas after a matter of days or hours and recover very quickly, but this is of course severely complicated by the fact that Dean was injured, and in an unknown, unnatural way, before the truck hit. All of which is to say, I made this shit up, and I take full responsibility if I made anything specific enough to get it horribly wrong.
Next in the 'verse:
Stumbling Across Its Bleak Ending
SPN Sam/Dean
6,753 words
Notes: Down to the End 'verse, companion piece -- of sorts -- to Prayers to Summon the Destroying Angel; probably a good idea to read that first, though it's not strictly necessary. Spoilers for Devil's Trap, unabashed angst.
Huge thanks to ladyjaida and maygra for thorough, excellent betas. Further notes at the end of the story.
Eliot got it wrong, it turns out. The world ends with a bang after all.
***
Dad's neck snaps when the truck hits. Even through the noise and shock and fear and pain, Sam is always sure, afterwards, that he heard the sharp, dry crack.
***
He comes back to consciousness slowly, brain sluggish and confused. The Impala is a twisted wreck around him, and he smells hot metal and blood. Dad is beside him, not moving, not breathing, and Sam knows that means something, but his mind shies away when he gets too close. He wants to touch Dad, shake him awake and make him tell Sam what to do. He wants Dean, because he's beginning to suspect this is all wrong even on the Winchester scale, and there's never been anything Dean can't fix.
But his arms are too heavy to lift, and he can't remember where Dean is. Sam wonders if he went for help.
***
It's dark and it's cold. Dad's not moving and Dad's not breathing, and Sam almost has it now, fragments coming together in his head like puzzle pieces. I'm surprised at you and No, sir, not before everything and Dean slumped over like a broken toy, pale and bloody and almost unrecognizable.
The rearview mirror and the back seat, and Sam twists because he has to see, because Dad's not moving and Dad's not breathing and Dean... and Dean... but there's a brick wall after that instead of words, like he's physically unable to process the thought. Pain rips through his shoulder as he turns and then there's nothing but dark and quiet.
***
He wakes again to light and loud voices, flat Midwestern accents. He hears, Are they dead? and Oh, my god, Steve, call an ambulance, and he wants to ask if they can see his brother, if Dean is alive or... not alive anymore. He wants to ask if they have something to cover his father's face, because Sam can't see him dead again and Dean should never have to see it at all. But he can't make his voice work, and the scream that pierces his skull when he forces his eyes open makes him wish he hadn't been able to manage that either.
The two people staring at Sam are a matched set, pale and chunky and bland. The woman who screamed has glasses and a bad perm; her mouth is hanging open and her hand is pressed over it. The man is balding and unkempt, barking into a cell phone, and he moves protectively in front of his wife as if Sam is some sort of threat. "They're on their way," he says as he clicks the phone off. "What happened here?"
It is, bar none, the most idiotic question Sam's ever been asked, and he thinks he's never hated anyone as much he hates these two stupid little people who keep gaping like it's the Dead and Dying Winchesters sideshow, admission one thin dime. But beggars can't be choosers, and maybe it's not too late. "Back seat," he rasps out, and the words feel like sandpaper in his raw throat. "My brother. Is he--?" and the man moves forward and peeps into the back window.
There was never room for God in the Winchester family philosophy, and Sam knows too much, has seen too much, to extend his attempts at normalcy that far. But he prays anyway: Let Dean be alive. Let me keep my brother and, because one isn't possible without the other, Don't let this break him, please god let him get through this.
"Looks like he's breathing," the man says. "Can't tell for sure. Guy next to you isn't so lucky." His voice is casual, like he's discussing the weather or the price of gasoline. "You're lucky we came along, son," he adds. "You could have been out here all day."
Sam thinks, I'm not your son. And then, I'm no one's son, anymore.
The sun is coming up, and the sky is painted in bold streaks of red and gold. Dad's dead and Dean might be, moving hurts and so does breathing, but the world is always beautiful. Sam's pretty sure there's a joke in there somewhere.
He closes his eyes again.
***
When the EMTs try to pull him from the car, Sam says, "My brother... please, my brother," but they don't seem to hear. It's not until he sees someone fitting an oxygen mask over Dean's face that Sam knows for sure he's alive, and the relief is so strong it steals the air from his lungs.
When he asks again, they say grave things like "internal bleeding" and "possible coma." They put Sam through the standard concussion rigmarole in the ambulance -- Do you know your name? What year is it? Who's the president? -- while he sits by Dean's stretcher holding his hand. He says, "I don't know if it's Cheney or Rove this week," and the EMT shoots him a dirty look and doesn't ask any more questions.
Fucking red states.
***
They jam a needle in Sam's hand and make him lie in bed for three hours while they pump him full of fluids. When they say, all smarmy faux regret, that they hate to ask but, he hands them a credit card. When they ask if there's anyone to call, he gives them Bobby's number.
And then they give him codeine for the torn muscle in his shoulder and stern warnings about avoiding strenuous physical activity and let him go. He takes the elevator two floors up, collapses into a chair by Dean's bed, and tries very hard to stop thinking.
***
Sam hates hospitals, has hated them since he was six and Dad left him with the nurses in the emergency room waiting room while doctors stitched up the hole a black dog had ripped in Dean's right thigh. They're all the same: the ugliness, the sterility, the heavy cleanser fumes never quite able to mask the sweet rankness of illness and death. The blank, limping hours, broken only by the quiet steady beeps of monitors and the undifferentiated hum of the televisions bolted to the walls. The helpless, hopeless knowledge that there's nothing he can do.
He's never seen Dean so still, so lifeless. When Dean's asleep, he looks like a kid, hair mussed and features angelic in repose, but right now he looks old: gray and tired and worn. It hurts to look at him, but Sam's afraid to look away, somehow irrationally sure that his presence is the only thing keeping Dean tethered to the world. He holds one of Dean's hands in both of his and talks until his throat is sore, about everything, about nothing, repeating stories from their childhood and recounting particularly successful hunts, reciting memorized poems and lyrics and bits of movie dialogue, saying, "Wake up, please," and "You have to," and "I can't," again and again until the words have lost all meaning.
He doesn't talk about Dad. The words taste like ashes in his mouth, but more, he doesn't know what Dean can hear, doesn't want to say the one thing that might make him let go.
When the doctor -- a small, dark-skinned man named Patel who speaks with an indeterminate accent -- checks Dean during rounds, Sam asks for more information, though his mind rebels against the possibilities. He's been here before, and he's not sure he can bear We've done all we can and We can keep him comfortable at this point ever again.
Dr. Patel is blunt. "There was a fair amount of internal bleeding that we can't account for, given his injuries. He's stabilized now, the bleeding's stopped, and there's no reason he shouldn't recover from that. But the head trauma is much harder to predict."
"What--" Sam's voice is strangled, and he makes himself take several breaths before continuing. "Do you have any idea what his chances are?"
"Impossible to say. He could wake up tomorrow or he could never wake up, and it's not certain, if and when he does, what the extent of the damage will be."
"Can he hear me?" Sam whispers. His breath is hitching, suddenly, a sharp, deep gasp, and as hard he tries he can't look Patel in the face.
"We don't know that either," Patel says. "I'm sorry." His voice is kind, if brusque, and he shuts the door when he leaves.
Dean's hand is limp and cold in Sam's, and his face is bruised and pale. When Sam can't stand it anymore, he climbs onto the bed, feet still resting on the floor, and buries his head in Dean's neck.
Dean never moves.
***
Bobby arrives as it's getting dark.
Sam's back in the chair, fingers twined with Dean's, reciting things he's never said aloud and never planned to. The first year at Stanford, all the nights he lay awake in bed, missing Dean so hard he ached. Dean's 23rd birthday, when Sam sat by the dorm pay phone for hours, too afraid that he'd break and go running back at the sound of his brother's voice to pick up the phone. The shoebox in the closet in his and Jessica's apartment, filled with postcards and notes on motel scratch-pad paper in Dean's surprisingly neat handwriting. There was never a return address, and by the end of Sam's sophomore year, they'd stopped coming. But even now, years later and the notes long since reduced to ashes, Sam remembers every word: Bagged a werewolf today, Sammy, you'd have shit yourself, and Twins, Sam, Swedish! I never thought it would happen to me, and Never mix Jagermeister with Bud Light, bro. Words of wisdom from me to you.
Sam jumps when Bobby clears his throat, and Bobby shifts uncomfortably, taking in the scene. "He used to sit with you like that when you got sick," Bobby says. "Never seen such a thing. Uncanny in a child that age."
Bobby's solid presence is almost too much; it makes the whole thing real in a way Sam's not ready for quite yet. His throat closes up, and he's suddenly sure he's going to cry, can feel his eyes watering and his lower lip trembling like he's about five years old.
Bobby grimaces, moves forward and puts a steadying hand on Sam's shoulder. "I'm sorry, son," he says, and somehow, coming from Bobby, Sam doesn't mind so much. He doesn't -- can't -- reply, but Bobby doesn't seem to expect one.
***
Bobby books a motel room, and when he can't convince Sam to do the same, he brings Sam dinner, which Sam doesn't eat, and convinces the nurses to bring in a cot, which Sam doesn't sleep in. He eyes the untouched sandwich as he leaves for the night, says, "You're no good to anyone if you keel over." Sam just shrugs.
He spends the night in the chair. It's uncomfortable and it's hell on his shoulder, but he's slept in far worse places, and he can't reach Dean from the cot and he's not about to let go. He dreams, a dark tangle of demons and smoke and raw, burned flesh, and he wakes gasping, crying his brother's name. He's used to the protective circle of Dean's arms after nightmares, Dean's bare skin sleep-warm against his and Dean's voice low and rough as he murmurs indistinct comfort -- You're okay, Sammy, and Just a dream, and, the only one that matters, I'm here -- and the lack of it is worse than the dream.
A million never-agains flood through his head. If Dean is... if Dean doesn't... Dean will never touch him again. Never tease him again, never again flush the toilet when Sam's in the shower just to hear him yell. Never kiss him again, never shoot him a look so filled with dark, honeyed promise that Sam is absolutely sure he could come from that alone. He'll never hear Dean's voice again, never see that bright, wicked smile. He tries to imagine it, a world without Dean in it, but it's too big. His imagination doesn't stretch that far; his mind reels at the impossibility.
He crawls in beside Dean again as the first gray dawn light filters through the blinds, presses against him gently. They're too big to comfortably fit in the narrow confines of the bed, but Sam finally relaxes, if only a fraction, for the first time since the truck hit.
***
Bobby comes back with a bag filled with pure fast-food grease -- Dean's idea of heaven -- and the Colt, retrieved from the garage holding the Impala. Sam stutters his thanks, and Bobby just nods.
When a morgue attendant comes to talk about Dad, Sam lets Bobby stay with Dean as he hustles the thoughtless prick out of the room. "We need an autopsy for an official cause of death," Morgue Boy says once they're in the hall and Sam's firmly shut the door behind them. He looks distinctly annoyed at Sam's none-too-gentle relocation. "The pathologist won't be in until Thursday, and we can't release the body until then."
Sam nods silently. He knows his father's wishes, though only because one night when Dad was drunk and maudlin he'd waxed poetic about his ashes living in the wind long after he's gone. Death might have been a fact of life for the Winchesters, but it was one they rarely talked about.
There's only one funeral home in town, and Morgue Boy -- who might not be quite so bad after all -- offers to arrange for the body to be picked up once the pathologist has finished. Sam surrenders his cell number to be contacted for arrangements and walks back to Dean's room unsure if he hopes Dean will wake in time to say goodbye or that he'll stay dead to the world until it's over. That these are the best possible scenarios makes Sam laugh a little, if the hard, bitter sound that comes from his throat can be called laughter.
"He had some life insurance, your daddy," Bobby says once Sam's positioned by Dean's bed again. "Nothing big, but he kept it up since you two were kids. Wanted to make sure you were taken care of if anything happened. I've got the info."
Sam looks at him, confused, but Bobby doesn't make him ask. "Caleb and Jim had it all, too," he says. "John worried about you boys like you wouldn't believe." Sam thinks, I probably wouldn't, and then shrinks from the disloyalty of the thought. The truth of it only makes it harsher.
***
He downs a palmful of codeine and sleeps for a few hours in the afternoon, curled on the cot while Bobby sits by Dean's bed, but when Bobby leaves for the night he moves to the chair again, sleeps hunched forward with his head pressed against Dean's side. There are no dreams.
***
It's mid-morning on the third day and Sam's dozing in the chair when Dean's hand moves in his. Sam sits up, hardly daring to hope, and Dean's eyes blink open, wide and unfocused.
"Dean," Sam says, "Dean." He can't keep his voice from trembling and he can't bring himself to care; his heart is in his throat as he watches his brother for a reaction.
Dean blinks again, shivers. The skin around his eyes is dark and bruised, his lips pale and bloodless. He's never looked more beautiful, and Sam moves forward without thought, hand tightening around Dean's as he reaches for his brother with his other arm.
Then Dean says, "Dad?" His voice is barely a whisper, so hoarse it's nearly unrecognizable, but the word is impossible to miss, and all the grief Sam's buried beneath layers of fear and worry about his brother comes bubbling to the surface, hot and overpowering.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. "Dean, I'm so sorry..."
And Dean's face shatters.
***
It takes hours -- or it seems to -- for the nurses to take Dean's vitals and draw blood, for Dr. Patel to examine him and ask the same clichéd questions Sam had to answer. Dean's face is shell-shocked and blank, but he manages one-word answers and quietly submits to the poking and prodding, and finally they leave, muttering about more tests and observation periods.
Sam moves back to Dean's bedside, tries to take his hand again, but Dean just makes a fist and looks away. "Dean, I--" Sam starts, and Dean shakes his head, a single sharp jerk.
"I need to see him," Dean says. There's no emotion in his tone; he could be announcing his desire to buy a quart of milk.
"I don't think--"
"Need to see him, Sammy," Dean repeats. "Take me or I'll go myself." His voice is still flat and uninflected, but Sam has no doubt he means every word.
"All right," he says, and he hates how defeated his voice sounds. "All right, Dean, let me talk to the doctor."
Patel is less than pleased with the idea of letting his recently awakened coma patient with massive unexplained internal trauma get out of bed so soon. Sam alternately wheedles and threatens, standing outside Dean's room and hoping Dean can't hear through the plate glass. Finally, he says, "Look, you can let him go, or he can kill himself trying. That's pretty much what it comes it down to," and Patel huffs and rings for a wheelchair.
It takes ten minutes to get Dean unhooked from all his monitoring equipment, another five to maneuver him from the bed. He submits to the chair silently, though he flinches when Sam puts a hand on his shoulder.
***
Dean says, "Daddy," when the nurse Patel conscripted pulls open the tray. His voice is broken and small, his face a study in grief. He can barely walk, and the nurse squawks when he tries to get out of the chair, but Sam is already there, steadying him, bearing his weight. "Dad," Dean says, "Dad," and Sam thinks he's not even aware he's speaking. Sam holds him up, Dean's back pressed to Sam's chest and Sam's arms locked around him, and Dean touches their father's face with shaking hands.
When the nurse insists that Dean return to bed, he goes quietly. He doesn't speak again for nearly a day.
***
Bobby goes home the day after Dean wakes up, protesting at first, but yielding when Sam insists. He takes the Colt with him, promises to return when Dean's released, offers his house for as long as they need it. "One of my boys in Lincoln found your daddy's truck," he says as he leaves. "Tires were slashed, but he's fitting it with new ones and he'll drive it out here."
"I can't ask--" Sam says, but Bobby cuts his off.
"John saved his baby girl, a few years back," he says. "Let him pay his debt."
The garage manager suggests junking the Impala. When Sam asks Dean what he wants to do, Dean just shrugs and keeps eating gloppy hospital oatmeal as if it isn't the one food he hates above all others.
Sam can't bear to just leave it, though, not something Dean loves so much, and he pays the exorbitant fee to have it towed the two hundred miles to Bobby's, thankful once again for the miracle of no-spending-limit credit.
***
They keep Dean for three days longer, keep him hooked to monitors and IVs, grill him again and again about what happened, what could possibly account for the bleeding they can't begin to understand. Dean shrugs and says, "I don't know," over and over again, but he never snaps or shouts. He eats when they tell him to eat, sleeps when they tell him to sleep, extends his arms silently when they need blood samples.
Sam sits in the chair during the day, showers in the tiny bathroom off Dean's room, and sleeps on the cot at night. It's a traitorous thought, mean and small, but sometimes he thinks it was easier when Dean was out. Dean lies in his bed silently, staring at the ceiling or out the window, never looking at Sam. He jerks away when Sam tries to touch him, offers monosyllabic answers to direct questions and not always even that. When Sam turns on the TV, he turns it off again. The first time Sam says something about Dad, Dean says, "Don't," and turns his face to the wall.
Sam goes back to the steady flow of words he kept up when Dean was unconscious, talking on and on, saying whatever pops into his head without stopping to think first. Most of the time, Dean doesn't even seem to notice, but he seems worse, somehow, more agitated, when Sam is quiet, so Sam talks until his throat is raw.
When Dean sleeps, Sam walks to the cafeteria and makes himself eat. It's days since he's felt hungry, and the food is cheap, greasy, and bland, but keeping himself going is about the only thing he can do. He calls Bobby daily, calls the mortuary to arrange for cremation and to pay the bill, and once, in a fit of masochism, calls his father's cell phone. The sound of Dad's voice, real as anything, slams into Sam like a freight train, and it's all he can do to keep from sliding to the floor. It's the first time he thinks he could cry, really cry for his father and his family and Dean's lost dreams, but he doesn't want Dean to see that, to worry about Sam on top of everything else. So he bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood, then finds a bathroom and splashes water onto his face until he looks almost normal again.
It's the first time he fails to get back before Dean wakes, and the look on Dean's face -- barely concealed panic morphing into deep-seated relief -- makes Sam's chest constrict. Sam knows better than to try to touch him, but he drags the chair as close it will go, and starts talking again, systematically repeating every dirty joke Dean's ever taught him and a few he's learned on his own. He doesn't stop until Dean's eyes fall shut again and his breathing goes deep and even, and when he's sure Dean's asleep, he stands quickly, presses a guilty kiss against his brother's mouth.
***
Bobby comes for them the day they finally release Dean, stopping first at the mortuary to pick up Dad's ashes. It's a plain brown paper bag, a plain brown cardboard box lined with plastic, small to hold all that's left of a man as big as Dad, but Sam knows better than anyone should what flames will do a human body. Dean hasn't asked about the body, hasn't mentioned Dad at all since he watched an impatient nurse push him back into a refrigerated drawer, and Sam is distantly grateful for that. He's not sure Dean could stand a three-hour drive knowing what remains of their father is tucked amongst the luggage.
Bobby's driving Dad's truck -- his own's not big enough to comfortably seat the three of them. Dean's breath catches when he sees it, but he says nothing, and he doesn't fight when Sam helps into the cab. He sleeps -- or pretends to -- for most of the drive, slumping against the unyielding metal of the door instead of Sam's willing shoulder.
***
It's late by the time they reach Bobby's. The room he gives them is small and Spartan; the floor is plywood, the walls bare. There's a full-sized futon on a rickety frame in the middle of the room, a battle-scarred desk and a creaky chair in one corner and a narrow army cot in the other.
Dean, so wordlessly selfless where Sam is concerned that Sam sometimes wants to scream, moves to the cot, but he takes the futon easily enough when Sam snaps at him. Sam hasn't touched Dean, really touched him, since they stood in the morgue, and they haven't shared a bed -- not with both of them conscious, anyway -- since before Dad found them in Manning. He wants nothing more than to crawl in beside Dean, wrap himself around his brother and hold on until he can finally believe Dean's still here. But Dean's already on his side, curled away from where Sam's standing, and Sam doesn't need to see Dean's face to know he isn't welcome.
The cot's too small by far, and Sam has to pull his knees up nearly to his chest to fit. It's hours before he falls asleep, and the pattern of Dean's quiet breaths tells him Dean's as awake as he is.
***
Sam's shoulder is throbbing when he wakes. The pain had settled -- he hasn't taken a pill since Dean woke up -- but he's far too tall for a bed that's nearly child-sized, and clearly twisting his body to fit isn't doing him any favors.
The futon is empty, neatly made, and Sam smiles, a little ruefully, at Dean's effortless, almost certainly unnoticed slip into company manners. He finds his last pair of cleanish jeans and plucks a black t-shirt from Dean's pack.
Dean and Bobby are at the kitchen table. There's a stack of toast between them, and Dean's clutching a coffee mug like it's got all the answers in the universe.
"Morning," Sam says, and Dean nods at him, rises silently and pours another cup of coffee. He reaches for milk and sugar -- Dean takes his own coffee black, but he always could fix Sam's perfectly -- but Sam stops him, takes the mug. "Sit," he says. "I got it," and Dean shrugs and sits down again.
"Told Dean about the insurance," Bobby says. "Should be enough for a new car, or to fix the old one if you want, maybe let you restock the artillery some. Unless you want to use your daddy's truck, put the money in the bank."
Sam takes a chair, sipping at his coffee, and looks askance at Dean. "What do you think?"
"Whatever you want," Dean says. Then, "Money'd be nice to have around when you go back to school."
Sam stares. "Christ, Dean, you think I'm thinking about that right now?"
Dean just shrugs again.
***
Sam takes the last of the codeine and sleeps through the afternoon, leaving Dean in Bobby's library poking listlessly through a book on demonic possession. When he wakes, it's full dark and he manages to trip twice before he can get the light on.
He hadn't meant to sleep so long, would never have purposefully left Dean on his own for such a stretch, not when he's like this. But what's done is done, and he tries not to worry too much as he goes to look for his brother.
He finds Dean sitting alone in the kitchen. Dean's posture is unnaturally stiff and he's breathing strangely, short, shallow gasps. Sam jerks forward, but strong hands pull him back before he can take a step. "Let him be, son," Bobby says. He nods towards the table, and Sam can see it now, a plain brown paper bag, a plain brown cardboard box. "He wanted to see."
Every cell in Sam's body is screaming, straining towards his brother like he's made of iron and Dean is magnetic north, but Bobby holds him fast, pulls him inexorably backwards into the dim light of the workroom. "Kindest thing you can do now is let him alone," Bobby says softly. "He'd never want you to see him like this."
"He shouldn't--"
"He shouldn't, but he does." Bobby's voice is lilting and gentle, like he's talking to a wild animal, and Sam wonders when this turned around, when he became the one who needed soothing. "You stomp in there now and he won't forgive you."
"I can't just leave him alone," Sam whispers. "He needs me."
Bobby shakes his head. "He needs his daddy, Sam. Unless you can give him that, let him be."
***
Dean doesn't come upstairs until nearly three. Sam's wide awake, lying on the edge of the futon, leaving as much as room as possible for Dean. He sits up when Dean opens the door, despite all his careful plans to feign sleep, says, "You okay?" and immediately wishes he could pull his tongue out. Such a stupid fucking question, the kind of overt query Dean would never answer even at the best of times, but Dean's not so much Dean these days, and he doesn't snap or snarl or snort.
He just says, "I'm tired, Sammy," says it like it's something profound. He looks toward the cot, and Sam wonders if he's going to have to fight him on this, but then Dean sighs and crawls into bed next to Sam, buries his face in the pillow.
Sam lies awake most of the night, watching Dean's still form and clenching his hands to keep from touching him.
***
It's late morning when he wakes, and Dean's already gone again. Bobby just says, "Out back," when Sam walks into the workroom, and Sam thinks he could get used to Bobby.
He finds Dean sitting on a picnic table near the back fence, staring out at the miles of emptiness surrounding them. "Hey," he says. Dean says nothing, but he shifts over a little, and Sam drops to the bench beside him, careful not to sit too close. "We need--" Sam says, and his voice cracks, just a little. He starts again. "Dad. I know he wanted to be scattered, but I don't know--"
"He didn't care," Dean says. He's looking at the ground, and his voice is dull.
"Bobby said, if Dad never... he said there's a stream not too far from here," Sam offers. "Quiet, just wind and rain, no pavement. I thought maybe..."
"Doesn't matter," Dean says. "It's not him."
***
Sam tries to keep it together, tries with everything in him, but in the end he's not strong enough. He'd holding a box full of ashes that used to be the only parent he's ever known; his brother, who's the bravest person Sam's ever met, who never cracks and never misses and never even loses his cool, is battered and broken, barely able to stand. Sam can't hold back -- he cradles the box to his chest and sobs, and then he can't stop. He cries like a child, messy and helpless, as he scatters the ashes into the stream and across the bank, and he's still crying when the box is empty and Dad is gone.
Dean hasn't moved since they walked to the stream. He's standing stock-still looking at the ground, taking short, careful breaths. His feet are planted firmly and his arms slightly outstretched, like the earth is moving too fast and he's just trying to hold on. When Sam lowers the box at last, Dean makes a hollow little sound in the back of his throat and his knees buckle.
Sam surges forward, catches him before he can fall, holds him fast as he shudders against Sam's chest. "Dean," he says, "Dean, Dean," and his voice is thick and distorted, but he can feel Dean reacting, feel Dean's arms tighten around him and Dean's face press harder into his neck. "We'll get through this," Sam says. "You and me, Dean, we can do this, I promise," and Dean sags in Sam's arms. Sam rocks him slowly, strokes his hair, says his name over and over again. When Sam finally pulls away, the only tears on Dean's face are Sam's own.
He has to nearly carry Dean back to the truck. Dean never lifts his head, and he never fights Sam's guiding hands.
***
Bobby's got chili on the stove when they get back, but Sam's stomach clenches at the thought of food, and Dean's still moving slowly, gingerly, like the air is filled with broken glass, like the simple act of breathing is cutting him to pieces.
Sam shepherds him upstairs, undresses him, pushes him gently into bed and then climbs in after him. When he pulls Dean towards him, Dean moves obediently, his body limp and pliant, and he lies still and quiet in Sam's arms. Sam wants Dean, suddenly, his Dean, not this silent, hollowed shell. His Dean, who takes care of Sam instead of needing to be cared for, who holds him together and fixes what's broken. It's perhaps the most selfish thought he's ever had, and it shames him a little, but his whole life Dean's been the one to make things better, and Sam wants that so badly his body aches with it.
But he shoves the thought down, rubs Dean's back carefully, murmurs quiet nonsense until he can't stay awake any longer. When he wakes, Dean's lying on his back on the other side of the bed, the dark shadows around his eyes making Sam wonder if he slept at all.
***
Sam spends the morning on the phone with a claims adjuster, sorting through the whys and wherefores of collecting Dad's life insurance while Dean sits outside with Bobby's puppy sleeping on his lap. Dean's legally dead -- a fact Sam forgets most of the time, and which never fails to make him shiver when he remembers -- so the money's due to Sam alone, which makes things easier, if only because it spares Dean the bureaucratic headache.
He spends the afternoon going over the Impala with Bobby. It took a hell of a beating, but Bobby thinks it might be salvageable -- "If anyone could do it, it's your brother" -- if they want to try.
Sam, to Dean's eternal disgust, has never been anything more than vaguely embarrassed by the car. It's big and old and loud and flashy; it guzzles gas like peak oil is something that happens to other people; it stands out when they should be trying to blend in. But Dean loves it like he's loved few things in his life, and if he can have it back...
Sam smiles for the first time in days.
***
"No," Dean says. "It's dead. It's pointless. No."
"Bobby said--"
"It's a waste of time," Dean says flatly.
"Why not try, though?" Sam asks. "If we fail, we fail, but why not try?"
Dean's fists are clenched at his sides, and he looks like he's trying very hard not hit something. "I fucking can't, Sammy," he says. "I can't."
"All right," Sam says. "All right, I'm sorry." Dean says nothing, but a bit of the tension drains from his shoulders, and he drops to the bed, breathing hard.
The lights are out and they've lying in bed, still carefully not touching, when Sam says, "Dean? Will you let me?"
***
He knows the basics, nothing more, just what Dad and Dean thought it was a disgrace for any man not to know. Bobby knows cars, though, and he knows a guy -- Sam is beginning to suspect Bobby's network of "boys" is infinite -- who deals with classics and is happy to come out and assess the damage once he sees the color of Sam's money.
Bobby's friend -- Jacob -- spends the better part of an afternoon examining the car, inside and out, before he delivers his verdict. "It can be done," he says, "but it won't be easy, and you're not going to find parts cheap, even if you want to do the work yourself. And she'll never run the same, no matter how well you fix her up."
"But it will run," Sam says.
"You do it right, she'll run well enough."
Jacob spends the evening at Bobby's kitchen table, detailing what they need to get the Impala running again. He's got his own list of boys, and he leaves with an inventory and a promise to start tracking it all down.
Dean's already in bed when Sam comes in, turned on his side with the lights off. Sam undresses and slips in beside him. "I think I can do this, Dean," he says. "I really think I can."
***
He wakes at 4 a.m. to an empty bed. It's been long enough that there's no moment of blind panic, but Sam knows damn well he won't sleep again until he knows where Dean is, so he pulls on his jeans and pads down the stairs. He finds Dean on the back stoop, facing the dark hulk of the Impala.
Dean looks up at him, lifts one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "Couldn't sleep," he says.
"Me neither, obviously," Sam says. "Can I...?"
"Knock yourself out," Dean says, and Sam drops down beside him. "Nice way out here," Dean says after a few moments. "Quiet."
"I thought 'nice' and 'quiet' made you go stir-crazy," Sam says.
"Not all the time, Sammy," Dean says softly. They don't talk after that, and they sit together until the sun comes up.
***
Sam spends days working from sunup to sundown, poring over the book Jacob sent, trying to follow the detailed instructions in the pages of handwritten notes. It's a glacially slow process, it's hell on his shoulder, and nothing ever works right the first time he tries it. It all comes to Dean as naturally as breathing, and Sam is occasionally tempted throw things when he looks up and sees Dean watching from the window.
But Jacob nods encouragingly when he brings out more parts, and it's enough to keep him going.
***
He falls into bed, aching and exhausted, after dinner. It's barely 8 p.m., but Dean crawls in after him a few minutes later.
"Hey," Sam says drowsily. "Early for you..."
Dean shrugs, but he rolls a little closer to Sam. Sam hums, already half-sleep, risks laying a hand on Dean's arm.
"How is it coming?" Dean asks, and there's a guilty little lilt in his voice, like he doesn't want to ask but can't quite help himself.
"I don't know," Sam says honestly. And then, "Slowly."
Dean nods like that's an answer. "Okay," he says. "Okay."
***
They drive into town for groceries, eat dry rub and blueberry pie at a little diner with dirty mustard-colored walls. Their waitress has teased bottle-blonde hair, acid-washed Daisy Dukes, and a halter that leaves nothing to the imagination; she snaps her gum as she tries to flirt with Dean. Dean rolls his eyes when she sashays away, and Sam grins.
"Just your type," he says, and it's easy, so easy, to fall back into this, to tease his brother like nothing's changed.
"My type got taller," Dean says. He's looking studiously at his plate, and his expression stays carefully blank, but Sam's breath catches, and he thinks his face will split if he smiles any harder.
***
It's humid and sticky and miserable, and Sam's buried under the hood, trying for the third goddamn time to connect a part he's absolutely certain was created for the sole purpose of making him suffer, when Dean appears behind him.
"I brought you a--" Dean begins, and then he makes an inarticulate, strangled sound. "What the hell are you doing? That's not how you install a carburetor, Sam, I taught you better than that."
Sam emerges, hot and frustrated. "You want to do this?" he snaps.
Dean is glaring, but his face goes thoughtful. "I do, actually," he says after a moment, and shoves Sam aside.
***
After twenty minutes Dean's barking orders, which Sam obeys more meekly and instantaneously than he ever has in his life. After an hour, he's bitching about everything Sam's done so far; after two, he tells Sam darkly that from now on he can stay in the kitchen where he belongs.
When he finally comes up for air four hours later, he's sweaty and filthy and annoyed, too-long hair sticking up in odd directions and grease smeared across his cheek. "Dude, you're not allowed to touch my car ever again."
He looks for all the world like a sulky four-year-old, and Sam can't help it; he bursts out laughing. Dean looks surprised and not a little pissed off, but Sam just keeps laughing, and finally Dean's face softens.
"Shut up, Sammy," he says, but his lips quirk up, a ghost of a smile, and when Sam reaches for him, he doesn't move away.
Notes, pt. 2: My knowledge of auto repair is dwarfed by Dean's knowledge of the French Romantic poets; the extreme vagueness is very deliberate. The same can be said for my medical knowledge. It's not terribly unusual for people to wake from comas after a matter of days or hours and recover very quickly, but this is of course severely complicated by the fact that Dean was injured, and in an unknown, unnatural way, before the truck hit. All of which is to say, I made this shit up, and I take full responsibility if I made anything specific enough to get it horribly wrong.
Next in the 'verse:
Stumbling Across Its Bleak Ending